Shakespeare Would Approve

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2016)

Director Justin Kurzel and Michael Fassbender's Macbeth won me over in the second half of this film. The first half reminded me why so few of Shakespeare's plays are tackled on film - being a chore to understand who's who and what's going on, and with the audience trying to come to grips with the language, the entertainment side of things can disappear into a black hole. If you don't know something about the play and characters beforehand, you've got to concentrate hard to know who's talking to who, and what they're talking about.
Then comes the language. Unfortunately, Shakespeare's cleverly coined phrases and metaphors, meter and poetic imagery isn't easy on the ear for two hours at a time. But don't let that stop you enjoying what else is going on.
The good thing is, Shakespeare wrote to entertain the masses as well as the hoi polloi, so his something-for-everyone storytelling talent transcends many of our limitations in watching it. Not many film makers take the Shakespeare challenge on, and those that do often suffer the consequences. After a somewhat ignominious start, Kurzel's Macbeth gathers momentum. It does an excellent job of transporting it's audience into a rarified entertainment atmosphere. From the time of MacDuff's gruesome discovery of King Duncan's bloody body, Fassbender is allowed to nail the sense and sensibilities of the language, allowing us to piece together a digestible picture of his Macbeth.
Prior to this, the mix of language and film imagery struggles for coherency. The heightened imagery of the language, at odds with the naturalistic scenes and film performance of the actors, threatens to make Shakespeare appear (to the uninitiated) to be a story telling charlatan. What Shakespeare structures in his writing to make work on stage is left floundering against the vast panorama of nature, visual selection of the camera, and actors acting naturally. Kurzel has tried to edit the play and story to accommodate this. In the first half, I felt that creates more problems than solutions for the audience. Having performed in this play (MacDuff & Duncan) professionally, I knew what was meant to be going on but, as I said, coherent revelation and story telling wasn't coming off the screen.
Anyone who has worked with Shakespeare's text soon learns the major lesson is to trust Shakespeare. Kurzel inadvertently makes the mistake of trying to compromise for the medium he's working in. The result is that the glue that is Shakepeare's language has nothing to stick to. Shakespeare pots his characters and works his scenes in a fashion so as the language becomes part of the storytelling. Film, along with being a visual medium, is a naturalistic form. It's not friendly or synonymous to theatrical, poetic device, which Shakespeare's characters and language stem from. In this case, the coherent story doesn't really get going until Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's introspections allow us to focus on the language and with that, the chance to piece things together.
Something rather unusual happens then. Time stretches as we're consciously drawn into the character's bind, by the language. After his first half story modifications and '300' like production values, Kurzel doesn't muck around with Shakespeare's set pieces in the second half. And it is this allowing of the intended theatrical device and structure in the story telling which lets the language do its job. Fassbender knew exactly what this opportunity was about, and his second half performance shows it.
Fassbender passes the test of acting craft in not only handling the language, he surrenders to letting Shakespeare do the work. Marion Cotillard, as Lady Macbeth, does a commendable job opposite Fassbender but, while handling the language, seems to understate Lady Macbeth's dramatic descent into madness under the eye of the camera. This is a pity for such a talented actress, and a short coming on the part of Justin Kurzel's direction. I found myself zoning out at those times that I should have been having a strong reaction to her suffering her fate. And again with David Thelewis's rather staid King Duncan. Kurzel hardly sets the circumstance for him to be seen as benevolent and thoroughly beloved by his subjects. Our feelings toward the 'deep damnation of his taking off' (murder) by Macbeth becomes almost extraneous when it should be emotionally pivotal for us. Visually, the effort in setting scenes is thorough and quite glorious. This despite the fact that medieval Scotland was a dour existence. Coupled with religious and occult practices and superstitions, frequent battles and skirmishes with invaders and neighbours, the rotten weather alone depicted in this film would be enough to make you appreciate a short life. Kurzel and a dedicated cast and crew, and Shakespeare, do salvage gripping entertainment from the jaws of early troubles. Then, the storytelling and characters stand well in their own right. I think Shakespeare would approve of the audience getting into this one.