Julius Caesar (1953) | DVD Review

Brando takes on the Bard with an amazing cast of “Honorable Men”.

Shakespeare is difficult at the best of times and though I can appreciate some of his work and I do consider myself to have a somewhat decent grasp of the English language, for the life of me I have no idea what these people are talking about in this film. This isn’t helped by my utter lack of knowledge of Roman history outside of what I’ve seen in a few episodes of HBO’s excellent “Rome”.

Here’s what I was able to figure out.

Roman political counsel has an issue with Cesar. They convince Brutus to help them kill him with Cassius taking on the bulk of the persuasion.

Much foreboding ensues.

Then on the Ides of March they all merrily stab away at Cesar (23 times) with Brutus dealing the final blow.

Mark Anthony loved Cesar and has the ear of the people which is of great concern to the Toga’d gang of murderers. Mark Anthony having no desire to be ventilated himself convinces them that he believes that they must have been justified in there actions and if they allow him to explain to the people why it was necessary to rid them of Cesar.

However Mark Anthony tells his Friends, Romans and Countrymen that Cesar was a flawed yet good man and gets them to riot turning the whole situation into an inflated Romanesque East Coast-West Coast gang war with Brutus and Mark Anthony on opposites sides.

Lots and lots of dialogue. More people die, off screen.

Brutus sees Great Cesar’s Ghost.

The two sides have a battle. Mark Anthony’s side looses and the guys who killed Cesar ask to be killed with the same blades that they used to kill Cesar.

The difficulty in understanding Bill Shakespeare’s prose aside, there is no denying the incredible talent in this film. Julius Cesar is filled with monologues that REAL actors just love to sink their teeth into. And when they get it right it’s a wonder to watch.

Every performance in this film is brilliant.

John Gielgud as Cassius and James Mason as Brutus show a true genius, but its Marlon Brando’s charisma during his speech to the people that demonstrates what sets a talent apart from an Icon.

I’ve always been on the opinion that what works on the stage rarely works on the screen. This film is a good example of the difficulties that these translations present.

Too many of the scenes feel, well, “stagey” and Joeseph Mankiewicz’s direction is often limited to pointing the camera the person speaking for long periods of time on sets that, even for its time, look far to much like sets to the point of distraction.

Even the lighting, although in some instances resulting in a beautiful image, seems straight out of the theater.

With this disk we get the standard Trailer Gallery and an intro to the film buy TCM’s Robert Osbourne. In addition though we get “The Rise of Two Legends”, a clip and interview documentary about Brando and Shakespeare that is worth watching only for the bizarre moments of the insane and somewhat incomprehensible Dennis Hopper sitting on a couch with the decidedly not insane and incomprehensible Laurence Fishburn who spends most of the time with a “What is this crazy cracker talking about?” look on his face.

It is again, a credit to the performances that despite this, the film still holds up. You might need a degree in English lit to survive the rapid paced (all too rapid which contributes to the difficulty in comprehension) dialogue, but the talent of the actor superceed even the Bard’s brilliance.

Movie rating – 3

Disc Rating – 3