Macbeth

Once upon a time there was a director named Roman Polanski. He had made a bit of a name for himself with some semi-arthouse films like Cul-de-sac, Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. He had a buxom wife named Sharon Tate and they lived the high life in late 1960s Hollywood. Then a monster named Charles Manson came along and brutally murdered Tate and some other Hollywood alumni in Polanski's house while he was away. The story is infamous... Polanski had already had a troubled upbringing as a Jew in Nazi Europe, and would go on to flee the U.S. in the mid-1970s - never to return - after being accused of statutory rape. This adaptation of Macbeth is fascinating as a view into the eye of Polanski's storm, coming as his first directorial effort post-Manson in 1971. The result is one of the most bloody, dark and sombre interpretations of Shakespeare ever to hit the screen.

Macbeth is the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies, and came towards the end of his career as a playwright. As a result it's one of his concise yet accomplished plays - making it ripe material for the film medium. Polanski remains faithful to the medieval Scottish setting, using lots of misty and cold-looking location work. The film opens with the famous witches scene on a desolate beach, showing them performing arcane and disgusting rituals as they incant (burying a severed hand in the grit, and drizzling blood and spit onto it afterwards). If there's one thing this film excels at it's in adding to Shakespeare's text in authentic ways that don't actually affect the dialogue... for instance, there's a 'new' scene where Macbeth (Jon Finch) is shown being crowned, but it's almost wordless. Likewise, a poot caged bear is introduced as primitive banquet entertainment at one point - a quarry for Macbeth's dogs as he and his Thanes have their feast.

There's quite a lot of attention to detail and interesting interpretation that deepens the characterisation, broadens the play or makes sense of the plot's mechanics. We're shown the execution of the old Thane of Cawdor (something only implied in the play). Macbeth sees a ghostly, otherworldly dagger before he murders King Duncan and "is this a dagger I see before me?" becomes something a bit more literal... is it the witches coercing Macbeth or a representation of the evil in his mind? Furthermore, we actually see Macbeth in the King's bedroom - the King wakes up as Macbeth hesistates and this seems to force Macbeth into action. Prior to this, Macbeth's conversation with Banquo in the castle during the night becomes something else as well - he's actually distracting Banquo so Lady Macbeth has enough time to drug the stewards. We also see a more solid decision-making process in regards to Macbeth's ambition - his soliloquy where he wrestles with the idea of killing King Duncan takes place in his mind as he wanders around a feast held for the King and his sons. He seems to make up his mind directly as a result of Malcolm (Duncan's son) smugly assuming Macbeth's loyalty by indolently holding his cup out for filling. It's these kinds of details that make the film brilliantly accessible (nevermind the violence and nudity)... many directors would probably be too afraid to tamper with Shakespeare's work so much, but Polanski boldly opens it up at every possibility and doesn't shy away from offering his own additions or interpretations. Most importantly, he manages to do this without touching any of Shakespeare's dialogue.

More enigmatically, the character of Ross (John Stride) is developed beyond a minor 'good' character to something a lot more prominent and sinister. The third murderer seen to be helping with Banquo's dispatch in the play is shown here to be Ross, and Stride's line delivery in the role implies he is something of a opportunistic manipulator. Other interesting interpretations include:

• Lady Macbeth's swooning in the wake of King Duncan. It seems to be genuine and a possible reflection of her already being on the road to madness. She seems to be belatedly realising her own direct involvement in the murder and is subsequently unable to handle the guilt - hence she faints.
  
• Banquo's murder comes via an axe in the back. The consequence of this is that the murderer's assertion that he died of twenty gashes to the forehead is shown to be a lie. So when we later see Banquo's ghost haunting Macbeth with gashes on his forehead, it seems to subtly confirm that this isn't a ghost at all but actually Macbeth's own guilty conscience - something that is ambiguous in the original text.
• The cause-and-effect delivery of scenes makes it clearer that Macbeth's careless tyranny is the direct cause of his own death. Macduff is initially nonchalant about revisiting Macbeth, but once he hears of his family's death at the hands of Macbeth's men he is turned into a cypher for vengeance - meaning that Macbeth has unwittingly brought his own murder upon himself.
  
• The witches are revealed to be a horridly naked army of haggish women that dwell in caves upon the moor. Unsurprisingly, their goddess Hecate does not make an appearance. Macbeth's encounter with the apparitions is a wonderfully spooky sequence that makes use of unnatural film speeds and creepy music.

Also in the film's favour is the excellent use of Welsh locations - including an awesome castle perched on top of a lone mountain. The slightly prog-rock folk music is mostly in keeping with the film's tone and also typical of the early 1970s. Polanski's decision to make all the soliloquies and monologues into internal voice-overs helps maintain some semblance of historical realism and increases the text's sense of psychological horror. This film version of Macbeth also can't be reviewed without some mention of the high level of violence. Polanski based the murder of Macduff's family on his own personal experiences of Nazi SS troopers raiding Jewish households in WWII-era Poland - transforming a scene of clumsy, implied murder into something a lot more traumatic (Macbeth's troopers rape, murder and burn their way into Macduff's household like marauding war criminals). The final showdown between Macbeth and Macduff is also quite shocking, especially in regards to Macbeth's beheading. All I can really say about the gore and violence is that it helps pull the text out of it's reputation as an instigator of classroom boredom and makes it a bit more filmic and (dare I say) appealing to younger audiences.

Anyway, Polanski's Macbeth is an eerie, bleak and grim interpretation that uses historic realism and all the conventions of film to bring the text alive in a very big way. There are so many starkly memorable moments, such as when Macbeth's men flee his castle and run out past Lady Macbeth's twisted and ignored corpse. Jon Finch also has great diction and does a good job of playing the range of Macbeth's journey from carefree hero to self-sabotaging tyrant. Worth a watch.

DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
WRITER/SOURCE: Adapted by Roman Polanski and Kenneth Tynan from the play by William Shakespeare.
KEY ACTORS: Jon Finch, Francesca Annis, Martin Shaw, Terrance Bayler, John Stride, Stephen Chase.

RELATED TEXTS:
- Obviously, the play Macbeth by Shakespeare.
- The first prominent film adaptation of Macbeth was directed and produced by Orson Welles in 1948.
- There are at least eight or nine silent film versions of Macbeth that were made between 1908 and 1925. Some of these are no longer in existence.
- An Australian modern-day retelling of Macbeth was also made in 2006, starring Sam Worthington.
- Macbeth has also been re-envisioned as a black comedy set in a cafe (Scotland, P.A.), a film noir (Joe Macbeth), a mafia/gangster film (Men of Respect), a samurai film (Throne of Blood) and a bollywood film (Maqbool).

AWARDS
Won a BAFTA for best costume design.