Macbeth

William Shakespeare’s world in the early 1600s, when he composed Macbeth, was grim. The new film Macbeth opens with wailing strings and a shot of Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) and Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) holding a funeral for one of their children. The rest of the film is full of blood, smoke, rain, and death. It is rated R for gruesome violence and some brief, clothed sexuality. The film is in limited release, but will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime in a couple of months—an unconventional distribution approach.

This period adaptation stays close to the text but makes several perceptive cinematic choices. Children are present throughout this film as witnesses to the grotesque sins of their elders, and as the possible heirs to those sins. A child accompanies the three weird sisters—the mysterious women who first predict that Macbeth will be king of Scotland, the prophecy that sets in motion his and his wife’s bloody rampage to power.

“We but teach bloody instructions which, being taught, return to plague the inventor,” says Macbeth.

As Lady Macbeth is descending into her final madness and death, she speaks her guilty soliloquy to the ghost of one of the children her husband murdered. The closing shot also features a child. Sin here is visceral and generational.

Fassbender and Cotillard are a terrifying acting duo, executing chess moves on each other as much as on those they are trying to eliminate. Lady Macbeth spits the word “coward” at Macbeth in a moment of his indecision. Later, he undercuts her with a reference to her womb barren of male heirs.

The Scottish accents throughout, muttered and growled, make words difficult to catch at points, so give the play a glance before you go. The focus of the film is more on gritty sensation: Rain dripping from roofs washes bloody hands, fog blows over the highlands, and forest fires burn. As long as you know the general outline of the story, the visuals and acting make up for the lost words.