This version of Julius Caesar is interesting to me because it contains two contrasting acting types.\u00a0 With John Gielgud as Cassius you have a British Shakespearian actor steeped in the conventions and knowledge of the traditional theater.\u00a0 With Marlon Brando as Mark Antony you have a great American method actor who approaches his performance as a process of absorbing the soul of the character and living the part.\u00a0 And because Mark Antony\u2019s part is so bound up with a revenge motive, he is able to bring the set speech, his \u201cfriends, romans, countrymen\u201d speech, to life.\u00a0 Gielgud\u2019s Cassius is a more intellectual character and it requires a great deal of nuance to render the part interesting.\u00a0 His character is of an angry disappointed man who is motivated by fear, jealousy and spite.\u00a0 The fine British actor James Mason is Brutus and does a masterful job of portraying the honest, intelligent patriot who slays his friend for the good of his country.\u00a0 Louis Calhern another American actor has the pivotal but relatively minor part of Julius Caesar.\u00a0 Greer Garson as Calpurnia and Deborah Kerr as Portia are Caesar\u2019s and Brutus\u2019s wives respectively.\u00a0 And there are several other good performances but essentially the main action consists of Cassius and Brutus on one side and Mark Antony on the other.\u00a0 Cassius draws Brutus into a conspiracy against Caesar and Mark Antony stirs a popular rebellion against the assassins.<\/p>\n
The play is cut in half by the murder, with the first half concluded by Brando\u2019s funeral oration for Caesar.\u00a0 It is one of Shakespeare\u2019s most memorable speeches and Brando plays it to the hilt.\u00a0 His voice is saturated with emotion, by turns, sorrow, scorn then anger. \u00a0He plays the Roman crowd and stirs them to mutiny against the \u201chonorable men\u201d who slew Caesar.<\/p>\n
For Brutus and Cassius, the speeches are smaller but they still allow the characters to display their personalities.\u00a0 Cassius shows us his pettiness and his genuine feelings of affection for his friend.\u00a0 Brutus is a more austere character.\u00a0 Intelligence, integrity and a slightly cold persona is displayed.\u00a0 But at the end when his whole world starts to collapse, he allows his personal feelings to emerge somewhat and these do him credit.<\/p>\n
This play is a study of personalities.\u00a0 The battle scenes are short and stylized so there isn\u2019t a dynamism as you would see in a modern rendition of this story.\u00a0 Instead you have what Shakespeare would show on a stage.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think Julius Caesar will appeal to everyone.\u00a0 It\u2019s not exciting enough for many people.\u00a0 They will find it boring.\u00a0 But for those interested in seeing how a dying world drove friends against each other in a civil war this gives a flavor of it.<\/p>\n
Personally, I like the play and this version of it.\u00a0 I\u2019m not the biggest Brando fan but I like what he did with Mark Antony, especially the big speech.\u00a0 And I\u2019m always glad to see James Mason in a production. \u00a0His presence and the remarkable sound of his voice were perfect for this part.\u00a0 So, there\u2019s my first Shakespeare review.\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t so bad after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This version of Julius Caesar is interesting to me because it contains two contrasting acting types.\u00a0 With John Gielgud as Cassius you have a British<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[2355,2354,989,2353,967,295,2363],"class_list":["post-10013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-james-mason","tag-john-gielgud","tag-julius-caesar","tag-marlon-brando","tag-roman-republic","tag-shakespeare","tag-shakespeare-in-film"],"yoast_head":"\n