It was produced by Overseas Filmgroup and Clear Blue Sky Productions and released by Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Tamora persuades the Emperor to feign forgiveness to Bassianus, Titus and his family and postpone punishment to a later day, thereby revealing her intention to avenge herself on all the Andronici.
When Marcus discovers her, he begs her to reveal the identity of her assailants; Lavinia leans towards the camera and opens her bloodied mouth in a silent scream.
Aaron frames Titus' sons Martius and Quintus for the murder of Bassianus with a forged letter outlining their plan to kill him.
[3] Desperate for revenge, Titus orders Lucius to flee Rome and raise an army among their former enemy, the Goths.
In the book, she indicates to Titus and Marcus the story of Philomela, in which a similarly mute victim "wrote" the name of her wrongdoer.
Feigning madness, he ties written prayers for justice to arrows and commands his kinsmen to aim them at the sky so they may reach the gods.
Understanding the method in Titus' "madness", Marcus directs the arrows to land inside the palace of Saturninus, who is enraged by this added to the fact Lucius is at the gates of Rome with an army of Goths.
She tells Titus she (as a supernatural spirit) will grant him revenge if he will convince Lucius to stop attacking Rome.
"Revenge" offers to invite the Emperor and Tamora and is about to leave, but Titus insists "Rape" and "Murder" stay with him.
When the Emperor agrees, Titus snaps Lavinia's neck, to the horror of the dinner guests, and tells Saturninus what Tamora's sons did.
Young Lucius, who appears to have lost his taste for violence after witnessing the bloody cycle of revenge, carefully picks up Aaron's child and reverts back to the boy from the beginning at the now silently empty Amphitheatre before carrying him away into the sunrise.
At the end, when Titus' son Lucius avenges his father by condemning the villainous Aaron to a painful death, the boy takes pity on Aaron's infant son; carrying him away from the violence of that world as he walks slowly into the sunrise, reverting to his original self as he leaves the empty Amphitheatre.
[5] Julie Taymor took Shakespeare's script, added various linking scenes without dialogue (while cutting some of the text) and set the play in an anachronistic fantasy world that uses locations, costumes and imagery from many periods of history, including Ancient Rome and Mussolini's Italy, to give the impression of a Roman Empire that survived into the modern era.
The opening scenes commence with a heavily choreographed triumphal march of the Roman troops, complete with motorcycle outriders.
[11] Stephen Holden of The New York Times gave the film a positive review, making it a "Critic's Pick".
[12] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times also praised Titus and gave it three and a half out of four stars, referring to the source material as "the least of Shakespeare's tragedies" and concluding, "Anyone who doesn't enjoy this film for what it is must explain: How could it be more?
Club wrote that "Titus strikes a near-impossible balance between magnificently cracked high camp and a more serious statement about corruption and the cycle of violence" and that "[Taymor's] forceful adaptation builds to a glorious payoff and Cumming's flamboyant performance alone—he's a sort of fascist Pee-wee Herman—seems enough to ensure Titus lasting cult status.