Episode 28
WITS chats 'Macbeth' | dir. Justin Kurzel | 2015
Louise joins Rebecca and Tori to chat about the 2015 production of 'Macbeth,' screenplay by Todd Louiso, Jacob Koskoff, and Michael Lesslie. We talk cinematography, pacing, and adaptation choices.
Music
Apache Rock Instrumental | by Sound Atelier; licensed from Jamendo
Podcast Jazz Bossa Nova Acoustic Guitar Good Mood Music | by Denis-Pavlov-Music from Pixabay
Shining Star Flourish: Sound Effect by u_it78ck90s3 from Pixabay
Spotlight Flourish: Sound Effect by StudioKolomna from Pixabay
Macbeth clip: marcillo Jeronimo | 21 May 2022 | Macbeth 2015 | YouTube
Explicit
We get saucy at times.
Sources
Transcript
Welcome to Wallowing in the Shallows, the podcast that skirts the perilous drop-off of a deep dive into television and movies. Today on Wallowing in the Shallows...
Rebecca (:It is just really too bad that she even needed to deal with Macbeth at all. think, I think Macbeth pulls her into the madness. She's got it handled and he spins off his axis and pulls her down the window. If she didn't have to deal with that, she'd have been the head of Scotland.
Tori (:Yeah.
Rebecca (:I think that Shakespeare put this incredible woman here that just was brought down by her man.
Tori (:Hey, hello peeps. Welcome to Wallowing in the Shallows. This is Tori.
Rebecca (:And this is Rebecca. We are academic nerds aspiring to become TV and movie geeks.
Tori (:There are no spoiler guards in the Shallows, so listen at your own risk.
Rebecca (:Today we are jumping back into Shakespeare with Macbeth from 2015 with Michael Fassbender in the titular role. And we are so grateful to be joined by Louise again, our president Shakespeare expert. Thank you Louise for being here today.
Louise (:looking forward to it.
Rebecca (:Excellent, excellent.
Tori (:Yeah, welcome. I'm always glad when you're here for our Shakespeare because I feel then Rebecca gets a deeper conversation.
Rebecca (:You sell yourself far!
Louise (:Yes, I think that's true. Yeah.
Rebecca (:Yeah.
Tori (:Yeah, here's me watching this movie. I'm like, ooh, Michael Fassbender, ooh, Marion Cotillard, or Cotillard, or however you say her name. And then I'm like, ah, it's one of the professors from Hogwarts.
Tori (:And then I was like, what is that professor's name? What is his name? Lupin, Professor Lupin. That's right. I couldn't even remember his name. And I was like, I'm too tired to look it up.
Rebecca (:LUPIN!
Rebecca (:Dave- David- David Thulas? Dave- David-
Tori (:That's how I would say it. Yeah, he played King Duncan.
Louise (:Tewlis.
Louise (:He was in a movie long, long ago called something like Withnail and I, that was sort of a cult classic where he was just like a layabout. I don't remember. was like there was lots of drinking and drugs and not much productive activity. I don't remember it very well, but yeah, I think he's a cult favorite. Who was like, Patty Constantine? Was he Banquo or was he Macduff? Because I know him.
He was Banquo. Right, because I've seen him before, but I'd forgotten his face. because this I was saying before we started, I've watched it now twice, but I have not taken copious notes or really done any internet searching. So I just wanted you to match him. He's Irish, right? Not Scottish.
Tori (:Thewlis?
Louise (:no, David Tewlis is English, I think.
Tori (:Okay, who are you talking about? Fassbender?
Sorry, I lost track there for a second. was trying to multitask and shouldn't.
Rebecca (:while you're checking that, the reason I know him is because he was in House of the Dragon, one of the Game of Thrones spin-offs, and he plays character who literally rots throughout the- Yes, he has something that is eating at his body, and he does a great job.
Louise (:Eww!
Rebecca (:But because he's like missing half of his face by the end of the season, I did not at all connect him to the young full of life warrior at his Banquo. Well, full of life until he's not, right? Until he's so not.
Louise (:Thank you.
Tori (:He's, English. He is from Staffordshire.
Louise (:What? Oh, okay. But certainly of a Irish family, I suppose. What about Fassbender? German. Really? Okay. Yeah, because I was thinking like, who is actually Scottish here? I was just kind of curious.
Tori (:because Lady Macbeth is French. That almost kind of makes sense to me, right? Because a lot of those French princesses ended up having to marry queens.
Louise (:Maybe send over to Mary a thing. it seems a little odd. But that's okay. She did a great job. It's okay.
Tori (:Well that's true, maybe not a thing.
I was really surprised because most of the time whenever I hear her, she has a pretty thick French accent, but I didn't. I maybe cut it a couple of times, but I didn't really catch her French accent. She's doing her English accent pretty well or whatever accent, Scottish, whatever she's doing.
Louise (:I know there's been productions where people have tried so hard with Scottish accents that it's interfered with the comprehension of the audience. There were Scottish accents, but I'm just sort of interested in how people kind of navigate between their own accent and the accent that they're putting on for the play.
Rebecca (:And definitely this production was just steeped in Scotland. They left plenty of time to look at the Scottish Highlands. I mean, it was just, it was so, it was so there in this. At the expense of some other stuff.
Louise (:I was going to say, think the landscape was, the landscape was definitely the star. Really loved it. And I think I saw somewhere online that it was filmed on the Isle of Skye, which is part of Scotland that my older son has been urging us to visit for many, many years because he went there and apparently bicycled around it with a very large umbrella on the back of his bike.
Rebecca (:Yeah.
Rebecca (:Gosh.
Louise (:grandmother in England at the time that he was taking home with them. So I thought that was like such a funny image. But I'm going to say, because I've been to Scotland, but I've never been there. It looked like it had to have been winter. can't believe those mountains are so high that they'd be all year long. And it just looked amazing. It was just gorgeous. And what they did with the scene. So it was very like you would frequently see like these long shots out to
kind of snow-covered peaks, but then also sort of rolling ridges down to the sea. And there were some scenes where people were on the beach, actually. I think Banquo and Macbeth, their last encounter with each other, except, you know, while Banquo was actually alive, was on the seashore. And the way that the witches appear out of the landscape is so beautiful. Like, that was the thing that this film is
Tori (:Yeah.
Louise (:So beautiful in terms of its scenery and like the way that the people look in the torchlight. There's endless torchlight in this film. was really evocative.
Rebecca (:you
Tori (:Yeah, they filmed in the Isle of Skye someplace, I'm not even going attempt to pronounce it, it's Q-U-I-R-A-I-N-G. And they did that in February. yeah, was kind of cold there, I think. But they did a lot of filming in English cathedrals, like the cathedral at Ely.
Louise (:which really didn't match. Like they were supposed to be, I'm going to say, I don't know historically. I think Macbeth is like the 11th century or something like that. And that kind of cathedral, no. And especially the fact that you've got like the King of Scotland basically sleeping in a tent for his murder scene. And then to put that together with it, yeah, we've also got this cathedral hidden away somewhere. It didn't work for me.
Tori (:You know?
Louise (:But, and I'm going to stop talking in a second, but I'm going to say that the use of the landscape in the film, I mean, it makes sense to me because the script is so full of images of the natural world and people are describing them in such gorgeous detail. This is when, you know, like, who is it? Macbeth refers to the rookie wood, which I love, like the wood that is full of these big black birds.
A lot of that was cut, like almost all of that poetic language was cut. And so I guess the idea that the director had was have the poetic language be manifest in the landscape. You know, the landscape was great. I did miss the poetic language.
Tori (:Yeah.
Rebecca (:Totally agreed. And it's interesting that you say that, Louise, because some of the choices ended up robbing me of some stuff that I missed. But then I was like, but it was a really good choice, you know? So just like what you're saying, this time spent with the landscape gave me some of my fondest moments in this film. But then I was like, at the expense of. And so like the witches.
which were so natural and like you said, emerging from the landscape and you know, they could have been just normal women, right? And, so it worked so well for this film, but you know, then I'm robbed of boil, boil, toil and trouble and by the pricking of my thumb, something evil this way comes, you know, I'm like, how can I not have? But it's like, it's right here.
Louise (:A drop, a drop, a drop, just a drop.
Rebecca (:can't have these hags over a cauldron. know, these are not, you know, so the witches were not the witches I wanted to see, but they were absolutely the right witches for this production. And so that's just one example of just kind of like, well, I missed this, you know, I would have rather, well, not would have rather. I love when I see a production that treats,
treats the weird sisters differently, but these were the perfect weird sisters for this production.
Tori (:I really wanted the lines.
Rebecca (:Well, yeah, and it's as long because they did have lots of moments of showing instead of telling. It kind of reminded me when we did, was it a Macbeth that was Russian, I think? And there was so much showing instead of telling. And the showing was incredible. Hamlet, yes. Oh, did I just say Macbeth? Hamlet, thank you. Yeah, but.
Tori (:Yep.
Rebecca (:Again, and very powerful showing, but when the language is so amazing, I want to hear it too. And they did a lot of the great language, but they skipped a lot of it too.
Louise (:I'm going to say the witches, like if they had not cut those lines, those witches could not have appeared the way they were because the way the witches were portrayed, I thought was really interesting. They had children. Like one of them had a baby in her arms all the time. One of them had a little girl. I don't think she had her, but the little girl was with her and they would go up and they would like stroke.
Macbeth's cheek in a very maternal way. And everybody knows that Macbeth is haunted by children. There's children throughout this play. And I think that's one thing this production did really, really well is pull that theme forward so powerfully. And I feel like if the witches had had a lot of their lines, they could not have had that really ambiguous feeling.
of bringing these messages that supposedly lead Macbeth to his doom, you know, that's debatable. And at the same time, embodying this female principle that is so important that at the end, when we last see Lady Macbeth, she's going back to the witches. So, I mean, if the witch had been there saying, as she does in the beginning, that she just ran into a captain's wife and the captain's wife didn't...
don't know, she just said something insulting to her and so she cursed the captain forever and he would never sleep again. it was like, you know, she had also cut off his thumb or something. I was like, that would not work with those kind of witches. You're absolutely right, Rebecca. So I felt like there was a lot of thought behind that, but it's true. I agree with you too, Tori. Like it's sad not to have that incantatory, incantory.
language that the witches have.
Tori (:And it's iconic. what most people think of one of the things they think about when they think about Macbeth are the weird sisters, the witches. So it was disappointing. mean, I understand it was a good choice for this particular production, but I still, I was like, man, it's like you're waiting for it and it doesn't happen.
Rebecca (:I'd like to pick up on another thing that you mentioned Louise about the children, how children haunt Macbeth throughout this film. And we get it pow right at the beginning, right? It's not the first interpretation of Macbeth I've seen where they're starting by mourning their dead child. And this film does, I mean, it's actually a while before we have our first line, right? There's a lot of...
groundwork laid without a word. Well, there's some written word because they tell us some about the history, but we have them burying their dead child. And then we have this scrolling of some history about the king sending the last of his reinforcements. And then we have children, right, that are
the last reinforcements that are getting their weapons tied to their hands. And it was just, I did think the opening before the first line said was incredibly powerful in this film.
Louise (:That choice of having the reinforcements meet children, there were two things there. One, I'm teaching World War I very soon. And I remember that toward the last year of the war, the British extended their, I think their draft age down to 16, I believe, and then up to God knows what, 60, I don't know. And it does give you that feeling of.
Like I think that was a genius choice for them to do. I was going to ask you what you thought. So we see the child that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have lost at the beginning. That child looked to me to be about two or three years old. But then there was a special teenage boy in the reserves who we see Macbeth interacting with in a very...
I mean, his just like very small things, but very intense looking into his eyes. We really get the image of this boy's face. I'm going to say this boy could have been 14 or 15, his face. And then we see the boy killed in battle. And it's kind of a stop frame moment where we just see the boy's agony as the sword obviously must be slashing into him. And then later when Macbeth
has the illusion of the dagger. It is that boy who brings him the dagger. And I wondered what you thought who that boy was. Did you suspect it was another son, like an illegitimate son or an older son or something?
Tori (:I was asking myself about that particular character as well, and my interpretation was that there was something in that boy that Macbeth saw, like some of himself or some of Lady Macbeth, and maybe some of the looks and so forth, and made him like, this could have been my son, kind of thing. And so that's kind why
Louise (:right.
Tori (:that particular child who's set to fight sticks with him and haunts him throughout the rest of the film.
Rebecca (:I love the idea. Yeah, I had not thought about him, his son or seeing himself or seeing his wife. I love all of that. But I must say, this is my shining star.
Rebecca (:This Scot Greenan who plays, who is credited as young boy soldier because of how significant, without saying a word through the entire film, the significance of this young man who depicts the horrors of war, slaughter of the innocent is the dagger scene in which in
what I thought was an incredibly powerful dagger scene. He's the second apparition, the bloody child second apparition that the witches put forth that brings the none of woman born shall harm Macbeth. And he witnesses the final battle, you know, of Macbeth at the end. He's a constant throughout and a haunting throughout. he...
He gets my shining star without a single line.
Louise (:That's a great choice. Because yeah, face was so evocative. I don't know what it was about his face. And they would go into his face and then into little Fleance. And that must have been the youngest Fleance I've ever seen in my life. The youngest.
Rebecca (:that exact note Louise, youngest trillions ever.
Louise (:Because they actually had similar face, like in a way, they had extremely cropped hair and then sort of oval faces and the boy was kind of like, you could see he was about to kind of blossom into his young adulthood, right? yeah, he was killer.
Tori (:He was killer. I like that he kind of portrayed the innocence of youth and the fatalism that many people must have felt during that time, right? Like you didn't really have much of a choice. If the king said, you're coming up, you're coming up.
and kind of things. So I thought he did that really well. I mean, he was a kid and you could see the fear and the shock and the helplessness. yeah.
Rebecca (:It was devastating and it just got carried throughout, right? I mean, it just didn't let you go. It was like, yeah, you thought you were done with him? Harry. Harry's back to haunt you again.
Louise (:Yeah. And then the last scene that we see Lady Macbeth and she's delivering her, that whole speech about who to thought the old man had so much blood in him and all the perfumes of Arabia will never sweeten this little hand. But she's looking very directly and it seems like she's looking at the camera and she's starting to weep and you start to see that a lot of the things she's saying.
are the kinds of things that you would say to a child. It's to bed, to bed, right? Like not everything, obviously, it's hard to modify the speech that much. And then the camera shifts and we see what she's seeing and she's delivering the speech to her and Macbeth's little boy who's sitting there. And am I right that he's spattered with blood? His little face has like all these red marks all over it.
Tori (:That I don't remember.
Louise (:think he's splattered with the blood. And so she's almost seen the blood being passed on to him somehow. That blood, that's the blood of the murders that they've committed for their power. That was, that was something too.
Rebecca (:Yeah, I know that so much later, but since you mentioned it, mean her facial acting during that, you know, it was interesting. Once again, they sort of separated. She's not washing. She washes without saying a word, right? We see the washing of her hands and the trying to scrape off the blood and then she speaks. But that choice of just having her, you know, just that there's nothing.
to hide in her delivery of that speech, right? Because it is just her face and the tears welling. And I did think she did quite an impressive job with that soliloquy. Way to go, Lady Macbeth.
Tori (:Well, I have to admit, yeah, she delivered it really well and everything, but I was still disappointed because I wanted to...
Rebecca (:It's a din! Go ahead.
Tori (:I guess I'm hoping people would understand me saying that. I kind of wanted to see that frenetic out, out, damn spot kind of thing. I think that's kind of one of the problems that I had with this production. was just really, it was very slow paced for me. And I don't think necessarily of Macbeth as of that pacing. And so I wanted to feel some urgency. I wanted to feel some of that descent into
Regret and pain and you know the aftermath of the murder it just it was all very anti-climactic for me the whole thing
Louise (:Okay, so what I haven't revealed is I also have a lot of criticism of this. Because I think there's like some beautiful, beautiful things. like, yeah, Tory, I'm so with you on that. mean, that should be a train wreck. It is like such a fast paced story. And it should just like feel like it's off the tracks. And I agree with and I have so much more to say about this. I agree with you about pacing.
Rebecca (:sure.
Rebecca (:And I am not defending this as like my favorite Macbeth. In fact, again, multiple times I'm like, but I so miss this. The banquet scene I'm like, does anybody else move? mean, what the heck? But again, then I was just kind of like, well, these choices fit this production. But no, I'm not. I was just consistently.
surprised by how I kind of needed to be convinced that I was like, okay, I understand what you're doing, but I kind of miss what I really like too. And I really, there were just really a lot of pieces of language that I missed. mean, again, at the expense of all of this time with the camera, only going and no microphone. meant, though, incredible score, right?
beautiful music throughout as well, right? So it was like this total contradiction in my head about what I was really enjoying about the production and what was driving me crazy. So maybe we should get into some of those things that drove us close.
Tori (:The first time I started watching it, actually turned it off because I was late and I'm like, I'm just going to fall asleep during this because the pacing was way too slow to keep my interest. So I did enjoy it more because I watched it in the middle of afternoon. The second time, it's always a little bit more awake. But yeah, it just wasn't what I was thinking of. And I was actually pulling up this short interview with one of the writers. The screenplay was by Todd Louiso.
this interview was from when?:And Jake and I were very, very concerned about getting it right, being honest with the man who created it, not infuriating him. It has changed a lot, but for us, it was very important that we try to make it okay for all the scholars to see it. So yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure that they kind of really hit it.
Louise (:I see, like that concern about the scholars. That's not what you should be concerned about. You should be concerned about the beauty. Well, I don't know. But like, I don't know. I'll tell you, here's where I think the weakness is. Like, there's two things that I thought were huge weaknesses. I mean, it ran for two hours. I mean, that's reasonable for Shakespeare play. But Macbeth always feels fast. It feels fast, even if you're saying all the lot, like not all the lot, but...
even if you've got those lines going, it's got such propulsion. And a lot of the propulsion comes from that exploration of the psychology, right? And also it comes from the drama between people. And I felt like they cut so many things where people were interacting in ways that would make this, make us care more, make us, I don't know, like,
things that I missed, right? There were a lot more lines between Banquo and Fleance, which would make us care more, so much more about the horror of that murder. I mean, it was horrible, and visually it's horrible, but there's such a tenderness and playfulness with that. And also Banquo gets some really unbelievably gorgeous lines.
as they're setting off for this mysterious journey, I'm like, what are they doing that they're going away on horseback all day and then coming back? I mean, and I thought, does Macbeth think that they're going away to join with Malcolm, maybe. But there's gorgeous lines there where he says that, you know, that there's husbandry in heaven, their candles are all out. And it's just this sort of like comforting language, but also ominous language that he's using to his little son.
they have him deliver a line to Fliance that is like telling him that he's gonna have terrible like thoughts, like apparently that are like, maybe I should kill Macbeth or something. So they did that. They cut all of the lines, all the interaction between Lady Macduff and her children. And that is a really beautiful family scene that's interrupted by the murderers.
Louise (:I feel like we're consistently not getting those really human dramatizations that will make us care more about the world that he's in and the people that he's butchering. So we're so focused on just him and Lady Macbeth that yeah, we do see them unraveling, but we don't have a sense of Scotland around them really. And also like a lot of their lines, which have been chopped down to nothing are delivered, like you said,
very slowly, but also there's the same damn rhythm in everybody's delivery for about the first half of the entire film. Then I feel like when the Macbeths start really losing it, then they start maybe modifying their delivery a little bit and you get a little bit more intensity, but I don't know. Yeah, they're not, I feel like they just weren't trusting acting enough in a way.
Rebecca (:It's interesting, like I feel like with Lady Macduff and her children, instead of giving her those lines, they make the death even more horrific, right, of them all being burnt alive, right? And so it's sort of like they replace the language with something visual, which I just think was done time and again in this production, sometimes very powerfully, but...
No, I'd rather have the language than seeing them, you know, on the stake. they didn't, thankfully they didn't actually show them burnt alive, but they, showed the, could hear some little whimpers and then the aftermath, but it was just like, my God. So.
Louise (:And can I just pick up on something you said too? You said, what about the banquet scene? That was one of the worst banquet scenes ever. Like what was it? Everybody, you're right. Like why would everybody be totally silent and have no reaction? The only reaction is that the McDuffs get up and leave, I don't know, in protest. mean, it just felt like too stagey. But I've seen stage productions that are less stagey than that. Yeah.
Rebecca (:100 % they were almost like cardboard cutouts there. And I don't know if that was meant to be. It was like, there is no one in the world but us, you know, we're in our own minds. This is our own little world. But I was just like, no, this is not the banquet scene I want to see. And that's another. So that's big iconic for me. I love that banquet scene. And I love the appearance of Banquo and
Macbeth's reaction. And I hate productions. I really like when Banquo's really there, when you really see a fit. And so they did do that here, but I don't know. He was almost sort of hidden amongst all the other cardboard cutouts at the table. were like, is that Banquo? Or is that just another guy that kind of forgot to shower? You know?
Louise (:Ha ha!
Tori (:I have a little bit of a different interpretation of that scene and the people that were there because Macbeth is like a new king. so I was seeing, I saw some people, know, you see some people who are like, what's kind of going on here. And my interpretation was like, this is a new king. Nobody really knows how he's going to act. And I was just like, I think people were just terrified. And so we're just going to like not.
do anything and not react, not show any consternation or fear or anything like that because we don't know Macbeth well enough as King to be able to kind of anticipate what his response is going to be, except from what we're seeing right at this very moment in time. So that was kind of my interpretation of it, is like people were just kind of like too freaked out to know what to do.
Louise (:I mean, that's a good interpretation, but I still feel like you'd see uneasy glances or somebody would knock over their wine and then just be horrible. I don't know.
Rebecca (:I mean, it was like there wasn't a sound in the whole place. Macbeth's talking to the murderer and like, hey, did you get Fleance real good? know? And the four people who are like within three inches don't have a reaction. You know, there's no like clamor around them to cover this quiet conversation. I don't know. It just felt so artificial.
But what did you think of the dagger scene? Liked it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There were moments in the dagger scene I was like, wow, I like this.
Louise (:Great idea, actually. I mean, there were a lot of great ideas, like there really were, and there were a lot of things that were effective.
Rebecca (:Okay, one thing that I didn't think was effective, though I really do like the choice of a younger Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, I do like when they are younger. They didn't need to be having sex or feeling each other up all the time.
the number of times they were intimate while she was trying to convince it was at least three. And I was like, During some of the times. Okay. Okay. All right. I'll, I'll hear it.
Louise (:I disagree.
Louise (:That's very funny. No, go on, make me laugh. mean, it's like... No!
Rebecca (:I mean, I could kind of understand the one where she was trying to convince him. She was losing him and she was like, okay, we're going to make this happen. Come on, I'm going to take my pants off and let's, let's, and then he's like, I am resolute. Okay. That one worked. That one worked. But the two others, they weren't, they weren't as powerful. So the two others, which I wish I could remember exactly when they happened. was like, oh, great. Now we're doing it again.
Tori (:Clearly didn't mean anything to me because I didn't register it. I mean, knew they were kissing and touching each other, but it didn't seem.
Rebecca (:It didn't catch the panting of Lady B. Anyway, guess, okay, okay.
Louise (:Okay, so here's why I think they were doing that. I actually thought it was a good choice. Did I ever say, I think I might've said this to you before, like there's some scholar who said that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the only happily married couple in all of Shakespeare. it's like, and I mean, I'm not sure. I feel like maybe there's a few others, but often there's like, you know, the wife is conveniently dead. Like where's Mrs. Lear? You know, that kind of thing.
Rebecca (:Okay.
Louise (:Although I don't know, maybe Gertrude and Claudia. don't know. But they do register a lot affection in the script, in Shakespeare's script. There's more kind of little pet names than a lot of characters get. But also, feel like two things. think we are actually having sex while she is convincing him to murder Duncan.
Tori (:Yeah.
Louise (:right at the point where she's like, you you're not a man. Be a man for me, right? Like that makes sense. That makes sense. And then that scene where he's kind of feeling her up, that made sense to me too, because they're talking and it is the last time they're really talking to each other, period. And he is revealing to her that he knows that the Weird Sisters have said, Banquo's children are gonna succeed.
while he's doing that, he's kind of playing with his dagger right into her stomach. And she says something, and I feel like this might've been a change from, in fact, I think maybe all of this is a change from the actual script, but she says, what's to be done? And of course, what your thought should be, like the way that they're interacting together is what should be done? You are a young woman, you need to have babies, right? And then Banquo's kids aren't going to succeed.
And I feel like there is something going on between them because he is like using this weapon to indicate where her uterus would be. like, I don't know. And they don't have sex that would, you know, potentially lead to a pregnancy there. He's just sort of feeling her up. On the other hand, I'm like, maybe she needs, you know, a break. But, but.
Rebecca (:Yeah.
Louise (:I don't know, I felt like there was something there, like maybe there's some unspoken thing of they've been trying and she's not getting pregnant, or maybe he's not, he's no longer able to, you know, have intercourse with her or what something is going on. And I feel like if you've got a younger Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, then the question of why do we have to keep killing people when we could just be having more children kind of arises. And so,
I don't know if that justifies all of this enough to you, Rebecca. And I don't remember this.
Rebecca (:to consider. There's another one. There is but I'm sorry I don't. I don't have it. My bad.
Louise (:Is there?
Tori (:that scene when they're together. I do have a note. I'm not going to read what I wrote.
Louise (:Please!
Tori (:I mean, I liked Fassbender's acting in that particular scene. You know, I liked the single tear coming down his cheek at the end of it. And I mean, it's just like for all the things, right? That like none of their children have survived. They clearly can't have any more kids. And you know, maybe something happened. Maybe she almost died in childbirth or something, right? And it affected her ability to have kids.
That scene plus some other ones make Fassbender my shining star.
Tori (:I thought he did. There were just moments that kind of added up for me. That was one of the moments. so no, my, what I have written down since we says read it. I was like, yeah, I was like,
Rebecca (:Yes, that is exactly, that is the second one we were talking about.
Louise (:again struggled with a shining star. think Fassbender in the second half kind of got it for me, particularly that scene, but I don't feel like I had it all the way through. did, yeah, I did feel like I agree with Rebecca on the young boy, but I also think Macduff, Macduff didn't have a lot to work with, but the way he shouted out, he has no children. Now I've seen that choice made before where
You know, he shouts that out. But like, that's one of like, that's actually a high point of the play for me where, you know, there's all this talk about how to be a man, be a man, be a man, be a man, kill the king, be a man, kill other, you know, other soldiers, be a man. Right. And then Macduff is told to be a man when he's told that his entire family has been wiped out. And he says, I will dispute it like a man, but first I must feel it like a
And I felt like that was beautiful. often whoever plays Macduff really has a great chance with that particular scene. And I felt like this actor really took it. And I'm afraid I don't have notes, so I don't know the name of that actor.
Rebecca (:I've got him somewhere. Sean Harris is Macduff.
Louise (:Okay, he did a great job. I didn't love him throwing up when he found me. yeah. I never liked throw ups the scenes. I was like, was that necessary? Why?
Rebecca (:You know, thank you for bringing up that part because I did like Macduff as well, but he's the one that discovers Duncan. And you know, the tent is what? 10 feet by 10 feet. I mean, it's minuscule. He goes in there. It's like three minutes later. There's this whole conversation. It's like you must have seen him the instant you looked at it. And I guess, I mean, it it you do see him and he's over the body and he has his hands on.
on Duncan's chest covered in blood. So it's shock, right? But, I do think that actor does a great job, but I think the sort of staging wise, it was just a little too long for him to actually say something to the people 10 feet away that the king was dead and butchered, you know? And gosh, speaking of butchered, wow, there was so much, I'll call it stabby stab, but I mean,
Louise (:Great.
Rebecca (:from the first war scene, you know, very graphic, down to biting somebody's ear off, or biting somebody as part of that battle. But the killing of Duncan, right, was wow, just over the top with the butchery and the finals fight between Macduff.
and Macbeth, you're like, how are either of them still standing, right? With all of the blood that has been tossed out from these various stab wounds. And so it is, you are just overwhelmed. mean, I think that was a choice about the violence and the butchery and whew, it was intense. It was intense.
Tori (:Yeah, that didn't ring true for me as a true crime buff. You know, you only see that kind of frenzy and number of stabs when there's a real personal animosity. And I was like, you know, what did Duncan do to Macbeth that would create that kind of frenzy? I mean, did he sleep with, I just called him Mr. Mrs. Mac.
Tori (:That didn't hold true for me and that was like one of the first things I really had a problem with. I'm like, I don't think so. Especially the way he was being portrayed up until that point. It was too passionate for this Macbeth.
Rebecca (:There's a lot.
Louise (:Yeah, right.
Tori (:So, yeah.
Louise (:And also wouldn't they have been able to, like he was a big strong guy and you know, Duncan's old and I don't know.
Rebecca (:But honestly, Duncan was still alive. Again, also shocking. How is that possible? already, you're eviscerated by now and you're still, you're still going. Interesting.
Louise (:And I'm going to agree also about the last huddle between Macduff and Macbeth. At one point I was like, they should both be dead. This is stupid. I'm like, what? You know.
Tori (:Yeah. Yeah. I was like, there's no way Macduff's getting up from that. There's just no way. I'm sorry. I don't think all of the adrenaline in the world would allow that to happen. But yet he does.
Rebecca (:while we're speaking of that particular scene, they all just kind of leave Macbeth sitting up, know, he's still just kind of sitting there. And then, then Fleance comes and grabs the sword. my gosh. I was so afraid given all of the graphic nature of the film up to this point. mean, in the play, I thought he was gonna behead Macbeth.
Louise (:You thought it was gonna go for Malcolm.
Rebecca (:Because right in the play, Macbeth is beheaded and his head gets presented. And so I was like, my God, do not have fleons take that sword and cut off Macbeth's head. Thankfully, that did not happen. But I wondered if somebody thought people might think it because he is beheaded at the end of the play. I can't remember. I think it's.
Louise (:There's just no way a child that size could do so. mean, it was.
Tori (:Yeah, that was a story.
Rebecca (:But he managed to walk away with it. mean, I really, was, yeah, I think it's Macduff. Macduff beheads Macbeth and enters with Macbeth's head at the end, you know. But Macduff was gone. Fleance was there grabbing the sword. I was like, no, no. That did not happen. So, really.
Louise (:Like even with all
Louise (:I did not love that bit. mean, I guess it's kind of a heavy handed way of saying, okay, we hand down the violence, right? But I felt like that we got that already. We got that.
Rebecca (:We got it.
Because we do know Fleance, or at least Fleance's issue, will be the next King's, right? I Fleance is Banquo's kid, and assuming the weird sisters are right, this is where the line is gonna go. And he walks off with the sword.
Tori (:did like the suggestion, right? Because we see Malcolm heading out of the hall, and then we see Fleance running, right? And so there's like this suggestion of the future conflict that's going to come between Malcolm, who's king now, and Fleance, who's prophetized. Is that a word? I don't think so. Whatever.
Louise (:Ha
Tori (:He's, you know, the weird sisters say he's going to be king. So I kind of like that. Bringing it back to something from beginning of the movie. I do want to call out the things I did like as well.
Rebecca (:Yeah, yeah, I will give something I really liked and it is in fact my spotlight scene. This was about the most creative and powerful depictions of Burnham Wood removed to Dunsinane that I'd ever seen.
that it was the ashes from the burning that was the woods moving forward. Usually it's the army is hacked off pieces of the trees and is using it to kind of hide their numbers and everything, which is I think is really cool. But this was sort of a real different interpretation of those woods moving and the red that it created and the smoky nature.
that knocked my socks off. And so I was like, okay, production here, here you've done it. Here you have taken something I wanted to see how you did. And I really.
Tori (:Yeah, I want to hats off to the cinematographer whose name I was just looking up is Adam Arkapaw. Because I loved, I loved the production of all of it. I love the cinematography. It was very epic and it was very haunting, which I thought was appropriate, you know, for this particular play. And I loved the production design other than the cathedral that, and I agree with Louise, that was just the wrong time for that was too.
too nice, it should have been a little bit more rough. It would have actually been better if they would have gone and filmed part of that in some ruins and then filled in with some CGI. I think that a little bit of a better choice. Probably it was a money thing. But production designer was Fiona Crombie and I just thought they did. They did a great job. I liked everything about like the physical and even the sound production, right? All of that was...
was well done. So just throwing that out as you were talking about that scene, because that was an impressive scene.
Louise (:There were some gorgeous scenes like the scene where they're entertaining Duncan and Lady Macbeth has the chorus of children. It's very short. music's beautiful. The vocal music is beautiful. And it's the one time like that she actually looks slightly happy other than when she's riding with Macbeth on horses when they've just become king and queen.
I mean, I feel like I've noted so many scenes that I thought were beautiful that I'm not going to highlight a spotlight scene, but I'm just going to say something about Malcolm and the way they handled sort of the historical succession issue was kind of interesting. There's many productions of Macbeth where Malcolm puts the crown on his head at the end and there's some indication that the audience gets, which is not, you know, in the script or anything, but there's some indication that
Perhaps he might have some of the tyrannical leanings of Macbeth. One thing that they cut, which is kind of okay because it sort of weirds everybody out every time they see this production, but there's a scene where Malcolm is talking to Macbeth, not Macbeth, I'm sorry, Macduff, and they're both in England, and it's just before Macduff gets the bad news about his family. And Malcolm does this weird ass stuff where he's like, you know.
Macduff is like, well, thank goodness we've got you and you're going to be the savior of Scotland. He's like, I am really, I'm greedy and I'm lustful and I will abuse the women in the country and I will steal your money and your land. And, and Macduff is like, what? And, and you know, and he's like, wait a second, then there's no point. I don't know what I'm doing here. And then Malcolm was like, just kidding. I'm actually a virgin. I'm actually not interested in any of that stuff.
The audience is left going, what? what? And it's one of those scenes at Shakespeare where he leaves you really scratching your head. And I feel like it's the scene that justifies many productions having this kind of question over him when he puts on the crown or whatever announces that he's gonna go and get crowned at Scone. And I feel like that question does hang there because the audience knows he's not.
Louise (:going to start a line of kings and somehow, fliance is gonna get in there. And so it really is a question about like, what kind of person he is and why he was given this. And it is true, like that was a line from the play where Duncan says, I'm gonna make my oldest, Malcolm the king. There's usually two sons that are shown and you're like, why?
would he need to say this unless this is not an inherited monarchy and it's more like an elective monarchy? In which case, I mean, that's kind of an interesting take here. There was a very weird thing that they did, which I thought might feed into this. So Duncan elevates Malcolm onto a chair, like announces he's going to be the next king. And there is kind of a look that
Macbeth gives him, and I think there's a little exchange between Macbeth and Banquo. And then when Macbeth actually kills Duncan right after that, as Tori says, unbelievable murder scene, rather than following the way the play is written and having this whole to and fro with him and Lady Macbeth, who's just totally fed up that he hasn't been able to do this effectively, instead, Malcolm comes in and finds him sitting there with a bloody dagger and bloody hands.
He hasn't killed the two people that he's gonna accuse of it. It's like he's just taunting him with like, I just killed your dad. What are you gonna do?
Rebecca (:Totally not in the play.
Louise (:Probably not in the play. I thought it was an interesting choice. Like I didn't hate it, but I wasn't sure everything else like justified it. I don't know. I mean, what did you guys think of that? was a little bewildered by it.
Tori (:Well, I was too, because I was kind of like, well, that's like stupid to let Duncan's son go when he knows who killed his father. And for me, I was like, well, this just proves to me that Lady Macbeth is the smart one. Because she would have been like, we're going to kill that. Because he doesn't tell her that, you know, he had an opportunity to kill Malcolm.
Rebecca (:She definitely is.
Tori (:and let him go. Yeah, it just didn't make sense to me. And I didn't make sense to me that Malcolm didn't try to kill Macbeth then and there. I mean, he was old enough. It's not like he was a 14 year old boy that his father had just said. I mean, we're talking about a young man in his twenties, right? And he just like calmly, well, maybe not.
Rebecca (:High tales. I did not find it an add. I did not think it added anything. And he knows for sure who killed, you know, yeah, just like you said, we haven't even gotten Lady Macbeth going, you idiot, you brought the daggers with you. Now they gotta stay there, you know.
Tori (:Yeah. Yeah.
Louise (:The only thing I could think of is it it accentuated the idea of Malcolm as a weakling, right? Because, I mean, he's the king of Scotland. They just said, like, you know, his dad just said, I mean, he would have been justified. He must've run away because he didn't think he could take Macbeth, which is probably true, but still.
Tori (:It's not like he was getting livestock flung at him.
Louise (:Wait a second,
Rebecca (:Monty Python?
Tori (:We just watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail last night. They fling the livestock at King Arthur and he's like, run away.
Louise (:I know, aren't we doing one of these on the Holy Grail?
Rebecca (:Well, we totally should. Oh, gosh.
Tori (:We could, we could. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled like elderberries.
Rebecca (:Well, just to bring it back, but I'm totally behind this idea. While we're talking about the murder scene, one thing about all the tents and everything, usually in the stage production, and it's definitely in the play where there's the loud knocking on the door and...
Louise (:The Porter! Where was the damn Porter?
Rebecca (:Porter. And so I missed that. And the fact that everybody was intense, then I was like, yeah, well, I see why we can't do it. We don't have any hard enough doors to have this knocking that sort of reverberates throughout all the audience and strikes fear into the hearts. But anyway, so I missed that. I missed that castle aspect that you had the Porter and the knocking. So anyway, just wanted to mention that. But I understood when they're in a tent, you know.
It's not going to happen.
Louise (:And losing the Porter, again, you're losing that wider social situation, right? You're getting, you get a sense of Scotland from things like the Porter and Lady Macduff and like all of this stuff. so there has to be something for tyranny to be overwhelming.
Tori (:No, that's what I was thinking too. They just didn't have the buildup to everybody starting to call him a tyrant, right? They show him going mad, but they don't show enough of the tyrannical Macbeth. Cause for tyrant, they're not always doing logical things, right? They're just, I mean, we have a lot of evidence of this going on right now, A lot of evidence. Yeah. And so I mean, what we see Macbeth do,
I can take you out Banquo and trying to take you out Fleance. These almost make sense for Macbeth because he's going to be king. He's trying to remove anything that could be an impediment for that. So I agree with you, Louise. There's a bunch of stuff that's missing that would help build that piece up.
Louise (:Because also like the fact if you've got to film this gory and lots of people are just committing violence like without, you know, without any lines or anything, it makes his violence not stand out as much. And I feel like that's why they had to go to that extreme with Lady Macduff. Like you don't have to do that. That scene is so horrendous just as it stands. I mean, it's horrible. Actually, I've heard scholars like feminist scholars calling out that scene.
which is really interesting to me because in a lot of Shakespeare's histories, women are pretty strong and there's a number of women in the play. Remember when we did Richard III, we're like, man, he liked Margaret so much that he brought her back from the dead to be in this play, right? He was like, yes, we must have Margaret. But here, famously, there's very, very few women in Macbeth. And one scholar I heard say something like,
Yeah, it feels like Lady Macduff. It's almost like a slasher movie. Like she's brought on just to be killed. But she is given this full scene and she is given personality and she is given, you know, expression of opinion. Like she's mad at her husband for having left her and the kids undefended, as she rightly should have been. Here, like all of that is ironed out. And so all you get is that Macduff was just a great guy.
rather than like, didn't he take Lady Macduff and his kids with him? Which is the question you have usually in a production. So I think, you know, it takes away a lot of the complexity.
Tori (:Yeah.
Yeah, I thought that was all rather confusing. And I also thought it was a bad choice to have the scene when Macduff and Lady Macduff and the kids ride away and Macduff is still standing there. It was kind of confusing to me. I was like, what, is he sending his family away? And because it didn't look like he was going anywhere.
Louise (:Right, there's that too.
Tori (:That was super confusing. And I was like, what the heck? why, if he's so concerned about Macbeth, why would he leave his family there? And I also didn't understand when Macbeth is talking to Banquo on the beach and he's behaving very sketchily. I was like, why doesn't Banquo just grab his family and take off? Because Macbeth was clearly.
up to something. And so those two things didn't make sense to me the way they had it portrayed in this version.
Louise (:will say one thing I liked about the beach scene, the beach scene, it sounds so much happier than it was, but that between, between Banquo and Macbeth, I really loved their hug. And I just felt like, I know Banquo is suspecting him. I know that, but at the same time, that was where I got the friendship a little bit, even though, you know, Macbeth is plotting and Banquo knows, you know, that he's in da- I still saw that regret.
And I did feel like that connected well to a line that thank God they didn't cut at the end where Macbeth says something about troops of friends I shall not look to have, right? Like, cause he's so isolated, right? He's so, and he's done it to himself. He's chosen it. But I felt like that did connect, but yeah, you're right. mean, there's a lot of stuff that isn't fully fleshed out there.
Tori (:Yeah, yeah. yeah, I mean, it was clear, you know, that Banquo was starting to suspect Macbeth and all sorts of things. And I was like, dude, you should have just kissed the ring already. I kind of placated Macbeth, just, you know, play the game until, you know, you get your family out of there and so forth. So I was just like, okay, okay. All right.
Because that's what really sets Macbeth off.
Louise (:This is cutting too close to like nowadays, right?
Tori (:Yeah, it is. It is.
Louise (:mean, when you were saying about kiss the ring, Isn't that what, you know, we're very concerned about how many sycophantic people we see these days, you know.
Tori (:Yeah. Anyhow.
Louise (:wait, have a scene. And this is very small, but I thought this was really effective. And it connects to Banquo. So when Banquo is murdered, thank God they didn't draw that out as much as all the other murders. You know, it was pretty quick. But then Fliance gets away. And usually, you know, you've got like a teenager who's able to run possibly faster than a grown man. But in this case, we had, I don't know, a seven-year-old.
Rebecca (:No way that seven year old could have possibly gotten away except...
Louise (:Yeah, see, I actually kind of like that. I, cause it was terrifying because he got such a late start. He was so little. were like, what's he going to, how's he going to get away? And I thought that was a great solution to have the either the daughter of one of the witches or maybe she was one of the witches, that little girl. Just be there for, for Fliot.
Rebecca (:Yeah.
Tori (:Watch you!
Rebecca (:And it made it work, right? Because there's no way that little boy could have gotten away, right? Again, yeah, like you said, it was too late, you know? Yeah, I liked that too. Thanks for highlighting that.
Tori (:Flee, Fleance, flee.
Louise (:Flee Fleance.
Rebecca (:You know, Tori and I so recently watched Hamnet and talked about that. And the Weird Sisters reminded me a little bit of the main character in, which is not Shakespeare. Exactly. This sort of like of nature and just being in tune with a little more than other people. And it was almost like these weird sisters were a little ostracized because they could kind of pick up on stuff other people couldn't. And
they did have generations worth, right? Like kind of an older one, a younger one, a baby one. So anyway, gave me some Hamlet by it.
Louise (:Yeah, and crucifixes, man. There were so many crucifixes. And then at the end, when Lady Macbeth is wearing her white dress, before she's like fully, fully mad, she's got like 8,000 crucifixes hanging from her neck. And I was like, you know, Macbeth is famously a play about hell. Not much reference to heaven. I'm like, did it work for you to have all those crucifixes? It did not work for me. It just felt odd.
Rebecca (:I have to admit I didn't even clock that.
Louise (:You didn't? There's so many windows that are shaped like crucifixes and often they'll be like, the light will be in that shape and because often Duncan is shown as a super Christian king and they kind of did that. He looked like the Pope. I mean, he like had the white thing on and then the white robes on and then he had sort of this embroidered scarf that went around and all that.
Rebecca (:Stop.
Louise (:It looked very ecclesiastical. And I've seen many productions where he is like this ultimate Christian king.
Rebecca (:It did.
Tori (:I'm sorry. I was like, it's the Ohio thing.
Louise (:Why?
Tori (:Well, Ohio's pretty conservative, religious kind of, you know, place. So, but speaking of which, since I'm back on Ohio, I was looking up more about that Todd guy, the writer, right? One of the writers. And I do know who he is. Have you ever seen John Cusack's High Fidelity?
Louise (:A long time ago. mean, I the book, I think.
Tori (:Okay. So, know, Jack Black is one of the guys that works in the record store with John Cusack's character. And then this Todd Louiso or whatever his last name is, is the other guy that works in the record store.
Louise (:That's great. That's cool.
Rebecca (:No way!
Tori (:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just throwing that in there. Just throwing that in there. I was trying to find out some about the symbols on the witches foreheads, but I it's good. It would take it deeper.
Rebecca (:Yeah, it definitely was. I mean, it was almost like scarred on there, right? So that would be interesting to know. What did you, I'm not sure where I land on this, but I want to mention it. After Macbeth finds out about Lady Macbeth's death, he has quite an important speech that includes the out-out brief candle.
Louise (:so that
Rebecca (:It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. How did we feel about him actually having all that with Lady Macbeth's body, including him kind of lifting her and almost dancing with her? I wasn't sure. It was wild. And there was a point where I was a little afraid.
Tori (:was wild.
Rebecca (:he was going to drop her body dead weight to the floor. That did not happen. He set her down gently. But I had a few scary times, right? I was afraid Flea was gonna be head Macbeth. was afraid Lady Macbeth's body was gonna get clattered to the floor. What do you think? Because that's usually off stage, right? I'm not sure I've seen a production with him doing those lines.
over her dead body and I don't know how I feel about it.
Tori (:I liked it. I liked that scene. It was weird, but kind of morbid. Yeah.
Rebecca (:But I liked it. Morbid is a good word, which is not inappropriate.
Louise (:I think that that choice had to do with their pacing because that speech is often very quiet and very introspective and melancholy and they'd had so much of that that I feel like they may be I don't know I think if I were the director I might have been worried about having so much like people just speaking their speeches you know we just had Lady Macbeth's speech and now we've got that speech and
I wondered if they just felt like they needed more, to be more physical and more kinetic than it usually is.
Rebecca (:You know, I like you saying that when Tori was talking about she likes a more frenetic Lady Macbeth. And one thing that I kind of missed with how private Lady Macbeth's speech was is it's like the doctor and her ladies woman or something witness, you know, Lady Macbeth's behavior and she comes again. She does this all night and everything. And so we didn't have this. So that is much more
not what they chose, which was her just sort of facing the camera. So that's interesting that the choice with him, with the body is a little more kinetic, a little more movement and active than just doing a melancholy speech.
Louise (:Interesting.
Tori (:So I don't remember in the play itself, do they tell us how Lady Macbeth dies?
Rebecca (:I don't think that, I think it is just, she is dead. Unlike other times, like she swallowed fire or whatever else, know. I think it's just, is dead. Let me see if I can find the line.
Louise (:Yes, that's right!
Tori (:No, I was just gonna say it was a big jump for me to go from her being back at Inverness right at their place. But when she's doing her lines and we find out she's saying them to her child and then we cut to the next scene, she's dead. And it was almost to me like, it made me question whether that scene of her riding to Inverness and riding home was a real thing that happened or if it was kind of like a fever dream that Lady Macbeth
had as she was dying.
Louise (:I cause both she and Macbeth were in sort of white when they were out in the wilderness with no shoes or whatever it was. I felt like both of those were potentially dreams or potentially not something that happened in reality, but I don't know. Rebecca, what have you found?
Tori (:Okay.
Rebecca (:So Seyton, is S-E-Y-T-O-N, says, the queen, my lord, is dead. That's what we get. So there is no description of what, you know.
Tori (:Okay. I'm kind of flipping back and forth between that scene and the scene where he finger manipulates his wife as being my spotlight scene. haven't quite decided yet, but I do want to call out in the bedroom scene when he's kind of macabre-ly.
Very in a very macabre way dancing with his wife. There are two individuals in that scene that need to be highlighted because they were very good boys. were two dogs there. They were just like looking around and sitting there very calmly while all this weird stuff's going on.
Rebecca (:boys. They're such really good boys. I thought you were going to say the doctor and the lady woman and I was like, I don't know. But I totally agree about the dog.
Louise (:ha!
Tori (:While I'm on animals, you know the scene where Duncan is slaughtered and they cut to the horses outside kind of rearing up and stuff. That really reminded me of that Russian production of Hamlet that we watched. yeah. was like, and I couldn't remember the name of the director of that. Kozintsev. I was like, I'm drawn a little bit on Kozintsev there.
Louise (:Ha ha ha!
Louise (:Listen.
Rebecca (:So are you saying that that scene is your spotlight scene? The mourning of Lady Macbeth?
Tori (:no, I think I'm gonna go with earlier scene when they're in that hall together and Fassbender's got the one tier coming down.
Louise (:you
Louise (:There was a lot to say about this. mean, because honestly, the first time I saw this all the way through, was like, I do not like this at all. Except for the camera work and the music. Yeah. But then the second time I was like, OK, now I see like a lot of the thought that went into this. And there were definitely scenes that really caught my heart a few times. So it's sort of a it's a big mix, this this production.
Tori (:Yeah, yeah, and I think you know Rebecca you nailed it earlier on a lot of the decisions that they made were really good decisions for this script and For this adaptation of the play. I don't agree with all the things that they cut out but I Can kind of I can see it but it's not gonna be like my favorite Macbeth Adaptation but but I agree also with you Louise. I love the cinematography. I mean that was
Yeah, that was amazing. That was fantastic.
Rebecca (:Yeah, it is a loss that people, people often think Shakespeare is slow, Shakespeare's boring, whatever. Macbeth, man, is a, is a god. I mean, it should not be boring. You should, you should not be bored. It is not the longest. It's got plenty of action. It's got a lot, you know, and it, you know, it's not dwelling. I mean, it just moves, baby. It moves. And so that's unfortunate that that's how this ends up coming off.
Louise (:I mean, I think sometimes people forget that the language itself is really full of motion and full of sparks and is sending that energy. Like it's not like, my God, get rid of this language, right? Which I feel like for a lot of it, they did, which I've gotten used to that happening in a lot of Shakespeare's films, but it's like, I think people need to remember that that's the engine.
Rebecca (:Yeah.
Tori (:Yeah. So did you think that Fassbender and Cotillard, I don't know how to say her last name. So I'm just going to call her Mary and I apologize. I don't speak French at all. Did you think they had good chemistry?
Rebecca (:they had chemistry. I thought they had some chemistry. I don't know that I thought it was really good, but I'm not going to say, I saw nothing.
Louise (:I mean, I bought them being, obviously I bought the sexiness thing. You know, I said I did. in terms of their acting, kind of, I don't know. I mean, I feel like it's hard to say because like really what seemed to bring him to the climax of like deciding to kill, Hopkins was actually being brought to climax. So I, you know, so I mean,
Is that a testament to their acting or is that something that like you're watching and you're like, this physically makes sense and this makes sense in terms of you know, in terms of when they were speaking to each other, sometimes like, again, I did think that scene in the bedroom was very good in terms of their interactions, but I don't know. feel like I've seen Macbeth's and Lady Macbeth's where they're really like building on each other.
Tori (:Yeah.
Louise (:emotionally a lot more clearly than this.
Rebecca (:Yeah, I think.
Tori (:I would have liked to have seen that because I mean they really do. In my notes somewhere I wrote down early on, I'm like, is Mrs. M's first name Eve, you know, all they've left out is the apple, right? Like here, Macbeth, eat this apple. We shall have all of this knowledge and greatness and so forth. So they were portraying her as, you know, leading Macbeth astray. And I think I would have liked just to have seen
Louise (:Yeah.
Tori (:maybe a little more chemistry to make that a little bit more believable. So.
Louise (:I mean, in Shakespeare's play, he calls her something, my dearest partner and greatness or something like that. And I feel like you really want this sense that they're partners, like both as like emotionally, but also politically. And you kind of get that, but it was more like they seemed just like they were clinging onto each other a little, I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure I felt it a lot.
Rebecca (:I'm just gonna share with you a little insight into my head canon about Shakespeare and Macbeth. I love Lady Macbeth. I really love this character. think she has, I just think it's so juicy. I just think it is just incredible. And in my head canon, it is just really too bad that she even needed to deal with Macbeth at all. think Lady Macbeth, I think Macbeth pulls her down.
pulls her into the madness. She's got it handled and he spins off his axis and pulls her down with him. If she didn't have to deal with that, she'd have been the head of Scotland. The whole gender thing. I think that Shakespeare put this incredible woman here that just was brought down by her man.
Louise (:I mean, I've seen productions where she's so fed up with him after the murder that the audience actually laughs because she's like, what? What have you done?
Rebecca (:love her. really do. mean, obviously there's plenty of evil to go around and she's ambitious and you know, whatever, but I love her. I just think she's an incredible character with incredible lines, which she was robbed of many of them in this production, but there was plenty of that to go around.
Tori (:They made her really manipulative in this production, I thought.
Louise (:And also very quiet for Lady Macbeth.
Rebecca (:Air.
Tori (:Well, the whole thing was very quiet. mean, with all the slow motion and again, that was all part of the pacing thing as well for me. It was very quiet. Anyhow.
Rebecca (:Not a quiet play typically. right. Yeah. And they remove the banging. They remove the banging. We can't have anything too loud.
Louise (:I mean, there was banging, but sorry.
Rebecca (:But quiet banging. It was quiet, quiet banging.
Louise (:Ha ha!
Rebecca (:I really enjoyed this conversation about Macbeth with the two of you.
Louise (:I did too. Thanks for inviting me.
Tori (:absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, well then I guess all we have to do is say goodbye.
Rebecca (:Thanks for listening, everybody!
Rebecca (:spot. How do I say?
Rebecca (:Hell is murky.
Rebecca (:My Lord.
Rebecca (:The soldier and the feared.
Rebecca (:What need we fear who knows it? When none can call our power to account.
Rebecca (:Yet who would thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Tori (:Wallowing in the Shallows is created and produced by the both of us, edited by Mo. The soundtrack for Wallowing in the Shallows is Apache Rock instrumental by Sound Atelier, available on jamendo.com. You can send us feedback at wittstvpod at gmail.com. If you enjoyed Wallowing in the Shallows with us, why not hit that follow button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Captivate, and pretty much anywhere else to get your podcast fix.
