The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971)

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:

Ireland | Futility | Disturbing | Baron | Sword Wound

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:

Netherlands:16 | South Korea:15 | Australia:M | 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:

Director Roman Polanski's wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by Charles Manson three years before the making of the film. It is believed that due to this traumatic event, Polanski developed the story to be a more violent representation of Shakespeare's play. For instance, the scene in which Macbeth murders King Duncan was not in the original play and was instead implied.

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:

Duncan: There's no art to find the mind's constuction in the face.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Story of 'Frenzy' (2001) (V)

Murderous MacBeth

How does one do justice to one of the most nihilistic murderers in the history of drama? Even Richard the Third has a sense of humor. but once MacBeth buys into the witch's prophecy (which he doesn't have to do) - it's all straight to hell from there. Even his wife finally gets the idea that 'When you choose to ride the tiger, you don't get off' as one Confucian wit put it, long ago....

This is the film that put an end to the "high-school" Shakespeare that we all had to suffer through in the 1960s. That Shakespeare was dull, lifeless, meaninglessly conservative - everyone hated him. In America, we had heard about Peter Brooks, and about an all-nude MacBeth (which of course never happened, the reference was to the "out damn spot' scene, just as we see in this movie); and there were the legendary Orson Welles versions that were, unfortunately, wholly unavailable at the time. Then Zeffirelli made his Romeo and Juliet, showing Romeo's bare butt, even in the ad for the film, and we started getting the glimmer that Shakespeare had been a real person writing about other real people - then came Polanski's MacBeth.

I won't lie and tell you that this is the definitive MacBeth - or even that it's a really great movie - all of the actors seem like they are way over their heads in this material.

But Polanski's purely cinematic bravado pulls it off. Right from the beginning, watching a medieval warrior beat his opponent into a bloody pulp, we are drawn into a world where violence is the only truth we can believe - pretty much as MacBeth himself sees it.

From this point on, there was no turning back. The Shakespeare we inherit from this film may not be the one we want, but he is certainly a playwright of Elizabethan England (which the "high-school" Shakespeare never was).

That makes this film really important - at least until the definitive version actually gets made (and it hasn't, yet...).