Page 111 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

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A TIDE IN MEN'S LIVES

Julius Caesar

This was the noblest Roman of them all.
—Antony, on Brutus's death

n The Parallel Lives, written circa A.D. 100 in Rome, the Greek
Iintellect Plutarch fused his twin fascinations with history and phi-
losophy. Fact-based tales were shaped and embellished to convey
clear moral lessons. In 1559, Jacques Amyot translated Plutarch into
French; Sir Thomas North, a multilingual sophisticate, adapted the
work into idiomatic English in his Lives of the Noble Grecians and
Romans. This version was published in 1595; Shakespeare, ever on
the lookout for potential material, picked up a copy. Having com-
pleted his cycle of history plays but before beginning the period of
great tragedies (1602-1608), the Bard offered a transitional piece. To
do so, Will returned to the key theme of his historical tetralogy: the
moral issue of killing a king.
By employing the story of Julius Caesar, the Bard could address an
intriguingly complex variation: what do you do with a ruler who
manages the country well, yet is ambitious enough to want more
than even he has any right to? Caesar had created an empire, as had
Elizabeth; like her, he had grown controversial, inspiring loyalty
from the masses and enmity among a vocal minority. The Bard
desired to communicate, in the guise of a bloody-good entertain-
ment, how disastrous such an assassination was for any country.
Anachronistically performed at the Globe, Julius Caesar would
simultaneously take place in the past and present. Caesar would be
dressed not in a toga but as an English king; "Roman" senators

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