Just started watching the 2010 production of 'Macbeth', with Patrick Stewart as the ambitious thane. Preeeettty brutal already. But then, it's a brutal play.
I always feel so sorry for the poor soldier at the very beginning who reports the battle success to King Duncan. Guy's greviously wounded, bleeding out, and they're interrogating him hardcore, and I'm always like - Jeezus, king, give the poor man a Band-aid or something, for fuck's sake!
Looks like some of this was filmed inside some war tunnel or other. Such wartime tunnels are all over Europe & the UK, some known, others long gone or lost; and it all brings home the reminder of the horrible impact both World Wars had on Europe.
We don't really have a clue about that, here in the US.
Cinematography is daaaaark and booky. Stark, brutalist, bloody. Loving the characterization of the Three Witches. I won't spoil it, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
I'm a big fan of Sir Stewart, yet I also don't think I've ever seen any of his work in Shakespeare. Which I find ridiculous of me, given the course of his theatrical work.
Man, I can't wait to see Kate Fleetwood's interpretation of Lady Macbeth.
I don't know who any of the other actors are but they're great. The guy who plays Banquo looks like Harry Dean Stanton, but it isn't Stanton.
My dude: *take off your hat before your liege, Thane Macbeth.* Why such ill-mannered disrespect?
...Oh. Right.
Ok, we just got the hubris of Macbeth, who has now contemplated the possibility of getting Malcom & Duncan out of the way, that he might be King of Scotland.
So this brings to mind the full cycle of retribution the Greeks came up with, a three-part process that inevitably ended in meeting your fate much worse than you would have if you'd just let well enough alone.
The first step was Hubris, which was the *thought* that you might alter your fate somehow. It's not an action - Ate (pron. "AH-tay") is the action you take to change it. And Nemesis is the retribution you receive for daring to try it. In the case of the Macbeths, their hubris is the *thought* that they can climb to royalty via murder. The action is... well, the murders and whatnot. Their Nemesis is when it all goes to shit in the final act.
OK & Lady Macbeth could cut glass with her cheekbones. Yowza. Incredible. She & Mr. Macbeth are much more partners in this production - not so much Lady Macbeth driving her husband on, but the two of them similarly-minded in purpose much earlier in the play.
The imagery of death in his production is everywhere. The kitchen scene, hooo boy - in the preparation of a meal there is death & violence implied everywhere.
Dunno why I'm on a Shakespeare kick of late, but I am. As I watch or read I'm reminded of how many adages & idioms we use today that the Bard gave us, & how his works have woven into literature & theater & movies & the like. "Macbeth" gives us, for instance, "a dagger of the mind" from the famed dagger speech - used as a title for an episode of Star Trek (TOS).
I must confess, at certain moments, when Stewart plays Macbeth with firm confidence instead of shivering cowardice, I half expect him to say something like "Make it so!"
There's a great deal in this play about how bound up with masculinity violence is. First Lady Macbeth, later King Macbeth, berate men for basically not being man enough to muster the initiative to do violence to other men. I'm at the scene where King Macbeth is instructing the two assassins to do in Banquo and the MacDuff family. Yowza.
Whoa. Lady M. got slutty. Red dress, tarted up, in a red bedroom. And the sad detail of a single child's shoe in a drawer, shut quickly to shut out the pain of seeing it, and of... loss, I presume.
I see the seeds of her insanity in the wobble of her head on her neck - very slight at this point, first seen after she set up Duncan's chamberlains. The stress is wearing on her. I don't think these are people who really had the mettle, the spirit, to be ruthless killers. Violent, yes. Brutal, yes. But they could not compass the ends of their enemies without conscience, and the guilt is driving them absolutely mad.
Also, Sir Pat Stew looks utterly luscious in a dinner jacket, and Madam Fleetwood is absolutely *stunning* in her crimson evening gown.
Oh wow. Macbeth just snatched a cigarette from the mouth of one of his lords and crumbled it upon his head, a move that reminds one of Adolph Hitler's dislike of cigarette smoking. I have no doubt the visual reference is entirely intentional.
Annnnd, we're singing & dancing as the Macbeths lose their shit. We just tipped over into La La Land, folks.
LOL I am someday going to use Lady Macbeth's line: "You have displaced the mirth."
Ok, so Lady MacB. has totally lost her shit; just saw the "out, damn spot!" scene. Brilliant. Vibrant. Wretched. Now in the chaos of King Macbeth at the table in his great hall, full of the detritus of a failed feast. It's really odd to see the huge painting of Stewart depicted in the fashion of an Eastern Bloc propaganda poster.
In the beginning we first see Macbeth dressed in soldier's fatigues; he's back to the same again, come full circle.
Aw shit, and here comes the Birnam Wood... shit's 'bout to get real for Mad King Macbeth.
Dudes in ghillie suits are a great modern reworking of the march of Dunsinane Wood. One of the things I love about reworkings of plays or poetry or folk tales is that the reworking can reveal a continuity of history and humanity: we know that in Shakespeare's time, men might think to camouflage themselves in greenery just as they do today, with ghillie suits. It's exactly the same thing, just 500 years later.
Aw shit, Siward brought a knife to a gunfight. Yeah, he was *definitely* born of woman.
MacDuff brought a knife to a gunfight too, buuuuuut my spider sense is telling me he's gonna do a bit better than Siward did.
Macbeth hath indeed lost his head. Annnnnd, scene. /fin
Well that was a ride. Holy mackerel. Five chainsaws out of five, I'll say. Highly recommended. Get a raw steak, some red wine, prepare for blood, and it fits the mood well.
It dawns on me that Macbeth is very much in the tradition of the Mad King archetype. Shakespeare subverted him from a simply melancholy but benevolent character to someone equally as tragic, but deeply dark, disturbing and disturbed.