Macbeth (1971)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Not badly done at all. Peter Finch is a handsome young MacBeth, always responsible except when he's nuts. And Francesca Annis is a toothsome redhead. "Back in the day," this would have been shot under in Hollywood sunshine, full of scintillating seas and glorious gorse. But the director places the story where it belongs, in a Scotland of lowering skies, one that is dark, windswept, rainy, and almost barren.It's always interesting to see how movie directors handle the soliloquies. The conventions of the stage rarely work. Polanski gives the actors interior monologues. Lots of emotional close ups, not befitting a stage. It all works pretty well.MacBeth is a likable play, party because it's masterfully done -- the unlikely rhymes still raise my eyebrows -- but also because it's short and because the narrative is clear. The Bard could write some clunkers. I wonder if anyone can really sit through "Love's Labour's Lost" and truthfully claim he enjoyed it. No problem with MacBeth though, and nothing obscure about what's going on. If "Hamlet" was about a man who could not make up his mind, "MacBeth" is about a man whose reach exceeded his grasp -- and who went to hell for it. MacBeth has his head lopped off -- maybe twice, according to the play. WS needed a good copy editor.Oh, how we recognize that motive, the lust for power. It shows up in our technology. All of the Volkswagon Beetles of 1960 have been replaced by SUVs too massive to fit into the garage. A .38 special is infra dig. We want .44 magnums. Nor is the play politically correct in any way. It takes Lady MacBeth one second to decide that the King has to be slaughtered so her husband can rule. Okay, so the current king has just promoted MacBeth and given him a title. But "Thane of Cawdor," my foot. It's the KING who has the power.Of course the king's isn't the only death. The wily Lady MacBeth has framed the king's guards and MacBeth quickly slaughters them before they can be questioned. MacBeth is now King of Scotland but "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown," as someone once said. There is another threat. MacBeth's friend and rival -- Banquo, and his child must go too. The kid gets away but Banquo is assassinated in the woods. Banquo gets even later by showing up as a decomposing corpse at MacBeth's castle, Dunsinane, and spoiling a festive dinner.That famous scene is handled well enough although Polanksi brings nothing special to it, nor to the rest of the story for that matter. It's not distinctively Polanski's in any way, no "Chinatown" or "Rosemary's Baby." Visually, the most impressive scene is MacBeth's second visit to the Sinister Sisters in pursuit of some vision of the future. They slip him some psychedelic drug and things go round and round, to a point that surpasseth understanding -- mine anyway.Fortunately, Polanski works a little nudity into the play. When Lady Macbeth is wandering around in her sleep she's not wearing any clothes, a nice artistic touch. Too bad she talks to herself and spills the beans about her crimes in front of two gawking attendants. MacDuff's little boy is naked too and so are the Weird Sisters but they can be disregarded. One's testosterone level dwindles at the sight of those flabby, toothless, blind, cackling old women.MacBeth has still another impediment. There's MacDuff, next in line for the throne, now in exile. By this time, with so much blood having been shed, MacBeth's nobility and courtiers are beginning to wise up. They joke about MacBeth behind his back and wish him gone. But he's not gone yet. Now a tyrannical ruler, he must commit more and more murders to protect himself. MacDuff may be gone for the moment, but that doesn't stop MacBeth's lackeys from murdering MacDuff's wife and young son, while raping the maids and pillaging the house. That's a pretty rotten thing to do, when you get right down to it. Certainly MacDuff thinks so when he gets wind of it. He and his army set off in search of justice and revenge. MacDuff lays on. Boy, does he lay on.Polanski has a habit -- unfortunate in my opinion -- of tacking an unhappy ending on all of his movies, even a comedy like "The Fearless Vampire Killers." Well, MacBeth is already a tragedy so he doesn't have to tack an unhappy ending on it. Instead, he makes the entire story more hopeless. In the play, as I remember, Ross is only a minor figure, a messenger. Here, Ross (John Stride) is a buddy and supporter of MacBeth. He murders for MacBeth. But when towards the end, when he sniffs which way the wind is blowing, he deserts the king and hastens to inform MacDuff that the king has slaughtered MacDuff's family and servants. He's a sneaky character and he celebrates MacDuff's coronation with the same fake enthusiasm he did for MacBeth's. It is, as someone said, throwing a perfume on the violet. It's a double downer. Not only has MacBeth, the confused protagonist, given up the ghost, but now his successor, MacDuff has a mole in his midst. All that notwithstanding, it's a gripping tale made into a good movie.

Only Roman Polanski could do an adaptation of William Shakespeare's unflinching play that is so vivid, so atmospheric, and so masterful. It's a stunning film that creates images and a general world that lingers with you as it goes above and beyond with the epic nature of the story. This really captures what Scotland must have actually been like during the medieval times. Whether it is the style of combat, the ways in which people were killed or slaughtered, the type of dress or attire that they wore, the appearance of how the castles were, or just how people slept, it is very rich and brutally frank in its details. The photography by Gilbert Taylor is both dreamy and pristine while the sets, props, and costumes are outstanding. There is gore and nudity as many have stated but it is never gratuitous (if it had it would have degenerated it into pure X-rated fare). What this film captures is genuine realism. However, this does not detract from the strength of Shakespeare's story. On the contrary, its style if nothing else, only enhances the overall narrative and drama. It is a visualization that is pretty compelling.Being that it is done on film instead of stage, it also allows Polanski to add things to it that were suggested or mentioned in the play but never shown. This includes the capture and execution of the Thane of Cawdor or the murder of King Duncan, just to give a couple examples. We also see his surreal side in scenes such as "the Dagger of the Mind", the appearance of Banquo's ghost, or when the witches show Macbeth what they see from their masters. Another great technique he employs is that the soliloquies of Lord and Lady Macbeth are done as voice narration as if it is inner dialog they have with themselves in their own mind. The film is very much a directorial piece while still remaining faithful to Shakespeare. Jon Finch is excellent in the lead. His Macbeth is one who becomes more and more sick with each violent deed developing a foolish sense of arrogance. This is one version where you feel that the bloody usurper gets what he deserves. Yet Polanski shows the true ugly nature of many other characters too. Lady Macbeth (Franseca Annis in a superb performance) is depicted as a woman who is gradually losing her mind rather the one who manipulates Macbeth's actions. Even the supposed hero of the story, Macduff, revenge on Macbeth is thuggish and workaday as if that is all he cared about. Polanski gives us a world of delusional savages. The inability to connect in any meaningful way with the characters is actually what makes it powerful. It approaches things from the point of view of Macbeth, a film on the level of an idiot's tale "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," It is a draining and unflinching experience as a result.If you are a movie buff or someone who has any interest in Shakespeare at all, you will not be disappointed. This definitive celluloid version of "The Scottish Play" has yet to be surpassed and probably never will.

Roman Polanski's MACBETH, a movie that really doesn't seem to fit as a great Shakespearean tragedy but rather as a grab for power in a den of criminals. If it hadn't been for the large army & the inclusion of the English as a party of interest you would never know that this involved a king & a kingdom.The lords are mainly ignorant & subject to their perceived lusts. Macbeth himself appears as a weak fool that latches onto augury as an excuse to perform his evil deeds. Having then done even one his mind breaks as he piles misjudgment on misjudgment on further augury. His wife, again a person of weak character & mental fortitude, basically piles shame on her husband's weakness only to snap suddenly and disappear into madness.There's no hero here, no divine justice or claim to honor. A bad man seeks & obtains that which he is unfit for. He is brought down by his enemies banding together as one would expect. The language is that of Shakespeare but the characters speaking them do not seem to be. A good king is destroyed by an evil & ambitious man who is destroyed by the good king's people in defense of their homes & selves. Still, there are some great lines such as "by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." The storyline is Shakespearean but the movie doesn't convey it well.It is interesting to note that the only characters in this story that get what they want are the witches. They wanted Duncan gone & whiz-bang, he is removed without them lifting a finger. I give it 3.5 Amazon stars for Polanski's direction & the wonderful dark images used throughout. Macbeth is not Hamlet but it is an OK told tale in this case. For those interested in battle scenes the personal combat at the end is striking!

Witches deliver a prophesy to Scottish warlord Macbeth that he will be King. Macbeth's wife pushes him towards the notion that the only way to ensure this is by killing the current King himself. And so he embarks on a fateful course of events.Roman Polanski's 1971 adaptation of Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's darkest plays, makes full use of cinema to place the words of the play into a grim, grey, grimy reality. As you watch Macbeth work his way further along a road to tragedy, the visuals which accompany Shakespeare's words place those words into a brutally real world.The performances are great, but this is an excellent adaptation, and makes you think that this is perhaps the sort of presentation which Shakespeare might have been involved in making had he still been alive.