Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is gorgeous but wimpy
Macbeth is our favorite Shakespeare because it is phantasmagorical, fast, and it makes us identify with its murderous maniac so that we are complicit in his deeds even as we recoil in horror.
The new screen adaptation by Justin Kurzel is rich in phantasmagorical atmosphere. “Scotland”, wreathed in mist, looks like a gorgeous gateway to hell. When the three witches turn up—four including the child who appears with them—we’re not even surprised because they belong there. They don’t look like toothless crones with warty faces, but aspects of nature.
Then Macbeth goes into battle for King Duncan, and as the two armies charge at each other, the action turns to slow, slow, very slow-motion. Ngek. We thought the point of adapting a play for the cinema was to let it move. Director Justin Kurzel stands his actors in front of beautiful medieval finery and makes them recite the words. Then he chops up and remixes the text so the grandeur is watered down. There is plenty of blood, but we are detached observers. When it occurs to him to add choreography the results are impressive, such as the murder of Banquo scene. Otherwise the film is reminiscent of our grade school terror: the declamation contest.
Macbeth stars two of the most beautiful people on earth, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. Fassbender is a robust Macbeth, beefier than usual, as befits a mighty warrior. Cotillard is too ladylike as the woman who calls on the spirits to “unsex” her so she can do what must be done, who goads her husband into killing the king and then anyone who might threaten his reign. Unfortunately this is part of the director’s vision.
The film opens with the Macbeths burying a child, presumably their own. That’s not in the play, but scholars have noted that the real-life inspiration for the character had a dead child. One interpretation is that Macbeth, being unable to have children, killed children. So instead of a strong, furious Lady Macbeth, the film gives us a depressed mother. We would’ve bought an “If I can’t have children, then neither can you; I’m already dead so die!” interpretation. “Poor me, no baby” doesn’t do it for us. Why can’t characters just be evil instead of putting us through their psychotherapy?
We recommend you see Macbeth anyway—it might move you to read the play, or watch other adaptations. Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood is still the best Macbeth we’ve seen.
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January 20th, 2016 at 18:05
After watching this, I viewed the BBC version (1983) and was struck by the clarity of the speaking in the latter. Most of the reviews I read did complain of how the actors mumbled their way through the Kurzel version. Thank God for subtitles. Shakespeare is headache-inducing enough as it is. But so much dialogue was omitted that, to me, Macbeth’s internal agonizing and transformation from loyal thane to murdering throne usurper seemed too quick. Ay why did they cut out “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”, a line which, oddly enough, I first came across in an Agatha Christie novel.
In an earlier post you said a French-sounding Lady Macbeth would be historically accurate, but interestingly, Cotillard ditched the French accent and went English all the way. I read somewhere that attempting a Scottish accent gave her trouble; but then again perhaps this was, like everything else, dictated by the director’s vision. It’s a character that seems a good fit for the likes of Kate Winslet or Rebecca Ferguson or even Rosamund Pike; had it been any one of them I would have had some idea in my head of their take on the role. But Cotillard, a choice that seemed out of left field (even if she definitely has the acting chops for it), made it interesting. The “out, damned spot” scene: while Judi Dench’s plaintive, chilling cry stunned in its rawness, I found Cotillard’s vulnerable and restrained portrayal rather quietly moving.