Macbeth
(2015)
I don’t
know quite what was going on in Justin Kurzel’s head, but it wasn’t anything good.
How do you turn Macbeth, the most
visceral and succinct of Shakespeare’s tragedies, into something so dull, fractured
and disengaged? He leaves the play hollow, disembowelled, inducing us to
contemplate an edit suite’s worth of tinted colour washes, random isolated “artistic”
shots and disconnected actors staring into space. Perhaps we have reached the
point where any slightly different take on the Bard gets an automatic free
pass, or a commendation even, but this one certainly shouldn’t.
Kurzel appears
so set on creating a visual and aural ambiance, he completely loses any sense
of plot, which is quite something as, of all Shakespeare’s plays, it’s probably
the most difficult to get lost within. There’s an active effort to undermine
the drama and dialogue at every turn, with scenes rendered inert by the
performers’ lack of engagement.
His leads perversely
bury their dialogue, forcing forth subdued delivery from somewhere amidst a
glen in Scotland (Kurzel probably thought it was a really good idea having most
of this take place outdoors, but the effect is too close to parody; you keep
expecting “The Comic Strip Presents”
to flash up at any moment). There’s zero sense of the coiled relationship
between Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) and Lady Macbeth (Marian Cotillard),
despite throwing in an extra-textual lost bibby at the outset. Their motivation
in murder is purely because that’s what it says in the play, rather than through
investment in the characters, and the antic dispositions subsequently afflicting
them find Fassbender practically Python-ing
it up with “m-m-m-mad” looks when he starts
seeing spooks everywhere.
This Macbeth comes across an exercise in
tonal difference, rather than the result of a desire to deliver a distinct
vision of the play. It’s akin to an overly self-conscious student art project,
just with striking cinematography; all distracted shots of the Fass
soliloquising, intercut with rearing horses. Kurzel’s approach makes for a
curiously, and bizarrely, passive interpretation. And clumsily literal at times
too. Birnam Wood may not come to Dunsinane, for some unknown reason, but when
Lady M instructs her hubby to screw his courage to the sticking post, they
actually screw. It’s as if Beavis and Butthead were in on the script conference
(“She said screw, heh-heh”).
It wouldn’t
surprise me, as somehow it took three writers to adapt the play. The first half
hour is incredibly ponderous, despite – or because – of Kurzel making great
play at the warfare (this isn’t just limited to the nonsense of stage theatrics,
you know). He only really gets a grip whenever Sean Harris enter scene left as
Macduff. Harris is an inspired piece of casting, making a character who tends
to be rather linear and earnest instantly wired and dangerous, long before he’s
lost his precious little ones (the only Sean Harris there is wired and
dangerous; you could cast him as the romantic lead in a Richard Curtis comedy
and he’d still freak you out). He steals the show; it should have been called Macduff.
Harris has
a relatively easy job, mind, as so little else is of consequence. The climactic
battle is entirely without drama, since we never worked up any interest in the
fates of Mr and Mrs Mac B to begin with; there’s no rise and fall, no
escalation or tension. A solid cast has been assembled (Paddy Considine, David
Thewlis, Elizabeth Debicki) but they’re immobile, taken down by the overly
fussy editing, distracted stylistic flourishes and a Jed Kurzel score which,
although good, serves merely to underline his brother’s disinterest in providing
an immersive experience. Unless one equates superficial with engrossing.
There
are a good few film adaptations of the Scottish Play out there, and pretty much
any of them would be a better bet to investigate than this one. Still, we can
but hope Kurzel’s Macbeth paves the way
for further tone-deaf adaptations: perhaps Michael Bay’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or McG’s The Tempest. As for what this says abut Kurzel’s forthcoming Assassin’s Creed, I wouldn’t hold your
breath for the bright new dawn of computer game properties smartly translated to
the big screen.
