justmyview Reviews

Macbeth (I) (2015)

Butchery

[1/10 · 12 October 2016]

I can't remember the last time I was so exasperated by a film. I didn't see it on its cinema release, but I remembered it getting good reviews at the time and so I was really looking forward to watching it when it was televised a week ago on Film 4.

Sadly, about five minutes in, I thought "I'm not going to like this"; ten minutes in, I knew I didn't like it; somewhere around half way through I stopped it and deleted the recording I'd made of it.

The problem for me was the treatment of the text. OK, Shakespeare's plays are long (although Macbeth is just about the shortest), and the non-stop dialogue that you get in a theatre performance doesn't work on film, so the text is inevitably going to be adapted for a film. If it's well done, as in Polanski's 1971 film or the BBC's Hollow Crown series, then you hardly notice or at least willingly accept it, but in this case...

Firstly, there's very little of the text left; twenty per-cent, ten per-cent? maybe even less than that, and some of what's left is modified. There seem to be two main reasons for these changes: (a) because the words conflict with the visuals (and this film is all about visuals - style but no substance) or (b) because they are too "poetic" and thus presumably jar with the naturalistic acting style. And there was I thinking that the poetry was the bottom line with Shakespeare...

Secondly, and this was what really exasperated me, such words as were retained were often inserted completely out of context, out of sequence, in a way that made them just about meaningless. Why on earth does Macbeth, galloping off to burn Lady Macduff and her sprogs, shout out "Then fly false thanes and mingle with the English epicures"? They haven't flown anywhere yet. I don't know what happened after this; this was where I turned it off.

Maybe it's possible to enjoy this film if you're not familiar with the play - but anybody who is is going to hate it, which I think is why there are so many negative reviews on this site - one more now.

Towards the end of the play (probably not in this film), Macbeth is referred to as a butcher. The only butchers here are the little committee who came up with the screenplay; I wonder whether they actually understood half of the text at all.

Richard II (1982 Video)

So bad it's wonderful

[1/10 · 20 December 2008]

I'm slightly puzzled by Sam Fleischer's review, because this isn't an English production, it's an American one; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the BBC.

I bought this video 10 or so years ago because I had fallen in love with the play the first time I saw it in the theatre - Ian Richardson as Richard in a magnificent production at Stratford in 1974 - and this was the only version available on video when I bought it.

My initial reaction was one of huge disappointment, but after a while I began to relish the sheer awfulness of it all.

It is outlandishly camp from start to finish. The costumes, doublets so short that they barely cover the buttocks, worn over what look like panty-hose, border on the obscene; David Birney as Richard seems to be wearing a mini-skirt two sizes too small for him. OK, there are some references to Richard's effeteness in the text and some lines can be interpreted as veiled references to homosexuality, but not enough to justify the relentless gayness of costume, gesture and delivery.

The single best moment is the Bishop of Carlisle's admonition of Bolingbroke's supporters immediately prior to the deposition scene. Two minutes of the most glorious hand on hip, foot-stomping, pouting overacting that you could hope to see, delivered in a pope-meets-pantomime-dame bishop's outfit and an accent that owes a lot more to Chicago than Carlisle. I literally cried laughing and still do. Although I can think of nothing that would induce me to watch the whole video again, this scene is a joy forever.

So, to sum up, if you want to enjoy Richard II the way it should be enjoyed, buy the BBC DVD with Derek Jacobi in the lead role, but if you get the chance to see this one you are at least guaranteed a good laugh.