Macbeth Play Analysis

Review: Macbeth a visually striking period piece for the modern viewer We all wrote an essay about it in high school; Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” is so widely read that it’s surprising Justin Kurzel’s newest film is the first notable cinematic adaptation since Roman Polanski’s in 1971. Kurzel’s take on the Scottish play is a spectacle of haunting violence; he takes advantage of the cinematic medium and crafts a stunning aesthetic. As an adaptation, the film offers an imaginative reading of the familiar narrative of the eponymous Scottish general (Michael Fassbender, sure to draw a crowd at the box office) and his infamously manipulative wife (Marion Cotillard, art-house ace). However, in its attempts to be visually striking, much will seem to have
Less ambitious than haunted by war and the death of his children, Macbeth’s quietly disturbed psyche is established from the very opening scenes. Lady Macbeth is also afforded a more complex interpretation in this way. In part aided by the odd casting of Marion Cotillard, Lady Macbeth is not the usual one-dimensional manipulative shrew, but a woman driven by grief and frustration following the loss of her children. Instead of a political and familial disorder motif, the couple’s fruitless crown is a curse that digs deep into their respective psychologies. The ways the characters mentally unravel on screen is captivating. Kurzel and his trio of screenwriters (Jacob Koskoff, Michael Lesslie, and Todd Louis) take advantage of the cinematic medium. They add visual imaginations that develop the characters and themes in ways that are impossible on stage. Macbeth’s dip into madness is signaled by fast
Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s relationship takes a backseat to their individual narrative trajectories. When they are alone together, there is something about the relationship that lacks chemistry; it lacks something in the tradition of Frank and Claire Underwood, Bonnie and Clyde, the stage versions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Fassbender and Cotillard don’t feel like partners-in-crime driven away into their respective descents into madness, but a married couple that realized upon the death of their child that they were never that close to begin with, a couple that was really just in it for the great angry sex. Overall, the relationship feels a little too superficial, to the point where it almost doesn’t make sense for Macbeth to mourn Lady Macbeth’s death. In relation to the text, on a strictly line level, the performances are severely disappointing. The dialogue is often muttered and inaudible, a fault that may be forgiven in light of the gloomy and ominous tone of the film itself. But more importantly, none of the actors seem to connect with the language in a way that makes the delivery meaningful or even comprehensible to the viewer. And because so much of the text has been pared down to accommodate the battles scenes, every word counts more than it would