Shakespeare in Performance: Film
Julius Caesar (1953, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
| Title | Julius Caesar |
|---|---|
| Year | 1953 |
| Release Locations | USA |
| Director | Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
| Medium | Black & white video |
| Length | 2 hrs, 1 mins |
| Languages | English |
| Audience | general public |
| Play Connections | Julius Caesar (interpretation) |
Description
The producer and director decided to recreate the contemporaneous effect of the newsreels, which then enjoyed a great vogue among moviegoers. It was their intention to exploit the huge sets of cinema without in any way diminishing the stature of the actors. Although not quite so lavish as D.W. Griffith's epic Intolerance or the Cecil B. DeMille extravaganzas in Technicolor with a cast of thousands, the sets are nevertheless impressively crammed with the icons and bric-a-brac of ancient Rome. Swarms of hoi polloi jam the streets and statues of the Roman great are lavishly sprinkled about among the moving, living actors in togas. Fortunately the film may soon become available on videocassette so that its really fine qualities will again be readily available. For an informative account of production details, see Pasinetti, P.M., "Julius Caesar: The Role of the Technical Advisor," QFRT 8.2 [1953)]: 131-38; Producer John Houseman also had these comments to make about the film: "For years we have all been admiring Gordon Craig's magnificent theatrical conceptions while regretfully realising that their proportions could never be satisfactorily contained within the restricted framework of our modern proscenium arches. In the motion picture, Julius Caesar, however, we have to a great extent been able to satisfy our hunger for heroic setting. And through the magic power of lens and microphone, registering every syllable and facial expression, no matter how whispered the voice or how intimate the secret thought, the actors and their conflicts are never dwarfed by their surroundings. Rather they gain from the set's great size and their own changing and controlled dramatic relation to it" ("Filming Julius Caesar," SAS, 23 [1953]: 24-27)
Description from Shakespeare on Screen : an International Filmography and Videography by Kenneth S. Rothwell and Annabelle Henkin Melzer. ©1990 Kenneth S. Rothwell. Cited by permission. — Added 2008-11-14
Cast Overview
Production Team and Crew Overview
Production information courtesy of: Kenneth Rothwell