Julius Caesar on the Screen: Mankiewicz (1953), Burge (1970), Wise (1979)

Julius Caesar (1953)

Brutus – James Mason

Cassius – John Gielgud

Mark Antony – Marlon Brando

Julius Caesar – Louis Calhern

Casca – Edmund O’Brien

Portia – Deborah Kerr

Calpurnia – Greer Garson

Adapted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Black and white. 120 min.

I wish there were more screen adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays such as this one. It’s difficult to think how it could be improved at all. The cast is just about impossible to surpass, the black-and-white cinematography is magnificent, the direction of Joseph Mankiewicz makes the best of each scene without the chaotic elements that today pass for originality, the traditional sets and the costumes are simple but certainly not minimalist or ugly.

We are fortunate to have two fabulous actors in the two major roles. James Mason invests Brutus with tragic pathos, and he does it so well that one almost forgets what an impossible fool “the noblest Roman” really is. John Gielgud gives what is the closest to definitive portrayal of Cassius, one of the great villains in Shakespeare, a man consumed by envy and endowed with spectacular powers for manipulating people. This is great Shakespearean acting par excellence. Each word is clearly pronounced, each phrase is carefully articulated, yet there is never any hint of artificiality, words for their own sake, or actors speaking their parts, faults all too common in Shakespearean movies (or theatre productions, for that matter).

The casting of Marlon Brando reportedly caused a good deal of controversy at the time. A mumbling American in Shakespeare? You must be joking! The sceptics needn’t have worried. Brando’s incandescent performance wipes out the competition. Mark Antony is not the most prominent character, but he takes part in two of the most crucial scenes and he speaks two splendid pieces of dramatic poetry, his “Cry havoc” soliloquy, when he is alone with Caesar’s corpse, and his “Friends, Romans, countrymen” address to the crowd which stirs them to rebellion against the conspirators. Brando is perfect at all fronts. The Forum Scene, surely one of the greatest moments in Shakespeare, is some half an hour long, two-thirds of which are Antony’s masterful playing on the crowd’s emotions. I have yet to see another rendition that matches Brando’s intensity and subtlety.

The small but all-too-important roles are superbly done as well. Edmund O’Brien is an excellent Casca, that strange hybrid between cynical detachment and superstitious fears. Portia and Calpurnia are hardly the most grateful parts in this obsessively male play, but they are important to show the contrast between Brutus and Caesar. That’s why we are fortunate, again, to have Deborah Kerr and Greer Garson, no less, in these roles. Louis Calhern is perhaps the only member in the cast who is not entirely convincing. But one must not be too hard on him. Caesar is little more than stage convention. No actor can make a character from a few lines of self-aggrandizement. That said, Louis Calhern makes a fine Caesar, not the goofy old man often presented (see the other two movies), but a man inflexibly convinced in his own divinity.

In short, as perfect a movie as is possible in so imperfect a world. Of course there are numerous small cuts, but the spirit is faithfully preserved and reproduced. On the top of all that, it is uncommonly beautiful; though its beauty is of a peculiar, austere sort, it is no less genuine for that. Here are some examples:

Julius Caesar (1970)

Brutus – Jason Robards

Cassius – Richard Johnson

Mark Antony – Charlton Heston

Julius Caesar – John Gielgud

Casca – Robert Vaughn

Portia – Diana Rigg

Calpurnia – Jill Bennett

Adapted by Robert Furnival.

Directed by Stuart Burge.

Colour. 117 min.

I wish I knew what exactly is wrong with this movie. All ingredients of a timeless masterpiece are here, well prepared and well mixed. And yet, the final result never takes off the earth. The huge dramatic potential of the play is muffled by insipid direction and very uneven cast. It is still a decent production, but it falls far short of the 1953 masterpiece.

One of the wrong things is easy to spot. Jason Robards. He is a great actor, no question about that; as the Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West he gave one of the greatest performances in movie history. But his attempt to play Brutus is the perfect definition of miscasting. I don’t like this word and I think it is used much more often than it should be, for a great actor is bound to make something memorable out of each part, but there are exceptions and this, alas, is one of them. Robards is consistently and relentlessly boring. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with the character. He diligently recites the poetry, line after line, barely modulating his voice – and that’s it. Even the gorgeous Diana Rigg can’t save their “family scene”. And without Brutus there is no Julius Caesar. This is certainly the main reason why this movie is such a disappointment. It’s not the only one, though.

I was quite surprised to find John Gielgud and Richard Johnson disappointing. Both are superior to Robards, to be sure, but I expected so much more from them. Gielgud presents a senile and eminently forgettable Caesar; but, as I’ve said above, it is mission impossible to do more with so little. Richard Johnson was a much more surprising disappointment. Four years after this movie he would be a wonderful Antony in Jon Scoffield’s movie version, based on Trevor Nunn’s stage production, of Antony and Cleopatra. But his Cassius leaves a good deal to be desired. He counts too much on sullen expression to do the job. Cassius deserves more.

Charlton Heston gives probably the best performance in this movie. No, he is not in the same league as Brando, not by any stretch of the imagination. But his Antony is living and breathing, quite unlike much of the cast; and his “Friends, Romans, countrymen” is powerful and memorable, with many subtle inflections and tightly controlled histrionics. Like Heston’s Antony two years later, this one is coherent and believable, occasionally moving and illuminating.

The movie on the whole feels like a great missed opportunity. It’s a pleasant trifle to watch, competently if not brilliantly shot, with decent if a little stagy sets, but seldom enlivened by anything like great acting.

Julius Caesar (1979)

Brutus – Richard Pasco

Cassius – David Collings

Mark Antony – Keith Michell

Julius Caesar – Charles Gray

Casca – Sam Dastor

Portia – Virginia McKenna

Calpurnia  – Elizabeth Spriggs

Adapted by ?

Directed by Herbert Wise.

Colour. 150 min.

I’m afraid this BBC production is unintentionally hilarious. Charles Gray is definitely the most ridiculous Caesar you can imagine. Blind, deaf and dumb, he roams through the Roman streets like a bat with damaged echolocation. Even Shakespeare’s far from reverent treatment can’t justify this “interpretation”. I have a soft spot for Keith Michell ever since I saw him as Captain Cook in those TV series from the late 1980s. But his Antony is hammy to the extreme; his address at the Forum is so obviously phony that no crowd could possibly believe it. Richard Pasco and David Collings might have been giving poetry recitations on the radio, so little are they concerned about body language or dramatic impact.

The production is extremely chamber, almost claustrophobic indeed, and it looks like a postcard that has long lost any colour it might have had. In spite of Herbert Wise’s impressive credentials, the direction is thoroughly conventional. The best about this movie is the virtually complete text. It is a perfect starter and, I suppose, very suitable for teaching the play. But that’s all it has to offer. Even the flawed 1970 version is vastly preferable to this epitome of dullness.

Antony and Cleopatra on the Screen: Heston-Neil (1972), Johnson-Suzman (1974), Blakely-Lapotaire (1981)

Antony and Cleopatra (1972)

Charlton Heston – Antony

Hildegard Neil – Cleopatra

Eric Porter – Enobarbus

John Castle – Octavius Caesar

Jane Lapotaire – Charmian

Adapted by Federico De Urrutia and Charlton Heston.

Directed by Charlton Heston.

Colour. 148 min / 123 min (abridged).

This is Charlton Heston's one-man show. Judah Ben-Hur is not just Antony here, but director and co-screenwriter as well. It is a fine movie worth seeing multiple times. The rumour has it that it was a labour of love; and it shows. All the same, I’m not sure it has a place in the front rank of Shakespearean adaptations for the screen.

Visually, the movie is a splendid exotic extravaganza. Sets and costumes are lavish almost to the point of ostentation, there are plenty of breathtakingly spacious outdoor scenes, the battles are as epic as they come. In short, an honest attempt to outdo the Taylor-Burton epic with some 30 times smaller budget. The significant difference – the enormous difference – is that the earlier movie has nothing to do with Shakespeare. It uses completely different plot and dialogue. That’s why it’s better.

When it comes to modern adaptations of Shakespeare for the screen, there is a glaring contradiction that few movies manage to escape. The greatest glory of the Bard is not the action, the sets or the costumes. It is, of course, the language. Unfortunately, it is not a language that lends itself easily to visual treatment in the Hollywood-style. It is commendable to make Shakespeare’s plays more dynamic and visually appealing. The question is how to do this without losing an essential part of their greatness. Merciless abridgments, simplifications and re-arrangements are often excused with the idiotic argument that, had he lived today, Shakespeare would have done it himself. No doubt. He would have done it all right. And he would have been a lesser Shakespeare.

Soothsaying.

Caesar's Power.

"Give me to drink mandragora".

Iras and Mardian.

This adaptation is rather a mixed bag. It has some nice original touches, for example the first meeting between Antony and Octavius is suggestively coupled with gladiatorial combat, the opening lines are put in Enobarbus' mouth, the role of Proculeius is greatly expanded, some minor characters are omitted, others are merged. There is very little additional or modernized dialogue (e.g. “the abstract of all faults” becomes “the sum of all faults”). Some scenes benefit from imaginative interpretation of the original, for example when Antony overhears Enobarbus’ famous description of “The barge she sat in” or when the hapless messenger lies to Cleo about Octavia’s looks guided by the surreptitious hints of Alexas and Charmian. The drinking party on Pompey’s galley features a hilarious parody of Tony and Cleo. So far, so good. On the other hand, the cuts are more than substantial and much to disadvantage of both the poetry and the characters. For example, Cleo's sarcastic reference to the Roman messengers in the first scene is entirely missing, and so are the little episode with her treasurer in the last scene (always cut, alas) and Antony’s anguished speech after Actium (“I have fled myself”). Usually the cutting is much subtler than that; single lines and even words are omitted. But it’s there. Virtually all scenes are, if not ruthlessly butchered, at least to some extent de-Shakespearized.

(Speaking of cuts, one must be very careful because the movie seems to exist in several very different versions. I first saw some Spanish DVD which was only 123 minutes long, but later got hold of another version – 25 minutes longer! So the appalling cuts may not always be thanks to Heston and co. If IMDb is to be believed, the longest runtime of the movie is 160 minutes. But since the mecca of movie statistics does not mention the 123-minutes version, and I guarantee it exists, I am not sure it can be trusted. The shortest version is the butchery to end all butcheries indeed! It omits completely even the meeting between Cleo and Caesar at the end! Nowhere on the cover will you find even the slightest indication that this is an abridged version!)

Charlton Heston as Antony.

Hildegard Neil as Cleopatra.

"Speak not to us".

                                       "Fortune knows
We scorn her most when she offers blows."

I'm no great fan of Charlton Heston, but I like him well enough to appreciate his performance here. I don't know why reviewers often denounce him as hammy. Now and then, he is, of course, but Heston’s ham, like Olivier’s, is seldom applied without good reason. Besides, there is a good deal of ham (and some eggs as well) in Antony, isn't there? I enjoy Heston's roaring "Let Rome in Tiber melt!", accompanied with his tearing a pearl necklace, and the generally macho Antony he presents. No whining exercises of self-pity here. On the whole, Heston is consistent, convincing and sometimes even moving. In any case, he does a much better job than Hildegard Neil as Cleopatra. She alternates between vapid and histrionic moments, mechanically chanting her lines all the time, exuding not a trace of the sensual charm that must be part and parcel of Cleo. She reminds me, not of the Queen of Egypt, but of a spoiled schoolgirl. That she doesn’t look the part doesn’t help the matter, either. Not for a single minute am I convinced by her performance.

Easily the finest performance in the whole movie is Eric Porter's as Enobarbus. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Porter escapes the trap that other actors readily fall into, namely making the character too buffoonish. Enobarbus is a man of the world, a man of no illusions about himself or the others, a witty and perceptive observer of human wisdom and folly. But he is no buffoon. As usual with this type of fellow, below the sarcastic surface there is deeper seriousness and compassion than usual. Actors who neglect this part of the character do, to my mind, a gross injustice to Enobarbus.

Eric Porter as Enobarbus.

"Mine honesty and I begin to square".

"I am alone the villain of the earth".

"O Antony".

John Castle has been much praised by the mighty reviewers online, but his Octavius strikes me as too wooden; not a man, not even an actor playing a part, but a speaking mannequin. Among the supporting cast, a charming bonus is the young Jane Lapotaire as a much better Charmian than her Cleopatra a decade later, the very Roman-like Julian Glover, much better known as Walter Donovan from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), as Proculeius, Roger Delgado as the most sinister soothsayer on screen, and quite a few handsome creatures of both sexes (Eros, Alexas, Iras, Octavia) or somewhere in between (Mardian).  

Jane Lapotaire as Charmian.

Julian Glover as Proculeius.

John Castle as Octavius.

Emiliano Redondo as Mardian.

Ramon Delgado as the Soothsayer.

Antony and Cleopatra (1974)

Richard Johnson – Antony

Janet Suzman – Cleopatra

Patrick Stewart – Enobarbus

Corin Redgrave – Octavius Caesar

Rosemary McHale – Charmian

Adapted by ?

Directed by Jon Scoffield.

Colour. 161 min.

This one is the best of the bunch. By far. Based on Trevor Nunn's RSC production, it is filmed theatre, much like the BBC version but infinitely superior to it. The costumes are modest but evocative. Sets there are none, but the lightning is wonderfully atmospheric; it’s almost a character of its own, “beaten gold” for Egypt, bright and harsh white light for Rome. The only minor defect, purely visually, is the rough editing, but though a bit weird, it is seldom annoying. Anyway, any Shakespearean movie/film/theatre production must stand or fall on the acting alone.

So far as I'm concerned, great Shakespearean acting doesn't get much better than this. Richard Johnson and Janet Suzman are very nearly perfect as Tony and Cleo. Both convey the complexity and the subtlety of the characters with stunning vividness and verisimilitude. Suzman is especially remarkable. She is hot, she is cold, she is dreamy, she is blunt, she is arrogant, vain, spoiled, charming, seductive, silly, commanding, vulnerable. She's everything – or nearly everything – Will's Cleo should be. She is the only one who, in the final scene, succeeds in conveying Cleo’s “immortal longings”. Incredible performance from start to finish. Compared to Suzman, Neil and Lapotaire are not in the same league at all. Johnson’s Antony is quite different, much weaker and more pathetic, than Heston’s. To my mind, both interpretations are equally valid. Johnson wins because of his eloquent delivery of the nearly complete part. He keeps the histrionics to minimum and has a compelling rapport with Suzman in their joint scenes.

Janet Suzman as Cleopatra.

"And I do think she's thirty".

"My salad days..."

Richard Johnson as Antony.

Patrick Stewart is a fine Enobarbus, but lightweight compared to Eric Porter. He has the advantage of much fuller text, but he doesn’t rise to any heights not already reached by his predecessor. Indeed, he seems off balance quite often; his death scene is unduly melodramatic, his witticisms lost in grinning. To be fair, it’s not all his fault; Nunn’s to blame, too. It is imaginative to stage “kill all our women” in alcoholic stupor, but I’m not sure it serves well the dramatic value of the text. Not to forget Octavius (the most often neglected major character in the play), Corin Redgrave gives a beautiful performance. That cold disdain, that implacable contempt for Antony's Alexandrian revels so characteristic of Octavius is given here its greatest expression on the screen. Just a twitch of the lips, dropping the corners, and there it is. He allows himself a tear or two at the news of Tony’s death, but it’s nothing like the ludicrous tear-jerker by Ian Charleson.

The supporting cast, except for the thoroughly mediocre Rosemary McHale (Charmian), is excellent. A very young and handsome Ben Kingsley as Thidias is a special bonus.

Corin Redgrave as Octavius.

Ben Kingsley as Thidias.

Patrick Stewart as Enobarbus.

"I will seek / Some way to leave him."

At about 2 hours and 40 minutes, this is a relatively uncut version. Relatively. The oddest missing link is Pompey: the poor guy is entirely erased. 'Tis a pity; it makes the drinking party much less effective. Otherwise, however, the dialogue does feel like Shakespeare, unlike Heston's version where it feels like Hollywood pure and simple. Likewise, changes in the plot – save the vanishing of Pompey – are very minor.

Antony and Cleopatra (1981)

Colin Blakely – Antony

Jane Lapotaire – Cleopatra

Emrys James – Enobarbus

Ian Charleson – Octavius Caesar

Janet Key – Charmian

Adapted by ?

Directed by Jonathan Miller.

Colour. 170 min.

Well, I like the BBC production better than most, but, all the same, it is the worst of the bunch. Perhaps if I’d seen it first I might have found it more satisfying. Part of the problem is the production. The sets are passable, but the costumes are terrible. It’s hard to ignore them, and when Tony and Cleo are dressed in some sort of half-Elizabethan, half-modernist kitsch, it’s hard to take them seriously.

Blakely is not a bad Antony, especially in his more robust moments towards the end where he manages to infuse the poetry with elemental passion without ruining it. He tries hard to make Antony a coarse soldier and a volatile lover, but somehow it doesn’t work. This is not a performance I would rank with his superb Kent in Lear (1983). Lapotaire also has fine moments, especially in the final scene with Octavius, but on the whole she makes Cleo just a little too whiny and too weepy for my taste. Worst of all, if there is any chemistry between the principals, I haven’t noticed it. The rest is even worse. Ian Charleson is an incredibly melodramatic Octavius, just a little short of character assassination. Emrys James is the dullest Enobarbus imaginable; he plays up the witty passages and tries to look serious in the dramatic ones, but in both cases he lacks Stewart’s authority. Janet Key makes Rosemary McHale look like the greatest Charmian ever.

Colin Blakely as Antony.

"O sun, thy uprise I shall see no more".

Jane Lapotaire as Cleopatra.

"Caesar's no merchant".

"Sweet queen..."

"From my cold heart let heaven engender hail".

Last but not least, cuts are few but always questionable. Why cutting half of Enobarbus’ short comment about the two chaps? The omitted part – “And throw between them all the food thou hast, / They'll grind the one the other” – complements the rest to perfection. It’s an absurd cut, quite unnecessary and harmful. It is always strange to me that the guys in the BBC, who were so adamant not to include one non-British actor in this series, should make such silly mistakes. Nevertheless, this is not a bad movie, certainly not as bad as reviews might lead you believe. It just came too late on the scene. I guess it remains a decent starting point.

Ian Charleson as Octavius.

Emrys James as Enobarbus.