1953 Julius Caesar live blog #13

I really liked the last lines in the movie, spoken by Mark Antony about Brutus:

"This was the noblest Roman of them all. All the conspirators save only he, did what they did in envy of great Caesar. He only, in a general honest thought, and common will for all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that the nature might stand up and say to all the world, 'This was a man.'"

After all the battling and fighting and bloodshed, Mark Antony was able to look at Brutus and know he died an innocent man. He couldn't help doing what he did, because he thought he was doing it to save Rome. He had no ambition of usurping the throne (reminds me of those sly smiles of Mark Antony's...did he have ambition? Was he at fault more than Brutus, and was he able to recognize that?).

In the movie, next to Brutus' head was a lit oil lamp. Right before "The End" title comes on the screen, the flame is snuffed out. What does that mean? Merely that Brutus is dead? Or that the uproar of Rome has finally turned to peace? Or that Brutus' legend is not timeless and will eventually be snuffed out and that history will forget him?

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One last note about the movie in general: it's interesting to me that the one Oscar it won in 1953 was for best art direction (for a black & white movie). To me, the set actually seemed basic and not extraordinary. Maybe I'm used to bigger-budget movies, but other than the large spaces the movie was able to fill I didn't feel like the scenery was anything too special.

1953 Julius Caesar live blog #12

I liked the music as the armies were marching to the impending battle. The only instrument on the soundtrack was a drum: >DUN dun dun dun DUN dun dun dun DUN dun dun dun DUN dun dun dun<. It sounded to me like a heartbeat, getting louder and louder and faster and faster. It was the only sound in the movie until the arrows started to fly.

Also, the scene ends with the camera on Mark Antony, once again giving a slight smile as he watches the chaos below. Hmm...is he smiling because he is avenging his hero Caesar? Or is he up to something?

1953 Julius Caesar live blog #10

I liked that during Mark Antony's speech, the camera cut to the blind soothsayer in the back of the crowd but in the foreground of the scene. He's an observer of the chaos that he knew was coming, and in plain view for us so that we can see the speech from his point of view.

(How do you think the blind soothsayer compares to Time/Antigonus in The Winter's Tale? Both characters are like the omniscient observers who only briefly intervene, and then let the events run their course.)

And we're back to the mob mentality. From Brutus' words, the crowd believes Brutus and the other "noble men" had to do what they had to do. But then when they actually see Caesar's bloodied body, the significance of what just happened really hits home.

Oh, that was sneaky: after Mark Antony riles up the crowd, and he turns to go back into the palace, we see a slight smile on his face. So does he have some sort of maligned motivation (or "ambition") after all?

1953 Julius Caesar live blog #8

Hmm, in this scene, where Mark Antony stands over Caesar's body and addresses his murderers, he sounds less like a dockworker.

Also in this scene, all of Caesar's murderers are wearing white, while Mark Antony is wearing darker robes. Is this to make the murderers look like actual heroes and revolutionaries? Is it to make Mark Antony look like the guilty one?

1953 Julius Caesar live blog #2

Well, Marlon Brando certainly looks the part. He looks just like a statue from the Roman Empire. I still hear a little bit of that dockworker voice in him.

And, how cool that James Mason is in this movie. I think I've only seen him in North by Northwest. But from what I know of him, he always seems like a very slick, mysterious man. He has sort of a Vincent Price quality about him.

Did you see that when Julius Caesar leaves behind the blind soothsayer in the crowd, and the soothsayer touches Brutus to try and recognize him...after he touches his face, he shudders in shock? That seems like some major foreshadowing to me. I'm guessing that the soothsayer "saw" Brutus in a vision, instantly recognized him, and knew he was trouble.

1953 Julius Caesar live blog #1

Opening credits:

Oh, I didn't know Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed this movie. I've seen two other movies by him: All About Eve and Guys and Dolls. Guys and Dolls also has Marlon Brando in it, as a talk-singing gambler, two years later. So Mankiewicz must have gotten to know Brando through Julius Caesar, and somehow thought Mark Antony would make for a perfect Skye Masterson. Interesting.

And All About Eve is one of my favorite movies. I think it has the best screenplay writing I've ever seen in a movie. If you've never seen it, definitely check it out.

What's interesting to me is that both these movies have a sort of feminine theme to them. Guys and Dolls is about guys more than about dolls. But it's a musical, which makes it not very manly. And All About Eve is like the original Nancy Meyers movie. I love 'em, and it's smart writing, but it doesn't exactly increase my macho factor.

I wonder if Julius Caesar is going to be connected to that theme in any way.

Out of Order

So, I'm doing things a little out of the order I had in mind.

Here it is, the night before I'm supposed to read Julius Caesar and watch a movie version, and I've done neither. : / I went to the LRC to check out a movie so I would be ready to watch it sometime tomorrow, and I would read the play tonight. However, the gal at the LRC desk told me this was only a four-hour checkout! I guess I could have waited until tomorrow to check it out, but I just felt like getting it done.

So, I'm watching the movie before I read the play. Which isn't really what I had planned on. And I hope it doesn't compromise the experience of reading the play to watch the movie first. (Sorry, Averill and Professor Burton!)

But, in a way, maybe be a good preparation for reading the play. Watching Shakespeare is always easier than reading it. Maybe when I get to a passage that is difficult to understand, it won't be difficult to understand because I will have already seen it.

Something else I'm going to do is "live blog" the movie. Usually when I watch a movie, I like to sit silently and not get up to get popcorn or use the bathroom. So it might be hard to "talk" while I watch the movie. But I'll give it a try.

Anyway, here it is: the 1953 movie, Julius Caesar.

On the Side

So, in addition to reading Love's Labour's Lost, I'm also assigned a play to read individually, separate from the rest of the class. I've been chosen to read Julius Caesar.

Julius Caesar is one of the few Shakespeare plays I've already read; I read it my sophomore year in high school. But, of course, reading it again will bring new meaning and new understanding, because I'm nine years wiser. Not just wiser in a sense of understanding Shakespeare, but also in experience. Just like the scriptures have new meaning every time we read them, not because the scriptures change but because we change, even if it's not the first time reading Julius Caesar, I'm sure I will still benefit from it. When I first read it, I barely had my driver's license and had never had a girlfriend. Now, I'm married with a daughter and preparing for law school. So, you could say I've changed a lot.

Anyway, to preview Julius Caesar: it's one of Shakespeare's more famous tragedies. From what I remember, it's more about Brutus and Mark Antony than actually about Caesar. It's the source of the famous phrases "the ides of March," "Et tu, Brute?" and "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears."

And, to get a little deeper, there is a lot of political thrill and drama, something that I love in a book, movie, TV show, etc. The political drama in Caesar's time or in Shakespeare's time can easily be adapted to the modern world, and often is made manifest in reality. Politics and history today still displays betrayal, paranoia, and emotion over reason.

I originally thought this blog would combine politics and Shakespeare, hence the blog's name. I haven't done much of that, it seems like I mostly relate Shakespeare with pop culture. But maybe Julius Caesar will lend itself to more political discussion.

So, here's my learning plan for reading Julius Caesar:

1) I will post on the blog after reading each act, like I do with our other assigned plays. This will be in addition to my regular assigned blog posts.

2) On the blog, I will try to connect Julius Caesar to more political themes and concepts, with examples from history or the news instead of examples from "Family Matters" or Abbott and Costello.

3) It looks like there is one other person in my class who was assigned Julius Caesar, Averill Corkin. So I'll be sure to read her blog, make comments and discuss the play with her on our two blogs. From her first blog post about Julius Caesar, it looks like she'll be reading with a focus on the history - whether it's historically accurate, what role the portrayal of history played in Shakespeare's society, etc. So it will be interesting to look at the play that way, and see if that overlaps with my political perspective.

4) Also, I'll be watching film versions of Julius Caesar. From what I can tell, there are three Hollywood movies based on the play: a 1950 version with Charlton Heston as Mark Antony, a 1953 version with Marlon Brando as Mark Antony and a 1970 version with Charlton Heston once again as Mark Antony. Without even seeing the films, I have a few questions: why was there a remake of Julius Caesar only three years after the first one? Is it like what happened with The Incredible Hulk? And what are the differences between Charlton Heston's performance in 1950 and in 1970? Do any of these movies make references to political goings-on at the time the movie came out? And, does Marlon Brando make Mark Antony sound like an old gangster or a dockworker?

Here's one of my favorite Charlton Heston moments (skip to the :58 mark):