Macbeth (1971 film)
| Macbeth | |
|---|---|
| File:Macbeth1971.jpg The DVD cover for "Macbeth" | |
| Directed by | Roman Polanski |
| Written by | William Shakespeare (play), Roman Polanski, Kenneth Tynan |
| Produced by | Andrew Braunsberg, Timothy Burrill, Hugh M. Hefner, Victor Lownes |
| Starring | Jon Finch, Francesca Annis, Martin Shaw |
| Music by | Third Ear Band |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release dates | October 13, 1971 |
Running time | 140 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | N/A |
Macbeth (also known as The Tragedy of Macbeth) is a 1971 film directed by Roman Polanski, based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name, concerning the Scottish lord who becomes the king through deceit, treachery and murder. It stars Jon Finch as Macbeth and Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth. Because of the transition from play to movie, some passages from the original play had to be cut out for time constraints, and some soliloquies have been changed to inner monologues for the sake of realism.
The film's general treatment of characters and plot points
Although the film maintains the basic structure of Shakespeare's original text, it is considered one of the darkest interpretations ever conceived. It overtly presents much of the violence only implied in the play, including the murder of King Duncan, the bear-baiting, the execution of the traitorous Thane of Cawdor, and Macbeth's decapitation. The film also presents much darker motives for the characters' actions, usually by removing their dialogue or placing it in a more cynical context. Duncan's sons (virtuous avengers in Shakespeare) are shown as venal weaklings; while the Scottish nobleman Ross, played by John Stride, is shown as a ruthless schemer who oversees both Banquo's murder and the sacking of Macduff's castle.
The important scene in which Macbeth confronts the witches a second time, and is invited to gaze into their enchanted cauldron to glimpse his future, is realized as a cryptic, hallucinatory set piece montage. It begins with a vision of Macbeth's Doppelganger warning him of the imminent dangers at hand and finally culminates in a surreal visual allegory showing the eventual dynastic triumph of Banquo's heirs.
The film's ending and its implied themes
Unlike the original play, the film's ending is unremittingly bleak. While Malcolm is indeed crowned as Scotland's rightful king his final speech is omitted entirely, and the closing scene features his envious, crippled brother, Donalbain, returning from exile and entering the witches' lair. The implication is that Donalbain will now seek the witches' counsel to usurp Malcolm through murder and treachery just as Macbeth had usurped Duncan, thus beginning the cycle of internecine bloodshed all over again. This peculiar ending recasts the events of the play within a circular narrative frame, one which suggests that the tragedy we have just witnessed will repeat itself again and again ad infinitum to the end of history.
Such a nihilistic conclusion effectively renders the action of the play -- and Shakespeare's hopeful suggestion that virtue and justice will ultimately prevail -- as altogether meaningless and absurd. In doing so, Polanski considerably alters and diminishes the psychological complexity and emotive grandeur of Shakespeare's story. Instead of a cautionary tale about the devastating consequences of corrupt ambitions put into action, Polanski presents a cynical and melodramatic illustration of how power normally changes hands in a hostile and meaningless universe. The end result is an irredeemable nightmare vision of a Hobbesian world engulfed in a permanent state of suicidal barbarism. This radical revisionist interpretation of the play was allegedly influenced by the modern Polish dramaturge and theoretician, Jan Kott, and his concept of "The Nightmare of History".
The excessive violence in the film has been attributed to the fact that Polanski's pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, had been savagely murdered by members of the Charles Manson cult in August 1969. For many viewers, Polanski's unsparing depiction of the massacre of Macduff's entire household recalled the senseless brutality and intoxicating horror of the Manson killings. Nevertheless, the attitude of the film remains consistent with that of Polanski's work as a whole, especially in its concern with the unstable dynamics of power and sexuality as well as the cynical questioning of conventional notions of heroism and redemptive action.
Technical style
The film is composed of single-camera establishing shots and subjective point-of-view shots, whereby the audience is made a voyeuristic participant in the on-screen action. Much of the film's dialogue lacks the subtext of a traditional musical score. In many scenes all that is heard is the sound of the actors' voices in sotto voce accompanied by atonal drones on the soundtrack. Polanski similarly employs ominously unnatural silences and strangely amplified sounds to create a sense of discomfort and dread.
The characterization of Lady Macbeth
Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are played by much younger actors than had traditionally performed the roles. As played by Francesca Annis, Polanski's Lady Macbeth is a softer and tamer character than is usually seen in most productions of the play. Although willful and seductive, she is a rather frivolous and perversely child-like young woman, almost a Lolita-type, who rules her husband by persistantly cajoling him and playing upon his frustrated sense of masculine pride. Her strength and sanity crumble at a horrific pace when she at last becomes aware of the inescapable nightmare her actions have created. Polanski explained his reasons for this particular approach to the character by pointing out that "directors always present Lady Macbeth as a nagging bitch. But people who do ghastly things in life, they are not grim, like a horror movie."
Polanski also takes the liberty of interpolating a scene that does not even appear in the play, one in which Lady Macbeth, now tormented by overwhelming guilt and despair at all the unfathomable suffering she has caused, tearfully rereads an old letter from her husband which she had received from him at the beginning of the play and before Duncan's murder. In this letter, he tells her excitedly of the favor and status he had just won from his new benefactor, the king. This deliberate use of Macbeth's innocent, hopeful letter as an ironic counterpoint to Lady Macbeth's mental and physical deterioration serves to index the effect that their irreversible descent into evil and bloodshed has had on them. It also underscores a bleak realization of how the two of them have recklessly destroyed their contented, pastoral life together in exchange for a tortured, wretched existence of ever-increasing degeneracy and isolation as they commit murder after murder in continued desperation to safeguard their ill-gotten position as king and queen of Scotland.
History of the production
When his wife Sharon Tate was murdered, Roman Polanski gave up on his latest film project Day of the Dolphin, and started blaming himself for the tragedy. He even had psychics called over his house where the murders were committed. Meanwhile, he had set his mind on adapting perhaps the bloodiest work in English literature, Shakespeare's Macbeth, but the major studios in Hollywood refused to finance such a project. His saviour was his friend Victor Lownes, a senior VP of Playboy who persuaded Hugh Hefner to finance the movie. The source of the financing was initally believed to be the reason for Lady Macbeth's nude scene, although it was later disclosed that Polanski and co-scenarist Kenneth Tynan had written the scene into the script some time before the association with Hefner.
The production, which was filmed on location in and around Snowdonia National Park in Wales, was plagued by delays caused by constant bad weather and malfunctioning special effects -- as well as Polanski's stubborn insistance on doing multiple retakes of several difficult and expensively mounted scenes, which also used up an excessive amount of costly high-grade color film stock. The shooting time went over schedule, ultimately taking six months to complete, and likewise exceeded its anticipated budget of $2.5 million by about $600,000.
Reception of the film upon release and its effect on those involved
Upon its theatrical release in December 1971 Macbeth received mixed reviews from critics. Some complained about the picture's relentless violence as well as its oppressively pessimistic conclusion which denied the viewer any solace by effectively promising a continuation of all the preceding horror. Other writers praised the film for its powerful and disturbing vision and for Polanski's rigorously logical, technically brilliant and fluidly cinematic interpretation of the play's action. As a result, the U.S. National Board of Review named Macbeth the Best Film of 1971.
During the promotion of the film, Polanski distanced himself from Playboy and made cynical remarks in the press about his mercenary reasons for accepting financing from the controversial magazine empire to make the picture. Victor Lownes felt personally betrayed by these stinging comments and was enraged at the director's apparent indifference to the film's subsequent commercial failure which incurred a significant financial loss to Playboy. Disillusioned and humiliated, Lownes severed his friendship with Polanski on a note of bitterness and rancour.