Titus

The best film of 1999, directed by Julie Taymore and starring Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange, Harry Lennix, and Alan Cumming.

Taymore brings Titus into the modern day in some of her staging of the film, but the dialogue is all Shakespeare, and the cast is excellent. It's a pleasure to see Hopkins playing a real character with many facets instead of Hannibal Lecter.

In classic tragedy, the hero fails, brought down by a flaw which would have been a good trait if the hero had not had so much of it. In Oedipus Rex, for example, Oedipus would have been fine but for his overweening curiosity. In Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare's title), our hero is honest. Too honest for his own good. He has returned from war with Tamora (Jessica Lange) a Goth queen as his slave, and the emperor has died, leaving two good-for-nothing sons as his heirs apparent. When offered the crown, Titus rejects it out of hand: Of course not, the crown goes to the eldest son. Titus should have accepted the wreath. All his woes befall him for not knowing he would do better for Rome.

Before you see the movie, I recommend getting a copy of the play in one of the several editions that explain the language as you read the script. Read it before you see it so that you have some understanding of the beautiful Elizabethan language. The Folger Shakespeare Library or Arden Shakespeare edition should be at your local library. When people ask why Shakespeare's plays are written as they are, I've heard it answered that it's because that's how people talked back then. I assure you, no one ever talked that way. Read an annotated script so that you understand the Elizabethan English these consummate actors spread before you.

Hopkins, Lange, Lennix, and Cumming all get to chew the scenery, the screen, the frame, and even some of the seats. My shirtsleeves were in tatters when I left the building. It's a great piece of Shakespearean theater, and Taymore lets it all out. That said, this is a true tragedy, and there is no happy ending for Titus Andronicus and his entire family. Where in "Fracture" Hopkins plays the guy who pulls the rabbit out of the hat, here in "Titus" Hopkins's character has to gnaw his paw off in a vain attempt to get out of the snare set by Tamora. Never has integrity been so ill repaid. Taymore does a remarkable job of bringing the play to the screen. And it got nominated for Best Costume Design. Feh.