Macbeth

This is a small budget abridged production if Macbeth. The budget is like simply filming a theatrical production. That is not something I mind but some might given where filming productions is now 60 years later.

The problem isn't the performance or anything but my trying to find a quality print of this. An Age of Kings has one released and it's great. If this production had a release like that, it would be rated higher. It would also be rated higher if the play itself wasn't abridged.

A good curiosity for Connery fans but it's not the best made for TV version of Macbeth I've ever seen. That belongs to the early 80s BBC production starring Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotaire.

It's interesting to watch various renditions of the same material to see how different directors envision the story. Especially in the case of a major classic like William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth,' so much of the foundations are already laid in - plot, scenes, dialogue, and characters, and so long as one isn't changing the setting, the root concepts for the costume design and art direction, too. All that is left is to shape these elements to one's will and hopefully leave one's own stamp on the world. It's noteworthy that (the extant form of) Paul Almond's television production is distinctly streamlined as some entire scenes and considerable chunks of verse are omitted from the telling. In this manner is the cast reduced, Lord and Lady Macbeth are more heavily centered, and the saga is stripped to a barer, somewhat simplified essence. More significant and worrisome than this, from one moment to the next the pacing even of scenes and dialogue is emphatically swift, an approach which in the very least serves at times to accentuate the artificiality. The core value remains and it's an interesting take in its own right, but these factors do have the unfortunate effect of diminishing the utmost richness of the Scottish play, and its spectacle, let alone the splendor of The Bard's language.

Say what one will of Almond's adapted screenplay, I believe it's just as if not more concretely regrettable how the cinematography frames the visuals for us. The camera almost always zooms in to depict actors from the waist up, if not from the chest up; just as often the frame is tighter still, and it's only an actor's face that we see. This is a decision of film-making that definitively shrinks the viewing experience, for we get little sense of characters' positions on the set, or movements, or the relationship between their positions and movements. The spotlight of actors' faces could feasibly have been employed to draw forth the psychological aspect to the tale, or at least focus on the heightened emotions that are involved; that's not what Almond did here, however, so the novelty only serves to shortchange the visuals. Even more to that point, we see little of Horst Dantz's costume design, including crowns that would be fit for a Witch-king of Angmar - and not nearly enough of Rudi Dorn's set design. The earnest simplicity of the sets is somewhat brutalist and beautiful as they are defined by sharp angles and blockiness; with shrewd use of lighting, the art direction lends an eeriness to the proceedings of the sort that would be a primary facet of Joel Coen's 2021 movie, 'The tragedy of Macbeth.' Or rather, this would be the effect, if not for how much the cinematography takes away from what we see of the sets.

'Macbeth,' as a play, is nothing if not a bloody tableau of murder, madness, and lust for power. Even on paper the narrative is characterized by harsh, buzzing energy, and the characters by thrumming vitality - the Lord and Lady not least. Something substantial would be sorely missing from any iteration of the play in which the performances were not marked by searing, fiery passion. Thankfully, this is not a shortcoming of Almond's picture, for the vibrancy of the acting is far greater than can be said of some more well known interpretations. Everyone appearing herein is terrific, and the portrayals may well be among the highlights; Sean Connery and Zoe Caldwell, above all, deftly command the lead roles, and to be honest I'd liked to have seen still more of them in these capacities. But ah, that's the crux of the matter: the cast is splendid, the sets and costume design are lovely, and the words of Bill Shakes are timeless. All these qualities are forced into very small, vexing corners by both the peculiarly restrictive camerawork, and maybe even more by Almond's direction which enforces the unseemly gallop, a heavy-handed gait that actually seems to increase in strenuous velocity as the digital timer advances. There is unyielding strength in every component part, yet the most fundamental building blocks of the construction here so desperately ill-considered that they siphon away that strength until this 1961 feature becomes but a fleeting shadow of its ideal self. To wit: Connery and Caldwell give great performances, but their scenes are robbed of the gravity that they should carry.

I don't outright dislike this. I think it's far lesser a title than it should have been, however, and the entertainment to be had therefrom is ultimately kind of middling. We get what we came for, sure, but it's hard to be more than partway satisfied with the end result. There are worse ways to spend one's time, and there are indeed worse realizations of 'Macbeth,' but there are also far better ways and far better realizations. Unless one has a specific impetus for watching this, there's sadly just not much need to bother seeking it out.

I suppose for a Scot MacBeth is the role you want to have a chance to play. And for someone like Sean Connery who has never kept his Scottish nationalist feelings a secret this must have been the break of a lifetime.

For an artist yes, but Connery would wait another year before he got the career break to make him an international star as 007 James Bond in Dr. No.

This was done for British television in 1961 and for those of us on this side of the pond British television was about a decade behind what US television was looking like in 1961. It's a good thing that mists are a part of Scotland lore because it allows for the production to be done on the cheap. It looks a lot like Orson Welles's version of MacBeth done for Republic under the penny pinching restraints that Herbert J. Yates put on Welles.

Of course Connery was not an international star hardly at this point. He had mostly done supporting roles on the big screen, most notably in Darby O'Gill And The Little People.

His interpretation of MacBeth is not something acclaimed. It's adequate. I don't ever recall Connery in his long career ever expressing a desire to do the classics. Maybe he had his fill here.

This MacBeth is a curiosity. It's also one cut down version from the original play. Connery is good, nothing more.

Sean Connery rocks in this! Although I prefer Orson Welles' more subdued, introspective Macbeth, here Connery delivers his own high-powered performance that you won't soon forget. This is a very theatrical version, full of sound & fury, histrionics and big arm movements. Cynical audiences might not buy into it, but if you were to go back to the early 1600s this is probably the way you'd see Shakespeare done.

The plot of Macbeth, if you were snoozing during high school English class, is about an 11th century Scottish warrior who hatches a dubious plan to steal the throne. Spurred on by his wife Lady Macbeth, who wears the pants in the household, he finds himself swiftly slipping down the path of evil. It's the conflict between his dark ambition and his moral half that makes this IMO the most gripping of Shakespeare's plays.

As I mentioned above, Orson Welles' famous 1948 version gives us a Macbeth who is repressed, depressed and deeply tormented. Many of his lines are delivered under his breath with an air of sadness, sorta like an "emo" Macbeth (which I actually like). In this version, Connery gives us a louder, more extroverted Macbeth who delivers all of his lines with a thunderous roar. It makes the pacing flow more quickly, and the whole film is like an unrelenting freight train from start to finish.

The direction & cinematography are excellent, making extreme use of light & shadow as well as distance & perspective. Certain shots are very exaggerated with one character close in the foreground while another is far away. One may be brightly lit whilst the other is covered in shadows. This gives the presentation a surreal, creepy vibe sort of like a Hitchcockian horror flick. Sets are enormous, cold and minimal.

I only took off a few points for some of the performances that were unconvincing and (this is nitpicking) several famous lines that were altered, whether deliberately or by accident. For example the famous line "Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries 'Hold! enough!'" is inexplicably cut short to "Damned be him who first cries 'Hold! enough!'" thereby losing its rhyme & rhythm. I caught 1 or 2 other instances of that. It bothered me because this is the only Shakespeare play that I actually read & remembered from high school. If I can remember the lines, why can't they??

Oh, I also took off a point because the 3 witches were way too hot. I mean, homina homina, but in the original play they're supposed to be spooky bearded hags, not swingin' 60s go-go chicks!

Final note about the picture quality... This is a public domain film which means there are a lot of lousy copies floating around. As far as I know, it has never been properly remastered. My copy is on the "Great Cinema: 15 Classic Films" DVD, and the quality leaves a bit to be desired. But for 5 bucks you can't go wrong. Check it out if you get a chance.

I saw this CBC (the Canadian public broadcaster) production of MacBeth as a young child and I have never forgotten it.

Like almost everyone else, I saw it on an old, rabbit-eared B&W TV which made the stark visuals work especially well. I was too young to have an opinion about whether the witches should have been played like old hags or (as here) disturbing young women, but they certainly scared the bejesus out of me when I was young, and re-watching it 57 years later brought all the creepy back.

In 1961 terms, this was a modern production and interpretation, and along with Connery (before Bond, but after Darby O'Gill and the Little People) as a youngish MacBeth, it had a pretty high-powered Stratford Festival Cast, and like many CBC and BBC Shakespeare productions, one of the purposes was obviously to create a version that would work to introduce young people to the play.

At this point it seems the opposite of modern, of course, and the quality of the video alone would probably disqualify it for that or almost any other purpose. But if you can manage to watch it as it might have seemed to a television audience in the early 1960s - maybe put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses - you probably won't be disappointed.