Caesar Must Die: a beautiful jail docudrama
Not long ago, the Taviani brothers, perhaps the best Italian filmmakers alive, visited a certain small theatre off the commercial circuit, and truly loved the play and the performers they saw there.
So they decided to film them, but representing another play, William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, no less. You’d think there’s nothing special about a play being turned into a film by accomplished directors — it’s been done so many times, it’s even a cinematographic subgenre in itself.
However, this one play has something unusual about it: it’s played by convicts sentenced for various crimes (from drug-trafficking to murder) with various sentences at Rebibbia, an Italian high-security prison.Cesare deve morire (Caesar Must Die) is the name of this inspired, thought-provoking feature that falls into the undefined, ambiguous territory between documentaries and fiction films. So far, it’s has had a great response among viewers and critics alike, more so after it won last year’s Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
It’s also a work that explores the boundaries between the modes of representation of theatre and cinema, but it’s not the kind of cerebral essay hard to grasp abstractions. On the contrary, it addresses and deploys emotions and feelings; it’s filled with drama and physicality. No wonder why: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is anything but cerebral, and the Tavianis have certainly understood where the raw power of the play is, even if they show only part of it.
Caesar Must Die works on three levels at once: one level is the prison’s stage, where the play is enacted. The two other levels take place in the rest of the prison, where prisoners rehearse the play, but also go about their normal lives with their daily routine.
The interesting thing is that the moments of rehearsing are made to look like they are, in fact, parts of the movie itself thanks to how the camera, the editing, and the music are employed. In contrast, the situations when the prisoners are out of character in their everyday life seem to be acted, as if they still were actors rehearsing their own prison play.
As a result, the actual play on the stage, which should be the clearly fictional part, feels like the only non-fictional part of the movie, like a documentary – which it is not.
In fact, this is precisely the point: what is it that we are watching and when do frontiers blur? Or, even more important, does it really matter to know what level of representation we are in? Shouldn’t it be enough to immerse into the text and the drama, regardless of the help of categories?
Perhaps what’s more compelling about the whole movie is the fact that the text of Julius Caesar, with all its elements of treason, power, corruption, greed, lies, deceit, revenge, and violence does have a special resonance within the walls of a maximum-security prison.
The words are the same (even if the text it’s a bit simplified), and yet they have a different meaning here, more so when sometimes the text from the play unexpectedly gives way to improvised dialogue by the convicts, or when it’s forgotten and the convicted start talking about their own affairs triggered by the words in the play.
For the better, it sometimes gets confusing, which allows viewers to get a more sensorial and emotional grasp of the material instead of intellectualizing it.
And last, but by no means least, about 90 percent of the movie is shot in splendid black and white, and the cinematography by Simone Zampagni, is simply arresting. By means of a very precise camera work, prison cells are transformed into Roman houses, and simple courtyards become the Senate and the grand Forum of the Eternal City. It embodies the “less is more” aesthetics to superb effect.
Only the scenes of the play on stage are shot in colour — and this choice is instrumental in the filmmakers’ management of reality. The music composed by Giuliano Taviani and Carmelo Travia emphasizes the pathos of the tragedy. Furthermore, Salvatore Striano stars the leading role as Bruto, his rough-edged dedication is imperfect but authentic, other supporters, the stand-outs are Cosimo Rega’s Cassio and Juan Dario Bonetti's Decio.
Modest, austere and assured, Caesar Must Die is a movie with plenty of assets that should prove enjoyable for those who know Shakespeare as well as for those who don’t. It’s not so much about the words of the play; it’s live theatre with living people doing their best to find some solace through art and self-expression. It’s a true blessing to justify the fact that directors could surpass themselves even as octogenarians.
