Weekly Film- Macbeth

Macbeth is a 2015 British/ french tragedy drama based on Williams Shakespeare 17th Century play of the same name. The film stars Michael Fassbender as the title character and Marion Cottilard as his wife Lady Macbeth. It is directed by Justin Kurzel who also directed the pair Assassins Creed. 

The film tells the classic story of what a husband and wife will do for power.It is maybe at first what you would not expect with a Shakespearean adaptation as the film is just under two hours long and there is not too much dialogue in the film. Instead the action is visually shown to us and Kurzel uses many different camera shots angles are used  , especially lots of establishing shots for landscapes and where characters are. This helps capture the scenery and gives it a cinematic flair throughout. As well there are large battle scenes but in these the action goes into slow motion and sometimes occasionally stopping giving a hyper real feel to the film. 

The Witches

Macbeth in a battle

Colour is also used very interestingly in the films we often have foggy landscapes and it is usually a tradition white fog when ever we see the Witches which adds to the mystical feel of them but other times the fog is a more orange/red colour and gives the audience connotations of danger and death but also makes them weary as you can not really see through it all and do not know what is there. The rest of the colour in the film is very naturalistic and sepia looking showing the audience that we are in a baron and almost uninhabitable part of Scotland. All the use with cinematography and different camera shots make the film visually amazing and it was all mainly shot in England and Scotland

Lighting is also used very nicely in the film as they use natural light to its advantage and how it captures peoples faces and also helps the audience feel as though they are in the landscape.Flames are also used to create light in the scenes inside and help give an eerie glow to it all. 

The film was shot on a budget of was between $15-$20 million and at the box office only made $16.3 million so was not very commercially successful how ever the film was a hit amongst the critics with a 4/5 from the Guardian , Evening Standard and Rolling Stone. It also has a score of  80% on Rotten tomatoes.

Overall this is a beautifully put together and shot film but at some points the story gets a bit confusing and lost making the audience not really know what is going on. As well the films sometimes relays on lots of big action scenes for the sceptical but does not really deliver on the dialogue and doesn't really use the source material effectively.