Violence In Macbeth

Shakespeare’s plays have had countless renditions, the fact that the plays were written so long ago means the characters performances can change depending on how they want the characters to be portrayed.

In Kurzel’s 2015 Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, played by Marion Cotillard tries to protect herself and Macbeth by hiding their murderous conspiracies and her husband’s declining mental state from the Lords through her volume, tone, and facial expressions, which illustrates her manipulative personality and desperation to keep her power.

One of the ways that Kurzel made Lady Macbeth show some of her true character in the banquet scene was through Cotillard’s strict control of her volume and tone. The tension in the Banquet scene is palpable, simply

Macbeth is clearly not in the right frame of mind, the audience has already seen that he can be violent and domineering. Compared to Lady Macbeth he is a much more imposing figure, he could easily best Lady Macbeth in anything physically and she knows this. The way she speaks to Macbeth when he is holding her in the middle of the hall is the way a mother would speak to a child having a tantrum. She speaks to him in a calm but forceful way, making sure that he knows he is causing a scene and that he needs to stop. Momentarily, this calms him but he quickly reverts to his old self. She speaks so quietly so that the other people in the hall will not hear her but that Macbeth will understand her well. This particular part in the banquet scene makes her seem more human because the audience can see one of her shortcomings; she is not a man. She will always be less powerful and than a man and will likely never be taken as seriously as one. Even though she is clearly the more intelligent and better leader. She is able to keep all of her plots from coming to light even with a drunken and hallucinating Macbeth. She prevents any of the Lord's questions from being answered and prevents Macbeth from revealing anything crucial or