Macbeth (Justin Kurzel)

[Spinal]

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2884018/reference)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Macbeth-Fassbender-Poster-1_zpsngoikerr.jpg

[Spinal]

Copy/paste from FB:

I always find the experience of watching Macbeth kind of dreary and unsatisfying and this was no exception. The directing style is like a blend of Mel Gibson and Terrance Malick, although maybe not as interesting as that sounds. The film is humorless, which means it sits in one tone/rhythm for most of the runtime. It's not bad and it probably speaks to our times, but given current events, the violent, naturalistic approach was not exactly a whole lot of fun to sit through.

[Watashi]

I don't really remember the play to have a lot of humor...

[Scar]

I don't really remember the play to have a lot of humor...

Definitely not a lot. A touch here and there.

[Spinal]

Well, they cut out the Porter character, which is the play's main source of comic relief. I don't mind that choice since that scene would be pretty difficult to translate into this particular take on the film.

But I'm not even talking about 'jokes'. I'm talking about some sort of sense from any of the characters that life is worth living, that there is joy to be found from it, that it's something more than violence and suffering. That, to me, makes the characters more human, more three-dimensional.

[Grouchy]

As straight forward versions of Macbeth go, this has to be one of the best. I've never seen the Connery or the Welles ones and I have only vague memories of Polanski's although I remember it being very twisted.

As some critics point out (quoted in the movie's Wikipedia page) the problem with the character of Macbeth is that he goes from a man of some nobility who gets tempted by power and his wife's lust for it to a demented hunchback pretty quickly in the play. Fassbender's performance is indeed superior because he instills the whole character arc with a palpable sense of fatality that accompanies that sudden change. Anyway, I have an acquired taste for romantic doom (love Poe's poetry and my favorite piece of classical music is Schubert's Death and the Maiden) so I really don't mind the inherent gloominess of the source material.

[Melville]

I'm told I need to spread the rep around before repping you again, but I fully agree. I thought this was a towering, hellish vision of self-annihilation. I'm not fond of the play for the reason you point out, and I think the movie completely overcame that. My only problem with it was understanding the accents.

[Morris Schæffer]

I'm told I need to spread the rep around before repping you again, but I fully agree. I thought this was a towering, hellish vision of self-annihilation. I'm not fond of the play for the reason you point out, and I think the movie completely overcame that. My only problem with it was understanding the accents.

I had subtitles and still had no idea what they were saying. :D it is quite uncommon for me to not make it through a movie, but it happened last night. Although l'll watch the remainder today. Perhaps i align more with spinal. It was exceedingly monotonous, dour, dreary.