Jason Robards as Brutus


Robards is normally a first rate-actor. I wonder what went wrong here. He tried "stoic" and came out completely wooden.

On the Robards messageboard, I had speculated that in spite of his theatrical experience (mostly doing 20th century playwrights, such as O'Neill), he probably had little or no experience with Shakespeare, and so just wasn't comfortable with the language.

Charlton Heston was even worse as Marc Antony - you could tell that he was completely out of his usual element.

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I adore Robards, but this role was not for him.

He was too old for the role, and - come on! Robards w/out beard?

If you want see him when he's really brilliant, go watch Once Upon A Time I nThe West and The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Both Chyenne and Cable were perfect for him. In OUATITW, he's my absolute favourite. Harmonica, Frank and Jill are symbols, archetypes; Cheyenne is an individual, a lovable anti-hero with a great sense of humor and a wise philosophy.Cable Hogue is very like to Cheyenne - stubborn, old-fashioned Western hero, in a world were the West is already dead. He's a living anachronysm - tragic and funny at the same time.

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I don't think that his age was an issue. I believe that Brutus and most of the other conspirators against Caesar were middle-aged at the time of the assassination.

I think that the problem was that Robards had very little experience with Shakespeare. It was said about Laurence Olivier, for example, that he knew Shakespeare so well that he spoke in the idiom of Elizabethan English as comfortably as casual conversational English. To do so, and to sound natural, takes a lot of training.

Robards had an amazing stage career doing Eugene O'Neill (if you want to see a young Robards at his finest, try to get your hands on the 1960 "Iceman Cometh" - available from Broadway Theater Archive on DVD), but as far as I know he never distinguished himself doing Shakespeare. And you could almost see his discomfort in the role.

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Brutus was about 38-40. That was the age limit for praetors, and he was a praetor urbanus in year -44.

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I haven't seen this flick in a very long time, but I remember being conflicted about Jason Robards' performance. He does seem like he is sleepwalking and without direction. Then I realized that it is the character. Brutus is weak, was easily persuaded, and it's HIM you despise. That's why you just want to slap him. A great mistake, hating the actor because he vividly portrays a bad character.
He's better than you think.

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I thought Jason Robards's performance as Brutus was pretty poor (I'm being kind there, I really thought it was appalling). Surprising because Robards is usually so good on film. My views are that he was horribly miscast, not the right role for him at all!!!!

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Yeah, he wasn't very good. We watched only part of it in high school b/c my English teacher said the acting was really wooden she didn't want to show the whole thing. I understood what she was talking about when I watched Brutus. He really made it boring.

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lol

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Since so many people disagree with me on this, it may be that he took a risk, and lost. If it didn't come off, well...

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He was so bad that he made Charlton Heston look good. Robards hasn't a clue, he was totally out of his depth and whoever cast him was a complete idiot.

As others have pointed out some, like Gielgud and Rigg (and Robert Vaughan too I think), can do Shakespeare and others can't. Richard Chamberlain was pretty awful too.

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by Edward_de_Vere ยป Mon Jun 30 2008 16:02:48
IMDb member since July 2005
Robards is normally a first rate-actor. I wonder what went wrong here. He tried "stoic" and came out completely wooden.

On the Robards messageboard, I had speculated that in spite of his theatrical experience (mostly doing 20th century playwrights, such as O'Neill), he probably had little or no experience with Shakespeare, and so just wasn't comfortable with the language.

Charlton Heston was even worse as Marc Antony - you could tell that he was completely out of his usual element.

I don't know, they seem to do okay to me.

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i doubt you've taken any acting lessons so you are not qualified to judge acting

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