Macbeth
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Movie Reviews of Macbeth
Movie Review: Full of sound and fury signifying nothing
Summary: 5 Stars
Polanski is surprisingly sensitive in filming novels(Tess,Rosemary's Baby,Oliver Twist The Ghost);here he is, turning Shakespeare's drama Macbeth, into Polanski's Macbeth.Like a medieval sequel to Rosemary's Baby,it's filled with necromancy,murder,evil and witchcraft.Dark,dank,muddy and dangerous,filmed in appropriate locations(shot in Wales and Northumberland).The vision of a pagan,nihilistic universe full of death, revenge,superstition and prophecy.The mad ambition of Macbeth, galvanised by the witches and Lady Macbeth,sets him on his vaunting path from warrior virtue, as the Thane of Cawdor, to the murderer of Duncan, to become king.Polanski somehow guts the play(assisted by Tynan) of rhetoric(soliloquies filmed as thoughts),films an imagined blade as a real one,earths the verbal gymnastics in a kinetic narrative,so that pacing,momentum of set-pieces,rich visualization,fluent editing,create an atmosphere of dark nightmare and momentous terror.Gory,bloody,brutish and scary,this primeval world leaves nothing to the imagination,limbs lopped off,decapitations,the murder of McDuff's wife and children in their home,the ripping of babies from wombs is visualised,Banquo's ghost looks freshly murdered,Duncan is savagely stabbed while asleep.Weighed down by guilt and sleeplessness,Macbeth seeks out the witches for reassurance that he will not be defeated and to protect him from despair.
Distraught with guilt,Lady Macbeth walks(nakedly) and talks in her sleep,betraying the secret of Duncan's murder. The images of the film take the place of Shakespeare's language with spectacular realization and a modernist interpretation, using a rhythm and pacing that is Polanski's own,filmed as it was 2 years after the brutal murder of his wife Sharon Tate.This real experience bleeds into the raw and nasty feelings of dread.Jon Finch as Macbeth has a dark,lean energy and ferocity,Annis as Lady Macbeth,captures the fragility of madness rather than manipulative eroticism.Martin Shaw is superb as Banquo.The ending suggests the whole cycle of betrayal and murder will begin again.Shakespeare,in making a sympathetic Banquo(legendary ancestor of the Stuart kings),intended some flattery to James I;the play also appealed to his well-known interest in witchcraft.The real star is Polanski for one of the best filmed Shakespeares ever.The witches coven is something else.
Movie Review: Haunting, Dark Drama: The True Macbeth On DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Roman Polanski, who has produced horror films in the 60's, delivered an intensely dramatic, dark, controversial and disturbing film version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Macbeth is the darkest of Shakespeare's tragedies- (witches, murder, violence) and in my personal opinion, despite the R rated material of Polanski's film, it truly captures the essence of Shakespeare's macabre Gothic drama. Polanski was actually convincing in this rendition, chalk full of the diabolical aspects of the play. At the time of production, sadly, his wife Sharon Tate had been murdered by the crazy Marilyn Manson cult in her Beverly Hills home. The deep toll must have, in some way, inspired the gruesome details on this film. Macbeth (Jon Finch) encounters three haggard (and nude) witches who prophetize he will be king of Scotland. The ambitious, cruel, and driven Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth to kill king Duncan and take the throne of Scotland. When this is done, Macbeth does everything to keep his power, a cycle of killing ensues. I think, personally, that Shakespeare touched on Gothic suspense and drama. The supernatural elements typically found in such dark novels are found in the play. This includes the floating knife in the dark that flies into Macbeth's hand as he is about to kill King Duncan, the ghosts of Banquo, the ghosts of the bloody child and specters of kings, and of course, the witches themselves. Incidentally, it is the three witches from Macbeth who inspired the stereotypical witch boiling "eye of newt" over a smoking cauldron and ranting "Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble". Lady Macbeth has a nude spleepwalking scene. Towards the end of the film, Macbeth is defeated by Malcolm, his head chopped off and put on a pole. The twist of the film, of which one must pay close attention to for the irony of the story, occurs when Malcolm, now the king, on horseback, goes to see the three witches in their dismal cave. This tells us that the cycle of tragedy and violence will occur once again. Deeply dark, intense, violent, haunting, Roman Polanski's film truly captures the true Macbeth, but it is not meant to be observed by younger viewers- certainly not grade schoool children or junior high. A mature viewer in college can truly appreciate this film and its Gothic fatalism.
Movie Review: An authentic Macbeth
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a first-class FILM based on a Shakespeare play. As always, there's heavy pruning of the lines, but what we're left with is well served by the actors, the authentic medieval setting, and the medium of film itself. This MACBETH is gorgeously staged and performed. Is it violent? Sure -- but so are a lot of other films these days. Why should this be different just because it's Shakespeare?
Let's face it: Macbeth is a dark, bloody and -- at its heart -- nihilistic story. Can we really believe that Scotland will live happily ever after just because the usurper is dead? Shakespeare raises that question at the end, very subtly, and Polanski picks up on it. What I particularly liked here was the emphasis on how quickly ambition can poison the mortal mind, and how one's fate can turn in an instant. There's a thin line between good and evil, between the real and the unreal.
My Shakespeare professor back in college ridiculed certain details of the film, such as the mysterious dagger witnessed by Macbeth actually appearing on the screen for the audience to see. The idea, as he believed it, is that the dagger is a merely a product of Macbeth's fevered imagination, therefore WE shouldn't be able to see it. But I like how Polanski makes one wonder what the dagger really is. Is it a hallucination? Or the product of some darker force? Polanski's whole take on the story balances on a question -- what is the true nature of evil?
Finally, I want to address all those affronted viewers who have been shaken to their core by what seems to be the most horrific sight of all: the images of naked older women. Please. Get a grip. Those are just bodies. Maybe if Hugh Hefner had really been in charge we'd have had nubile Playboy bunnies standing in as the witches but, alas, he was just the money man, not the director.
Polanski's witches were actually another authentic detail -- even back in those days, the idea of old women going "skyclad" was a sure sign of evil. Nine hundred years later, people's perceptions haven't changed a bit.
Movie Review: POLANSKI'S UNSEEN MASTERPIECE
Summary: 5 Stars
With no fanfare, Roman Polanski's "MACBETH" -- his first film after the murder of his wife Sharon Tate and her friends by the Manson gang -- has quietly appeared on retail shelves.
Shakespeare's notoriously bloody "Scottish play" is perfectly captured by the equally notorious director in what has widely been viewed as a venting of his personal rage.
Many have also noted in this bravura piece of moviemaking that incoporates Shakespeare's blatant themes of witchcraft, rampant paranoia, spousal manipulation and finally evil triumphant a continuation of Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby." A metaphorical sequel of sorts.
The bleak exteriors shot almost exclusively in the "golden hours" of dawn and twilight add immeasurably to the overall feel of authenticity. The great locations and sets, with their terrific attention to detail, give a sense of immediacy to the homicidal happenings. Blades slash and blood spurts as the dirty deeds of misbegotten power usurped are played out.
Polanski has an intuitive gift for staging, and he is at his best in giving a literal interpretation to Shakespeare's many will-known metaphors. The "Is this a dagger I see before me?" scene is a standout as is the visit of Macbeth to the witches den where he sees his future. This is perhaps the director's most visually spellbinding work.
Jon Finch is effective as a morose Macbeth with great, emotive diction. In contrast, Francesca Annis is a pale, pathetic nymphet of a wife. It is tempting to interpret elements of the director's own life in portrayal of the power of young women over much stronger, driven men. But it's where their sick pathologies meet that most interests Shakespeare -- and no doubt Polanski.
This is a great film and would have been an even greater DVD if the powers that be had arranged for a director's commentary.
Hugh Hefner was the producer -- even a commentary by him would have been most interesting given his closeness to Polanski.
Movie Review: Best Witches Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
What can I say....this is a great Macbeth. It's all good.
My favorite thing is Polanski's concept of the witches. They do much witchcraft but no magic. They act like Medieval witches we are told acted. They bury a severed hand with a dagger in it....and a battle takes place there. They hand Macbeth a beaker full of goop with psilocybin mushrooms floating on top and he hallucinates the 8 Kings. They chant and spit and hop and laugh at naked sabbats....it's great!
Speaking of nudity....
This seems to be a problem (along with the graphic murders) for those one and two star reviewers. None of this is gratuitous however. The blood is there, prompted by the script itself ( Who's have thought..... And it can never be washed away) and by the very environment and culture. The nudity is easily explained. Lady Macbeth sleeps nude and so when she sleepwalks....she's nude. Now in "reality" a queen might actually sleep in a bliaut or some kind of chemise, but her nudity is also symbolic. She is after all exposing herself and, for the 1st time in the play, being openly honest. I think it's perfectly justified. The witches are all naked because that's what supposedly happened at sabbats, as they raise a demon or the devil himself to have intercourse with (Like Rosemary's baby, y'know)
It's funny, I remember when the film came out the main complaint was Macbeth's and Lady Macbeth's age. "They're supposed to be middle aged!" my professors lamented. It says nothing about that in Shakespeare that I can find. And this image of youth tempted and run amok is the lesson from the Manson family Polanski wanted to get out there.