Life is but a shadow in place; a poor player that struts and stirred one hour on stage and then again not knowing of him is told by an idiot, full of sound and fury tale signifying nothing. ” So Macbeth reflects in the fifth part of the famous namesake, shortly before Birnam Wood begins to move towards Dunsinane and the avenging sword of Macduff snatches the throne and head. And more-words, words less, soliloquy starts again in the new film adaptation of Macbeth just released in our country, directed by Justin Kurzel and starring Michael Fassbender German and French Marion Cotillard in roles Macbeth and his wife respectively.
It is not the first nor will be the last time that the work of William Shakespeare, one of his most famous creations to popular-level is carried by the printed word and the scene to the big screen. The tragic and bloody history’s most famous thane of medieval Scotland (ie, guardian of a Scottish nobleman), originally published in 1623, has several attractive elements when thinking them in cinematic terms, along with a wide range of topics so universal and timeless: the ambition for power; the murderous betrayal; the blame; remorse. These have always been open both melodrama and psychological drama field.
From the Macbeth who tried to transpose the prestige of the original work a hundred years ago, to recreate in the nascent film art is retain just a few frames. So the first adaptation of Macbeth in film history remains one of the most unjustly undervalued at the time of its release.
In 1947, Orson Welles, who was no longer the boy wonder of the New York theater to which Hollywood had opened the doors wide part, expressed his wish to film the story of the great English playwright . But it was not easy. Eight years after the RKO studios put their feet all their might to perform Citizen Welles was working on a shoestring budget, just three weeks of filming at their disposal, and a production and distribution agreement with the company Republic (famous for the systematic production of class B westerns and serials designed for a young audience).
Unlike Hamlet, the Oscar-winning film -directed by Lawrence Olivier and released in the United States a few days of differentiation, the 1948 Macbeth Welles was quite battered by the public and by the criticism and quickly fell into oblivion, even though Welles himself Republic and relaunched the film a couple of years later, with twenty minutes of deleted footage and a good portion of the dialogue bent to a more neutral English (the original version put highlight the strong Scottish accent imitated by the distribution).
vilified by Shakespearean purists because of its creative liberties with the original text (in the 30s, Welles had already “broken” in its Voodoo version Macbeth, played on stage by a cast of black actors), and the mass audience completely giving back, the film gained through the decades the status of “classic damned”, one of the first in a long list in the filmography of the director. This is not only understandable but even logical: modernity bet Welles begins with a particular cross styling and photographic realism that has several points of contact with German expressionism. But also it drifts Soviet montajismo, including Sergei Eisenstein, whose contrapicados planes and balanced group shots here seem to resurface with renewed vigor. He continues with a start strictly film scene (each framing, camera movement and crossfade make clear what) in brutal collision with a stage for artificial definitely moments, recitation of the dialogues and theatrical gestures registration roots. The result of the work of Welles is strangely motivating and generally effective. The powerful face and powerful voice of Welles perfect ENCARNACION the horrors and pains king of Scotland-murderer, are supplemented in turn with an eclectic cast that never out of tune to the central presence: Jeanette Nolan as Lady Macbeth, Dan O` Herlihy as Macduff, Roddy McDowall in the role of Malcolm, the son of the murdered King Duncan.
1.37 Replacing the bar form and the black and white wide screen in full color, the incarnation of the same work materialized by the Polish Roman Polanski in the early 70s, it makes visual realism (dirty and bloody) one of its most visible features. And virtuous: the meticulous production design never attempts exceed accomplished drama and transport the viewer to a stark and brutal essentially medieval universe. Produced with British and American contributions (oddly, the film branch of the Playboy empire provided much of the budget), Macbeth (in the original language The Tragedy of Macbeth, 1971) is not nevertheless the antithesis of Wellesian effort. In his images of castles away from the fairy tale, politically incorrect courtly entertainments and spurts and pools of blood everywhere, the script of Polanski himself and theater critic Kenneth Tynan overlap a faithful reading of the original dialogues pronounced by the cast headed by Jon Finch and Francesca Annis in a naturalistic tone, which he removed all the grimaces and gestures typical traditional Shakespearean theater accessories. Some of the monologues of the main character no longer take place in situ and are transmitted in the film as a voiceover.
Polanski’s Macbeth is usually included in the canon of his best films. From historical films, adaptation of the novel by Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, usually carried all the laurels. However, it is a film provided a great imagination to reinterpret ideas and transferring them from one medium to another, which requires a review and revaluation meritorious. Among other findings worth highlighting the sequence of the second meeting with the “sisters” -a aquelarre- village, which becomes a real lysergic trip. Or the magnificent sword duel between Macbeth and Macduff, in which the use of the general plan provides ease and ridiculous body despite the explicit violence. 1971 Macbeth is also a remarkable contribution to the cinematography of Gil Taylor, showing a crossing gray contrasting textures and other extremely warm, particularly those that are orange twilight of the heavens and the hair of Lady Macbeth the deep red of spilled blood. That is, the direction of sample-picture-and what is the hyperrealism of the rocks and mountains to the eerie surrealism of that moment when day stops being to cede the place to “this darkness that now surround the face of the . Earth “
But fifteen years before the premiere of Polanski, Akira Kurosawa gave that, for many, remains even today the best film adaptation of Shakespeare: Throne Blood (1957 Kumonosu-Jo the original title translates as The Castle of the web). Kurosawa and his team transplanted the action from Scotland to Japan fifteenth century and transformed in Taketoki Washizu Macbeth, a brave samurai who like its “cousin” europeo- go climbing positions thanks to treachery and crime after encounter with a white spirit coherently … was spinning the threads of fate?
Perfect example of stylistic syncretism Throne of Blood, combines theatricality derived from Noh theater (although there is here masks, Toshiro Mifune’s face seems at times adopt the rictus of the traditional style), with the most rigorous realism in the crowd scenes shot on location, many of them filmed on the slopes of Mount Fuji. His wife is perhaps the Lady Macbeth of the most perfidious and provocative-another great performance by Isuzu Yamada- screen. And the final sequence, which is Washizu death under a rain of arrows, is one of the most powerful in the entire filmography of the director of Seven Samurai audiovisual experiences.
But perhaps the most important lesson of Throne of Blood is related precisely with the idea of treason: avoiding the more or less literal adaptation of Macbeth, Kurosawa is at the same time, extremely loyal to his ideas and core issues and at the same Shakespeare, which is more alive than ever in these fields populated by Japanese daimyo, samurai and warlords. The same director achieved something similar thirty years later in their particular adaptation of King Lear (1985). But the story of an old king, carried by various vicissitudes to madness, is another story.
No comments:
Post a Comment