The Tragedy of Macbeth

I am getting back into the theater after an eighteen year hiatus, and needed a couple of monologues for auditions. I thought, what better than Macbeth and Shakespeare? I settled on the infamous dagger speech, and got No Fear's Macbeth so I could understand it, because, frankly - it goes over my head. Also rented Polanski's movie from the library and popped that baby in with the subtitles on, yes, because it goes over my head, and watched that for maybe my third time in 20 years. And it was terrific. But then a funny thing happened. As I started to research the piece, I began to crave the film. I started watching it again and again, and the more I researched Macbeth, the more I fell in love with the film!! I have become obsessed with it. And it is because of the QUALITY of the filmmaking. The locations, all of that - mood, ambiance, tone...sure. All said, all great...but boy, do I love the actors!! Lady Macbeth and Banquo are just as perfectly cast as Macbeth himself, and all of the other minor characters peppering the film. The faces in this film are terrific, and again, the more familiar one becomes with the movie, the more one notices all of the fine intricacies that detail the film. I love a good movie where it actually gets better with repeated viewings, and man-oh-man is this one of them. You just can't get any better than Polanski's Macbeth - you really can't. When they say "They don't make them like this anymore," they mean films of this caliber. I've gone over the Shakespeare movies since this film, and frankly they stink. Too much lighting, too much editing, no mood or tone or even realism or real passion. I can't stand them. Give me Polanski's version, any day. This is so much better than any Shakespeare film adaptation that it is ridiculous. Folks, honestly, there's the Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth from the late Sixties era, man, and then it all just sucks. I love this film, and I fell IN love with the film over a course of repeated viewings. Now I'm obsessed for it, and the quality of the picture. So much so that I threw my hands up and stopped renting it and decided to go out of my budget to actually purchase the DVD. And I only buy DVDs that I know I'm going to watch - and trust me, you will be grateful to have this in your catalog. It is borderline perfection. Again, one must state the obvious: They just don't make 'em like this anymore. This is what film is for. Timeless and beautiful, this is one for the ages!! 10 Stars. A+++

Roman Polanski's screen adaptation of the Shakespeare classic was well received by some and loathed by others. On a personal level I thought the film was not only extremely well done but beautifully shot. Filmed on location in North Wales in England, Polanski not only researched his subject well but spared no cost in the production of the film. The actors costumes and the sets were lavish for its time and it provided a rich and colorful tone for the viewer. The tragedy of MACBETH, one of the Bard's greatest and toughest plays to understand and come to terms with fared remarkably well on this film version. As an English Literature major in college years ago, my professor required the we choose one of Shakespeare's plays and do a complete and thorough analysis on the work, I chose Macbeth and I found it not only challenging but quite difficult to understand the exact meaning of Shakespeare's beautiful old english language. It was a blessing that Polanski's film was available in the college library and I checked it out and saw the movie a couple of times before writing my paper on this complex character. I found the movie a lot easier to understand than the play itself and it helped me tremendously when I started to write my paper.Although this version is quite bloody and shocking it doesn't diminish from the striking elegance and beauty that the film clearly shows. The movie has a bleak, dark and morbid feel to it and that is exactly as it should be I think. This is not a happy and sappy tearjerker or a comedy but a frightening, compelling, chilling and almost horror story of obsessive power, deceit and overbearing jealousy by Macbeth himself when he kills the King of Scotland so that he can take the crown and throne all for himself which is when his troubles begin and it consequences lead to his eventful downfall. I recommend this film adaptation not only to Literature majors but to everyone who has ever had a love of Shakespeare. The acting is splendid and the cast is first-rate and the language which Polanski adpated from the play makes it failry easy to follow and understand the plot and what each character says. That said this version of MACBETH is not for the faint of heart but then again the other versions of the play are not either. It was clearly to see that Shakespeare never intended for his Macbeth to be a subtle and forgiving character. The grotesqueness of the film is I believe an indispensable ingredient in understanding the complexity and darkened soul of this disturbing and unremorseful king. I recommend that you read the play before watching the movie just so that you have a general understanding of the plot and therefore will appreciate the film all that much more.

History nerd alert and I did perform as MacDuff in a production of the play as a teenager. It's a lavish production & they really took trouble to create a setting that would allow suspension of disbelief. Which is almost impossible when everybody is speaking in poetry and oration. The exterior of the castle is totally inappropriate, even though the Pictish inhabitants of present day Scotland had been building large, tall buildings of stone for many centuries prior to 1000 AD: the real MacBeth lived around the time of the Norman Conquest. He was, by some accounts, a good king. It is hard to tell as these things are passed down from different perspectives. At points (the whitewashed corridors), the castle interior is dead on period (though not for Scotland), elsewhere more fanciful; but never jarringly inappropriate. The weapons and armor are about 200-500 years too advanced for the period (ever tedious, but consider when the film was made.) Some of the formal wear is laughable. The rough wear is very reasonable. Maybe one day a new historically correct production of the play will be mounted that can capture the same lush rusticity and moodiness this production possesses.To me however (despite its flaws), for pure scary spooky creepiness, the Orson Wells production reigns supreme. It scared the devil out of me when I watched it on black & white television when I was about 7 years old.