Macbeth
CRITIQUE | THE TEXT | AT THE MOVIES
Illustration, 1858 editionOriginal title
The Tragedie of Macbeth
Written
1603
First performed
1606
First published
1623, in Folio
Literary form
Play
Genres
Tragedy, historical drama
Writing language
English
Author's country
England
Length
Five acts, 2,392 lines, approx. 16,500 wordss
Jon Finch and Francesca Annis are Roman Polanski's deadly couple in The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Sexy and bloody Macbeths
Throne of Blood (1957): originally Kumonosu jô; also called Macbeth; director Akira Kurosawa; writers Shinobu Hashimoto, Ryuzô Kikushima, Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni; Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura
The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971): Also called Macbeth; director Roman Polanski; writers Polanski, Kenneth Tynan; featuring Jon Finch, Francesca Annis, Martin Shaw
In a more conventional vein, Roman Polanski remade the play as The Tragedy of Macbeth in 1971 to even greater length than Welles' version.
However, he updated the dialogue and revised the action somewhat, to make it less brooding and more violent. His biggest innovation was casting attractive young actors in the lead roles, and emphasizing eroticism in the play.
Using a cast of relative unknowns, he produced a film that's been hailed by some as a masterpiece and dismissed by others as sensationalistically bloody.
Trailer for Roman Polanski's The Tragedy of Macbeth in 1971.
You may also be interested in seeing Akira Kurosawa's Kumonosu jô (Throne of Blood, 1957), also called Macbeth in North America, in which Shakespeare's story is transposed to feudal Japan. This too has been called a masterwork.
Trailer for Kurosawa's Throne of Blood in Japanese with English subtitles.
— Eric
