This BBC production is upsetting, unnerving, often horrifying, unforgettable, and very difficult with which to find flaw. It's set it Soviet Russia, with Macbeth as a Stalin-like figure, engendering imagery that is both horrifying and picture-perfectly realized.
One of the great advantages of this film is that is it a (very cinematic) recorded version of a stage production after a long and successful run -- so each member of the ensemble cast in intimately familiar with his or her role and its nuances. Rupert Goold proves himself both a "visionary" director and an actor's one, as every performance is shudderingly truthful and inventive -- and both performances and settings are rife with small interpolations that only add substance and effectiveness to the production -- Macbeth talking to the two overwhelmed murderers while making a sandwich, Banquo killed on a train, the porter bitter and delivering his speech while drinking and watch Soviet parades.
Chief among the cast, of course, is Sir Patrick Stewart, who immediately cements himself as a great Macbeth. He displays extraordinary dynamism, range, understanding, clarity, and emotional truth in the role. His Macbeth is forceful and powerful but at the same time vulnerable and uncertain. We feel first his struggle, then his guilt and of all his pervading mania for certainty. The moment just before his death when he finally dismissed his grasping at the vision of the (unnervingly nurse- attired witches) for that certainty with a still "Enough" is astounding. I have difficulty imagining a more affecting rendition of the "tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" speech than Sir Patrick's absolute nihilism here.
Suzanne Burden is also a horrifying Lady Macbeth; her honest hunger for power through her husband, her recoil at his disruption of dinner with his vision of Banquo making her not sympathetic but comprehensible as a real human and thus the more uncanny. Michael Feast also deserves special mention as an excellent Macduff, carrying off an amazing silence after he learns the death of his sons.
The Soviet trove of imagery is rich, enhancing the play with suggestions of history that we may know (Siward happens to remind me a lot of Shostokovich here) lending it a well-realized look of decay and hopelessness. Devices such as the Stalinist-style portrait of Macbeth, the rolling tape, the bugs, &c are recreated with precision, fall into that "uncanny valley" with their level of familiarity and hint parallels with the events of the play without intruding on them.
In all, great production and direction as well as performances from a tight ensemble cast -- all brimming with creativity from all edges -- create a great production of the play that is a searing, nightmarish vision, complimented by a performance in the lead role that seems to me to be for the ages, and is now my favorite of those I've had the chance to see. There have been and will be many performances of Macbeth that are _different_ than this one, but I doubt I'll see one that is _better_.
One of the great advantages of this film is that is it a (very cinematic) recorded version of a stage production after a long and successful run -- so each member of the ensemble cast in intimately familiar with his or her role and its nuances. Rupert Goold proves himself both a "visionary" director and an actor's one, as every performance is shudderingly truthful and inventive -- and both performances and settings are rife with small interpolations that only add substance and effectiveness to the production -- Macbeth talking to the two overwhelmed murderers while making a sandwich, Banquo killed on a train, the porter bitter and delivering his speech while drinking and watch Soviet parades.
Chief among the cast, of course, is Sir Patrick Stewart, who immediately cements himself as a great Macbeth. He displays extraordinary dynamism, range, understanding, clarity, and emotional truth in the role. His Macbeth is forceful and powerful but at the same time vulnerable and uncertain. We feel first his struggle, then his guilt and of all his pervading mania for certainty. The moment just before his death when he finally dismissed his grasping at the vision of the (unnervingly nurse- attired witches) for that certainty with a still "Enough" is astounding. I have difficulty imagining a more affecting rendition of the "tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" speech than Sir Patrick's absolute nihilism here.
Suzanne Burden is also a horrifying Lady Macbeth; her honest hunger for power through her husband, her recoil at his disruption of dinner with his vision of Banquo making her not sympathetic but comprehensible as a real human and thus the more uncanny. Michael Feast also deserves special mention as an excellent Macduff, carrying off an amazing silence after he learns the death of his sons.
The Soviet trove of imagery is rich, enhancing the play with suggestions of history that we may know (Siward happens to remind me a lot of Shostokovich here) lending it a well-realized look of decay and hopelessness. Devices such as the Stalinist-style portrait of Macbeth, the rolling tape, the bugs, &c are recreated with precision, fall into that "uncanny valley" with their level of familiarity and hint parallels with the events of the play without intruding on them.
In all, great production and direction as well as performances from a tight ensemble cast -- all brimming with creativity from all edges -- create a great production of the play that is a searing, nightmarish vision, complimented by a performance in the lead role that seems to me to be for the ages, and is now my favorite of those I've had the chance to see. There have been and will be many performances of Macbeth that are _different_ than this one, but I doubt I'll see one that is _better_.