Country: USA
Year: 1953
Duration: 120'
44 BC, the Ides of March: Julius Caesar goes to the Senate, where he is stabbed to death by conspirators led by Cassius and his adopted son Brutus. The Tribune Mark Antony initially sides with the murderers but then, during the dramatic funeral speech, he incites the crowd against them. Mankiewicz stages Shakespeare’s historical drama in an almost abstract Rome (plus the final epilogue at Philippi, of course), putting the accent on the dialogue (and thus on the performances of the movie’s extraordinary cast: Marlon Brando, John Gielgud, James Mason) and the updating of the text. Produced by MGM, a rare example of Hollywood cinema with a clear theatrical slant.
Biography
film director
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz
(Wilkes-Barre, USA, 1909-New York, USA 1993) was an American director, screenwriter, and movie producer of Polish origin. He won Oscars for best director and best screenplay two consecutive times, with A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), which also won best film. He began working in Hollywood as a screenwriter (like his brother Hermann, who won an Oscar with Orson Welles for the script of Citizen Kane) and debuted as a director in 1946, proving to be an eclectic filmmaker (Gothic tales, Westerns, melodramas, blockbusters) who, with seamless directing and a highly sophisticated writing style, was able to capture the conflicts between the sexes and the complex dynamics of interpersonal relationships.
FILMOGRAFIA
Dragonwyck (Il castello di Dragonwyck, 1946), Somewhere in the Night (Il bandito senza nome, 1946), The Late George Apley (Schiavo del passato, 1947), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Il fantasma e la signora Muir, 1947), Escape (Il fuggitivo, 1948), A Letter to Three Wives (Lettera a tre mogli, 1949), House of Strangers (Amaro destino, 1949), No Way Out (Uomo bianco, tu vivrai!, 1950), All About Eve (Eva contro Eva, 1950), People Will Talk (La gente mormora , 1951), 5 Fingers (Operazione Cicero, 1952), Julius Caesar (Giulio Cesare, 1953), The Barefoot Contessa (La contessa scalza, 1954), Guys and Dolls (Bulli e pupe, 1955), The Quiet American (Un americano tranquillo, 1958), Suddenly, Last Summer (Improvvisamente l'estate scorsa, 1959), Cleopatra (id., 1963), Carol for Another Christmas (Canto per un altro Natale, tv, 1964), The Honey Pot (Masquerade, 1967), King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (King: una testimonianza filmata... da Montgomery a Memphis, coregia, Sidney Lumet, doc, 1970), There Was a Crooked Man... (Uomini e cobra, 1970), Sleuth (Gli insospettabili, 1972).
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR, SCREENPLAY: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. STORY: from the play by William. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Joseph Ruttenberg. EDITING: John D. Dunning. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Cedric Gibbons, Edward Carfagno, Hugh Hunt, Edwin B. Willis. COSTUME DESIGN: Herschel McCoy. MUSIC: Miklós Rózsa. CAST: Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Gielgud, Louis Calhern, Edmond O'Brien, Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr, George Macready. PRODUCTION: John Houseman per Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
CONTACT: Park Circus www.parkcircus.com
