“All hail Macbeth that shalt be king hereafter.”
A new clip from the forthcoming version of Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender in the title role and Marion Cotillard as his wife Lady Macbeth, shows us—uh, 392-year-old spoiler alert?—the prophecy that sets the wheels in motion for his murderous rise to the top.* In this scene, Macbeth meets the three weird sisters who foretell of his rise as King of Scotland. Prophecy, and by extension the theme of fate versus free will, is one of the single most important elements of the story.
I mean C’MON. We already couldn’t hide our excitement for this movie—opening in December—after the amazing trailers that have been released, and this clip is just further feeding our anticipation. Whereas many productions of Macbeth play the witches as old, cackling soothsayers, here they are much more understated, having an almost ghostlike quality you’d expect from a horror film. Knowing what will become of Macbeth (and those close to him), playing the witches this way gives it a weight that a classic version may not be able to achieve. Everything here works to create the tension that permeates the entire play.
What scene from the play are you most excited to see in this version? All hail you reader who shalt tell us in the comments hereafter.
*Just so my 10th grade English teacher, Mrs O’Brien, doesn’t get mad at me, technically Macbeth was already thinking about a potential coup of the throne before he heard this from the witches, but at the very least this scene does play an important role in pushing Macbeth forward into murder.
HT: EW
Image: Weinstein Company
