Macbeth
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Movie Reviews of Macbeth
Movie Review: very good
Summary: 5 Stars
this movie was done extremely well. john finch did excellent as macbeth. the gore was well used. i was surprised that the movie kept my interest...but it really didMovie Review: will this sub-plots stretch out until the crack of doom?
Summary: 4 Stars
By removing parts of many scenes, the overall result was more concise and less confusing for those not already familiar with the play or the Elizabethan dialog. As far as I could discern, no dialog was changed. This abridgement also made it possible to depict events which are only reported to the viewer in the full play. For example, the execution of Cawdor was witnessed by King Duncan rather than just reported to him. And MacDuff's final fight with MacBeth was depicted quite realistically with regard to medieval weapons and amour rather than taking place off-stage with MacDuff reappearing with MacBeth`s head..
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Set in a starkly bleak landscape with dreary weather along with highly accurate and minutely detailed depictions of everyday life in the castles, the the film set an ethereal and even fantastical atmosphere.
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Many of the soliloquys were done by voice-over rather than directly spoken. This invited the listener into the mind of the character, and was more realistic when in the presence of others since this removed the need for a hard-to-hear mumbling sotto voce.
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The director put in some additional plot twists which were latent in the original, and indeed I wonder if Shakespeare did himself or expected other producers to so tamper with his script.. These were accomplished without altering the basic story and dialog. I describe two of these below but there might have been others that I missed.
Donalbain, the younger son of King Duncan and disinherited brother of Malcolm, has no function in the play except that his conversation with Malcolm after the murder of Duncan explains their flight from Scotland. (But this explanation could have been done just as well with a soliloquy by Malcolm.) Donalbain tries to suppress an angry snarl when his father announces that Malcolm gets everything. Malcolm's speech terminating the play by proclaiming the restoration of a "kinder gentler" Scotland under his rule is omitted. Instead, the final scene of the film is a lone rider in the rain dismounting and carrying something (perhaps an offering) to the place where the witches can be found. He is recognized only by his slight limp as Donalbain. This of course sets up for a sequel, which would hopefully resolve the as-yet unfulfilled prediction that Banquo's line will be kings, for which his son Fleance is conveniently available. There is a great opportunity for Donalbain to become a sort of Scottish Richard III. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is one such exploration of Shakespearean loose ends; are there any others?
Another interesting touch accomplished without change in dialog is the transformation of Ross. At face value in the play, he is a loyal and honest servant of the new king MacBeth until he can no longer stomach the tyranny, slaughter, and corruption, then defects as a patriot to join other disaffected Scottish lords under Malcolm in England. In this film, he becomes a self-seeking and willing accomplice of MacBeth. Ross is the mysterious and unexpected third murderer of Banquo. [III:3] (It almost seems that this inclusion is some sort of "gateway" put in by Shakespeare for just such a character.) A nice touch learned later by organized crime is that the hired murderers are themselves killed by being thrown into an oubliette in MacBeth's castle. New murderers are then hired for the MacDuff purge.
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Ross' unexplained visit to and comforting of the wife of MacDuff is merely a ruse to throw her off guard and to get the postern to open the castle gates for the murderers. [IV:2] (This is analagous to a well-planned Stalin era arrest in which a collaborator appearing to be friend visits the victim for a few hours prior to the arrival of the NKVD in order to prevent flight, suicide, and destruction of evidence.) The playwrite sets this up when Ross seems suspiciously in a hurry to depart MacDuff's wife before the murders arrive:
I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,
It would be my disgrace and your discomfort:
I take my leave at once.
Ross only defects when Macbeth awards his ill-gotten estate of Cawdor to another lieutenant, leaving Ross unrewarded for all the evil deeds he has done on behalf of Macbeth. Ross is welcomed as a partiot by Malcolm and hypocritically reports the death of MacDuff's family. The tale of his treachery dies with Macbeth.
Movie Review: Underrated and Overlooked
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm no Shakespeare junkie; let me get that out of the way right quick. I've only read a few Shakespeare plays and I've seen only a few Shakespeare film adaptations, none recent enough to tell you what I thought. Having recently read Macbeth and seeing that Roman Polanski (whose name has been a lot more prominent lately) made a film version, I was intrigued and that's why I'm here now. Having never seen another screen adaptation of this famous play, I have no standard to hold Polanski's Macbeth to. However, I can tell you that Polanski's controversial adaptation is an unsettling, challenging film that has been hated by as many as those who have loved it.
A synopsis of the story from me is not necessary; while Polanski does not follow the play verbatim, he maintains the spirit of Shakespeare's play enough that the story is still the same. The script was written by Polanski and Kenneth Tynan, with Hugh Hefner as the executive producer, but rest assured...This is not another Caligula. Polanski uses virtually anonymous actors to tell this timeless tale and what a wise choice it was; it allows us to see the character's onscreen rather than the actors that portray them. Despite their anonymity, all of the actors are credible and believable.
I was shocked watching this film that it hasn't received more acclaim. The three witches are rendered perfectly in the physical sense and are creepy without being campy. Moving on, while Polanski and cinematographer Gil Taylor give Macbeth a monotonous look, adding to the somber tone of the story, there are moments however where the imagery here is picturesque. Not a single review I've read mentions Jon Finch as Macbeth and I was greatly impressed by him. The actor really does take Macbeth through a complete transformation over the course of the film. Polanski's Macbeth is not a perfect film and there are aspects I feel Polanski could have handled a little better, particularly the scene of Macbeth with the dagger which felt somewhat campy to me.
This is not the film version of Macbeth you're likely to stumble on in a high school classroom. Lady Macbeth sleepwalks in the nude (which I think may have something to do with the name on that producing credit) and many have commented on the violence in Polanski's Macbeth. I don't think that Polanski has made Macbeth violent as, written by Shakespeare, Macbeth is a violent story and Polanski has simply refrained from sanitizing the violence in Shakespeare's work. Yes, the murder of Duncan was not shown in Shakespeare's play while it is shown in the film. One gets the feeling that Polanski was still reeling from the violent death of his wife Sharon Tate at this point and I think that many of the more violent scenes were a way of showing the animalistic nature of humanity. There is a scene where Macbeth has a vision in the witches' lair and I think there are few who are familiar with Tate who will not be inclined to bring her to mind. I got the sense that Polanski was not in the happiest of moods while shooting this film.
Macbeth is an underrated, overlooked, very well-made adaptation of Shakespeare's work. It's a challenging, dark, pessimistic film with a haunting ending (one that differs from Shakespeare's). It's not the most accessible film whether you're a Shakespeare junkie or a Shakespeare virgin, but it is a terrific film worth of praise and attention.
GRADE: B+
Movie Review: MACBETH In All Its Bloody Glory
Summary: 4 Stars
No true middle ground exists for this Roman Polanski-directed 1971 filming of Shakespeare's MACBETH; people either love it or they hate it. Such often happens with provocative movies like this, whether it's Shakespeare or something else entirely.
But in bringing this most hard-edged of the Bard's plays to the screen, courtesy of Hugh Hefner's Playboy Enterprises and noted British critic and playwright Kenneth Tynan, Polanski not only stayed faithful to the play's dark, gothic, and tragic tale of betrayal and murder, he took many elements of the story that usually are done offstage and put them onscreen. It is those elements that a lot of the derisiveness towards his telling of MACBETH is directed at. This is clearly not a repeat of Orson Welles' 1948 version, nor Kurosawa's THEATRE OF BLOOD, by any stretch of the imagination.
Working with an all-British cast, notably Jon Finch (later to achieve notice as the beleagured innocent man of Hitchcock's FRENZY) as Macbeth, and Francesca Amis as Lady Macbeth, Polanski drips his version of the play largely in blacks and grays, with plenty of supernatural imagery--so much so that this could easily be classified as a horror film. That incredible feel is enhanced by the first-rate cinematography of Gilbert Taylor, who worked with Polanski on his 1965 horror opus REPULSION, and with Stanley Kubrick in 1964 on DOCTOR STRANGELOVE.
There is no denying it, however. Even now, thirty-five years since its release in late 1971, MACBETH remains an incredibly violent and graphic piece, very much in keeping with the Bard's intentions, and that violence, which includes several instances of severed body parts and much blood, placed it alongside two other notable 1971 films (Peckinpah's STRAW DOGS; Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) as a touchstone for the impact that graphic cinematic violence could have on the world at large. And quite a good bit has been said about how much impact the horrific 1969 murder of Polanski's wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson clan had on the director's storytelling.
Much of the latter, however, remains in the end a sidebar to this lengthy but compelling dark story. In the end, like Zefirrelli's superb 1968 filming of ROMEO AND JULIET, this version of MACBETH stands out as perhaps the best example of cinematic Shakespeare sans either Welles or Olivier, and still remains intriguing. But be advised because, again, this is definitely NOT a film for the younger set, or people with a low tolerance for extreme violence.
Movie Review: Medieval accuracy, good Shakespeare
Summary: 4 Stars
A few years after the film was released in the US, I convinced my high school English teacher to take our class to see it. (In the days before video, this involved renting a theater and print.) I was glad I did. It is certainly the most real and immediate film of the play. The sets, costumes (or lack thereof), and casting all work to create an accurate depiction of "nasty, brutal, and short" 11th century life. And of course, there is the wonderful insight of Shakespeare's language to engage our modern sensibilities.
One can only thank Polanski for casting such relatively young actors as his leads. Kings lived and died young then, and had to be both excellent generals as well as administrators to succeed. Jon Finch is both athletic and impassioned enough to carry off the soldiering, and young and introspective enough to be moved by his wife both as a woman and co-conspirator. Of course, Francesca Annis made a splash by doing the mad scene in the nude--but in medieval times, everyone slept in the nude!! so the film is certainly accurate to the time. (And if queen's did, why not covens?)
And has been noted elsewhere, at least the castle keeps are cold, dark, and dirty. The communal sleeping arrangements, straw bedding, flaring smoky torches, seeping walls, and muddy yards all contribute to the historical accuracy of this production. And keeping with Shakespeare's light vs. dark metaphors, the misty rain and lowering skies combine to enhance the mood.
What happens in this "Macbeth" is as realistic as possible. So what happens offstage in the play, happens onstage in the film: the murders of Duncan, Banquo, Macduff's family. Murder is nasty and bloody and Polanski (having much experience of its results) makes sure we know it. Medieval Scotland was nasty and bloody as well, and if the film is accurate in depicting its setting, why not the action? And only Polanski has an ending that hints that violence and ambition did not die with Macbeth's overthrow. All said, Polanski's film still has the most accurate medieval setting, engaging performances, and thrilling/shocking battles.
PS. For those interested in the real historical Macbeth, read Dorothy Dunnett's excellent biographical novel "King Hereafter". Dunnett is world renowned for her historical accuracy, and did much research to create not only a plausible rendition, but a thoroughly interesting and entertaining story as well.