Stacey Frank ’05
A truly timeless play, Macbeth is a tragedy of a good man turned greedy gone wrong. As young children, we have grown up with the idea of a Macbeth-like character without necessarily experiencing the play itself. Macbeth, the character, has seeped into the media and culture of society. From cartoons to high culture films, Macbeth is a part of our lives.
As students of Shakespeare, we are taught to read plays rather than rent the movies. However, possibly the best way to completely comprehend a Shakespearean play is to not only read the play, but to watch a film version. Jack Jorgens, author of Shakespeare on Film, concurs, “Whatever their view, it is certain that millions of people each year will experience Shakespeare on the screen, and it will become increasingly impossible for teachers and critics to ignore these productions as all too many have done up until now” (Jorgens, 3).
Film versions of any Shakespearean play, are important because they show students scenes they have not imagined, character personalities they may not have noticed, and build upon the play itself. “Like live performances, a film can help us focus not only on what is said, but on how, why, and to whom it is said. It can help to expand the term imagery to include much more than verbal imagery” (Jorgens, 3).
Upon reading the play, some students may still be confused at plot details, character’s monologues and the language itself. With the use of a film version, students will be able to see the plot details they missed, understand the idea of a monologue, and enhance their understanding of the language upon hearing it spoken.
Just because Shakespeare is considered “high culture” does not exclude it from mass media. Jorgens understands the worry that students have upon encountering a film version of Macbeth:
Students of Shakespeare may tremble with fear, anticipating a wave of homogenized mindless, commercially oriented wide-screen, star-ridden spectacles. They may shrink at bland, trendy, studio-bound TV versions restructured for station breaks and denuded of their poetry to suit the medium’s supposed allergy to length, rhetoric, and lyricism. Or they may look on the bright side, noting that sensitive cameras and microphones and multiple prints allow us to see and hear performances better and more often, that large budgets make possible better casts and quests for perfection seldom found in live theater. (2)
It is understood that what we see in a film is chosen for us by the director. This may intimidate us, and discourage us from watching the film. A simple solution is by reading the play itself and creating a personal interpretation before searching for other’s interpretations.
Shakespeare did not write his plays to be read, he wrote his plays to be performed. “As difficult as it is to deal with a play filtered through the sensibilities of directors, actors, and designers, we cannot rest easy with a view of the plays which give complete emphasis to the word and denies the essentially collaborative nature of the drama”(Jorgens, 3). Although some students may not enjoy interpretations of Macbeth, we have to recognize that Macbeth is a play to be acted, and not a novel to be read.
Film versions also offer students a chance to see other interpretations of Macbeth they may not have thought of before. “Shakespeare films are interesting as films because they stretch the capabilities and challenge the inhibitions of the art” (Jorgens, 6). Students have the chance to analyze the play once they have read it, and then another chance to analyze the play once they have seen it. As Jorgen points out, this opens new educational opportunities as students should be able to speak about literature, film and theatre to analyze a Shakespeare film (Jorgens, 6).
Throughout
history, many Macbeth films have been produced. “Each
interpretation of Macbeth strikes a new balance among Macbeth, society
and Fate, as it acts through the Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth. Each
film constitutes an exploration of the misty borderlands between tragedy and
melodrama” (Jorgens, 149). Brode explains that the earliest
efforts were made in 1905, 1909, 1910 in
Each director chooses what he or she will show and how it will be shown. Trevor Nunn directed his version of Macbeth in 1979. The film starred the British Shakespeare Company and held true to the play. Nearly none of the lines were altered, and the film followed the play’s chronology. Following in suit, the end of the film is true to the play. With surprise, David Hale comments that not all the films need to end predicting the future. “It is quite possible it end the play without indicating future problems” (Hale, 2). With acknowledgement to other directors he notes, “Many more performances make some effort to illustrate one kind of political instability at the end. The most common approach is to bring back the Witches.”
One of the oddest film versions of Macbeth was a made-for-TV movie version directed by George Schaefer. “Schaefer’s Macbeth rates as one of the earliest made-for-TV movies since the networks, which were sill providing live and taped plays, wouldn’t begin airing features in prime time until the following fall, and original films didn’t take bow until two years later” (Brode, 185). The film was aired on November 20, 1960. The networks wanted a “cultural” movie so that children watching could learn something from the television and the medium could spread culture throughout society (Brode, 186). Although considered one of the worst renditions of Macbeth this film is important because of its place in society. This film was one of the first films to be shown in color, and therefore had a serious lack of shadows and darkness. Agreeing that Schaefer’s film is not the best interpretation, Jorgen concedes that, “The force of the story resides first of all in the unnaturalness of the deed – the killing of a sleeping white-haired old man who is a kinsman, guest, good and generous king, godlike father figure” (Jorgens, 149). Jorgens continues in his analysis comparing Schaefer’s film to the earlier film by Welles. “While Schaefer’s film depicts a world shaken by a murderous fever and restored to health and order, Welles’s film shows a world permeated from the beginning with evil” (Jorgens, 151).
Orson
Welles had a desire to direct and star in Shakespearean films. One
of his films is an interpretation of Macbeth. A film-noir
rendition, Welles set his audience in a stark, barren, misshapen world of
gloom, fog, dirt and a constant drizzle (Brode, 180). Critics
argue over whether Welles’s version is good and accurate. “Macbeth,
in the version of Orson Welles, must be considered one of the most beautiful
films ever created, in that it illustrates, with maximum rigor and simplicity,
this definition of art” (Beylie, 75).
Jorgens sees Welles’s interpretation as full of imagery and metaphor, whereas Brode discusses the Christianity of the film. Beylie concludes, Macbeth is a sanguinary madman, a modern Attila who hears only his own dreams and is vanquished by them: he appears, then, on the screen dressed in animal skins or bound in a strange harness redolent of both the Paleolithic and the atomic eras – a cuirass reinforced with metal plates that look like hideous blisters, a steel helmet guarded by nightmarish electrodes, horns or antennas. (72)
Roman Polanski’s version of Macbeth in association with Hugh Hefner debuted in 1971. Polanski had been interested in the concept of violence and sex and projected this interest onto his project with considerable encouragement from Hefner (Brode, 189). “Polanski hoped to suggest the sensuality of Lady Macbeth; in their view, her ability to manipulate, even corrupt, her husband derived from his intense sexual obsession” (Brode, 188).
Part of
the criticism of Polanski’s film is that it is so grotesque. “Roman
Polanski has made so brutal and bloody a Macbeth that it is difficult
to respond to on an aesthetic level at all, much less think about its relations
to Shakespeare’s play” (Jorgens, 161). Not only do we see the
deaths of all the characters in the film in detail, we are shown these images
for extended periods of time. Brode notes, “Whereas Shakespeare
kept the murders offstage, Polanski made the graphic (and ritualistic) killing
of
Beyond the graphic brutality of the film, Jorgens comments that it is a good interpretation.
“The opening shots of Polanski’s Macbeth are among the best of any Shakespeare film. Striking in themselves, they work well to establish the atmosphere of the plot, and articulate motifs and techniques that will radiate throughout the work. …we can see that Polanski has made quite a good film, thoughtful in its interpretation-translation of the play, filled with significant imagery, subtle connections, and imaginative creations. (161)
One of
the best interpretations of Macbeth is Kurosawa’s 1957 adaptation called
Throne of Blood. “In Throne of Blood, the tragedy
is that man is caught between two orders: the moral order, which he has invented
but which he is unable to hold himself to, and the impersonal natural order,
which refuses to be contained by the terms good and evil” (Jorgens, 155).
A Japanese version, Throne of Blood is often referred to as
the best interpretation of Macbeth. “Kurosawa’s Throne
of Blood, an adaptation of Macbeth, and a film that is often pointed
to as an ideal Shakespeare adaptation in spite of the fact it does not include
on its sound track a single word written by Shakespeare” (Anderson, 66).
“Macbeth
spin-offs have been popular since the birth of the cinema” (Brode. 192).
The films, Lady Macbeth of Minsk and Siberian Lady Macbeth
directed by Guazzoni in 1917 and Wajda in 1961 respectively are interpretations.
In
Not only can we see the influence in film, but also in children’s programming. A cartoon entitled, The Gargoyles had a main character, Macbeth. Another cartoon, Jimmy Neutron featured an entire episode based on the idea of Macbeth. More recent films are also influenced by the play, for example, a current film, The Punisher, in which the wife encourages her husband to kill his boss.
It becomes obvious that there is more to interpreting Macbeth than reading the play. It is important to experience film versions of Macbeth when studying the play as they may help in comprehension, and analysis. This will also encourage students to learn more about not only literature, but theatre and film as well.
Works Cited