My Favorite Films, Plague Edition (Volume 8): The Scottish Films

Macbeth

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Orson Welles (1948)

Starring Orson Welles and Jeannette Nolan

Directed by Roman Polanski (1971)

Starring Jon Finch and Francesca Annis

Directed by Rupert Goold (2010)

Starring Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood

Throne of Blood (1957)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Starring Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada

Macbeth is my favorite Shakespearean tragedy, blessed by a vision of hellish darkness, an economical plot without too many sidetrips, and portrayal of complex characters, here the sociopathic couple Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Viewing several filmed versions this week, some by renowned directors (Kurosawa, Welles, Polanski) brought up some fascinating contrasts. The plot is straightforward. Macbeth driven by a. lust for power, b. his wife, and/or c. sociopathy, murders the King of Scotland, his best friend Banquo, and the wife and children of his rival Macduff. He himself is beheaded by Macduff, invading from England to end Macbeth’s reign of terror in Scotland. And all of this is foretold by the three witches. There is a political point here—Shakespeare was trying to show what a responsible king should be and do—but in modern productions this political message is usually subsumed in the psychological and mystical aspects of the play. Rather that describe each of the four versions I saw (including Throne of Blood) in detail, I will award “best of” prizes. 

Best Witches
No contest here. The outright scary witches of the 2016 Goold film mostly pose as creepy nurses in an underground Soviet bunker. Director Rupert Goold brilliantly sets his production as an Eastern Block takeover, with Patrick Steward as a magnificently Stalinesque Macbeth, complete with oversized posters of him decorating the underground bunker that claustrophobically contains the play, amping up the tension and oppressive atmosphere of evil. The rap-style “Boil, boil, toil and trouble”  is brilliant, and the temperature of the film drops into subfreezing zone whenever they appear, as they rip out the organs out of maimed patients and create carnage. Second place to the eerie, nearly invisible ghost-witch (below) of Kurosawa, spinning the fate of Macbeth on a loom.

Best Murders
Macbeth gets off to a rousing start as Macbeth and his Lady murder the sleeping King Duncan. Shakespeare and most productions do not actually show the murder itself. Polanski’s film (1971) does. His production is the bloodiest, and shows every stab and slice—is this his psychologic expiation of the murder of his girlfriend Sharon Tate two years earlier by the Manson gang in Los Angeles? Unfortunately, Polanski tends to drag out every scene, highlighting every detail, and emphasizing photographic realism (like panoramas of the castle (Lidesfarne, actually, below) rather than expressionism that better suits this material. Sadly, his two leads are young, pretty, and not very scary, and a drawn-out swordfight at the end diminishes the relentless energy of the play. In contrast, by far the scariest is Goold’s version (2016). Stewart and Fleetwood are vicious killers here (below), drenched in blood and not at all regretful—they just seem like murderers to the core. Ms. Fleetwood projects certain, ruthless sociopathy like no other actor I have seen, and made me think of murderers like Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy.

Best Burnham Wood
A key, cryptic prediction by the witches is that only when the great Burnham Wood (forest) itself moves and attacks the castle will Macbeth lose the battle. This special effect is always a challenge to pull off on stage, so is generally described, not depicted. Both Welles in 1948 and Kurosawa and 1957 achieve the special effect convincingly. Wells’ set design in general is primeval—all fragments of castles, spooky corridors, fog, rather like a 1930’s Frankenstein movie (below). When the English soldiers camouflage themselves with cut branches to advance on the castle, they seem like advancing plant-creatures, furthering the spooky atmosphere of the film. Kurosawa instead shows them from afar, a writhing distant forest magically expanding towards us, even in the days before computer graphics. In general, Throne of Blood seems like a dry run for the great 1985 Ran, his epic treatment of King Lear, and has wonderful distant panoramas of medieval castles, massed Japanese cavalry, and massed film extras.

Best Sleepwalking Scene

Lady Macbeth’s famed mad scene as she sleepwalks and recoils at the bloodshed she has unleashed is a famous moment for actresses. Oddly, I was not blown away by any of these actresses. None quite approaches Judy Dench in her 1978 TV version  —she wipes away the imagined blood on her hands and then unleashes a blood-curdling 30 second scream that Ingmar Bergman would have been proud of in Cries and Whispers (see last weeks review). Fleetwood (2016) comes close, though. I worry that she will awaken and kill us all. Honorable mention to Francesca Annis (1971), who does it in the nude. Polanski responded to this controversial decision simply---that’s how they slept in the medieval period, so a sleepwalker should be nude.

 Best Macbeth

Sir Patrick Stewart is terrific—a sociopathic mix of Stalin, Ceaucescu, and Charles Manson. The difficult, quick transition in the first 20 minutes from war hero to murderer is not fully explained by Shakespeare—he leaves us, actors, and directors to fill in the blanks. Stewart makes a convincing case for Macbeth as a latent sociopath, goaded by both his wife and opportunity to act on his repressed trait. It is perhaps less tortured and complex than Orson Welles’ version, but more ruthlessly convincing and coherent. He is equally good in the ending reflection on the meaningless of individual lives. Welles’ version is tortured, mentally ill, and varied—an old-style virtuoso performance that is exciting to watch, but ultimately does not clarify the role or psychology as ably as Stewart. The young Finch (Polanski 1971) and famed Toshiro Mifune are more one-dimensional and less interesting.

Best Lady Macbeth

This one goes to Fleetwood (2016) in a rout. Watch this Act 1moment when, after hearing that her husband has an opportunity to rule Scotland, immediately devises the King’s murder, summons evil spirits to help her, and demands to be “unsexed”, i.e. freed of feminine limits, so she can orchestrate her husband’s bloody rise to the throne. The lighting, facial angularity, and dramatic delivery unite into a truly sociopathic horror-show of a portrayal. Honorable mention to Kurosawa’s Yamada. This director has a talent for making quiet, motionless Japanese aristocratic women into silent viperlike assassins, communicating evil intent with minimal vocal inflection.

 Best Film

This is surprisingly not close, given the renowned directors in the game. The claustrophobic, scary 2010 Goold/Stewart/Fleetwood Soviet-era update is everything a great Macbeth should be. It takes a stand on why Macbeth turns from a hero into a murderer, presents a fully-formed, frightening Lady Macbeth, and creates a convincing vision of evil. The terror-state analogy of Macbeth’s Scotland and Stalin’s Soviet Union are apt. You should see this version if you want to understand this play. The other films are each limited in their own ways. I was not quite persuaded by Welles’ mentally-ill take on the title role, and Polanski’s cute young Macbeth just does not frighten. Mifune plays his role more as a perturbed Samurai warrior than as a tragic Shakespearean figure--I think director Kurosawa worked this out better in Ran thirty years later.

It turns out I am not yet done with the filmed legacy of this great tragedy. Next week, Lady Macbeth gets to shine on her own….stay tuned.