Macbeth: Was Michael Fassbender born to play Macbeth? [trailer #2]

In less than a month our friends across the Atlantic get Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Elizabeth Debicki, and Sean Harris on the big screen on October 2nd. Here in the states we’ll have to settle for this second trailer until the movie makes it screen debut on December 4th. Then, after what’s being called a limited run, Macbeth will be available to stream on Amazon. I hope you have a really big screen to capture all the blood, gore and drama! 

‘Imaging the link between sex and violence’ 

According to my source at the Washington Post, Shakespearian scholar and author of Will in the World, Stephen Greenblatt, said “The trailer seems in touch with several features that make the play attractive to contemporary audiences: lots of blood and gory battle scenes; a strong, erotically charged relationship at its center; an intense interest in the costs of masculinity; a way of imagining the link between sex and violence.”

Shakespeare invented the horror genre?

Well, yeah! That’s why we want to see the movie and why we’re all amped that Michael Fassbender, with his hot-blooded masculine streak and his ability to postal, is Macbeth. Greenblatt told the WP that “the filmmakers seem to understand the cinematic quality of what superstitious theater people refer to as “the Scottish play”: “Shakespeare virtually invented ... the horror movie.” 

In his review for The Telegraph, Robbie Collin insists not only that Fassbender was born to play the part, but that “After seeing Fassbender and Cotillard in these roles, the thought of ever seeing anyone else play them fades into irrelevance.” Considering all those actors who’ve come before as Macbeth [Orson Welles, Peter O’Toole, Kenneth Branagh and Patrick Stewart] and Lady Macbeth [Sarah Bernhardt, Vivien Leigh, Judi Dench, and Helen Mirren] to name a few, and all those who’ll play the part in years to come, that is high praise indeed.

Directed by Justin Kurzell, this adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth has reportedly been stripped down by Jacob Koskoff, Michael Lesslie and Todd Louiso. We’ll have to see how that works for the purists.