10 Things You Need To Know About Michael Fassbender's Macbeth

9. It Retains The Language Of The Original (Sort Of)

A big dilemma for filmmakers when putting Shakespeare on cinema screens is whether to keep the Early Modern English of his plays. On one hand, movies are a business and it's common sense that retaining a way of speaking not every one will be able to understand is going to put many potential viewers off. At the same time, there is an inherent beauty in Shakespeare's words that are kind of the reason they've lasted so long in the first place. The words are as important as the plot and characters, so removing them is going to be detrimental to the power of the play. Kurzel's film reaches a nice compromise. The original dialogue is retained but pared down. All but the essential lines are excised and the rest is told using image. This seems to be how any cinematic piece should work anyway - relying on the strengths of the medium rather than on the script alone. Any play can offer a faithful representation of Shakespeare's words, but the power of cinema to tell a story through pictures is unique. Dispensing with unnecessary lines while keeping to the spirit of the original seems to be the best method of retelling this famous story.