Macbeth / **** (2015)

Shakespeare’s grim and challenging “Macbeth” is not a story for the easily rattled, and rare is the movie adaptation that is able to comprehend the depth of those principles in the language of thoughtful cinema. Greater interpretations of his work don’t bother conforming to narrowly defined purposes, but they are often elusive; for many, the bard’s paradoxical implications are told in a custom that violates the quintessential structure of movie narrative, and thus present obstacles too great to overcome. Those who have become fluent in his teachings have somehow grappled those boundaries into an arsenal of bendable values, and on occasion we will even encounter a retelling that rises above those conventions (two of the more recent are Julie Taymor’s “Titus” and Branagh’s “Hamlet,” easily the benchmark). But if they are the byproduct of years upon years of intense research and careful comprehension, then that club must now welcome Justin Kurzel, who has not made a great film about the Scottish king but has essentially crafted the defining interpretation of his long and horrifying descent into madness, and done it with production wizards that perceive the details through a texture of grand artistic value.

Richard III / ***1/2 (1995)

There are few certainties rushing through the great Shakespeare plays, but a consensus does persist when it comes to considering the notorious Richard III: he is easily the most vindictive and cunning of all the bard’s major villains. Essays have been written over countless centuries as cathartic measures to understand the ruthless driving forces of his persona: the ability for him to anticipate human response in the face of grief, to manipulate grave tragedies to his political advantage, and to even create a convincing façade that masks his obsessive impulses in front of those who would grant him great power. It was the playwright’s first well-received tragedy, and its endurance through a career punctuated by more highs than lows adds substantial weight to its overreaching influence: for most audiences, the shadowy visage of a hunched man ruthlessly playing his way through the ranks of familial hierarchy represents the kind of multi-faceted antagonist one hopes for in all modern storytelling.

Titus / ***1/2 (2000)

“I shall grind your bones to dust, and with your blood and it I shall make a paste, and of the paste a coffin I will rear and make two pastries of your shameful heads. And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam, like to the Earth, swallow her own increase! This is the feast I have bid hereto, and this the banquet she shall surfeit on… and now prepare your throats!”

He knows only what his time and civilization have conditioned him for: to slay the enemy, conquer his lands, and sacrifice all others – including loved ones – who might characterize a divisive strike against his fist or mind. That is the fundamental guiding force of old conflicted Titus, the main character at the center of England’s bloodiest stage play, and with that conviction he clutches an instinct that is hard-hitting and unsympathetic; audiences bear witness to the ensuing brutality like lambs carried through varying stages of slaughter. There is no hope for any who challenge his will, and those that may merely stand in his shadows as cautious observers are subject to similar fates. Like a spinning blade, the aged general of a dying empire crashes through lives without regard to the merits of human existence, and when a maniacal plot for revenge against him begins to escalate in the hands of bloodthirsty dissenters, it becomes only another platform for more macabre crimes against the flesh.