Exploring the role of the female warrior in film
Introduction
Julie Taymor’s Titus, a visually stunning adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus made in 1999, is a film deeply concerned with the spectacle of violence. Taymor takes her cue from Shakespeare himself, who, in keeping with the tastes of his own era, incorporated scenes of graphic violence already probed by his predecessors Ovid and Seneca, two prominent influences on his work. But Taymor exploits Shakespeare’s deliberate ambiguity about the chronological period in which his revenge tragedy is set to explore through her film the spectacle of blood sport not only in the Roman arena, but, more importantly, as this spectacle has been imagined, adored, and canonized in 20th-century film. The most prominent manifestation of this commentary is Taymor’s use of the Roman arena as the setting for the film’s opening and closing scenes, "bookends", in her terms, as we see juxtaposed here (sl1). Furthermore, through the device of the arena-as-stage, Taymor implicates her film’s viewers as the eager consumers of the play’s violence. For we are introduced to the setting of the play through the physical transfer of a young boy from his kitchen (sl), where he creates a war with toy soldiers, to the arena, where he becomes a frightened observer of war’s casualties (sl), and then assumes his role as Young Lucius, grandson of the protagonist Titus. Young Lucius thus becomes the physical conduit between the film’s audience and the film’s characters. In the opening scene we see the drama unfold through Lucius’ eyes, while in the closing scene, hundreds of anonymous faces populate the arena as our proxies (sl1).
The revenge-tragedy Titus Andronicus, one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, and arguably his bloodiest, tells the story of the antipathy between the Roman general Titus (sl) and his nemesis Tamora (sl), queen of the Goths, whom Titus has brought to Rome a prisoner of war, only to see her chosen by Rome’s newly anointed emperor, Saturninus (sl), as his bride. The confrontation between Titus and Tamora plays out in the mutual destruction of their respective family members. Most significant among these are the rape and mutilation of Titus’ daughter Lavinia (sl), the play’s only other notable female character, and the torture, murder, and baking of Tamora’s sons, Chiron and Demetrius (sl). Eventually, Titus and Tamora are killed within seconds of one another. Lurking about the scenes is an additional figure, loyal to no one and concerned only with his own self-preservation; this is Aaron (sl), a Moor and Tamora’s lover, who, because of his detachment from the central nexus of revenge, is able to orchestrate the violence which it demands. More about the Moor later. (sl, Titus facing off w/ Tamora)
The clash between the two leaders is emblematic of much more than just personal hatred, however; it is an allegory for the tensions between male and female; Roman and non-Roman; old Rome and new Rome, all of which are tropes familiar from 20th-century sword-and-sandal films, here mapped onto the films central fighters. These differences are, in turn, inscribed onto the appearance of the characters and projected onto the architectural backdrops, a technique which Taymor refers to as creating a "landscape of the character".i With the arena as its frame, the city of Rome from various epochs in its history becomes the film’s set. The costumes, designed by Milena Canonero, are similarly mis-matched to reflect the blending of time so crucial to Taymor’s critique of the violence associated with multiple Romes. Architecture and costume become shorthand for Rome’s violent past, both in history and on screen. Just as the sight of the arena connotes for the modern viewer both Rome’s historical arena and that represented in countless films about Rome, so too does Taymor’s Tamora respond to a concept familiar from history and film, that of the sexually-assertive foreign, warrior queen, here imagined as gladiatrix. But how do we recognize the gladiatrix when she is not a literal fighter, and her arena is only a metaphor?
Shakespeare’s play naturally lends itself to characterization as a gladiatorial combat between battle-weary leaders out for revenge. Titus and Tamora are perfect foils, in some ways more similar to one another than opposed, a designation that is reinforced by their tit-for-tat volley of violent acts. By staging her revenge-drama as a duel acted out on the sand floor of the cavernous arena, Tamora encourages us to envision Titus and Tamora as gladiators whose mad lust for revenge elides their individuality as it compels them to fight to the death. In fact, by the end of the drama, each has become an embodiment of these qualities: Titus the leering madman (sl) and Tamora, the personification of Revenge (sl). In this sense, too, they are comparable to gladiators in that their individuality is obscured to the point that they are recognizable merely as types.
The characterization of Tamora, in particular, as gladiatrix, goes beyond merely the setting of the arena as backdrop for her fight with her well-matched opponent. Taymor uses other features associated with the female gladiator — as she has been imagined by male film directors — to reinforce her characterization of Tamora as a warrior woman on display for an audience who wants to see a girl fight (sl of Tamora wielding a knife). But Taymor imagines Tamora not simply as an avatar of her filmic predecessors in the actual arena — think here of DeMille’s pygmy-skewering Amazon from Sign of the Cross (sl)— but of foreign female queens such as Cleopatra (sl) here seducing both Romans and viewers with her exoticism and, less overtly, of other enchanting foreigners, such as Antia Ekberg’s larger than life American actress Sylvia (sl) in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, the Scylla-like, beach-dwelling prostitute La Saraghina in his 8 1/2.ii (sl) The variety of referents for Tamora reveals the complexity of Taymor’s relationship with her predecessors, not only the directors of films set in ancient Rome but also Federico Fellini, whose influence Taymor’s film is multi-faceted.i Director’s commentary, Titus DVD.
ii La Saraghina (dialect for "sardine"), is a figure from Fellini’s childhood in Rimini, a prostitute who traded sex for food from the local sardine fishermen. She is described in the director’s commentary as a beast, a monster, and a siren. Fellini’s influence on Taymor as a director cannot be underestimated. The influence of his dream-like scenes is obvious in Taymor’s Penny Arcade Nightmares, and there are specific visual citations of Satyricon, for example, in the bacchanal and orgy scenes. Taymor used the soundstages at Cinecittà for many of her scenes not shot on location, and hired Dante Ferretti, a member of Fellini’s crew, as production designer to create many of the sets. La Saraghina is both a mother and a monster figure, a duality that has a parallel in the characterization of Tamora. In accepting Saturninus’ marriage proposal, Tamora coos, "If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths, she will a handmaid be to his desires, a loving nurse, a mother to his youth." Compare Guido’s declaration to Sylvia in La Dolce Vita: "You are everything — mother, lover, friend, sister…home. Yes, that’s it, you are home."
