Red-125 The Tragedy of Macbeth--shown in the U.S. as Macbeth (1971)--was scripted and directed by Roman Polanski. Shakespeare's great play can be readily adapted to the screen, but it takes a master director like Roman Polanski to bring something more to what Shakespeare has written.Polanski has done some obvious things--opened up the play with vast, gloomy vistas along the coastline and the heath, and expanded the fight scenes. However, he's done some unpredictable, creative things as well. For example, the scenes with the "weird sisters" and their coven are brilliant. The scene of the murders at Macduff's castle are horrifying, and probably inspired by the brutal murder of Polanski's wife Sharon Tate by the Manson gang.Many directors can depict medieval scenes with the requisite mud, filth, and primitive objects. But, in my opinion, Polanski is a genius at this. The settings don't look carefully created with just the right amount of mud, animals, and slop. They look as if they exist in reality, not just for the purposes of the camera. This realism really worked for me, and enhanced the plot and the acting.The acting is excellent--especially by Jon Finch as Macbeth and Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth. (Annis performed the sleepwalking scene in the nude, which was considered noteworthy in 1971, but appears pretty tame in 2014.)Special note: Paul Shelley plays Donalbain, King Duncan's younger son. Donalbain disappears from Shakespeare's play after Duncan's murder. Polanski depicts Donalbain as having a pronounced limp. Polanski did this for a reason, which will become clear when you see the movie.We saw the film on Criterion DVD, where it worked well. However, if you can see it in a theater, it will be even more rewarding.

Fahmid Hassan Prohor Macbeth is the film which is more Polanski than Shakespeare from the late 70s. The story might be faithful to the play but there are few changes and few little disturbing points. It is starred by John Finch as Macbeth and Francesca Anis as Lady Macbeth. As Polanski directed it, the darker part of the play was shown much of it. For the family audiences or the student audiences the censored version should be shown. The plot is about a thane of Cawdor, Scotland whose encounter with the witches and support of his mistress let his ambition to misguidance. Therefore it leads through such tragedy that creates a disturbingly painful tone. The acting is the important part of the Shakespeare play. John Finch and Anis played justice to their roles. The disturbing point for us Asians is the nudity of the witches; the little child who was showering nude plus the epic battle scenes in which Macbeth's head was cut. The soliloquy was replaced as inner monologues to make it more realistic. The scenes foreshadow the cut from the text. There are some characters which were developed rather than the play. The music were suitable at the 70s but a weak point if you go to the post-modern period. The music shows the dramatic picture and the film made more historical. It shows from the protagonist's view as most Polanski's films do. The set design was rough and dry as the atmosphere of the play. The rain also symbolizes dark prediction of the film. Lady Macbeth's acting was brilliant. The direction was superb and the camera angle grabs the attention of the viewers. Overall, the story is more of the play but it's not for the family audiences. But it was the best Macbeth adaptation and there was no option to find the alternatives. It's a four hour film like Hamlet. It's also a must watch for adult Shakespearean viewers.

submarine-green7 I wrote this review as a writing assignment for my English class, and questions were asked before so if it seems like I'm jumping from topic to topic I'm sorry. The Questions basically asked were what did you think, what scenes where effective and not effective and why, also was the violence overdone, and compared to todays violence and how did Polanski add his own interpretation to the play. I really liked by review so I thought I'd post it.I really enjoyed Roman Polanski's version of Macbeth. I think it was an excellent depiction of the play and very historically accurate. I believe the most effective scene was the one at the very beginning. There were many great scenes in this movie but this scene starts the story, in what I believe, the best possible way to show you how the rest of the movie will be themed like. You watch as a medieval warrior saunters on screen, tired from battle, onto a muddy and dank used battle field covered in dead bodies. Then he marches over to one of the bodies, maybe one that isn't fully dead, and bludgeons it with a mace. I think this show's how violent and unmerciful the time was and how the movie will be.There are no scenes in the movie that weren't effective. All of them conveyed the message of the play and the reality of the time when it was set. I do think some continuity was spared to keep it accurate to the play and the time, but that might have just been the 1971 film making. Which is surprisingly good considering the movie was made by Playboy Productions over 40 years ago.I think the violence in the movie was not overdone. I think peoples ideas of what the play is like have been jaded because any other way the play has been done, read aloud or made by a low-budget high school drama club, wasn't the way it was meant to be seen. This is the closest representations of what Shakespeare wanted yet, in my opinion. Compared to the violence of today's film I think there is no comparison. Today's violence in film is all special effects and exploitation. It's all about the shock value. This movie's violence is realistic and shows how much violence is in the play and how much is implied but not seen. It's a violent play, so anything less than I violent movie would be unacceptable.I think Roman Polanski put his interpretation on the play first by making it a film. Some of the shots are comparable to Alfred Hitchcock. It is truly cinematic. The expressions on the actors faces. The composition of the Scottish countryside. The dark and musty castle. The choreography on the fights alone was simply beautiful. Even the way the Shakespearean language is spoken so naturally and conversational. This kind of excellence could not be accomplished on the stage or any other medium. Roman Polanski did an amazing job and this is one of the best reproductions of Shakespeare I have ever seen.

TheLittleSongbird To say that this adaptation is a bit of a bloodbath is a bit of an understatement, but you cannot deny that this film from Roman Polanski is quite possibly the definitive film version of Shakespeare's play, which is very complicated to even contemplate transcribing to screen. The cinematography is excellent, as is the script. It is true that there are a lot of disturbing scenes, chiefly Lady Macbeth's nude sleepwalker scene and King Duncan's death. Roman Polanski should be commended for how much he managed to get into the film, and he somehow made it all effective. Any scene with the three witches, the murder of Macduff's family, plus the part when Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost was very well done.(I saw an amateur production of this, and not only was it disappointing, but that particular scene was the worst aspect of it) The performances were brilliant, Jon Finch(who did start off uncomfortable) is great on the whole as the treacherous thane-turned-king, and Francessca Annis was nigh-on-perfect as Lady Macbeth. And Martin Shaw was excellent as Banquo. From the suitably eerie opening scene, to the superb climax, this is a near-perfect adaptation, there were just some bits that were really disturbing to watch, that deserves more recognition. 9/10 Bethany Cox