Movie Monday: MacBeth

The latest interpretation of the Scottish play MacBeth stars Michael Fassbender with Marion Cotillard. The scene opens with a breath taking shot of a pale faced child lying on a bleak landscape which the camera slowly pulls out from to reveal a pyre and group of sorrowful faces. A briefly alluded to snippet in this interpretation the violent story of a tyrannical Scot King.

Along with the riveting performances the director Justin Kurzel and cinematographer Adam Arkapaw have created a breathtaking piece of visual poetry. The slow moving adaptation veers from the traditional telling of story, removing and re-imaging scenes like the iconic witches.

Michael Fassbender embodies MacBeth so fiercely and profoundly that it feels like this is the role he was meant to play. At the very least he deserves a nod (nomination), if not oscar, from the his fellow actors who are part of the Academy of Motion Pictures. As a natural progression I am sure that soon he will follow up this film performance with one live on stage.

The contrast in the color script moving from pale foggy gray with small strokes of yellow to the fiery oranges and reds of war and savagery with languid wails of the hurly burley adding more depth to a cinematically beautiful piece of dark artistry.

Bee references in Shakespeare

1) "O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out..." (Sonnet 64)

2) "We bring it to the hive and, like the bees,
"Are murdered for our pains." (Henry IV)

3) "The sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness." (Romeo and Juliet)

4)"...For honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.." (As You Like It)

5) "Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail." (Troilus and Cressida)

6) "The sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness." (Romeo and Juliet)

7) "Obedience: for so work the honey-bees..." (Henry V)

8) "'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb. In the dead carrion." (Henry VI)

9) "Thus we may gather honey from the weed,
"And make a moral of the devil himself." (Henry V)

10) "Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber." (Julius Caesar)

11) "For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony,
"And very wisely threat before you sting." (Julius Caesar)

12) "When he did frown, O, had she then gave over,
Such nectar from his lips she had not suck´d." (Venus and Adonis)

13) "Where the bee sucks, there suck I..." ("The Tempest")

14) "We bring it to the hive and, like the bees,
"Are murdered for our pains." (Henry IV)

15) "The commons, like an angry hive of bees
"That want their leader, scatter up and down
"And care not who they sting in his revenge." (Henry VI)

16) "Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
"Till he hath lost his honey and his sting." (Troilus and Cressida)

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