What Does Macbeth Teach Us About Sex And Morality? — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00so today i want to talk about uh one of
2. 0:02my favorite plays by some guy named
3. 0:04william shakespeare macbeth this is a
4. 0:06new movie directed and written by joel
5. 0:08cohen or rewritten by joel cohen uh
6. 0:11starring denzel washington as macbeth
7. 0:12and francis mcdormand cohn's wife uh as
8. 0:15lady macbeth before i get into it you
9. 0:18know i'm gonna do this from time to time
10. 0:20because you told me to you the audience
11. 0:21told me to i wanna i wanna
12. 0:24plug the book that's coming out in april
13. 0:26and and ask you if you're interested if
14. 0:28you would please go on and pre-order it
15. 0:30which will help
16. 0:31me get more orders the book is is called
17. 0:34the truth and beauty a fantastic title
18. 0:36no matter what ben shapiro says and it's
19. 0:38uh it's available for pre-order and it's
20. 0:40about the romantic poets and how reading
21. 0:43the romantic pose can inform the way you
22. 0:45read the gospels can actually change the
23. 0:47way you understand the words of jesus
24. 0:50christ and the reason i mention it here
25. 0:52is because many of the ideas that come
26. 0:55into
27. 0:57these cultural segments
28. 0:58come from the things that are in this
29. 1:01book and so if you like these cultural
30. 1:02sentences uh um these cultural segments
31. 1:05you're going to really like the truth
32. 1:06and beauty i just just now just this
33. 1:08moment i got a letter from the editor at
34. 1:12zondervan actually the publisher of
35. 1:14zondervan telling me that the barnes
36. 1:15noble representative
37. 1:17uh read it and wrote him a fan letter
38. 1:19which almost never happens he said this
39. 1:21book is unique and it delivers large uh
40. 1:24on clavin's brilliant thought processes
41. 1:26and that that's that's pretty good from
42. 1:27barnes and noble so please go on and
43. 1:29pre-order the truth and beauty if you
44. 1:31would and like i said a lot of things
45. 1:32i'm going to be talking about
46. 1:34originate in this book
47. 1:36macbeth
48. 1:37it's a tremendous film and denzel
49. 1:40washington who i've always thought was
50. 1:41the best movie star actor we had not the
51. 1:44best actor we had we have maybe like
52. 1:46anthony hopkins possibly uh but he i
53. 1:49thought he was the best movie
54. 1:51star who was also an actor uh and
55. 1:55he outdoes himself he just goes beyond
56. 1:57anything i've ever seen him do on this
57. 1:59he is francis mcdormand a sensational
58. 2:01actress as a sensational job as lady
59. 2:03macbeth but denzel blows this thing away
60. 2:05he was in another shakespeare one of my
61. 2:07other favorite shakespeare my favorite
62. 2:09shakespeare movie this may be up there
63. 2:11now but henry v by kevin brownig but
64. 2:13kevin browning also made much ado about
65. 2:15nothing and uh
66. 2:17denzel is in that too and does a good
67. 2:19job but not like this i mean obviously
68. 2:20the depth of his part in that was not
69. 2:22anywhere near as big this is just he
70. 2:24speaks beautifully his language is
71. 2:27clearer than i've ever heard it be
72. 2:28before his understanding of the part is
73. 2:30very very deep there are some brilliant
74. 2:32touches by cone as well uh you know he
75. 2:35uses this one character raw somebody
76. 2:37else did this in an older movie but he
77. 2:39uses him as a kind of mysterious
78. 2:40historical figure who actually makes the
79. 2:43action of the play go on beyond the play
80. 2:45itself but his greatest innovation in
81. 2:47this
82. 2:48is that he makes the three witches who
83. 2:50are the servants of the devil he makes
84. 2:51them played by one actress who sometimes
85. 2:54comes together as one person and
86. 2:55sometimes divides into three people so
87. 2:57we're reminded of the trinity that they
88. 2:59are the opposite of the trinity and i've
89. 3:02talked about macbeth before and i'm not
90. 3:03going to go over it before just to touch
91. 3:05on the fact that macbeth is about a man
92. 3:06who detaches himself from the moral
93. 3:09order and because he detaches himself
94. 3:11from the moral order this supernatural
95. 3:13level of meaning that means that
96. 3:16torturing a child is bad and giving
97. 3:18charity is good that we all attach that
98. 3:21we should attach ourselves to because he
99. 3:23detaches it life becomes meaning less to
100. 3:25him and he makes this famous speech uh
101. 3:27the tomorrow tomorrow speech
102. 3:30tomorrow
103. 3:32and tomorrow and tomorrow
104. 3:36creeps in this petty pace from day to
105. 3:39day to the last
106. 3:41syllable of recorded time
107. 3:45and all our yesterdays have lighted
108. 3:47fools the way to dusty death
109. 3:52out
110. 3:55out with candle
111. 3:57life is but a walking shadow
112. 4:00a poor player that struts and frets his
113. 4:03hour up on the stage and then is heard
114. 4:04no more it is the tale
115. 4:07told by an idiot
116. 4:11full of sound and fury signifying
117. 4:13nothing
118. 4:14and of course and i've talked about this
119. 4:15before and this is also something i
120. 4:16cover at length and the truth and beauty
121. 4:19this this
122. 4:20this speech this famous nihilistic
123. 4:22speech makes no sense because he is in
124. 4:25fact a player strutting and fretting on
125. 4:27the stage he is delivering a meaning
126. 4:30into the play and he's saying the
127. 4:32meaning of life is that life is
128. 4:33meaningless which is a nonsense nihilism
129. 4:35is a nonsense it is a thing he has done
130. 4:38to himself by making choices the play
131. 4:40starts with the witches the witches
132. 4:42saying fair is foul and foul is fair
133. 4:45that the morality of the world has
134. 4:47become reversed possibly through sin
135. 4:49they don't say that but that's possibly
136. 4:51what he means and if macbeth enters the
137. 4:53play his first line is he's coming from
138. 4:56a battle which he is one and he says so
139. 4:59foul and fair a day i have not seen so
140. 5:01there's a choice there is a choice that
141. 5:03can be made uh between foul and fair and
142. 5:06he's going to make that choice
143. 5:08make a moral choice and them in macbeth
144. 5:12and again this is in the truth and
145. 5:13beauty at length i talk about this at
146. 5:15length
147. 5:17the source
148. 5:19of that moral choice
149. 5:21comes from women's bodies now that seems
150. 5:24like a strange thing to say i'll tell
151. 5:26you a funny quick funny story i i sent
152. 5:28out the truth and beauty for blurbs for
153. 5:31endorsements that go on the cover you
154. 5:33know this is a wonderful book and got
155. 5:34some wonderful endorsements from some
156. 5:36very some intellectuals i respect very
157. 5:38highly including ben shapiro uh
158. 5:41but but excellent endorsements but one
159. 5:43famous catholic guy would not endorse it
160. 5:45wrote me a very sweet lovely letter not
161. 5:47not mean at all but he said he couldn't
162. 5:49endorse it because it was heretical
163. 5:51about the blessed virgin mary because in
164. 5:53the book i point out that in scripture
165. 5:55it's very hard to make the case that
166. 5:57mary was a perennial virgin right
167. 6:00and what i revere about
168. 6:02mary is that i don't think she was a
169. 6:05perennial version i think she performed
170. 6:07this miracle of bringing giving birth in
171. 6:09her virginity and then became a wife and
172. 6:11had other children and that means that
173. 6:13she was a woman and she that that's to
174. 6:16me so much more beautiful you know i was
175. 6:18in the uh the national gallery in dc the
176. 6:21other day and i was looking at the
177. 6:22pictures of the madonna one after
178. 6:24another each one with a different face
179. 6:25because each one was a different model
180. 6:27and you could see that they were real
181. 6:28people because they were they had real
182. 6:30human faces uh they were brilliantly
183. 6:32painted models and the effect of
184. 6:33watching one after another was to
185. 6:35understand that each woman in herself
186. 6:38has the madonna in her and and is in
187. 6:41some way the madonna and
188. 6:43mary was in fact the madonna and that is
189. 6:46a beautiful beautiful thing to see and
190. 6:47as you go through the gallery and you
191. 6:50see the renaissance move on suddenly
192. 6:54they begin painting classical subjects
193. 6:56and there's a great deal of nudity and
194. 6:57women's uh sexual beauty comes across in
195. 7:01this uh in those paintings but the thing
196. 7:04about that is if that's all you see of a
197. 7:06woman then a woman's body is simply
198. 7:08about men it is simply about men's
199. 7:10reactions to her whereas a woman who has
200. 7:12given birth and who is feeding a child
201. 7:15out of her body has gone beyond her
202. 7:17relationship with men to her
203. 7:18relationship with creation which
204. 7:19actually brings that madonna aspect of
205. 7:22uh women into play
206. 7:25healthy men love women's bodies both as
207. 7:28as attracting them but also as this
208. 7:30incredible uh machine of creation uh
209. 7:33that is in part
210. 7:36a a godly thing and and mothers as i
211. 7:38have talked about this before but it's
212. 7:39worth going back they do more than
213. 7:41create bodies they create minds and
214. 7:43souls through their interaction the
215. 7:45mirror neurons in the baby's mind are
216. 7:48not separate and they're not a baby is
217. 7:50not an individual until it has
218. 7:52interacted with its mother hopefully in
219. 7:54love and this is one of the things that
220. 7:55wordsworth william wordsworth the poet
221. 7:57talked about that
222. 7:58that that love helps create a human
223. 8:01being who can interact with creation can
224. 8:04interact with creation in alliance with
225. 8:07what wordsworth calls the one great mind
226. 8:09with god and so woman not just creates
227. 8:13creates this connection to the moral
228. 8:14order in nature and she is also
229. 8:17which is a collaboration with god we
230. 8:19don't say oh you know like i have a
231. 8:21man's body but now i'm a woman because i
232. 8:22feel like well no we say i have a man's
233. 8:24body that creates certain moral uh ideas
234. 8:27in me and certain moral responsibilities
235. 8:29in me
236. 8:30and then you start to play out that that
237. 8:32string so you're in collaboration with
238. 8:33reality all the time that's how you get
239. 8:35to morality that's how you get to a
240. 8:37moral vision not on your own not the way
241. 8:38you feel not whether you care or not not
242. 8:40whether you're happy to do it you do it
243. 8:42by reasoning and feeling your way in a
244. 8:45relationship with god and with god's
245. 8:46creation we're men and women we can't
246. 8:48change that but we have latitude in what
247. 8:49kinds of men
248. 8:50uh and women we become so just as the
249. 8:53three wish witches are the mirror image
250. 8:55the evil image of the trinity macbeth's
251. 8:58marriage is the mirror image of creation
252. 9:00in creation god takes woman out of man
253. 9:03to create blood
254. 9:04flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone
255. 9:06in order to give him companionship in
256. 9:08order to give him an other self that he
257. 9:11can relate to which creates the moral
258. 9:14world that in that relationship that one
259. 9:16relationship the only human relationship
260. 9:18there is that is where the moral world
261. 9:20on earth is created morality is about
262. 9:22the way we treat each other lady macbeth
263. 9:25fears that her husband is not man enough
264. 9:28to kill his way to the throne to murder
265. 9:30his way to the throne and she says
266. 9:34you know he's too full of the milk of
267. 9:37human kindness and now this is cut 25
268. 9:40and before macbeth comes home where
269. 9:42she's going to convince him to do the
270. 9:43murder she says unsex me here so listen
271. 9:46to this speech francis mcdormand calm
272. 9:48you spirits attend our mortal thoughts
273. 9:52on sex me here
274. 9:56and fill me from the crown to the toe
275. 9:58top full of direst cruelty
276. 10:02make thick my blood
277. 10:05stop up the access and passage to
278. 10:07remorse that no compunctious visitings
279. 10:10of nature shake my fell purpose
280. 10:12nor keep peace between the effect and it
281. 10:16come to my woman's breasts
282. 10:19and take my milk for goal
283. 10:22you murdering ministers
284. 10:25wherever in your sightless substances
285. 10:27you wait on ages mischief
286. 10:30so this very very physical thing right
287. 10:33because even though
288. 10:35life in some sense is allegorical and
289. 10:37that is that we our lives are physical
290. 10:40but there is this supernatural meaning
291. 10:42that we are actually playing out in life
292. 10:44there's no separating the meaning from
293. 10:46the life there's no separating the flesh
294. 10:48from the spirit it is all one thing this
295. 10:51is good christian theology it is all
296. 10:54flesh it's not it's not you're not a
297. 10:56little can with a ghost inside you are
298. 10:59actually an expression of spirit your
299. 11:02body is like the word that expresses the
300. 11:04idea you cannot express the idea without
301. 11:07the word so the way you live matters and
302. 11:09this is what christianity is it is a way
303. 11:11of living it is a way of making that
304. 11:13connection with the supernatural world
305. 11:15and so she is trying to take that out of
306. 11:18her nature get turn the milk in my
307. 11:21breast which is made for nurturance
308. 11:22which is made for life turn it into gall
309. 11:25and notice she's talking to the spirits
310. 11:27that tend on mortal thoughts she is
311. 11:29saying there is this other world this
312. 11:32invisible world but it has to act on the
313. 11:35flesh this is a world filled with
314. 11:36spiritual meaning but she's replacing
315. 11:38the better angels of our nature with the
316. 11:40bad angels of our nation to get rid of
317. 11:43what she calls a natural remorse
318. 11:45shakespeare is saying that there is a
319. 11:47natural connection to this that we have
320. 11:49we are given a moral mind this is one of
321. 11:51the things this is a very important
322. 11:53point the philosopher kant makes this
323. 11:55point that that
324. 11:58scripture would not work everybody says
325. 12:00well it's in scripture it's there it is
326. 12:02right there the morals are right there
327. 12:03in scripture scripture wouldn't work if
328. 12:05we didn't recognize morality when we saw
329. 12:08it right there are things in scripture
330. 12:10that we explain away if you take them
331. 12:13absolutely literally they would make no
332. 12:15sense
333. 12:16but we understand that there's an
334. 12:18interchange between us and god that even
335. 12:20when god communicates with us we are a
336. 12:22part of that communication
337. 12:24and later macbeth comes home
338. 12:27and he's he's already said all right i'm
339. 12:29going to kill the king but then he talks
340. 12:31to the king again and the king's kind of
341. 12:32a nice guy and he says you know what i'm
342. 12:34not going to do this you know he's going
343. 12:35to promote me and if the witches have
344. 12:38predicted that i'll become king
345. 12:40but if that if chance is going to make
346. 12:42me king let chance make me king and and
347. 12:45lady macbeth immediately and this is
348. 12:46what's the opposite of creation she
349. 12:48immediately starts to bring him
350. 12:51into her realm instead of separating
351. 12:53from him as she does in the as the woman
352. 12:55does in the garden of eden and becoming
353. 12:57his companion and the mirror uh of
354. 12:59himself and the and the beginning of
355. 13:02moral relations here's that interchange
356. 13:04between macbeth and lady macbeth i dare
357. 13:06do all that may become a man
358. 13:08who dares do more is none
359. 13:10what beast was then made to break this
360. 13:12enterprise to me
361. 13:14when you just do it then you were a man
362. 13:17and to be more than what you were you
363. 13:19would be so much more the man
364. 13:22i have given suck
365. 13:24i know how tender tis to love the babe
366. 13:26that milks me
367. 13:28i would while it was smiling in my face
368. 13:30i plucked my nipple from his boneless
369. 13:32gums and dash the brains out had i so
370. 13:35sworn as you had done to this that's
371. 13:37pretty powerful stuff i have given suck
372. 13:39and i would take the baby from my breast
373. 13:41and dash his brains out if i had given
374. 13:44my word as you have given your word to
375. 13:46kill the king so we know that lady
376. 13:48macbeth has had a child and one of the
377. 13:50great mysteries in literature is we
378. 13:51don't know where that child is we don't
379. 13:53know whether he died which would be an
380. 13:55interesting psychological idea is that
381. 13:57why she feels is that why she feels so
382. 13:59bitter about her womanhood is it because
383. 14:02her child has died that she feels
384. 14:04cheated that she feels she poured her
385. 14:06love into this creature and it was taken
386. 14:07away and now she does not want to be a
387. 14:09woman anymore she wants the milk of her
388. 14:12breast to turn to gal we just don't know
389. 14:14we don't know the answer uh to that
390. 14:16question but it is you know maybe that's
391. 14:19what's destroyed her heart but the idea
392. 14:22she doesn't want to turn macbeth into a
393. 14:24man what she wants to do is turn herself
394. 14:27into a woman of
395. 14:28femininity femininity-less woman and she
396. 14:32wants to turn him into the same thing it
397. 14:34is the opposite of creation the creation
398. 14:36of woman is supposed to
399. 14:38it makes a man out of a man right
400. 14:40because a man is nothing without
401. 14:41comparing himself to a woman right if
402. 14:43you don't have those two things then
403. 14:44you're just
404. 14:45something you're just human but it is
405. 14:47the separation this beautiful separation
406. 14:50into two sexes that she is putting an
407. 14:52end to
408. 14:54macbeth is driven mad by the idea
409. 14:56the children in
410. 14:58macbeth
411. 15:00are very important i mean he's driven
412. 15:02mad by the idea that banquo's child the
413. 15:04witches predicted banquo's child will
414. 15:06inherit the crown so the crown is
415. 15:08useless to him if he can't pass it on
416. 15:11and this is another reason that we
417. 15:12wonder what happened to lady macbeth's
418. 15:15uh child and he then starts to murder
419. 15:17children one of the scenes i mean it
420. 15:19actually in this film actually brought
421. 15:20me to tears this scene was so powerful
422. 15:23that he actually wipes out
423. 15:25one of the characters i don't want to
424. 15:26give too much away but it's a famous
425. 15:28play he wipes out one of the characters
426. 15:30uh children which then empowers that
427. 15:33character to come after uh
428. 15:36macbeth the and finally he is the
429. 15:39witches predict that he will be safe
430. 15:41because no man born of woman no man born
431. 15:44of woman can kill him but the character
432. 15:47who finally comes after him was
433. 15:48delivered by cesarean so he wasn't born
434. 15:51of woman he was taken out of women so
435. 15:53the entire thing the entire the nature
436. 15:56of a
437. 15:57of a woman's creative power this
438. 15:59incredible thing
439. 16:01is
440. 16:02generates the morality of the play and
441. 16:05generates by taking away that creative
442. 16:07power and taking away that womanliness
443. 16:11the world become foul becomes fair and
444. 16:13fair becomes foul have you ever thought
445. 16:15about the fact that if you read
446. 16:17um
447. 16:18dystopian fiction think about like the
448. 16:21most famous dystopian fiction i won't
449. 16:22count 1984 because that's really about
450. 16:24politics but if you take brave new world
451. 16:27if you take ray bradbury's fahrenheit
452. 16:30451 if you take lois lowry's uh the
453. 16:32giver uh all of them create these kind
454. 16:35of horrible dystopic dystopian worlds
455. 16:38and all of them all of them begin with
456. 16:40the idea that you have to do something
457. 16:43about women giving birth the government
458. 16:46has to take control of this or render it
459. 16:48meaningless or render it impossible in
460. 16:50the giver they give people pills to kill
461. 16:53their sexual drive and they only have a
462. 16:54few women who create it and brave new
463. 16:56world of course they create them through
464. 16:57machines it always is this birth thing
465. 17:00that has to be taken away taken over by
466. 17:02the government and this is the world we
467. 17:04live in today you know the atlanta i
468. 17:05just searched the atlantic about having
469. 17:07children
470. 17:09and this google page comes out a world
471. 17:11without children the atlantic what
472. 17:12becoming a parent really does to your
473. 17:14happiness it ruins your happiness two
474. 17:16reasons parents regret having kids why
475. 17:18women choose not to have children the
476. 17:21left just like the devil is trying to
477. 17:23separate us from this most important
478. 17:25part of humanity one day they will do it
479. 17:28one day you will be able to have a
480. 17:29children child in a big toaster uh and
481. 17:31and you know women will then cease to be
482. 17:35women and human beings will cease to be
483. 17:36human beings that's not the science we
484. 17:38want that's not the science we want to
485. 17:40support we want a human science if we do
486. 17:42not if we do not honor this thing in
487. 17:45women if we do not respect it and
488. 17:47elevate it and support it we will lose
489. 17:50our humanity and i guarantee you it's
490. 17:52going to happen but it may not happen to
491. 17:53all of us because some of us will not
492. 17:56accept it that's the story of macbeth
493. 17:58and i think macbeth is a play you can
494. 17:59talk about endlessly but i did want to
495. 18:01talk about this and again i'm going to
496. 18:02ask you please to go on if you like this
497. 18:04these segments go on and get the truth
498. 18:06in beauty pre-order it because that's
499. 18:08where a lot of this thought is is coming
500. 18:10from
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505. 18:22[Music]