Remembering Macbeth
I hope it will not seem immodest if I enthuse here about a screening in Stratford-upon-Avon last Sunday of the Illuminations/Royal Shakespeare Company Macbeth that we made in 2000. This is a film version produced for Channel 4 of the stage show that began in 1999 on the stage of The Swan Theatre, travelled to the States and Japan, and then in the summer of 2000 came to the Young Vic in London.
Macbeth is available on DVD and for download and streaming
Sunday’s event at The Other Place was organised for RSC Patrons and was to remember and celebrate the extraordinary talent of the late Sir Antony Sher, who plays Macbeth. Before the screening I chaired a Q&A with Harriet Walter, who is Lady Macbeth, and Gregory Doran, the stage and screen director of this Macbeth, RSC Artistic Director Emeritus, and also Tony Sher’s husband.
Harriet and Greg were on scintillating form, funny and moving as they thought back to the rehearsal process, remembered the filming and spoke about something of what it was like to work with Tony. Together we recalled that Chris Smith, then Culture Secretary in the Labour Government, came to see the show at the Young Vic (and oh did we long on Sunday for a Culture Secretary who actually went to the theatre!). He rang Michael Jackson, then Chief Executive at Channel 4, and suggested that the channel might consider filming the highly-praised staging. Michael somehow found a budget of £450,000, Greg and Tony found co-producer Seb Grant and myself at Illuminations, and we pulled the film together in just a few weeks.
Before this I had produced a television version of Richard II, which Deborah Warner directed, and with Seb a film by Phyllida Lloyd of her staging of Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana. With Greg, who had not made a film before, we all knew that we did not want to attempt a multi-camera version shot in the theatre. Instead for the single-camera style we envisaged we sought a single location (to keep the costs down) that had what Greg called “a vivid neutrality”.
We found all the qualities we were looking for in the Roundhouse in Camden, a former locomotive shed and later arts centre which in the autumn of 2000 had recently been refurbished. Both the glorious high main space and the warren of low caverns underneath were empty, and we made full use of them throughout the 12 days of filming.
The key thing I want to mark here about the screening is how astonishingly good the film revealed itself to be. First, it looked absolutely glorious projected on a really big screen (and it sounded great too). (Credit here to Todd MacDonald who a while back made a new digital transfer from a tape master, resulting in a 60-plusGB file, which is a triumph.) We shot it with a Digibeta tape camera, but from the quality of the images you would honestly not be able to tell. It was pin-sharp on the screen (thanks to Oli Quintrell and the projection team), with deep blacks, and with images, both in the close-ups and the big, high wides, of striking beauty.
The key creative on the film team was DOP Ernie Vincze. The production is set in a world that might be the aftermath of the conflict in former Yugoslavia, and Greg wanted the edgy immediacy of a verité documentary. Ernie had worked in war zones for Granada documentaries, and with his son Chris as assistant he filmed much of Macbeth with the heavy Digibeta camera on his shoulder. Astonishingly, we managed to shoot ten minutes of screen time on each day.
Scenes were done with only the most minimal prep and with Ernie following the action employing all the skills of the brilliant documentary cameraman that he was. There are long sequences shot in single takes where the camera finds exactly the right face at the right moment. And the subtleties, the precision, the intelligence, the understanding and the detail of the performances shine through, with the camera catching the tiniest of side glances and sceptical expressions.
The cast is remarkable, with not only Tony and Harriet at the very top of their respective games, but also Ken Bones as Banquo, the great Joseph O’Conor as Duncan, and Noma Dumezweni and Richard Armitage in small roles. One key to making it all happen against the ridiculous schedule was that they had all lived inside these parts for a year immediately before stepping on to the set.
Fundamental to the lighting was a helium balloon, illuminated from the inside, that Ernie floated into the ceiling of the Roundhouse. He supplemented this enveloping soft light with only a few lamps on stands (as I recall we worked with only a single electrician, Benny Harper, although that can’t actually have been the case.). Much of the time this delivers absolutely gorgeous images, often picking out the edge of an actor’s profile, although there are a few occasions when I wished for a bit more fill on a face to supplement the top light.
With truly brilliant, fast-paced editing, on occasion using jump cuts (as for Stephen Noonan’s dazzling Porter, shot by a row of filthy toilet bowls and complete with uncanny Tony Blair impersonation) the film has a propulsive energy that makes it feel, even 22 years on, remarkably contemporary. From being pitched instantly into the breathless opening of the weird sisters rushing headlong away from a night-vision camera, watching its 120 tight minutes felt extraordinarily exciting, on occasion truly scary, and also just a tiny bit exhausting.
Having not viewed the film properly (apart from choosing the occasional clip) for two decades I was unsure what to expect, and a touch apprehensive, but I think it’s fair to say that all of us in the audience were thrilled. Which is further support for the argument of both the RSC and Illuminations cherishing their moving image archives, and carefully looking after – and making accessible – theatres and digital files that preserve such treasures.
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