Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare's [VHS]

Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare's [VHS]
by Stuart Burge

Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare's [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Charlton Heston"Jason Robards
Director: Stuart Burge
Edition: VHS Tape
Format: Collector's Edition, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 116 minutes
Release Date: 1970-01-01
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)

VHS Movie Reviews of Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare's [VHS]

Movie Review: Sticking up for Jason Robards
Summary: 4 Stars

I feel as though I need to stick up for this version of Shakespeare's play. After teaching this play for almost ten years, I have read it over forty times and seen the 1953 movie version at least that often. However, I watched the Robards-Heston version for the first time this fall. Though I do like the older black-and-white movie, I have always felt that the director (and James Mason) misread Brutus, just as most people seem to do. Brutus is not noble and has very few redeeming qualities even outside of the fact that he betrayed Caesar. He is easily manipulated, vain, and dishonest with others and with himself. He is a man who does not know his own mind (as Cassius does). When he berates Cassius for taking bribes and shaking down the locals (Act IV), his self-righteous platitudes collapse under the weight of his real concern - namely that Cassius is not sharing the money with him so that he can pay his soldiers (because he is just too honest to steal). He consistently makes bad decisions after hijacking the conspiracy (letting Anthony live, letting Anthony speak at the funeral, letting Anthony speak after him rather than before, marching to meet Antony's and Octavius's troops and yielding the high ground, etc), misreads the people around him, and ultimately puts himself first rather than the Rome he whines about wanting to protect. The genius of this play is not in Brutus's tortured soul struggling to balance his love of Caesar versus his love of Rome; instead it is in Shakespeare's brilliant ability at misdirection (for lack of a better term). I enjoyed this movie precisely because I think Robards was trying mightily to depict a Brutus who was more than a bit vain and shallow - a wooden figure in over his head being manipulated by those around him. I am not sure he always pulls this off, but I do think that an actor trying to create a Brutus who wants to seem the savior but who is actually an "empty toga" deserves more credit than one who plays a "traditional" but inaccurate "tragic hero" (as Mason does). While his performance is hit-and-miss I really appreciate that he gives us a Brutus to contrast to the earlier film. Some of the best classroom discussions I have ever had concerning this play have come this week when letting the students compare and contrast scenes from each film. (Plus I always have a soft spot for Heston. I was fortunate to meet him briefly at a function about 12 years ago. I said little more than "Hello" but I did get to shake his hand and have a picture taken.)

A very good movie for those looking to see a different, and I think more accurate rendition of this wonderful play.

Movie Review: CHIEFLY USEFUL TO WOULD-BE ACTORS
Summary: 2 Stars

Despite its full title, Shakespeare's THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR has long been recognized as centering on the tragedy of Marcus Brutus. For one thing, Caesar dies before the play is even half over; for another, Brutus is a good man who brings about his own downfall by his own mistakes. Shakespeare's script contains numerous scenes that provide direct and indirect evidence that Brutus is worthy of the audience's respect and admiration. In most productions, therefore, it has been crucial that the actor playing Brutus do so in a manner that holds the audience's attention and causes the audience to care deeply about the misfortune he is bringing down upon himself.

This 1970 film, JULIUS CAESAR, is fairly well cast in all its parts but the key one--Jason Robards as Brutus. Two actors with very minor parts are noteworthy for their skills--Lawrence Harrington as the Carpenter and Ron Pembler as the Cobbler--at the opening of the play. Of the main characters, John Gielgud as Caesar and Richard Johnson as Cassius are both excellent. Diana Rigg as Brutus's beautiful and faithful wife Portia, Robert Vaughn as an ironic eye-rolling Casca, and Richard Chamberlain as a calculating Octavius are more than adequate. And Charlton Heston does a reasonably good job as Mark Antony, although director Stuart Burge often seems more concerned with displaying Heston's "Roman-nose" profile and his semi-clad physique (in a G-string in one scene) than with his histrionic talents.

Robards is virtually sleepwalking throughout most of the film, usually sounding as if he has no understanding of the words he is speaking and often stumbling through them the way some high school freshman might if suddenly told to read Elizabethan blank verse for the first time in his life. In only a few of the later scenes does Robards seem to come half to life. The effect of his exceedingly weak performance is to shift the audience's attention, by default, onto Mark Antony (whom Robards often calls "Mark Anthony")--and Shakespeare's play is almost morphed into a kind of Victory-of-Antony celebration. It is as if, as the old clich? runs, "the tail is wagging the dog." (The only comparable misconstruing of a major Shakespearian tragedy that I can recall was when, in a 1970 "Hallmark Hall of Fame" TV production, Richard Chamberlain played Hamlet as such a pitifully and dangerously out-of-control maniac that the actor Richard Johnson, playing Hamlet's uncle/stepfather as a calm, brave, and rational man, often gained most of the audience's sympathy--and the play almost became "The Tragedy of King Claudius.")

It appears that once this film was completed, Republic Entertainment's marketing division decided to focus primarily on Heston as Mark Antony, reinforcing the impression that Robards' Brutus is indeed a subordinate character. Posters and virtually every box containing videos and DVDs of this production feature pictures of either Heston's face alone or Heston's face four times larger than the faces of Robards, Guelgud, Chamberlain, and Diana Rigg--as well as giving Heston's name top billing.

I titled my review "Chiefly Useful to Would-Be Actors" because I believe that some novice actors might learn how to speak Shakespeare's lines properly by hearing how NOT to do so from Robards' terrible example. Except for diehard fans of Heston, Richard Chamberlain, Diana Rigg, etc., most other viewers would do far better buying/renting Joseph L. Mankiewicz's much better 1953 film of JULIUS CAESAR--which also has Guelgud as Caesar, and has Marlon Brando as Antony and James Mason as Brutus.

Movie Review: The Black and White is Much Better
Summary: 2 Stars

I just finished teaching Julius Caesar to my sophomores, and we watched the 1952 black and white version as we read the play. The students asked me if I could find a color version, as they are all about technology. I found this version and was quite excited when I found this version.

My class is watching this as I write this review, and while I will show it again, I will only use it as a comparison to Brando's version. The acting, with the exception of Caesar, Calpurnia, and Portia, is horrible. I have never in my life seen such bad acting as I have seen with Brutus. Robards does a horrible job, and where he actually shows some emotion - in the argruement with Cassius - it is too little too late.

Students have told me that had they watched this version first, they would have completely lost interest in the play. The only thinkg they like about it are the crowd scenes. They are the only thing that, to them, is more realistic. I reccommend only if you are showing this as a companion, not as the main movie to help catch their attention.

As far as the movie quality, I have seen nothing wrong with it. I show mine on a smart board, and the picture quality and sound are fine.

Movie Review: Impressive
Summary: 5 Stars

My students love the movie. It was clear, colorful, excellent, true to the text.

Movie Review: Cannot hear it!!
Summary: 1 Stars

I was unable to use this video after reading the play with my high school class because the highest volume was too low to hear. I ended up getting another video from the library, but it was not the same product. Great big, huge, jiii-normous disappointment!!

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