The Tragedy of Macbeth

Roman Polanski 1971
Polanski's first feature following Sharon Tate's
murder was a bleak and violent film version of
Shakespeare's Macbeth, which was mostly
made on location in the rugged environs of
Snowdonia National Park in North Wales; Jon
Finch and Francesca Annis appeared in the
lead roles. Polanski adapted the text into a
screenplay with the British theater critic
Kenneth Tynan, and gained financing for the
film through his friendship with Victor Lownes,
who was an executive for Playboy magazine in
London at the time.

A number of critics were disturbed by the
relentless violence in the film as well as the
unsparing bleakness of Polanski's
modernist interpretation of Shakespeare's
tragedy (influenced by the writings of
Polish drama critic and theoretician, Jan
Kott). Pauline Kael commented that the
slaughter of Lady Macduff and her
household appeared to have been staged
in an especially lurid manner that was
clearly intended to evoke the Manson
killings.

In Polanski's version, Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth are played by actors younger than
has been tradition. In the person of twentysix-year-old Francesca Annis, Lady Macbeth
is a softer, tamer woman than is usual. Her
strength and sanity crumble at a horrific
pace when she, at last, is aware of the
inescapable nightmare she has helped
create. Polanski explained this by noting
that "directors always present Lady
Macbeth as a nagging b-. But people who
do ghastly things in life, they are not grim,
like a horror movie". In an audacious
departure from Shakespearean convention,
Lady Macbeth's famous sleepwalking
soliloquy is performed in the nude.

When his pregnant wife Sharon Tate was
murdered, Roman Polanski quit his latest
film project Day of the Dolphin and sank
into deep psychological depression,
blaming himself for the tragedy. He set to
adapting The Tragedy of Macbeth, perhaps
the bloodiest work in English literature,
but major Hollywood studios refused to
finance it. His financial savior was friend
Victor Lownes, a senior VP of Playboy
Enterprises in Britain who persuaded Hugh
Hefner to finance the film. The financing
was believed by some to be the reason for
Lady Macbeth's nude scene; later Polanski
and co-scenarist Kenneth Tynan said they
had written the scene before their
association with Hefner.
For Further Info:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/k
s3bitesize/teachers/lessonplans/
english/mac_supernatural.shtml
More Adaptations

There is an Australian 2006 film
adaptation of William Shakespeare's
Macbeth. It was directed by
Geoffrey Wright and features an
ensemble cast. Macbeth was filmed
in Melbourne, Victoria and was
released in Australia on 21
September 2006.
 Wright
and Hill wrote the script, which
— although it uses a modern-day
Melbourne gangster setting, and the
actors deliver the dialogue in
Australian accents — largely maintains
the language of the original play.
 Macbeth was selected to screen at the
Toronto International Film Festival in
September 2006.

This adaptation of Macbeth takes place in
the Melbourne underworld. Macbeth
(Sam Worthington), a loyal underboss to
his crime boss Duncan (Gary Sweet), is
told by teenage witches that he will one
day assume great power. Driven by their
prophecy, his wife (Victoria Hill) plans to
kill Duncan and take the leadership of the
gang for herself. His obsessive love for her
leads him to agree to her murderous plan,
but he finds that maintaining his power
will require a lot more from him than first
imagined.