Review by Eric Hillis (@hilliseric)
Directed by: Justin Kurzel
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Elizabeth Debicki, Marion Cotillard, Sean harris, David Thewlis, Jack Reynor, Paddy Considine
Following its premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Justin Kurzel's adaptation of 'The Scottish Play' received a 10 minute standing ovation. At the conclusion of my screening, I felt like applauding for a similar amount of time, merely out of gratitude that the experience had finally ended. In Kurzel's hands, Macbeth resembles a two hour promo for a rugby final.
The single greatest piece of Shakespeare on screen can be found in John Ford's My Darling Clementine, a simple close up of Victor Mature's Doc Holliday reciting Hamlet. In this scene, we become aware that we're watching an actor playing a character playing another character. When we go to the theatre, we go to watch actors act. When we go the movies, we go to watch actors pretend not to act. When you transfer Shakespeare to the screen, this artifice is immediately broken, and we're always aware that we're watching performers, making it difficult to invest ourselves in the drama.
Of course, there are worthwhile Shakespeare movies, those made by actors turned directors like Olivier, Welles and Branagh, but they understand that attempting to make something cinematic out of the bard is pointless, and instead give us elegant productions that are nevertheless essentially filmed plays, allowing us to revel in the performances and the words. In recent decades we've seen filmmakers like Baz Luhrman, Ralph Fiennes and now Kurzel attempt to dazzle us with visuals that work against, rather than compliment the text. Kurzel's Macbeth suggests he has little interest in the source material, bombarding us with cutaway images and flashy tricks that are at times unintentionally giggle inducing, like a time lapse shot of Fassbender's Macbeth standing at the foot of his bed as night turns to day, like the heroine of Paranormal Activity. The many slo-mo battle shots resemble a Guinness commercial directed by Zack Snyder. The camera shakes, tracks or cuts away completely during the play's main monologues, doing Cotillard and Fassbender a grave disservice.
