The charm's wound up
2015; Elsevier BV; Volume: 2; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s2215-0366(15)00465-4
ISSN2215-0374
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoAdapting Shakespeare has something in common with origami. No, seriously, stick with me. From one sheet of paper it's possible to create many shapes—a crane, say. Or a swan. Or a giraffe. It all depends on the folds you make in the paper. Macbeth has previously been adapted for the screen by, among others, Orson Welles (1948), by Akira Kurosawa (whose 1957 version, Throne of Blood, was TS Eliot's favourite film, Derek Malcolm tells us) by Roman Polanski (1971), and now by Justin Kurzel. From the same source material, they give us very different animals. Orson Welles's brooding version is long on atmosphere but—thanks to the cast's shaky Scottish accents and Welles's decision to cut the play's informative start—short on comprehensibility. What's the war these men have been fighting? What kind of relationship does Macbeth have with his wife? Any clues in Shakespeare's text are squandered. Welles made the film at great speed, in borrowed costumes and on a tight budget: none of these things matter. It's his treatment of information that obscures the shape of the story. Roman Polanski's Macbeth was funded by Playboy. It has Hugh Hefner as Executive Producer. It has Keith Chegwin as Fleance, a fact so joyous Paul Farley wrote a poem about it. But what it has most of all is clarity. Kenneth Tynan's script weighs every word and any radical decisions he makes –like cutting the much-analysed speech in which Lady Macbeth refers to having had a child, or making the minor character Ross into a key player—give definition to the action. We understand that Macbeth and his comrades have been resisting Norwegian invaders and that the treacherous Thane of Cawdor sided with the Scandinavians. Polanski's Macbeth is a tale of ambition, but it's also a portrait of a close and loving marriage lost. Justin Kurzel's new adaptation, starring Michael Fassbender in the title role and Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth, takes pains to orientate us in the play's medieval universe. Kurosawa built a castle on the blasted slopes of Mount Fuji for his abitious version, and Kurzel's film achieves a similarly epic feel. He also makes two key decisions, two key folds in the paper of the play. First, we're told that the war gripping Scotland is civil. This has a profound impact on the story—if the threat to Scotland is from inside, not out, then the audience begins to understand why the bonds of comradeship that seem to unite Macbeth, Banquo, and Macduff turn so quickly to mistrust. The clan rivalry of civil war obliges them to doubt each other. The second fold Kurzel makes feels like a consequence of the first: if the war gripping Scotland is civil, then it's all about succession. Kurzel makes us realise that this is a play full of children: Banquo's son Fleance, Macduff's doomed brood and of course the Macbeths' own lost child, whose funeral opens the film. We tend to imagine Malcolm to be a young man but here he seems boyish, a sensitive teenager. Even the witches have children. When Macbeth reproaches his wife for the “barren sceptre” of his kingship we suddenly understand that their despair is personal and political. Holding the crown is not enough. They need to pass it on. Only once does Kurzel allow this powerful reading of the play to get out of control and that's in his handling of the murder of Macduff's family. Having decided that it's the plot against these innocents which pushes Lady Macbeth into guilt-ridden insanity, he chooses not to stick with Shakespeare's own treatment of their deaths, and piles on the horror in a way that feels gratuitous. Polanski 's version of the scene, made while grieving the violent deaths of his own wife and unborn child, called on childhood memories of the Gestapo searching homes in the Warsaw ghetto, and the result was chilling in its quietness. Kurzel isn't alone in adding things to the play. Welles tried it too with similarly unrewarding results. Macbeth seems to reject grafts. You can't go sticking bits on. It's all in the art of folding. Macbeth Justin Kurzel, 2015 Running time: 113 min http://www.macbeth-movie.com Macbeth Justin Kurzel, 2015 Running time: 113 min http://www.macbeth-movie.com Macbeth Justin Kurzel, 2015 Running time: 113 min http://www.macbeth-movie.com
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