Hollywood advertized for Julius Ceasar as "Starring Marlon Brando" (and for good reason. He's a stud) HOWEVER....Mark Antony was really not the main character in Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar. In my opinion Brutus, played by James Mason, stole the show. I really think his performance captured the struggle within Brutus, whether to fight against the potential evil by horrible means, but with truely noble intentions... And as the story wore on, his struggle with his grief and guilt, was theatrically compelling.
He mentions at Ceasar's funeral that he would take his own life when Rome needed his death, and in the end, he was true to his word. It was a beautifully dramatic suicide, acted extremely powerfully, and cinematically carried out very well.
The movie kept very close to the original text (if not exact) and certainly kept the integrity of the feeling of Rome and Shakespeare's interpretation of it.
Some cool cinematic elements i noticed:
- when the conspirators were conspiring, there were harsh, striped shadows cast on their faces
- during the battle scene, there was no music, just rhythmic war drums, so it was eery and ominous. (built the intensity of the coming battle)
- interesting director's choice: everytime the people greeted the people in charge, they did the "Hail Hitler" hand thing... I wonder what sort of political comment he might have been trying to make...
You know when you walk out of a movie and the feeling stays with you? This movie had that effect on me. I would reccomend it with 5 stars.
I enjoyed how you were saying that Brutus stole the show, not necessarily Marc Antony. Just curious, when you read/watched the two speeches that were given after the death of Caesar, who swayed you more?
ReplyDeleteI LOVE HIM! Gah... In "A Streetcar Named Desire" when he screams Stella's name, I just about die every time... So that probably was very excellent advertising for the movie even though he wasn't necessarily the star. I kind of want to watch this now, but honestly it's mostly for Brando.
ReplyDeleteI feel like older movies do a much better job at sticking to the story than modern day stuff. Now people want a movie no more than two hours usually, but it's pretty hard to fit a whole meaty story into that short amount of time, you know? That's probably why I love three hour+ films from the 30's and 40's. Of a lot of what was made back then wasn't great either. Sorry. Tangent. The end.
You know what's funny? It's obvious now, but I never connected Brutus' promise that he would die when Rome needed to and his actual death. But how is it connected, exactly? Do you think Brutus was really conscious of what was best for Rome when he ran through Strato's sword? I guess maybe he felt like it would only make things worse if he kept fighting, and so his time was up. But it also could have been just because his side was losing.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what are your thoughts on that?
Erik-Good question! When I read it, Antony's speech was much more convincing but watching it, I'm sort of embarrassed to say that I was as swayed as the crowd was. They're very good actors.
ReplyDeleteThis version was actually only two hours, but i really felt like it kept everything important. The only thing i noticed they cut was the word "lovers" in all the speeches. which in my footnotes read "friends" but might not have translated very well...
JJ-especially from the movie my interpretation was that he was just tired. He was losing a battle, his wife had just comitted suicide, and he felt incredibly guilty. I think he could simply not live anymore. It would be poetic and nice to say he did it on behalf of Rome, but it's probably not true. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteSo you're saying Brutus wasn't acting as a noble patriot of Rome? That he was killing himself to selfishly escape the cruel world?
ReplyDeleteI think some of his motive might have been out of disgust/guilt for killing Ceasar, and thus thought his death was important for Rome (because he was a murderer)
ReplyDelete"selfishly" is a little harsh. I could imagine that it would be hard to live when he might not see a reason to.
Okay, gotcha. I agree.
ReplyDelete