Becky Gutknecht
September 9, 2007
English Comparison Essay
Macbeth Movie Comparisons
The play Macbeth has been remade into many different movies. The directors of
the English Shakespeare Company, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Roman
Polansky’s take on each of the three forms of Macbeth that we watched was much
different, and although the script was the same in each one, a dissimilar impression was
made. There was variation in costume, scenery and props, and time period.
The costuming was different from movie to movie. In the English Shakespeare
Company’s version, the costuming was much more modern. For example, the men had
machine guns and camouflage clothing which did not exist when Macbeth was written.
Also, rather than the witches wearing what looked like large brown or black sacks, these
witches were dressed in bright colored clothes with bandanas and other items that made
them look like hippies or beggars. In the Roman Polanski’s version, they were dressed in
much more appropriate attire. The men wore armor and had swords, because as in all the
others, it appeared that they had just come from a battle. The witches wore dark robes
and had hoods. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s account of the costumes of Macbeth
was much simpler. All of the robbing was dark except for one man who had bright white
robes. The men were dressed in dark colors, and a little armor. The witches were
dressed in dark robes, but unlike in Polanski’s Macbeth, they did not have hoods. The
movie hardly showed Macbeth’s actual dress, because the majority of his camera time
was spent zoomed in on his face alone. All of this attention to bland costumes was
probably so that people focused on the acting alone, and they would receive the full
impact of their extraordinary acting and facial expressions. The costumes were quite
different in each movie.
Scenery and props were another variance in each movie. In the Royal
Shakespeare Company’s film, there was hardly any scenery or props. This was most
likely, as with the costumes, to pull the full attention of the viewers to the acting rather
than the scenery. Scenery was a large part of Roman Polanski’s version. It looked very
realistic and appropriate to the times. It had props to display the help set the mood for the
movie, like swords, dead bodies, and many other things. The English Shakespeare
Company had much different scenery. It was set in the desert, but not exactly a desert
Shakespeare himself might have stumbled upon. There were a television, motorcycles,
machine guns, and explosives, which all helped to set the mood of a modern day
Macbeth. The movies scenery gave each film a different feel, and set it apart from the
others.
Perhaps one of the largest differences in the movies was the time period that it
was set in. Because of the lack of scenery in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s version,
one might surmise that the director was trying to create a mood like that of the original
play’s. It had very little scenery, but very impressive acting, just like they had in
Shakespeare’s time. This gave it a very realistic feel, and made it feel like it was actually
back in time watching the original actors perform the play. Roman Polanski’s version
made it feel like the story was unfolding right before the eyes of the audience, and like
they were back in the time of Macbeth. The final version was possibly the most different
in the time period it was set in. That is because it is set in a much more modern day time.
It has televisions, motorcycles, and machine guns, all of which had not been invented yet
at the time of Shakespeare. The director almost probably wanted to cause the audience to
feel a closer connection to the movie and hoped that if it was set in what they know best,
they would understand it better. The time periods of the movies gave them all different
feels.
Each movie varied from one another in costume, scenery and props, and time
period. The directors all had a different interpretation of Macbeth that made the movies
seem very different, even though the used the same script.