 Last night I viewed the movie, Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender in the title role. The scene where he emerges bare-chested from a frigid Scottish pond will likely be appealing to some but, all in all, the movie—critical reviews be damned—is pretty darn bad. In the movie’s credits the producers are careful to stipulate that this is a movie “based” on Shakespeare’s play. I suppose this disclaimer makes the writers (multiple script writers, by the way—always a dangerous thing) feel that they may play fast and loose with Shakespeare’s original which they do. I can only say that, if he were still alive, Shakespeare would certainly sue. Let me start on a positive note; the acting is not bad. Fassbender is a competent actor and Marion Cotillard who plays lady Macbeth is more than competent. Many lesser roles are carried off very professionally, Macduff, for example . . . but the writing! Bad, bad, bad! Please don’t misunderstand, there have been film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays which I have liked very much. And I concede the medium of film demands some tinkering with the script. Scenes need to be shortened, visuals emphasized, long speeches parsed. Fine, no problem. But with this adaptation almost every decision the director and writers make is bad one, sometimes incomprehensible. First, they decide they will lift whole pieces of dialogue and put them in parts of the play where they don’t belong. To save time, I suppose. Squeeze two scenes into one. Very avant-garde--not. |
And the opportunities lost! The things left out! It boggles my mind. For example, when Macbeth hallucinates and sees a dagger before his eyes. No dagger. They leave that scene out. And in Lady Macbeth’s mad scene—“out, out damned spot”—that one, the camera does not once show the lady’s hands! There is no old porter either, the only comic relief in the play. “Knock, knock, knock! Who knocks at the door?” None of that. Is there some need to make the play darker?
Worse than these examples though, are the “artistic” additions to the story. Consider the scene where Macduff’s wife and children are caught and killed. Somehow the writers thought it insufficient to have them slaughtered by the sword. Instead the writers decide to make a much larger spectacle of it, burning them alive in front of the locals who in dark robes stand grimly on a gloomy heath. What are they thinking? Are they trying to appeal to the Game of Thrones crowd? On that note, I can only comment that the Game of Thrones people do it much better.
Worse than these examples though, are the “artistic” additions to the story. Consider the scene where Macduff’s wife and children are caught and killed. Somehow the writers thought it insufficient to have them slaughtered by the sword. Instead the writers decide to make a much larger spectacle of it, burning them alive in front of the locals who in dark robes stand grimly on a gloomy heath. What are they thinking? Are they trying to appeal to the Game of Thrones crowd? On that note, I can only comment that the Game of Thrones people do it much better.
What most put my shorts in a knot though is what happens near the end of the film, when Lady Macbeth is dead, lying on her bed. “She should have died hereafter,” Macbeth says. A very touching moment, and the start of Macbeth’s final dissolution. From this point everything falls apart for him. He is cut off from every consolation. And so he begins his speech—that masterpiece of nihilism: “Tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day...” This is one of the most riveting, frightening, depressing speeches in all of literature. This is a speech suitably delivered on a dark moor (where most of the film is shot) but instead, the director has Macbeth says these lines while holding his limp wife in his arms. No, no, no! Macbeth is far past grieving over the death of anyone at this point. He is already a dead man walking. And he goes on and on, holding his dead wife and commiserating like he thinks he’s King Lear—wrong play, guys. I can only think Marion must be thinking, “God, will he ever stop talking and put me back on the bed?”
Macbeth is a dark tale, and the producers of this film have succeeded in finding landscapes that underscore this fact. The Scottish Tourism Board would not be pleased, I think. The louring clouds drifting across barren snow-draped Scottish mountains are as appealing as the grave. The battle scenes are ugly, long and fierce. All this is well and good but, honestly, do they need to rub it in our face quite so much? The story is dark; yes, I get it.
Macbeth is a dark tale, and the producers of this film have succeeded in finding landscapes that underscore this fact. The Scottish Tourism Board would not be pleased, I think. The louring clouds drifting across barren snow-draped Scottish mountains are as appealing as the grave. The battle scenes are ugly, long and fierce. All this is well and good but, honestly, do they need to rub it in our face quite so much? The story is dark; yes, I get it.
Maybe the whole idea of having a Scottish play retold by Scots (this is a British-French-American production; I can only assume some Scots were involved) is a bad idea from the start. Let the Italians do it next time, or the Spanish. I’m sure the Italians would have kept the porter in. And rather than giving us the bland, haggard—looking like they’ve just got off a twelve hour bus ride from Vancouver— weird sisters, let some hot-blooded Latin director give us real witches to sink our teeth into.
What can I say? Mess with a masterpiece at your peril!
a little footnote: After reading about this movie in Wikipedia I see that it received considerable critical acclaim, even got a rating of 79% in Rotten Tomatoes. All this might mean that I could be quite wrong in my reflections, but I’m not!
So says the Shakespearean curmudgeon!
What can I say? Mess with a masterpiece at your peril!
a little footnote: After reading about this movie in Wikipedia I see that it received considerable critical acclaim, even got a rating of 79% in Rotten Tomatoes. All this might mean that I could be quite wrong in my reflections, but I’m not!
So says the Shakespearean curmudgeon!
