Macbeth is the darkest of Shakespeare's plays and this adaptation for the screen matches the genius of Shakespeare's vision. It is breathtaking cinema. Everything about it coheres: the sparse theater sets (enhanced by draftsmanship graphics), the minimalist haunting music, the camera work, the editing out of the comic banter, the anachronistic costumes, the casting (black Scotsmen?) and even the lighting-the sun never shines here. And the acting! Did I mention the acting? What glorious acting: a good man prodded into killing his Liege Lord, the torment of conscience and the madness punishing him like the Eumenides in Greek tragedy. It is a glorious and cosmological work. The vision behind it matches the genius of Shakespeare himself. (Imagine, in it is a recurrent old man, a projectionist, who-throughout the action-is viewing a gaudy Macbeth from the silent film era.) If you approach this film not as mere entertainment, but as a probing into the nature of things, it will leave you dumbstruck. Yes, it is THAT good.
Review of Macbeth
