Filmed following a tour to site-specific spaces, Shakespeare’s Macbeth gives the floor to Ralph Fiennes’s rough soldier turned tormented king.
Although the camera cannot immerse you in sound and visuals in the same way as being present, this is a strong and vicious interpretation of the Scottish play which takes some bold staging decisions.
Indira Varma is a pushy Lady M who quickly finds matters running out of control, while Ben Turner’s Macduff wrestles with his strength and grief at death of both family and country.
The porter scene is excised as well as some peripheral lines and the character of Banquo’s son, which focuses our attention on murder, ambition, avarice and revenge.
With blue and grey tones, this Macbeth is cold in heart and spirit. Uneasy hearts and sleepless nights come with the crown, as our anti-hero soon discovers.
Too late, perhaps, he realises than constant killing has lost him place, family, and honour. The three witches, more ordinary gossips than suoernatural soothsayers, can set a seed of doubt against the grain of greed. No potion can calm the storm.
This is a brutal military world where the walls run with blood and branches move. Thrilling and bleak, this Macbeth crops just enough to retain the sense without revisioning the play.
Emily Burns’s adaptation adds no tricks to the play – no gender-swapped characters, no curious settings (Macbeth has already been done in a Nazi concentration camp, in the criminal underworld, on a council estate, and in an American diner).
The version as seen on stage of this production had the audience heading past burning rubble and other props on the way to their seats; we have to imagine such frilks or give them up for the privilege of close-ups.
Fiennes’s Macbeth is world weary, ageing, and suspicious. His increasing paranoia leads him to the arranged murder of Banquo, and the slaughter of Macduff’s wife and children. A late bout of bravado flips a finger at any man “born of woman” as they cannot hurt him.
I’ve seen many stage and screen adaptations of Macbeth. It is a tall order for anyone to bring something new to the play, but director Simon Godwin lets his cast dig deep into the text and bring a gory, but realistic, humanity to a cautionary story of power.
Macbeth is showing in UK cinemas from 2 May, and in selected international territories – find out more at https://www.macbethincinemas.com/.
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Image credit: Emilio Madrid