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Acclaimed theater director Julie Taymor (The Lion King) mixes the traditional and modern with abandon in her brilliant, blood-soaked and occasionally black-comic adaptation of one of Shakespeare's lesser-known and most controversial plays, Titus Andronicus. Anthony Hopkins stars as Titus, a Roman general who returns home from war with the Goths only to be caught up in an exchange of increasingly outrageous acts of vengeance. The spectacularly stylized production, designed by Dante Feretti (Interview with the Vampire), moves easily between period and modern settings, even as the soundtrack moves from jazz to Wagner. Hopkins gives a virtuoso performance in the lead, careening through a stunning range of pride, deep despair, and outright lunacy. Jessica Lange plays Titus's foe, Tamora, the Goth queen who becomes the Roman empress, with a menacing femininity helped along by her exotically sexy costumes. Titus is a truly wild ride, as the violence ultimately escalates to alarming proportions of rape and mutilation. Titus's final revenge even has some gruesome shades of Hopkins's most famous screen role, Hannibal Lechter. Gregory Baird

All Movie Guide

One of William Shakespeare's lesser-known plays, Titus Andronicus was staged in New York by award-winning theatrical director Julie Taymor in an acclaimed 1995 production, before her widely praised Broadway version of The Lion King. Taymor revisits that production for her first motion picture, with the addition of a star-studded cast. Roman General Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins) has returned from defeating the Goths in a bloody battle, but the victory has left him with mixed feelings, as the war took the lives of several of his sons. Titus is reminded by his first-born son Lucius (Angus Macfadyen) that their faith demands the sacrifice of an enemy prisoner as a gift to the gods for their victory. Titus chooses the eldest son of Tamora (Jessica Lange), the Queen of the Goths, who has since been taken hostage by Titus's troops. Tamora pleads for her son's life, but Titus goes ahead with the sacrifice. She then becomes the lover of the new emperor of Rome, Saturninus (Alan Cumming), a weak-willed and corrupt man. Tamora uses her connection to the throne for her own ends: in retaliation for the death of her son, Tamora and her surviving sons, Chiron (Jonathan Rhys Myers) and Demetrius (Matthew Rhys), brutally rape Titus's beloved daughter, Lavinia (Laura Fraser). This act sets in motion an ever-tightening spiral of revenge and retaliation that leaves few of the participants unscathed. The supporting cast includes Colm Feore as Marcus, Harry Lennix as Aaron, and James Frain as Bassianus. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 024543233640
• Source: 20TH CENTURY FOX
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Cinemascope (2.35:1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Español
• Time: 2:42:00
• Sales Rank: 5,828

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• The William Shakespeare Collection

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