Thoughts on Macbeth and Movies
MACBETH (2015)
Directed by Justin
Kurzel
The Weinstein
Company, 113 minutes, R (violence and brief sexuality)
* * * *
When I turned 50, I gave myself permission to dislike a
bunch of things that "sophisticated" people are supposed to like: Bach, opera, Baroque art, ballet, and
Shakespeare. This shocks some of my dearest friends, especially the ones who
think Shakespeare is the very embodiment of all that is good and fine in
Western civilization. I have
issues with the Bard—starting with the fact that a lot of the same intellectuals
that scoff at Biblical literalists treat Shakespeare's every word as if it is
sacred. They don't care about the staging–you can dress the actors in mukluks
if you wish–but don't touch the prose. I happen to think Shakespeare was wordier
than a slum full of Dickens. Plus, I don't speak Elizabethan—nobody does these
days, except on stage.
My other big issue is that Billy Shakes was a terrible
historian! Fine—his job was to entertain, not to lecture, but because his words
have been sanctified, a lot of utter rubbish has come to be perceived as a true
record of the past. Take Richard III, for example. Who actually knows that he
was a decent king who was quite handsome, not Shakespeare's mincing hunchback? Of
all of Shakespeare's slanders, the worst was his take on Macbeth. I'll get back
to this, but first let's consider a new film version that hews the Bard's propagandist storyline, but takes liberties with the production in ways
guaranteed to perturb purists, scene-chewing thespians, and directors more
ambitious than Justin Kurzel.
Kurzel's Macbeth
is truncated in several ways. First, a normal stage production generally
runs from 2.5-3 hours, but Kurzel's film is under two. He has cut dialogue–quite
a lot, actually, as he uses the medium of film to full advantage: facial
expressions, smoky special effects, scarred bodies, brooding silences, sweeping
pan shots, etc. that convey information in images rather than words. The film unspools
at a much faster pace, but the crosscutting between speech and image actually tells
the story with greater clarity and accessibility.
Kurzel hasn't altered the content. King Duncan (David
Thewlis) is near defeat by Northumbrian enemies before skilled general and
Thane (baron) of Glamis Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) turns the tide and saves
Duncan's throne. A grateful Duncan bestows an additional title upon Macbeth,
Thane of Cawdor, but a witches' prophecy unsettles Macbeth. They tell him that
he shall be king, but that his friend Banquo (Paddy Considine) will sire the
line of future kings. Driven by poisonous ambition and the vainglorious prodding
of Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard), Macbeth turns monster in an attempt to
alter fate. After dispatching Duncan and frightening the king's son Malcolm (Jack
Reynor) to flight, Macbeth subsequently arranges for the murder of Banquo and
his son Fleance (Lochlan Harris), though the latter escapes via magical
deception. As they say, things fall apart from there. Macbeth descends into madness,
Lady Macbeth kills herself, and the tragedy ends in Macbeth's demise via a
sword wielded by his main accuser, Macduff, the Thane of Fife (Sean Harris).
Macbeth is among
Shakespeare's bloodiest plays, and Kurzel graphically depicts this. Violence is
literally etched upon Fassbender's body: oozing head wounds, a road-map of scars,
blood running as thickly as sweat…. Battle scenes are gruesome and Duncan's
murder is sanguinary and grisly. Some critics have panned Fassbender for his
mumbling delivery and exaggerated physicality, but I saw this as a way of
placing Macbeth inside the Hobbesian man-against-man savagery of 11th
century Scotland. Okay, he's not Olivier, McKellen, or Welles, but in many
ways, Fassbender's primal Macbeth is more historical than robed figures
delivering eloquent soliloquies. My only quarrel with the film is its sloppy
elision of time, which so compresses Macbeth's rise and fall as to make it seem
instantaneous.
So let's talk about history. Shakespeare gets a flat-out
"F" for his version of Macbeth. The real MacBheatha mac Fhionnlaigh
(Gaelic for "son of life") did not murder his king; Duncan died in
battle against the Northumbrians in 1040. His fellow thanes chose Macbeth king
over Duncan's son Malcolm, who fled Scotland. There was some opposition to
Macbeth's kingship, but that was the norm for whoever wore the crown back then.
He ruled from 1040 to 1057, and no contemporary accused him of regicide,
corruption, tyranny, or misrule. He too died in battle against a Northumbrian
army, one led by none other than Malcolm, an act easily viewed as traitorous, which
probably explains why Macbeth's adopted son was his immediate successor, though
he was feeble-minded. (Malcolm murdered him a year later and took the throne as
Malcolm III.)
Why such tinkering with the historical record? It probably
had less to do with Shakespeare's need to find the proper vehicle for his
clever words than it did with the fact that his patron was King James VI of
Scotland (James I of England), who was descended from Malcolm III. In other
words, Shakespeare was sucking up to his patron. Today we'd use words like
"embedded" and "toadyism" to describe his actions. So I
don't mind at all when someone edits Shakespeare.* They're unlikely to butcher
the Bard as badly as the Bard carved up history.
Rob Weir
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