Film Review
by Linda B.
Title: Macbeth
Year: 2015
Author: Ian Canning, Laura Hastings-Smith, Emilie Sherman
Director: Justin Kurzel
Country: United Kingdom, France, United States of America
Laguage: ENGLISH
The story is set in Scotland, in the Middle Ages, during the reign of King Duncan.
The film starts with the funeral of Macbeth's son. After that, during a fight against the combined
forces of Norway and Ireland led by the rebel Macdonwald, Macbeth, baron of Glamis, and Banquo
meet three Witches who pronounce some prophecies to them. The three women greet Macbeth as
“Thane of Cawdor” and they say that he will become king. The three Witches also predict that
Banquo will be the founder of a line of kings.
When the three Witches go away, the messenger of the king arrives to inform Macbeth that he has
acquired the title of “Thane of Cawdor”.
Macbeth sends a letter to his wife, Lady Macbeth, describing the witches’ predictions and how one
of them had come true.
When king Duncan decides to stay in Inverness, Lady Macbeth contrives a plan to murder the good
king, made blind by ambition. The first time she explains her plan to Macbeth he looks worried, but
she convinces him.
During the night Macbeth kills king Duncan and he scares the king’s son, but he feels upset, so Lady
Macbeth takes the control of the situation, and deflects suspicions on the guards.
Macbeth becomes king but he is worried about the prophecy of Banquo and his sons. So he tries to
kill them. Banquo is murdered by Macbeth’s guards, but Fleance, his son, survives, so Macbeth goes
to the three Witches again, to give vent to his feelings of anxiety and worry.
The three Witches say that he can feel safe because Banquo's son will never kill him: they say that no
man born of a woman will ever be able to kill him, and that only when Birnam wood moves towards
Dunsinane, he will be in danger.
Macbeth decides to kill Macduff, whom he considers a traitor, but when he doesn't find him in his
castle, he decides to murder his wife and sons.
In England, Macduff and Malcom, Duncan’s son, are planning to invade Scotland. To hide soldiers,
they cut branches, making true the prophecy of the three Witches: “Birnan wood advances to
Dunsinane”.
The fight ends with the decapitation of Macbeth by Macduff – who was born of a caesarean birth - ,
and with Malcom ascending to the throne of Scotland.
During the film we can see some important and meaningful scenes which give emphasis to the film
and the message. The dialogue between Macbeth and his wife, when she unveils her plan to murder
king Duncan. The madness of Macbeth during the banquet, when he’s the only one who can see the
ghost of Banquo, and starts to become insane; or when Lady Macbeth commits suicide: the scenes of
lady Macbeth’s madness, in particular, highlight her repentance for her first action and for having
made a monster of her husband.
These moments are fundamental to understand the main themes of the film: ambition, in Macbeth
and his wife; violence, which is unscrupulous and doesn't stop in front of anyone; choices, when
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth choose to murder the king, despite the witches prophecy...
The crazy monologue that Macbeth utters during the banquet is the climax of the story, because from
this scene Lady Macbeth sees the effects that the murder of king Duncan and all that violence and
ambition have had on Macbeth.
The main characters are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. At the beginning, Lady Macbeth is blind
because of her ambition, but in the end she commits suicide because she sees what she had done to
her husband, forcing him to kill the king. She starts to feel disgusted at Macbeth’s ominous behaviour.
Macbeth is a warrior: at the beginning, he is pious and respectful to the king but after murdering
Duncan he changes completely and become a merciless murderer.
Only at the end Macbeth and his wife realize that they had been an instrument of the fate to allow
Banquo's sons to ascend to the throne.
When Macbeth realizes this, he becomes insane, because he understands that he has killed King
Duncan for Banquo's son, not for his family or for himself…
The three Witches are secondary characters, who make the predictions and are very important because
they give origin and ‘create’ the events of the story.
The film uses red in many scenes to emphasize the cruelty of some events and to highlight that
Macbeth's life, after the murder, can never be as before, because the blood in his hands will never go
away.
The perspective plays an important role in the film, because there are a lot of foreground, to focalize
the attention to what the character are saying and to their expressions.
The film use the silence, in particular during fights, where is also used the slow motion; silence are
used also in highlight the emotion of the character.
The film is very similar to the script of Shakespeare, the dialogue are so similar, and the dressed are
very realistic, only the story has some scenes a little different from Shakespeare's work, but it's pretty
faithful to the scrip.
I enjoyed watching the film very much, because it is not the usual kind of film you can see at the
cinema: Macbeth is a pillar of English Literature and it is re-worked as a film.
The only thing I am puzzled by, is the interpretation of Lady Macbeth who was not so strong as in the
script.
The scene I liked most is the monologue of Lady Macbeth with her dead son’s ghost: in this scene
Lady Macbeth shows all her love and her nostalgia for her son, this feeling was also expressed during
the murder of Macduff's wife and sons. I think it is from this time on that Lady Macbeth changes her
way to think and see her husband for what he has become and this process of changing brings her
regret and the decision to commit suicide.