Blood Will Have Blood

June 4, 2015 11:51 AM

The Scottish play movie trailer: Starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.
posted by Cash4Lead (35 comments total)

Looks good, but I preferred it in the original Klingon.

Also, needs more of the Kurgan.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:56 AM on June 4, 2015

After Inglorious Basterds and Prometheus, I'd pay to watch Fassbender read a phone book, but what's also fun is when Shakespeare gets dropped into more modern settings, as it really shows the timelessness of these stories. Like Patrick Stewart's ultraparanoid Stalinist Macbeth. Or Ian McKellan's glamorous Richard III, set in a uncomfortably reasonable fascist equivalent of 1930s Britain. Some may not age well, like Whedon's and Luhrmann's efforts, but at least they are failures that are interesting for other reasons.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:17 PM on June 4, 2015 [8 favorites]

-- "It's fun to say! "
== "It is! It is fun to say!"
-- "Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth! What fun!"
== "Yes! Now let's go find a place to stay in that Hamlet up ahead."
posted by boo_radley at 12:22 PM on June 4, 2015

Frank Miller's Zack Snyder's Kurosa-- ah screw it, it looks good. I'll be there.
posted by gwint at 12:23 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I always thought Hamlet is kind of odd to drop into modernish settings cause of the huge themes of the afterlife/damnation in it. Like you need someone who honestly believes in the fires of hell...

And I always wanted to a version from Queen Gertrude's point of view where her weird loser son is trying to ruin her new marriage.
posted by The Whelk at 12:30 PM on June 4, 2015 [11 favorites]

In all seriousness, the superstition is only valid inside a theater. Isn't that right?
posted by thelonius at 12:30 PM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

As a bit of a history nerd, it was nice to see a certain costume decisions not being made. ("Mr. Gibson, perhaps you could tell the rest of the class what textile design was not worn in Medieval Scotland?")


Anyway, I will watch the hell out of this movie.


Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends! OW!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:31 PM on June 4, 2015 [9 favorites]

(Meant to add, but Macbeth is one of the easiest to drop into new settings cause it's basically a murder thriller with WITCHES)


and Kudos to not looking like a Ren Faire beer tent.
posted by The Whelk at 12:33 PM on June 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

It looks pretty cool, but at a certain point doesn't grittiness and growly male whispering start to get oppressive?
posted by Think_Long at 12:34 PM on June 4, 2015 [4 favorites]

(I saw a version of Julius Caesar set inside a tiny Soviet bloc nation in the 70s and suddenly all the power plays made so much more sense - a very small elite squabbling for limited power )
posted by The Whelk at 12:36 PM on June 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

And I always wanted to a version from Queen Gertrude's point of view where her weird loser son is trying to ruin her new marriage.


That wouldn't even be the most unconventional interpretation.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:36 PM on June 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

I always thought this adptation cut the second encounter with the witches, which made the last scene kind of out of nowhere. this makes me sad.
posted by PinkMoose at 12:41 PM on June 4, 2015

Yes I believe you can say Macbeth outside of a theater, but indulge me in some theater nerdery.
posted by Cash4Lead at 12:44 PM on June 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

I wonder if they're shooting this back to back with the Assassin's Creed film.
posted by fullerine at 12:51 PM on June 4, 2015

at a certain point doesn't grittiness and growly male whispering start to get oppressive?

Especially when it comes from Lady Macbeth!

Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
Like the poor cat i' the adage?

posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:53 PM on June 4, 2015

what's also fun is when Shakespeare gets dropped into more modern settings, as it really shows the timelessness of these stories.

To this end, I would encourage anyone to look into the availability of National Theatre Live screenings in HD. They've done a number of utterly fantastic Shakespeare modernizations ... although, to be fair, I'm pretty much 100% fanboy as far as NTLive is concerned.
posted by mykescipark at 12:57 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've always been partial to Orson Welles's 1948 version, done on-the-cheap for Republic Pictures, a studio mostly known for making Roy Rogers's singing cowboy movies.

See if this creepy intro doesn't grab you by the throat.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:06 PM on June 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

indulge me in some theater nerdery

Now, look! No one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand?! Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say 'Macbeth'.
posted by thelonius at 1:18 PM on June 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

I will see it for the actors but I'm pretty sure that I will always favor the Welles version in spite of or perhaps partially because of the papier-mache sets.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 1:43 PM on June 4, 2015

It looks pretty cool, but at a certain point doesn't grittiness and growly male whispering start to get oppressive?

This is so true. Grittiness and growly male whispering have been causing me to bail out of more movies lately. Note to filmmakers: Please no more closeups of sweaty men's faces with visible grains of sand or soil mixed in with the beard hairs on the cheek (and one sweaty strand of hair pasted to the temple), and no more quit yet resonantly sibilant utterings.
posted by Modest House at 2:07 PM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

I agree in principle, but Fassbender's growly whispering is just fine with me and I would like some more thank you.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:25 PM on June 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

I can't wait!

Always an outlier--and not in any self-congratulatory, Gladwelly way--I thought Polanski's Macbeth was FANTASTIC when I saw it in 1980, during my second and final year as a high school English teacher. I hesitate to rewatch it now because my reaction would certainly be different.

But I loved teaching that play. It was the only required text my kids (seniors) responded to at all. I even toyed with the idea of arranging a field trip to the nearby metropolis to watch the Polanski version with me. Could never have happened, not even then.

More recently, I blurted "Shake not thy gory locks at me!" to an unaccommodating colleague whose frowning stare distracted me as I stumbled through a meeting, ill-prepared. I was as surprised as anyone, but I alone knew I was quoting Macbeth.

My current job requires fewer meetings.
posted by 4shortlegs at 2:58 PM on June 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

I went to see Alan Cummings do Macbeth at Glasgow's Tramway theatre a few years ago. He played every single part as a sort of demented man in a psychiatric ward. He was mesmerising.

This looks more traditional but still mesmerising. I'm quietly hoping for a sort-of Valhalla Rising vibe. Also, also - I'm looking forward to seeing when Fassbender's Irish accent pops in. It always does at some point.
posted by kariebookish at 3:05 PM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Every time I read a Shakespeare play I'm surprised to find that it's the origin of a phrase like "what's done is done".
posted by thelonius at 3:13 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

When I was in high school in 1982 our English teacher showed the Polanski Macbeth in class. At the end she ran the projector backwards so his head bounced up the steps and back onto his body. And now that is all I remember of Polanski's Macbeth.
posted by interplanetjanet at 3:44 PM on June 4, 2015 [8 favorites]

I've always been partial to Scotland, PA. Andy Dick and Speed Levitch play the witches.
posted by The White Hat at 5:56 PM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

I thought Polanski's Macbeth was FANTASTIC when I saw it in 1980, during my second and final year as a high school English teacher. I hesitate to rewatch it now because my reaction would certainly be different.

I thought it was fantastic when I saw it in 1978, during my second-last year as a high school student. (Southern Ontario, by any chance?) I saw it again a couple of years ago and I think it holds up really well. Jon Finch and Terence Bayler in particular were just as good as I'd remembered.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 6:24 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

And I always wanted to a version from Queen Gertrude's point of view where her weird loser son is trying to ruin her new marriage.

That reminds me, where did I put my copy of Updike's Gertrude and Caludius?
posted by Ranucci at 6:52 PM on June 4, 2015

The White Hat: I'm a big fan of Scotland, PA. But for me it's more about Maura Tierney and a soundtrack Ennio Morricone had better not have a problem with.
posted by cardioid at 8:07 PM on June 4, 2015

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!
posted by old_growler at 8:56 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I went to see Alan Cummings do Macbeth at Glasgow's Tramway theatre a few years ago. He played every single part as a sort of demented man in a psychiatric ward. He was mesmerising.

This sounds cool as shit.
posted by dogwalker at 10:33 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was another that saw the Polanski version at school... I imagine the would be a police raid if you tried that now.

Really looking forward to this, for if nothing else Paddy Considine as Banquo.

The BBC did an updated version back in the day set in the world of five-star restaurants and celebrity chefs (the witches were three bin men)... google tells me it was adapted by Peter Moffat, wow. It's on youtube if you're interested.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:30 AM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Fassbender doing Macbeth? Yes, please. Also, this may be the best cinematography that the bard's work has ever seen.
posted by zardoz at 3:26 AM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Folks turned off by all the "growly male whispering" stuff might find this paragraph from Variety's gushing review useful:

A plum role for any actress, Lady Macbeth proves an exhilaratingly testing one for Cotillard, whose gifts as both a technician and an emotional conduit apparently know no linguistic barrier. Streaked with unearthly blue eye shadow — Jenny Shircore’s daring makeup designs are a constant marvel — and working in a cultivated Anglo-Continental accent that positions the character even more pointedly as a stranger in her own court, Cotillard electrically conveys misdirected sexual magnetism, but also a poignantly defeated sense of decency. It’s a performance that contains both the woman’s abandoned self and her worst-case incarnation, often in the space of a single scene. Her deathless sleepwalking scene, staged in minimalist fashion under a gauze of snowflakes in a bare chapel, is played with tender, desolate exhaustion; it deserves to be viewed as near-definitive.
posted by mediareport at 8:40 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

I always thought Hamlet is kind of odd to drop into modernish settings cause of the huge themes of the afterlife/damnation in it. Like you need someone who honestly believes in the fires of hell...

Vishal Bhardwaj set his Bollywood version of Hamlet, Haider, in Kashmir in the 1990s, and it worked astonishingly well. I tend to find the Hamlet's father's ghost thing is what throws me out of modern settings more, and Haider has a clever take on it. (Incidentally, Haider was amazing and a great adaptation, and I highly recommend watching it. My favorite of Bhardwaj's Shakespeare adaptations.)

Anyway, this Macbeth looks great and I'm very excited to see Marion Cotillard's performance. It really seems like you can rarely go wrong with any lush, gorgeously filmed Shakespeare play. They're always a thrill to watch, which really speaks to the plays' timelessness.
posted by yasaman at 1:52 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]