ALL HAIL MACBETH THAT SHALT BE KING HEREAFTER...

So, as you guys may have noticed, I have finally popped my Shakespeare review cherry with my look at Henry IV parts 1 and 2. Moving up to a review of one of the greats – or at least one of the great stories – only seems appropriate. Macbeth is actually the kind of story I adore. You know I have a soft spot for gangster films and the like. You know I have a soft spot for psychological films. Well he we have a man who murders about a dozen innocent people to fulfill his own political ambition and is driven slowly mad with remorse…  In essence, the granddaddy of all the stories I adore - I absolutely HAD to watch it – and the fact that I loved the story is, in essence, no surprise.

Even if you do not know the story of Macbeth per se, you will, without a doubt, recognize it. Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) is a Scottish clan chief who is loyal to the King of Scotland during a time of civil war. He has just won a decisive victory in battle for his liege when he is accosted by three witches who prophecy that he will first be made the chieftain of another clan and then King of Scotland. Macbeth is inclined to laugh it off, but then,  news arrives that the King has made him the chieftain of the selfsame clan the witches had prophesied as a reward to his services. From this moment on Macbeth, first egged on by his wife (Marion Cotillard) and later on by his own crumbling sanity and insatiable ambition will set off a string of murders Macbeth feels he absolutely must commit – or have committed – to secure his place, his throne, his lineage, with tragic consequences. After a while it becomes a matter of whether the Macbeths can get a handle on the violence they have unleashed or whether Macbeths already crumbling sanity will give way completely first…

Now there have been more adaptations of this tale than anyone could hope to count. This, to my way of thinking, makes every single new adaptation of the play a little trickier. After that long of a lineage standing out is hard, seeing as a lot of intelligent and creative people have been thinking about it a lot and have had a lot of good ideas about it. There are some strong films out there. It’s a big competition. And it has to be said, this particular adaptation has a lot of good things going for it. First of all, the aesthetics. The film is categorically one of the most visually stunning things I have recently seen. It is a fittingly cold, bleak, unforgiving and stunning visual aesthetic that runs through every aspect of the film from the backdrops to the scenery. I honestly felt as if I could stop the film at a million different random points and just hang the scene up on your wall.

It goes without saying that this choice and aesthetic bleeds into the choice of actors. The choice of Michael Fassbender as Macbeth created a lot of ripples and excitement among the fans. Having seen him perform… Well I can see why he was picked but I am not sure I have seen the best rendition of Macbeth ever performed… Visually Fassbender fits the bill perfectly. Handsome, rugged, a sense of lurking danger under the surface… There is a lot of good stuff in there. I just thought that Macbeth should have been a bit more emotional than the one Fassbender portrayed him. Until the middle of the film I found him almost inscrutable (which is sad really because I would have liked some turmoil as Macbeth struggles with himself before killing Duncan). When his sanity begins to crumble it’s a bit better, there is flickers of some strong stuff there but there was, for my way of thinking, a lot of scope to push the boat right the way out there. This, I felt, was a stark contrast to Marion Cotillard who absolutely glowed as Lady Macbeth – from her initial greed right down to the bitter end when her sanity collapses as well. I have always had a bit of girl-crush on Cotillard. And I devoutly hope her work in this film will be recognized too. Now, before Shakespeare experts jump down my throat, yes, I am aware there is artistic merit in all of this. Pitting the more silent and sullen (talking about his acting style, not necessarily his role in this film) Fassbender against the lively and absolutely electric Cotillard may have been a choice. It is, after all, Lady Macbeth who pushes Macbeth into action and to fulfill his true potential as a king (and, to call a spade a spade, a serial killer). And after all at the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth prays to be unsexed (less like a woman) and before Duncan so much as sets foot in her household she is ready  (or would be ready – were she a man) to kill him herself, with her bare hands. This choice – these choices – set the roles of the two characters off. Lady Macbeth must really push Macbeth to catalyze him and get him to act. Macbeth has to drag himself and his own convictions, as if he and they were made of lead before he can muster up the mental strength to act. I get all that. My point is that the lid seems to have fallen off the jar of sullen Fassbender was using. There is more subtlety there than he is not moving – oh wait now he is. It does not come across in this performance.

So I see why this production of Macbeth garnered so much criticism, especially from the diehard Shakespeare fans. But then again we must be charitable. Every adaptation between mediums (even though in this instance it is from one performance art to the other) loses some of the initial magic by definition. And Kurzels Macbeth has a lot of good things going for it. I would watch it if I were you. I just wouldn’t expect it to change my world… 

OSCAR SEASON MUSINGS AND A DISCUSSION ON EMOTIONAL CINEMA : "12 YEARS A SLAVE"

Well. With the Oscar® season now officially upon us with the nominations and the dates set, what remains for us movie buffs is to discuss the nominees and put the finishing touches to our own guesses as who this year’s little gold men will go to. One cannot, of course, guess everything. But one thing seems pretty certain from where I’m sitting, judging from all the discussion it has raised alone, 12 Years A Slave will be walking away with some awards on March the 2^nd. So, in my quest to get up to date with the Oscar ®buzz this year, this is where I started.

I just want to add a quick parenthesis here and add: Man, I missed actually going to the cinema! Watching films from home is just so easy these days thanks to various different platforms enabled by 21^st century technology. I have, in the process discovered one of my favourite cinemas to date : The Screen On the Green in Angel. I loved the “double seaters” complete with little foot stools for couples, the café / bar INSIDE the screening room itself and the fact that the toilets led straight off the screening room itself – allowing one to nip in and out quickly and discretely J I know I digress but just… The whole experience was great. I mean sure, the film would not be any less great if I had watched it at home in my jammies but… The whole experience was awesome. Seriously. Look up your local independent cinema. Go to it more often. You’ll be pleasantly surprised; especially if, like me, you’re lucky enough to be able to go during “office hours”.

But I digress. The film. Quite. Now, you probably have, if nothing a vague idea of what goes on in the film. But let me quickly go through it anyway. Solomon Northup was an accomplished violin player who lived in New York in the mid-19^th century. He was a black man, but a free man as he was lucky enough to be born in “the north”. And he was living a quiet life with his family, his beloved wife and 2 small children until a business deal that seems almost too good to be true has an unexpected… Backlash… Kidnapped, taken south and sold into slavery, Solomon has to wait 12 years before any real hope of salvation comes his way. In the meanwhile, through his memoires, we follow him move from master to master, plantation to plantation and fight to keep his sanity… And his life…

Steve McQueen and script writer John Ridley use Northup’s autobiography to cast an unblinking gaze on the utter horrors of slavery in the 19^th century. Northup is passed on from pillar to post much like a piece of furniture and virtually no consideration for even his most basic need and comforts. Once on the market, the rest is purely pot – luck. You could end up with a kind and fair master like Ford (Benedict Cumbarbach – incidentally I was so sure for some reason he would be the “mean” master; I think he would make an excellent villain. Oh well. That’s for another film I guess). But even so you had no guarantee that the overseers you were made to work under would be just as kind. Paul Dano is beyond brilliant as Tibeats, Ford’s overseer. Tibeats is a typical, small-minded and mean middle-management figure. You know the type. That particularly mean boss who always has plenty of snide comments but no constructive criticism on your work. The one who is on the lookout to chip off your breaks and benefits whenever he can. Yeah. Except Tibeats can actually kill the people he is overseeing and get away with it. But then… Then he is moved on to Epps (Michael Fassbinder). We, along with poor Solomon, thought Tibeats was bad. Suffice it to say compared to Epps, he is a fluffy kitten with a bow round its neck. But I will let you discover the delightful Master Epps and the way he runs his plantation in your own good time.

12 years a slave will, without a shadow of a doubt, grab you by the gut and not let go until 2 and whatever hours later. I defy you not to cry. Hand on heart, even the slightly “Deus ex machine” ending of the film completely eclipses your attention (I will get to this in a second). At this point, I have actually read reviews that criticise the film, and if not the film, the fact that there is not enough intellectual involvement in films like this and that the "tear jerker" nature of the film is a bit of an "easy way out"  (Click here for a particularly fine example of this school of thought). I mean, there is some truth in this. I will fully admit that even as I sat in the dark crying my eyes out, I knew exactly what was coming in the end and I loved the fact that I was right. And that is not the mindset of an “intellectually engaged” critic of the movie. Lets get back to the Deus ex Machina bit. I mean, ok, I do get that it would take a large dose of chance for Northup to get out of the condition he was in. But still… A chance encounter with a stranger (I’m talking about Brad Pitt’s character) and “puff”, 12 years of agony at an end…  It would possibly be more realistic if, instead of – or possibly after – his reunion with his family, we at least saw something of his struggle in the courts and his ultimate failure to prosecute anyone who had harmed him. But no, the emotional reunion with his family is the end of the film and Northup’s later struggles are only seen in writing on a black screen just before the credits. I mean yes, add all those in too and we’d have a film 3,5 hours long… But would it maybe push us to think more about the political system of the time? One of the reasons Northup couldn’t have justice is the fact that the colour of his skin prevented him from testifying against a white man. Another fact that potentially gets washed away in our floods of tears at the finale.

So. I’m landing on the side that argues that 12 Years a Slave should be less emotional and more intellectual, is that it? Well… That leads me to another question though. Is it the obligatory function of all art to make us think and nothing else? Ah, now there’s a discussion for you. I would argue, no. Sure, art has a duty to educate the masses if nothing else by using the power that comes of being so “widely spread”. But it has another function. To make us feel. Art is primarily an emotional creature and from there springs its beauty; if art didn’t make us feel passionate and involved, if it didn’t sweep us off our feet from time to time, well… All art would be like those French films that are “meant” to make you feel disengaged and give “useful” messages. And we all know how popular those are.

So maybe 12 Years A Slave is more emotional than intellectual. Why is this a bad thing? In a world where racism is a sadly common occurrence, it gives a plain message. A message that we clearly needed reminding, seeing that racism is as common as it is: “Racism is a terrible thing”. “Slavery is a terrible thing” and before anything yes there still are people working in conditions approaching slavery, if not the actual thing, in this funny old world of ours. If we don’t have any “actual” messages, well maybe it’s because we haven’t come that far yet, so to speak. Once we can fully grasp that we should treat each other with equal respect regardless of race, sex, colour and creed we can move onto the complicated stuff…  In the meanwhile though, 12 Years a Slave shouts out its message loud and clear. And you should really, really stop and listen if you haven’t already.