Most, if not all of the cast members, saw the film that night, which they deservedly enjoyed. It was their night. The only person who was nervous was my pal Galvin, who told me so as we chatted while we, and the rest of the moviegoers, waited for SIS to finish its promotion ceremony. Because of this scheduling conflict, the screening of the film began at around 8 p.m. and not 7 as earlier announced. But it didn’t matter. The prelude to “Caesar” was the trailer of the new Batman movie.
I re-read the Shakespeare play before watching Galvin’s hour-long film version. It’s one of the shortest of the Bard’s plays and one of the most famous. A “famous Shakespeare play.” A redundancy, I admit, but you know what I’m saying. “Julius Ceasar” has some of the most well-known monologues and lines in literary history. Mark Antony’s “let slip the dogs of war” impressed me the most the first time I read the play in 7th grade, not really knowing what most of the text meant or what the hey the characters were saying. The play is not considered among the Bard’s major tragedies, but its theme — power, loyalty and idealism — is compelling for someone who has been interested in politics since kindergarten. (Except for that oddity, I had a normal childhood, thank you.)
I asked myself before seeing the film: Can a school production do justice to Shakespeare’s thematic ideas? But then I realized that this was probably not the film’s main point.
This production is a labor of love and it’ll be great to see all CNMI schools staging their own plays or producing their films and holding a commonwealth-wide play/film competition or festival with awards being given out for the best play/movie, actors, etc.
At the visitors center theater last week, I was seated behind some of the cast members and they couldn’t help but giggle and guffaw every time they see themselves on the screen. It was like being at the old Chalan Kanoa movie house again in 1994, watching “Schindler’s List,” and hearing the kids pealing in laughter while, on the screen, naked inmates of the concentration camp were being hosed en masse before they were herded into the gas chambers…
Well, they’re kids, for crying out loud. And if I were a Mt. Carmel senior watching my classmate wearing a tie-less suit getting fake stabbed and fake shot by a fake .45 on the screen, and dying while the camera shows that he’s wearing an untied pair of oversized Nike basketball shoes — it’s a thighslapper.
This brings me to some of the shots taken by the director. He could have made better choices. He was aiming for a dark and gritty visual effect, and I’m sure there’s a way to do exactly that, but without creating an impression that what is unfolding on the screen is simply bad photography.
The acting was a bit too theatrical. Most of the time, the actors sounded like they’re delivering speeches. There’s a huge difference between acting on stage and on screen, and although it’s obvious that “Caesar’s” cast members oozed with talent, there were very few scenes in which the acting was just about right. One of the acting standouts was the young man who played Cassius, although he didn’t have the Roman’s “lean and hungry look.” But then again Shakespeare’s Mark Antony and Brutus were not supposed to be high-power female executives either.
To be sure, there have been many productions that have taken liberties with Shakespeare’s plays, among them a gay Romeo & Juliet. But “Julius Caesar” was supposed to depict real persons and Shakespeare himself drew heavily from Plutarch’s biographies in writing this play. “Caesar” the movie requires a massive suspension of belief on the part of the audience. I must say though that KSPN’s Chris Nelson was the film’s casting coup. He and his K-ROME News “reporters” were convincing actors.
The director’s heavy-handedness was also evident in the way he scored his film. I believe it was Spielberg who said that the score should not get in the way of the story being told. The score must not tell the viewers what to feel or think of what they’re watching. That’s the story’s, and therefore, the director’s task. In “Caesar,” however, the score tried to spoon-feed the audience with the “right” emotions.
The original play depicted how three politicians — Marcus Junius Brutus, his brother-in-law Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) — whose careers revolved around one great man, Gaius Julius Caesar, decided the fate of the Roman Republic. This is a play, a critic once said, about “people who makes mistakes — costly ones, for themselves and their country.”
At the beginning of the play, Caesar has already been appointed dictator for life by the Roman Senate. A dictator, and there was such an office in the republic, was supposed to serve for only six months in times of military emergency. In normal times, the republic was ruled by two consuls (two to ensure check and balance). But although Caesar’s political dominance was undeniable, there were concerns among the Roman elite that he wanted more — that he wanted to be crowned king. The Romans, led by Brutus’ ancestor, abolished the monarchy some 500 years ago before Caesar’s era.
Brutus and Cassius feared that Caesar would end the republic and re-establish absolutist rule. Mark Antony was Caesar’s right-hand man, an able military commander known for his fondness for parties and, basically, frat boy behavior. He was taken too lightly by Brutus the idealist, the noble spirit, the real “hero” of this hero-less play. Brutus adored Caesar. He was Caesar’s favorite — and reputed son. But compared to Mark Antony, Brutus and Cassius were amateur politicians. Cassius believed that manipulation was all. Brutus thought that one’s pure convictions were enough. It was Mark Antony who realized that he had to win the people’s support through persuasion. As University of Iowa associate professor Douglas Trevor has pointed out, “Where Brutus underestimates the populace, Cassius resents it, Antony appeals to it.” In the end, those who wanted to protect the republic ensured its destruction and the restoration of the monarchy under a new name — empire. And Caesar, in death, was deified. He was literally declared a god by his adopted son, Octavius, who styled himself Caesar Augustus. “Caesar” became the title of Rome’s new rulers, the emperors (and the root word of the Russian “czar/tsar” and the German “kaiser”).
Perhaps Mt. Carmel’s “Caesar” would have fared better on stage. At any rate, the talent, dedication and hard work of its director/producer, cast and crew are undeniable. Bravo!
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