The Tragedy of Macbeth

THE PLOT: Through ambition, greed, and the spurring of his wife a man rises to the ranks of King, but leaves murder, destruction, guilt, and a wide array of enemies in his wake.

THE POSITIVE: This is visually stunning from beginning to end. The photography of the Scottish landscape seems almost surreal. Although some may argue that the violence is excessive it is still well done and works in a nice lyrical fashion with the script. The gory special effects are very realistic and top anything that I have seen in any slasher movie especially the decapitation scene. The witches also come off as looking very frightening here. The scene in their coven where you see dozens of fully nude elderly women is grotesquely brilliant. This is one Shakespeare rendition that doesn't have any of the stiff staginess. The characters seem to be having real conversations and their lines are spoken in a much more natural way. Finch is absolutely perfect in the lead. The facial expressions that he show during Macbeth's different phases are fascinating and right on target. This would be a good version to show to teenagers and others who might not ordinarily be into Shakespeare. The action is well mounted and paced so anyone would be able to follow it even if they are not able to completely grasp the language.

THE NEGATIVE: Outside of a relentlessly bleak visual style that may be too much for some there really isn't anything negative about it.

THE LOWDOWN: This is the best film adaptation to Shakespeare's work that I have seen. It is exciting, graphic, realistic, visual, and captivating all at the same time even for those that may not be into Shakespeare.

THE RATING: 8 out of 10.

How does one do justice to one of the most nihilistic murderers in the history of drama? Even Richard the Third has a sense of humor. but once MacBeth buys into the witch's prophecy (which he doesn't have to do) - it's all straight to hell from there. Even his wife finally gets the idea that 'When you choose to ride the tiger, you don't get off' as one Confucian wit put it, long ago....

This is the film that put an end to the "high-school" Shakespeare that we all had to suffer through in the 1960s. That Shakespeare was dull, lifeless, meaninglessly conservative - everyone hated him. In America, we had heard about Peter Brooks, and about an all-nude MacBeth (which of course never happened, the reference was to the "out damn spot' scene, just as we see in this movie); and there were the legendary Orson Welles versions that were, unfortunately, wholly unavailable at the time. Then Zeffirelli made his Romeo and Juliet, showing Romeo's bare butt, even in the ad for the film, and we started getting the glimmer that Shakespeare had been a real person writing about other real people - then came Polanski's MacBeth.

I won't lie and tell you that this is the definitive MacBeth - or even that it's a really great movie - all of the actors seem like they are way over their heads in this material.

But Polanski's purely cinematic bravado pulls it off. Right from the beginning, watching a medieval warrior beat his opponent into a bloody pulp, we are drawn into a world where violence is the only truth we can believe - pretty much as MacBeth himself sees it.

From this point on, there was no turning back. The Shakespeare we inherit from this film may not be the one we want, but he is certainly a playwright of Elizabethan England (which the "high-school" Shakespeare never was).

That makes this film really important - at least until the definitive version actually gets made (and it hasn't, yet...).

"The Tragedy of Macbeth" (simply abbreviated "Macbeth" on most video covers) is a violent retelling of Shakespeare's classic story. Macbeth (Jon Finch), the Scottish Thane of Glamis, conspires with his wife Lady Macbeth (and three strange witches) to kill the widely-respected King Duncan. After committing the awful deed, Macbeth begins hallucinating, hearing strange omens of death and haunting words; his wife similarly becomes worried with Macbeth's bloodlust, and Duncan's son convinces himself that Macbeth was involved in some way with the killing.

"Macbeth" is a true tragedy, and chances are you already know a great deal about it as it seems to be a high school requirement that it be read by all students. The remarkable thing about Roman Polanski's movie is that it is not only a painfully accurate retelling of William Shakespeare's story, but doesn't flinch when it comes to violence.

According to IMDb's trivia section (and I can't honestly say how reliable this information is, mind you), Polanski included very violent scenes (such as Duncan's death, which is NOT detailed in the original text) because the movie was filmed around the same time period of Sharon Tate's brutal murder, and it was Polanski's way of venting stress and anger. One must imagine what happens to Duncan in this film is what Polanski wanted to do to the Manson family members (and you certainly can't blame him).

As such, knowing the circumstances of what brought about the violence, it is more forgivable and certainly maintains a haunting element - some kind of historical relic, just in knowing that it was filmed during such a terrible time in Polanski's life.

The movie as a whole is wonderful. As I mentioned above, its accuracy (in comparison to Shakespeare's text) is spot-on -- entire scenes of dialogue are taken directly from the source, and even the strong violence lends the film a more realistic nature.

Overall, it's an epic and (sadly) somewhat forgotten Shakespeare epic. If you enjoyed "Hamlet" or "Romeo and Juliet" (the '60s version) you'll certainly find this engaging, and - at times - rather shocking, too.

A few years after this was released in the USA, I convinced my high school English teacher to take our class to see it. (In the days before videos & vcr's, this involved renting a theater and print.) I was glad I did. It is certainly the most real and immediate filmed version 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 it was certainly accurate to the times.

And as has been noted before, 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. The exterior of Bamburgh also works. And keeping with Shakespeare's light vs. dark metaphors, the mist, 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 didn't die with Macbeth's overthrow. All said, Polanski's film still has the most accurate medieval setting, engaging performance(s), and thrilling 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 very plausible rendition, but a thoroughly interesting and entertaining story as well.

Dark, bloody and brooding version of Shakespeare's play about a doomed Scottish king who was, according to his wife, Lady MacBeth "too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way". This is one of Shakespeare's later plays and is entirely devoid of some of the lighter moments prevalent in his earlier work.

Macbeth, a loyal Scottish thane and a cousin of King Duncan, is waylaid with his companion, Banquo, by three witches who prophesise that he will become king and that Banquo will beget kings. Once MacBeth has informed his wife of these predictions, he is propelled by her and by his own lust for power on a journey of self-destruction leading ultimately to madness. In his determination to bring about the witches' predictions, he kills his liege-lord, steals the crown from the rightful heirs, who flee into exile on suspicion of regicide and patricide, then orders the secret murder of ally and friend Banquo and Banquo's son Fleance. So begins a descent into a nightmare existence, replete with ghostly apparitions, sleepless angst and withering self-doubt. Gradually mutual distrust emerges between himself and the nobles whose support maintains his position, and eventually he murders the wife and children of one MacDuff, an act which symbolises the horror he has become. MacDuff, along with other Scottish nobles, has joined the exiled heir, Malcolm, who lives under the protection of the English king. An army of rebellion - or liberation - is brought to bear on MacBeth's stronghold, whilst inside, MacBeth has begun "to grow aweary of the sun". The witches have told him that he cannot be killed by any "man of woman born". But, in the final fight scene, he learns too late that MacDuff "was, from his mother's womb, untimely ripped" and that the witches have, in Banquo's words from the start of the play, won him "with honest trifles" and betrayed him "in deepest consequence", and his destruction is complete.

This is a suitably melancholic reading, full of images of blood, of sombre leaden skies, of torrential downpours and of thickset, bearded nobles. Scotland is presented as a gloomy outcrop on the edge of the known world and the sun has been heavily filtered by Polanski, giving the film a surreal and eerie feel and stressing the superstitious environment in which the play is set. We are also treated to a fair representation of the early Middle Ages, a time when travelling lords and ladies and their kith and kin slept communally on straw in the great halls, side by side with their massive hunting dogs.

The obviously archaic dialogue has been abridged and everso slightly updated for modern audiences. The lines are delivered eloquently by the two leads, Jon Finch and Francesca Annis, who are well matched as the doomed couple, and this clipped entry would be a good introduction to Shakespeare for those of the MTV-set with a literary inclination. All in all a good stab at bringing Shakespeare into the twentieth century and an effort which the bard himself might well have smiled upon.