Julia Taymor did the best job possible with this rubbish... Titus Andronicus is reckoned to be one of Shakespeare's worst plays. Not that it doesn't flow nicely, but the heaps of corpses and buckets of blood don't have any deeper meaning or philosophy.
It helps to know that WS wrote Titus Andronicus while still young - you can see how it's the 16th-century equivalent of blood-soaked modern crime shows. Anyhow, it should be an eye-opener for those who think of Shakespeare as a heap of manuscripts of interest only to scholars. Action devotees should enjoy this more than other Shakespeare.
Taymor has included a frame-story about a boy playing with toys who then become characters in the story, also there are many shifts between ancient and modern settings. It's a bit pretentious and incomprehensible, but highly cinematic - it was probably the only way of getting a watchable movie out of such degraded material.
Anyway, hats off to Taymor for taking on such a difficult project.
It helps to know that WS wrote Titus Andronicus while still young - you can see how it's the 16th-century equivalent of blood-soaked modern crime shows. Anyhow, it should be an eye-opener for those who think of Shakespeare as a heap of manuscripts of interest only to scholars. Action devotees should enjoy this more than other Shakespeare.
Taymor has included a frame-story about a boy playing with toys who then become characters in the story, also there are many shifts between ancient and modern settings. It's a bit pretentious and incomprehensible, but highly cinematic - it was probably the only way of getting a watchable movie out of such degraded material.
Anyway, hats off to Taymor for taking on such a difficult project.