The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Roman Polanski

Writers:

William Shakespeare (play) and
Roman Polanski (writer)

Release Date:

13 October 1971 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A ruthlessly ambitious Scottish lord siezes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and a trio of witches.

Plot Keywords:

Wife | King | Throne | Macbeth | Tragedy

Awards:

Won BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Jon Finch	...	Macbeth
Francesca Annis	...	Lady Macbeth
Martin Shaw	...	Banquo
Terence Bayler	...	Macduff
John Stride	...	Ross
Nicholas Selby	...	Duncan
Stephan Chase	...	Malcolm
Paul Shelley	...	Donalbain
Maisie MacFarquhar	...	First Witch
Elsie Taylor	...	Second Witch
Noelle Rimmington	...	Third Witch
Noel Davis	...	Seyton
Sydney Bromley	...	Porter
Richard Pearson	...	Doctor
Patricia Mason	...	Gentlewoman

Also Known As:

Macbeth (USA)

Runtime:

140 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | Netherlands:16 | South Korea:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video rating) (1985) | UK:AA (original rating) | USA:R | West Germany:16 | Canada:14A (Alberta) (re-rating) (1999) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:PG (Manitoba) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) (DVD rating) | Finland:K-15 (2002) (DVD rating) | Finland:K-16 (1972) (cut version) | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Bamburgh Castle, Bamburgh, Northumberland, England, UK

Company:

Caliban Films

Trivia:

Roman Polanski owned a painting by British artist Michael Worrall, which gave him the inspiration to make the movie. The second scene was based on this painting.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: The lyrics to the song that Fleance sings at Macbeth's banquet for Duncan at Inverness are taken from the poem "Merciles Beautè" by Geoffrey Chaucer. In the context of the film this extraneously inserted song is itself an anachronism, as Chaucer lived in the fourteenth century and Shakespeare's "Macbeth" historically takes place in the eleventh century.

Quotes:

Malcolm: Let us not be dainty of our leave-taking.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Jim and the Infidels (2008)

Something wicked this way comes

Dark, bloody and brooding version of Shakespeare's play about a doomed Scottish king who was, according to his wife, Lady MacBeth "too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way". This is one of Shakespeare's later plays and is entirely devoid of some of the lighter moments prevalent in his earlier work.

Macbeth, a loyal Scottish thane and a cousin of King Duncan, is waylaid with his companion, Banquo, by three witches who prophesise that he will become king and that Banquo will beget kings. Once MacBeth has informed his wife of these predictions, he is propelled by her and by his own lust for power on a journey of self-destruction leading ultimately to madness. In his determination to bring about the witches' predictions, he kills his liege-lord, steals the crown from the rightful heirs, who flee into exile on suspicion of regicide and patricide, then orders the secret murder of ally and friend Banquo and Banquo's son Fleance. So begins a descent into a nightmare existence, replete with ghostly apparitions, sleepless angst and withering self-doubt. Gradually mutual distrust emerges between himself and the nobles whose support maintains his position, and eventually he murders the wife and children of one MacDuff, an act which symbolises the horror he has become. MacDuff, along with other Scottish nobles, has joined the exiled heir, Malcolm, who lives under the protection of the English king. An army of rebellion - or liberation - is brought to bear on MacBeth's stronghold, whilst inside, MacBeth has begun "to grow aweary of the sun". The witches have told him that he cannot be killed by any "man of woman born". But, in the final fight scene, he learns too late that MacDuff "was, from his mother's womb, untimely ripped" and that the witches have, in Banquo's words from the start of the play, won him "with honest trifles" and betrayed him "in deepest consequence", and his destruction is complete.

This is a suitably melancholic reading, full of images of blood, of sombre leaden skies, of torrential downpours and of thickset, bearded nobles. Scotland is presented as a gloomy outcrop on the edge of the known world and the sun has been heavily filtered by Polanski, giving the film a surreal and eerie feel and stressing the superstitious environment in which the play is set. We are also treated to a fair representation of the early Middle Ages, a time when travelling lords and ladies and their kith and kin slept communally on straw in the great halls, side by side with their massive hunting dogs.

The obviously archaic dialogue has been abridged and everso slightly updated for modern audiences. The lines are delivered eloquently by the two leads, Jon Finch and Francesca Annis, who are well matched as the doomed couple, and this clipped entry would be a good introduction to Shakespeare for those of the MTV-set with a literary inclination. All in all a good stab at bringing Shakespeare into the twentieth century and an effort which the bard himself might well have smiled upon.