This essay focuses primarily on the Italian film Cesare deve morire (2012), an adaptation and appropriation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar acted by prisoners in Rebibbia District Prison, Rome. (1) If we use Linda Hutcheons definition of adaptation as "a derivation that is not a derivative--a work that is second without being secondary" and Jean Marsdens description of appropriation as "seizure for one's own uses," this production can be seen to fall into both of these (partly overlapping) categories. (2) At the same time, the shape-shifting Julius Caesar finds a poignantly revealing representation in its new form. This paper intends also to highlight the relevance of the presence onstage of Caesar's dead body, both in the English play and in the prison courtyard, in an attempt to demonstrate that the physical presence of the corpse is a determining element in both works. While examining the choices made by the Italian directors in order to tailor the language and the scenes to the setting of a contemporary prison, some more general considerations are made on the possible affinities between theatre and jail and on some of the implications of reading and acting Shakespeare during imprisonment. In 2012, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, both in their early eighties, winners of many prizes, and well known for their literary adaptations (Tolstoy, Pirandello, Dumas) produced the film Cesare deve morire (Caesar Must Die). (3) This film, which we could call a docudrama or docufilm, is based on a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by prisoners held in the Carcere di Rebibbia, a high-security prison in the eastern suburbs of Rome. (4) The film won the 62nd Berlin Film Festival, five David di Donatello awards, and was selected as the Italian entry for the best foreign language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards. The production records the yearly project carried out by the Italian theatre director Fabio Cavalli, which consists in involving prisoners--whose crimes range from drug trafficking and participation in organized crime to murder, and whose sentences vary from ten to fifteen years to life imprisonment--in acting activities organized as part of a rehabilitation program. The Taviani brothers had been to see one of these performances and suggested to Cavalli that he should attempt to put on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and that they might try to film the phases of its production, from casting and rehearsals to the actual performance on the prison stage. Cavalli agreed and the project took place. There are numerous factors specific to this Roman play contributing to making this adaptation particularly striking and memorable. The staging of the Forum scene particularly, with Caesar's dead body and speeches concerning the legitimacy of murder, acquires special resonance for inmates who know they will end their days in that same place. Widely recognized as a watershed in Shakespeare's dramatic writing, coming almost certainly in 1599 between the comedies and histories and just before the great tragedies and thus a kind of gateway to plays where the nature of power is seen in a larger perspective and with deeper symbolic significance, Julius Caesar has lent itself to multiple interpretations and classifications. Moral exemplum, chronicle, or revenge tragedy, derived mainly (but possibly not only) from North's translation of Plutarch's Lives--the lives in question being those of Caesar, Brutus, and Antony--it has often been seen as a play lacking a main character, the eponymous protagonist speaking only six percent of the total lines and dying before the middle of the play. The real theme, then, is not so much Julius Caesar but his death and the debate over the legitimacy of the killing of a sovereign when--and if--he is on his way to becoming a tyrant, a theme which has inevitably encouraged numerous rewritings for both stage and screen and which, as we shall see, brought out abundant parallels with the personal history of the Italian offenders who acted in Cesare deve morire, most of whom came from the south of Italy and were involved in criminal organizations with their own inner rules and hierarchies. …

中文翻译：

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重演凯撒在罗马监狱中的死亡

本文主要关注意大利电影 Cesare deve Morire (2012)，改编和挪用莎士比亚的《凯撒大帝》，由罗马 Rebibbia 区监狱的囚犯扮演。(1) 如果我们使用 Linda Hutcheon 对适应的定义是“一种不是衍生的衍生——一种非次要的作品”，而让·马斯登将挪用描述为“自用”，则这种生产可以是被视为属于这两个（部分重叠）类别。(2) 与此同时，变形的凯撒大帝在其新形式中找到了一种深刻的启示。本文还打算强调凯撒尸体出现在舞台上的相关性，无论是在英国戏剧中还是在监狱庭院中，试图证明尸体的物理存在是两部作品的决定因素。在研究意大利导演为使语言和场景适应当代监狱环境而做出的选择时，对戏剧和监狱之间可能的相似性以及阅读和表演的一些影响进行了一些更普遍的考虑莎士比亚在狱中。2012 年，保罗和维托里奥·塔维亚尼 (Paolo) 和维托里奥·塔维亚尼 (Paolo) 和维托里奥·塔维亚尼 (Vittorio Taviani) 都曾获得多项奖项，并以文学改编（托尔斯泰、皮兰德罗、大仲马）而闻名，他们制作了电影《凯撒必死》。(3) 这部电影，我们可以称之为纪录片或纪录片，是根据莎士比亚的《凯撒大帝》由关押在 Carcere di Rebibbia 的囚犯的表演改编的，罗马东郊的一座戒备森严的监狱。（4）本片获得第62届柏林电影节、五项大卫·迪多纳泰罗奖，并入选第85届奥斯卡最佳外语奥斯卡意大利语参赛作品。该制作记录了意大利戏剧导演法比奥·卡瓦利 (Fabio Cavalli) 进行的年度项目，其中包括涉及囚犯——他们的罪行范围从贩毒、参与有组织犯罪到谋杀，刑期从十年到十五年不等到无期徒刑—— - 作为康复计划的一部分组织的表演活动。塔维亚尼兄弟曾经看过其中一场表演，并向卡瓦利建议他应该尝试穿上莎士比亚的《凯撒大帝》，并尝试拍摄其制作的各个阶段，从选角、彩排到监狱舞台上的实际表演。Cavalli 同意了，这个项目就开始了。这部罗马戏剧有许多特定的因素，使这种改编特别引人注目和令人难忘。论坛场景的上演，尤其是凯撒的尸体和关于谋杀合法性的演讲，让那些知道他们将在同一个地方结束他们的日子的囚犯产生了特殊的共鸣。被广泛认为是莎士比亚戏剧写作的分水岭，几乎可以肯定是在 1599 年喜剧和历史之间以及在大悲剧之前，因此是一种通向戏剧的门户，在那里可以从更大的角度看待权力的本质并具有更深的象征意义，朱利叶斯凯撒已经借给自己多种解释和分类。道德范例、编年史或复仇悲剧，主要（但可能不仅）源自诺斯对普鲁塔克的生平的翻译——所讨论的生平是凯撒、布鲁图斯和安东尼的生平——它经常被视为缺乏主角，同名的主角只讲了总台词的 6%，并在剧中前死亡。那么，真正的主题不是尤利乌斯·凯撒，而是他的死，以及关于在他即将成为暴君时杀害一位君主的合法性的辩论，这个主题不可避免地鼓励了对舞台和银幕进行了无数次改写，正如我们将看到的，这些改写与在 Cesare deve Morire 中扮演的意大利罪犯的个人历史有着丰富的相似之处，他们中的大多数来自意大利南部，并参与了具有自己内部规则和等级制度的犯罪组织。…