The soundtrack swoons and trembles. The editing beats with the circularity of prophesy: the past and future intrude constantly on the present. We start and end with fire, war, a child. Characters surge through the frame, dominate it, disappear in it. Fog, mist and smoke obscure, create planes. Moments of clear light in early almsot monochomatic scenes give way to haze and saturated colour.
Several friends complained to me that they could barely hear the actual Shakespeare in Justin Kurzel's 2015 Macbeth. They weren't familiar with the play; they strained to catch the murmured, thickly Scottish lines. What's the point of a Shakespeare adaptation you can't hear, can't understand, especially one with several such famous exhanges and soliloquies?
What's the point of film? Hitchcock says that a movie should be 90% understandable to viewers who don't even know the language. There is a pulsing inevitability to the movie Kurzel assembled. Some violence is cold; some howls; some burns. Time creeps and dashes, unstable, paranoid. The banquet is a chaos of tapestry, faces, gold. Birnam Wood smothers Dunsinane: the camera can barely find him. He can barely find himself; he is already drenched in madness. Lady Mac has died of internal moral necessity and a single string melody. The witches are as static and eternal as the mountains. Men sit on the throne and children run.
Jed Kurzel's OST is stunning. DoP Adam Arkapaw dedicates himself to beauty in light. It is shockingly gorgeous. I haven't done the maths but it wouldn't surprise if they'd picked a colour scheme for each act or location. Comparing the first and last frames tells a story on its own. There is progression here, journey. Shakespeare without any Shakespeare.
( many more )
Several friends complained to me that they could barely hear the actual Shakespeare in Justin Kurzel's 2015 Macbeth. They weren't familiar with the play; they strained to catch the murmured, thickly Scottish lines. What's the point of a Shakespeare adaptation you can't hear, can't understand, especially one with several such famous exhanges and soliloquies?
What's the point of film? Hitchcock says that a movie should be 90% understandable to viewers who don't even know the language. There is a pulsing inevitability to the movie Kurzel assembled. Some violence is cold; some howls; some burns. Time creeps and dashes, unstable, paranoid. The banquet is a chaos of tapestry, faces, gold. Birnam Wood smothers Dunsinane: the camera can barely find him. He can barely find himself; he is already drenched in madness. Lady Mac has died of internal moral necessity and a single string melody. The witches are as static and eternal as the mountains. Men sit on the throne and children run.
Jed Kurzel's OST is stunning. DoP Adam Arkapaw dedicates himself to beauty in light. It is shockingly gorgeous. I haven't done the maths but it wouldn't surprise if they'd picked a colour scheme for each act or location. Comparing the first and last frames tells a story on its own. There is progression here, journey. Shakespeare without any Shakespeare.
( many more )
