Titus Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.0

Titus Blu-ray Movie Review

Taymor.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 24, 2014

Depending on whom you consult, Julie Taymor is either the Second Coming of directors or a slightly aging enfant terrible. Taymor has entered the annals of Broadway history by becoming the first female director to win a Tony Award for her efforts for the mega blockbuster stage version of The Lion King, a musical that is unabashedly spectacular from a pure physical production standpoint, and one which even those who couldn’t care less about the idiom usually agree bears the mark of a singular artistic vision. Of course, Taymor entered the annals of Broadway history for a completely different reason during the extremely troubled pre-opening turmoil of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, a situation so rife with drama and backstabbing it actually became fodder for one of those “ripped from today’s headlines” episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Taymor’s film work hasn’t quite achieved the level of output that her stage (including opera, musicals and straight plays) work has, but with “only” six films to her credit (thus far), critical assessment is about as splayed as possible. Some find her incredibly provocative (in the positive sense), elevating technique to an equal footing with character and pure storytelling, while others find her approach downright pretentious, the efforts of a would be auteur desperately trying to call attention to herself. Where you personally fall on this spectrum will no doubt influence how you feel about Taymor’s film version of one of Shakespeare’s least produced plays (some would argue there’s a reason for that), Titus Andronicus. Taymor had actually directed a stage version of the play in 1994, and it’s that “vision” that she adapted for this 1999 film version. The cinematic treatment is unapologetically “arty”, mixing various eras into one not especially seamless whole, and also presenting things with a kind of “meta” consciousness that includes a framing device that some found quite meaningful, while others (in yet another sign of how varied responses to Taymor tend to be) found almost laughably idiotic.

One might almost think of Taymor’s approach toward Shakespeare’s text as something akin to a jazz player improvising on a standard from the Great American Songbook. This may lead some to wonder where the “melody” is, but there’s little question that there’s an inquiring and provocative mind riffing on the material here. Taymor’s first conceit is to frame the story of Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins) from the perspective of his grandson (Osheen Jones), who becomes something kind of like a Greek Chorus in the film, not necessarily from providing commentary on the action but from witnessing it. Right off the bat Taymor also announces her attention to mix different epochs with sometimes startling results. For example, the grandson begins the film playing in what appears to be a kitchen from the middle of the 20th century, but is soon transported to a Roman coliseum. Later, other characters move about in relatively modern cars, but Titus always travels in a horse drawn chariot. In her commentary Taymor addresses some of these supposed discrepancies, giving at times rather well reasoned motives behind her ideas (Titus, for example, is “old school” and therefore uses an older mode of transportation).

In his commentary included on this Blu-ray, Anthony Hopkins speaks to how untenable Titus Andronicus has been deemed for literally centuries, even with the reassessment it underwent in the 20th century. Hopkins talks about how overtly melodramatic the play is and how that has presented obstacles for many who have attempted to stage it. Taymor greets the melodrama head on, for better or worse, but she at least occasionally manages to find little character beats that help to ground the larger than life happenings in something akin to reality, despite her patently surreal approach toward the material.

Titus is on its face a simple revenge drama. Titus returns from battle and promptly executes (and/or “sacrifices”) the son of Tamora (Jessica Lange), Queen of the Goths. Titus is slated to become Emperor but instead passes the honor onto the devious Saturninus (Alan Cumming), who promptly offers Tamora the position of Empress. There are several other subplots that enter the fray, including more subterfuge courtesy of Tamora’s secret lover, Aaron the Moor (Harry Lennix), who is attempting to help Tamora to achieve her goal of absolute vengeance with regard to Titus.

As odd as it may sound, at least considering that we’re dealing with Shakespeare here after all, it’s the treatment rather than the source material that makes this Titus what it is. Taymor is almost giddy with directorial excess throughout the film, and not just with regard to things like the deliberate mixing of time periods. Her camera swoops, dances and exults in odd framings which seem to denote various character’s fractious states of mind. And this is the crux of how most will react to Titus, for yay or for nay. Those who want Shakespeare may well wish that Taymor had stayed more in the background. Those who don’t mind a director overpowering her material may find this to be an unusually provocative retelling of the basic story. It’s hard to argue with the dramatic heft of the performances, for they’re uniformly excellent, if not always traditional (Cumming’s Saturninus is used almost as comedy relief in the film). But the ultimate performer here is Taymor, and whether she meant to or not, she ends up hogging the spotlight.

Titus Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Titus is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.31:1. There's been an unusually visceral amount of reaction to this high definition presentation, especially considering that this is probably the very definition of a niche title. One criticism that has been leveled against the Blu-ray is the perceived lack of color, but Taymor herself discusses how she wanted to bleed the color out of the film, to make it if not exactly desaturated, at least close to it. Glancing at screenshots taken of brightly lit scenes (which are admittedly few and far between), like screenshot 13 for example, shows that while slightly (and intentionally) pallid looking, there's really nothing horrible about the color per se, and I personally don't feel that this is an area of much concern (at least when compared to other, more glaring, issues). Where this transfer falls short is more in terms of a problematic element and what to my eyes at least appears to be an older master. For a film of such relatively recent vintage, there is quite a bit of minimal but still noticeable damage to the elements, with quite a few specks and dust mites making their presence known. The overall image here is rather surprisingly (some might even say shockingly) soft, with undercooked contrast that makes a lot of the (many) darker scenes look pretty murky. (Ironically, there appears to have been some digital sharpening done to the image, as evidenced by some fairly obvious ringing.) When Taymor indulges in a close-up in decent lighting, fine detail is at least at acceptable levels (see screenshot 1), but this is certainly a disappointment from an image perspective, especially since the film is so dependent upon its visual allure.

Titus Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Titus features excellent sounding DTS-HD Master Audio mixes in both 5.1 and 2.0. The 5.1 mix really opens up Elliot Goldenthal's very appealing score, and also places ambient environmental noises around the surrounds, but sometimes both at the expense of dialogue, which sounds mixed too far down in the surround track for my personal taste. While the 2.0 rendering doesn't have the immense sweep of Goldenthal's music to recommend it, the prioritization of the dialogue is at least slightly better. You can't really go wrong with either of these tracks, though, as these issues are relatively minor and never that distracting. Fidelity is excellent on both of these options and dynamic range is surprisingly wide.

Titus Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Julie Taymor. Taymor really goes the distance here, delivering an exhaustive (and probably exhausting, considering the fact she talks for close to three hours nonstop) commentary that proves that as "arty" as many people found Titus, virtually every shot was a deliberate choice. Taymor talks quite a bit about the shooting conditions and also dispels one of the main criticisms that has been lobbed at this particular transfer, namely its perceived lack of color. Taymor states explicitly she was going for a quasi-desaturated look in the film.


• Audio Commentary with Composer Elliot Goldenthal. Goldenthal is Taymor's partner in "real life", and he gives a very thoughtful if somewhat more sporadic commentary than Taymor does. This should be of prime interest to students of film scoring, for Goldenthal gets into the nuts and bolts of some of his orchestration decisions in terms of what kinds of moods he was attempting to foster with his music.


• Audio Commentary with Actors Anthony Hopkins and Harry Lennix. It sounds like these were recorded separately and then edited together. Hopkins' section in fact sounds like he was physically phoning it in, for there's a boxy sound to his comments that aren't there in the Lennix moments. This is the most overtly anecdotal of the three commentaries, with both actors offering a wide ranging discussion not just of this film but even of other actors (there are some pretty funny comments about Charlton Heston's dislike of this production from Hopkins).


• Penny Arcade Nightmares (480i; 5:16) is the term Taymor uses to describe a couple of fantasy sequences in the film. Special Effects wizard Kyle Cooper provides some commentary and context for these sequences.


• The Making of Titus (480i; 49:09) is an above average collection of interviews and behind the scenes footage.


• Q&A: Columbia Focus Group (480i; 34:33) is a record of Taymor's appearance before Columbia students after a screening of Titus.


• Trailer #1 (480p; 2:31)


• Trailer #2 (480i; 2:31)


• TV Spots (480i; 2:08)


• Isolated Score Track is presented via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.

Titus Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I wasn't especially enamored of Titus when I first saw it, feeling that Taymor overshadowed her material. I had a much more positive reaction this time, especially after listening to Taymor's commentary, where it becomes more than clear that she is a very thoughtful, intellectually challenging woman. Some may still feel the film has too many bells and whistles for its own good, but I'm more firmly convinced now that the hoopla Taymor brings to the project is not merely random. The film has some remarkable performances and it certainly makes Titus Andronicus an—interesting experience. This release is plagued by less than stellar video quality, but it has great sounding audio and some good supplements.