1971 Film Version of Macbeth Roman Polanski's Essay

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1971 Film Version of MacBeth

Roman Polanski's 1971 version of Shakespeare's play Macbeth is dark, suspenseful and quite bloody for a film that was made before the slasher genre was even in existence. What is particularly good about Polanski's take on the play is that he seems to not have taken into account any versions of the play before he made his own; that is, Polanski has put his own mark on the film that proves itself to be quite different from any of the films that he would do before -- or after. Considering the year that Macbeth was made -- 1971, just two years after the Manson murders that claimed his wife Sharon Tate's life, their unborn baby, and three others (Garber 104), it might not be crazy to think that Polanski's ample use of blood in this film was a way of avenging the death. This is merely speculation, but Polanski's Macbeth is one of the most violent films even by today's standards.

Jon Finch as the murderous Macbeth is fine in the role, though Francesca Annis who plays Lady Macbeth is far more convincing. Polanski has always had a knack for directing his actors in a way that brings out the best in them, and this is precisely what he has done for Annis. Annis' Lady Macbeth is complex (in much the same way that Mia Farrow's Rosemary was in Polanski's Rosemary's Baby). Physically speaking, Annis is quite innocent and warm looking. Physically, she is the perfect juxtaposition to the role she plays -- a woman who is not warm at all, a woman who is the manipulator behind the murders she convinces her husband to commit.

Shakespeare, precisely, is a playwright where one doesn't have to show everything that is happening onstage. He is very good at using words to describe, obviously. However, Polanski doesn't consider this in his version of Macbeth. He wants to show the blood, the guts, the stabbings and the cutting off of heads. It is often easy to watch films (especially those of the slasher genre) today and become desensitized to what is being depicted onscreen, but this doesn't happen during Polanski's film. Each stab and each bludgeon bites through the gritty quality of the film's overall look.

One problem with the film is because of the fact that it is so gritty and so frightening to watch, one loses a bit of the importance of Macbeth's journey as a man.

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He is essentially a good man. We meet him as a very dignified warrior; however, he is a warrior who has some serious ambition problems. In some versions of Macbeth, and in reading the play, we almost feel as if Macbeth has no other choice in his fate. He is a tragic hero, an Oedipus. When he meets the witches, they bring out that inner desire in him, which he has thus far been able to keep in check. His wife doesn't do much to save him from his fate either as she is there constantly nudging him toward darkness. While Annis is incredibly good in this role, one's feelings about Finch as Macbeth are more difficult to pinpoint. There are scenes in which he is convincing, but others where he doesn't seem very three-dimensional. It could simply be that Macbeth is a much more difficult of a character to play than Lady Macbeth. After all, Macbeth has to have all of these elements to him -- dignity, ambition, compassion, greed, violence -- that are so disparate.

It can be argued that Polanski was trying to numb the audience with the gruesome violence he shows onstage muck like Macbeth is numbed to all of the acts that he is doing. There is reason to believe that Polanski wanted to shock the audience while at the same time numbing them to the murderous acts. Rothwell (2004, 66) states, "audiences arrived at the theatre expecting to see a link between the stabbings of Duncan and Sharon Tate."

Again, it is hard to not….....

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