Dir. Geoffrey Wright, Australia, 2006, 109 mins
Cast: Sam Worthington, Victoria Hill, Lachy Hulme
Review by
Carol Allen
If you check out the internet for movies based on Shakespeare's "Macbeth", you'll realise just how popular a subject it is with film makers. To name but a few there's Orson Welles's 1948 version, in which he also starred; Trevor Nunn's 1979 television production with Ian McKellan and Judi Dench and Roman Polanski's 1971 film, which emphasised the youth of Mr and Mrs Macbeth played by Jon Finch and Francesca Annis. Then there are the modern dress versions, which use the story but not the verse, as in writer Peter Moffat's 1997 television film in which James MacAvoy played ambitious chef Joe Macbeth. It's not a new idea either to interpret Macbeth as a gangster tale, as did Ken Hughes in 1955 with "Joe Macbeth" and Penny Woolcock in 1997 in "Macbeth on the Estate" with James Frain as a council estate drugs lord. But Geoffrey Wright's version has to be the first to be set in the underworld of Melbourne .
The screenplay has been written by Wright and Victoria Hill, who also produces and plays Lady Macbeth. They have skillfully edited Shakespeare's text and employed it in an imaginative and very cinematic way, often putting a new and interesting interpretation onto well worn lines and scenes. The opening for example in which the witches, played as three nubile schoolgirls dabbling in black magic, are plotting their mischief while desecrating an urban cemetery, and their later interaction with Macbeth, which takes the form of a fevered, fantasy orgy. There are significant and effective periods of action replacing exposition, like the early battle between drug gangs which kicks off the plot, with little or no dialogue at all. The character of Fleance, Banquo's son, destined according to the weird sisters to father a long line of kings, is built up in an interesting way to indicate his future role, while the question that has occupied scholars for years of whether or not Lady Macbeth had a child ("I have given suck") and if so what happened to it, is unequivocally answered. Yes, in this version she did and it died, a tragic fact which is a strong motive force in Hill's powerful performance.
Worthington has the good looks of a pop star good looks and is sexy and charismatic as Macbeth, Gary Sweet is an interestingly vigorous Duncan and Hill strong as MacDuff. It is sometimes a bit tricky sorting out who is who amongst the many supporting roles, which is a problem anyway with the play, and the archaic language particularly the use of "my lord" sometimes sits a little oddly with the contemporary setting and Australian accents. However, that doesn't detract from the power of scenes like the murder of Lady McDuff and her children, always a bit of a shocker, which is particularly chilling and brutal here. Wright, director of the skinhead drama Romper Stomper, which first brought Russell Crowe to the attention of a wider audience, brings a similar energy but more style to the film. Wright and Hill proudly claim that despite their editing all the famous bits are still intact. You might at first think that Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech after the death of his wife has been dropped but no, it is transposed to much later in the film to good cinematic effect.
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