Waste of time

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Memorable, crazy movie

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's finest plays, and this is a most wonderful version of it. I know that some have disliked the sets, finding them too dark and bare, I can see why, there are more interesting sets elsewhere in regard to productions of this play. But I found that the austerity was fitting with the gloomy tone of the play. Besides despite their look, they are made somewhat interesting by the lighting, which throughout with the light and dark contrasts is very atmospheric. The Witches scenes and the sleepwalking scene are lit brilliantly, but the one that stood out was when Macbeth greeted Duncan, the greens and reds was almost like a reference to what was going to happen later. I found it very foreboding and subtle, yet never predictable either. The costumes are acceptable, and again fitting with the play's tone. There are more traditional ones out there, but also much uglier ones. The camera work is unobtrusive and skillful.The dialogue is as ever brilliant, poetic yet haunting. The stage direction is suitably intense, the Witches scene in Act 4 is chilling as it should be, the Act 4 English scene is very strongly acted and moving and the banqueting scene doesn't fall into the danger of being misconceived. The music is very well-incorporated and quite haunting, yet it is never over-bearing. The acting is really magnificent. The Witches do give you chills(one is younger than the other two but this really did work), Bob Peck is a poignant MacDuff, John Woodvine commands with authority as Banquo-especially in the "Stop, take my sword" speech and in his ghost guise in the banqueting scene- and Ian McDiarmid brings some well-timed comedy amidst the gloom as the Porter. His Ross is also very memorable and very conflicted, more so than I remember the character being. What makes or breaks a Macbeth production(or any production in general) is the quality of the two leads.You cannot ask for a better Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Ian McKellen has so much intensity in his line delivery- just listen to the famous "Is This a dagger I see before me" soliloquy- and his descent from loyal to indifferent, hubristic madness chills and moves. In regard to the latter, I did find his "Out, Out, brief candle" extraordinarily moving, after seeing actors sounding as though they are just reading this particular part, it was a joy to actually see and hear McKellen live it. It more than makes up for his perhaps too warm(in features) face, which is more a nitpick and hardly an issue when the actual performance was so good. Judi Dench's Lady Macbeth is both fragile and blood-curdling, while she relishes phrases like "murd'ring ministers" as she prays to lose all womanhood she is at her best in the sleepwalking scene. Her harrowing scream is truly unforgettable. The two are just as effective together in their conspiring, exuding sexual passion and increasing intensity.Overall, a Macbeth to remember. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Truthfully, I am a witch (a beginner, but learning) because of "Macbeth." Against a backdrop of personal tragedy, I heard a recording of and read the play when I was 10, and dragged my mother to the Roman Polanski movie (in 1971). Mom wasn't prepared for naked witches.The reason I wanted to be a witch then was personal power; it took me about 25 years to grow up and realize that power isn't the essence of witchcraft--wisdom is. From power comes only the abuse of power and the obliteration of the self. From wisdom comes power and the discernment to recognize that 9 of 10 instances are not worth using that power on. Okay, that's the end of the witchcraft testimonial.This is the most minimalist, claustrophobic, monochrome, and noir-lit production of "Macbeth" I've seen, and I mean that in a good way. All the action takes place within a large circle on a dark stage, with the actors sitting on cubes around the circumference. The costumes are dark and minimalistic--they're of any (historic) period and all periods.This filmed production's advantage over a live performance in a theatre is that the camera focuses on the actors, with master shots of two or more persons and tight head-and-shoulder closeups for soliloquies. The viewer can see the characters' emotional turmoil in the actors' eyes; and we know that the eyes are the windows into the soul. Trevor Nunn's design and direction moves this play from the realm of 'tragedy' to the heights of 'possession by the gods of drama'.Ancient Greek actors often wore masks while acting their tragedies, and I have a theory why. To project the emotional turmoil, to subsume one's own personality to larger-than-life characters, to make the playwright's words live and breathe, in essence, to make the play an offering to the gods and Muses, the actors had to do an early form of 'method' acting. If they *had* performed without masks, I think the audience would have been taken aback by the sheer power of some of those performances--or, I may be reading too much into ancient drama.Without prosthetics, makeup, or lighting effects, the three actresses who play the Witches bar no holds and set no limits to what they do to become their characters, startling the audience and making them cringe and squirm. It's as if their faces 'morph' and they physically *change* because they're unrecognizable in the minor roles they also play.The same is also true of Ian McKellen and Judi Dench; from the end of Act I, Macbeth and his Lady start a slow slide from sanity to insanity, as their consciences render punishment. Ian McKellen as Macbeth is happy but cautious when he's reunited with his wife (Act I, Scene 5), he has no plans to take action until he examines his options; Lady Macbeth instigates Duncan's murder precipitously, with dire consequences. In the medieval world, not only was it a crime to kill a person, but to kill a God-anointed sovereign was a crime and a sin against God. (Elizabeth I was outraged when her Privy Council carried out Mary Queen of Scot's execution; it wasn't that Mary was Liz's cousin, but that she was a God-anointed sovereign that bothered her so much.)In reading about witchcraft around the world, something interesting stuck that comes to mind when I watch this "Macbeth." In Haitian voudoun, congregants communicate with the loa (sing. & pl.), the gods, during a drum-propelled rite of frenzied dancing and other, ordinarily dangerous, acts; these men and women are protected from harm because the loa inhabit and control of their bodies temporarily. In "Macbeth," the actresses playing the Witches, Ian, and Judi appear at times to be "ridden by the loa," possessed by pagan gods--or the Muses, notably in A.I, Ss. 1, 3, 5, 7; A.II, S. 2; A.III, S. 4; A.IV, S. 1; A.V, Ss. 1 & 5. In A.III, S. 4, the Banquet scene, you aren't seeing Ian McKellen, the guy who played Gandalf, Magneto, and James Whale--you're seeing a man whose guilty conscience is causing a complete psychological breakdown, followed by Judi in A.V, S. 1, the sleepwalking scene; the minds of these characters are falling apart from trying to hide their knowing crime and sin.This production has turned Shakespeare's "Macbeth" into a weapon that stabs one's eyes, ears, and mind with horrific actions and images. Don't watch it in a dark room, and don't watch it alone. I give it 10 of 10 stars.

Trevor Nunn has done somthing I never dreamed could be possible.He has staged the perfect Macbeth! Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench, (in my opinion the world's greatest actors)have given the performances of a life time. McKellen's slow decent into Madness is so emotionally powerful that you wonder if anything can equal it,the only thing that does is Dench's own mad scene. Nunn has taken Shakespeare's text and stripped it to its bare emotions,the film is one raw nerve after another from the appearance of the witches and their well acted trances,to the image of the saintly,almost pontifical King Duncan praying after battle. Ian McDiarmid also deserves high praise for his dual role of the austere Thane of Ross and the drunken,almost effeminate Porter. This film is an experience that,once seen,you will never forget.In fact you will want to watch it over an over again. In short,this is Perfect Shakespeare.

Dead solid perfect handling of the Shakespeare chiller with greats McKellan and Dench giving their all in stellar performances. A brilliant scene involving Dench as Lady Macbeth in a breakdown that is so haunting, but so incredibly real. She lets out this god awful scream that frightens but also conveys to us beautifully the emotion and loss that this character has just endured. An astonishing achievement.