CAESAR MUST DIE (Cesare deve morire) B
Italy (76 mi)
2012 d: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
We hope that when the
film is released to the general public that cinemagoers will say to themselves
or even those around them… that even a prisoner with a dreadful sentence, even
a life sentence, is and remains a human being. —Paolo Taviani
It’s great to see the Taviani Brothers are back and still
making relevant films, last seen in 1987 with GOOD MORNING, BABYLON a quarter
century ago, but they have been working right along, writing and directing a
few made-for-TV movies, but nothing on the festival circuit, so after winning
the Golden Bear 1st Prize at Berlin, this was a pleasant and most unexpected
surprise. It was the Taviani’s ultra-realistic PADRE PADRONE (1977) that
won the Cannes Palme D’Or (1st prize), the almost never seen IL PRATO (1979)
launched the career of Isabella Rossellini, while the magical THE NIGHT OF THE
SHOOTING STARS (1982), arguably their best work, won the Cannes Jury Prize (3rd
place). Known for their rugged Tuscany
landscapes which are incorporated into their films, this film is shot entirely
indoors, given a near documentary look as the filmmakers depict the
preparations for a staging of Shakespeare’s Julius
Caesar set inside the grounds of Rome’s Rebibbia maximum security prison,
where many of the men who perform the play are imprisoned for drug trafficking
charges, mafia related felonies, and murder, so perhaps it’s not surprising
many inmates could channel the violence in their own lives to unlock parallels
in the play. Except for the final
performance sequences which are in brilliant color, the interior prison scenes
are all shot in black and white, where the film has a completely
non-traditional and experimental design, mixing final footage of the staged
play performed live with rehearsals and earlier audition reels which introduces
us to several of the inmates eventually chosen to perform in the play. The audition process is easily the most
entertaining, as many of the inmates are over the top, literally pretending to
act, trying to be Brando, while others are playfully themselves horsing around
in front of the camera, while some are surprisingly natural, especially when
asked to express anger. Listed alongside
their screen photos are the crimes they have been convicted of and the length
of their sentences.
With 6 months preparation time, the process begins in a
rehearsal room with the director, with each inmate herded back into their cells
afterwards where they often continue practicing while confined, or when
gathered in small groups in a recreation area.
Often they would veer off script, adding some choice line from their own
personal experience that at least for the moment impacts upon the scene, a kind
of jailhouse improvisation used to get into character. Using Italian dialects instead of
Shakespeare’s English, the speech used is what we hear everyday instead of
ancient text in Iambic pentameter, where inmates could largely be themselves,
some with incredibly expressive faces. Often using long takes from cinematographer
Simone Zampagni, many linger on inmates as they exchange dialogue or are seen
rehearsing significant scenes, both in and out of character, where this fuses
fictional moments into the play, altering the style and rhythm of a historical
drama and turning it into a work breathing with the life of the participants,
as if this is the telling of their stories. This heightens the artificiality of
performing a play, where the staging of the work in and around the confined prison
space is highly inventive, creating a fascinating tension beneath the surface
of the film, where some of the more significant speeches from the play,
presumably to a large assembled crowd of friends and Romans, are simply set
before a lone window of the prison which offers a view looking out, where the
claustrophobic cells and recreation areas, for all practical purposes, become
the Roman Forum and the Senate. The
directors take liberties with one character, Salvatore Striano who plays
Brutus, as he is a former convict who was pardonned from Rebibbia in 2006 but
participates as if he were still an inmate.
Certainly one critique with the final product may be with the lushly
romanticized saxophone score from Vittorio’s son GiulianoTaviani which might sound
more appropriate in Bertolucci’s LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972).
While called Julius
Caesar, the play is largely about the insurrectionist actions of Brutus,
who conspires to assassinate the Roman leader, eventually tracked down and defeated
by the Roman army at the Battle of Philippi. Brutus is the psychological
study of a man who undertakes a shadowy role destiny never intended for him,
becoming a man with a dual nature, as part of him will be forever linked to
Caesar, certainly bearing the ghost of Caesar after stabbing him to death,
which immediately starts taunting him, as if cursed by his own deed. Many
consider him among the greatest figures in Shakespeare, while others cannot
conceal their contempt for him, yet Antony (his enemy) had nothing but high
praise, “This was the noblest Roman of them all,” a stark contrast to the
imperious Caesar, who was reviled for his ruthless ambitions. It was
Caesar’s target of the Roman Senate that forced Brutus’s hand, where morally he
feels compelled to act on the corrupting influence of unchecked power.
Giovanni Arcuri is quite convincing as Caesar, a towering figure in physique as
well, easily seen as imposing on the battlefield, while Antonio Frasca as Mark
Antony gets to deliver the most famous passage from the play, his funeral
oratory, while standing next to the corpse of Caesar, but directed towards a
starkly bare prison window, which has a positively chilling effect. Cosimo Rega
plays the Iago-like Cassius, another conflicted character, as he seems to drive
the actions of Brutus and his compatriots from behind the scenes, perceiving
“something in the air,” but he convinces Brutus that murder is paramount to
patriotism, a view that continues to resonate today when jihadists or other so-called
national liberators are also commonly called terrorists. It is Rega, a
20-year inmate, who is given the last word on this play, returning to his cell
afterwards where he utters, “Since I have known art, this cell has become a
prison.” Certainly this eye-opening account by the Taviani’s challenges
our view of humanity and history, where we often demonize our enemies,
including the prison population, who account for themselves admirably here.
