Word: taymor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Scott, lots of stage directors like yourself have recently made the transition from theater to screen with tremendous results - like Sam Mendes with American Beauty and Julie Taymor with Titus. Was the transition jarring...
...What he sees is not limited to his modern perspective encroaching on a discrete point in history; Taymor has created a sort of collapsed-time anti-history, allowing visual elements of every period of history imaginable to lead the audience through a journey of personal and intellectual association. For instance, the film shows in quick succession scenes of a Roman Orgy (some of which had to be cut to obtain an R rather than NC-17 rating), scenes in a modern video arcade, beautifully mystical dream sequences of interconnection, and scenes in which characters ride in '30s-style cars...
...success may in large part be due to the fact that Shakespeare's original work was not itself historically situated; it mixed myth, history and pure fiction to create a world equal parts Ancient Rome and post-medieval Europe. So even though she allows monumental flights of historical fancy, Taymor is able to successfully preserve a greater portion of the original text than has been used in any recent film adaptation of Shakespeare with the exception of Kenneth Branagh's 1996 Hamlet...
...liberties taken in this version, then, are not in language; they are visual. Titus is, regardless of how modern audiences react to it, surprisingly faithful to Shakespeare in that it does not contradict much of his original text, which lacked any stage direction. This is precisely why Taymor succeeds where other directors have failed: although she does feel free to invent on her own just as Shakespeare did, her invention is not in any way at odds with his. Her work does not second-guess Titus Andronicus or steal its fire; it expounds on it and creates...
...perhaps such resonance, the free-wheeling association of Taymor's images and the magic of the text itself, that make watching this adaptation of Titus a sort of dreamlike experience which continues well after the film itself ends. The images of the film have a way of growing in the imagination rather than fading away, leaving the audience curiously marked by the passing of this marvelous sensory experience...