Julius Caesar

This 1950's epic did not strive to augment Shakespeare's dialogue with its own art: in terms of acting, casting, or cinematography. It was simply shot, Cassius was fine, but James Mason was mistakenly cast as a wooden faced and elderly Brutus.

Kamala: Part of the reason we chose this one was Marlon Brando as Mark Antony, but also it is a large studio epic.

Emily: The score was generally laughable and the camera work unimaginative, focused mostly on the acting of the principal characters. Brando was amazing. I sort of lost interest in the movie after Mark Antony's big speech to the crowd.

Kamala: This movie wasn't as much of a spectacle that I hoped it would be. I wanted to watch it for one, because I had it next on Netflix, but we also wanted see what the large studios could do in the 1950's. There were a large number of extras and somewhat complicated studio sets. MGM in the early 1950's (this one was from 1953) was trying desperately to compete with the rise of television by appeasing the masses in any way possible. This film perhaps is not the best example of MGM's desperation, but I would like to conjecture that its artlessness and unwillingness to take chances was influenced by the studio's tight artistic control.

Emily: The film was wooden and definitely boring, the last 45 minutes really dragged by. Mostly because Brando wasn't in it. But really, I have seen Shakespeare remakes, Titus by Julie Taymor and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet of course, that take real chances artistically with the material. And this did not. But it's still worth watching if you're really into Rome or Marlon Brando.