William Shakespeare is the ultimate playwright in human history, so it is not surprising that so many of his plays find their way onto stages, whether they are playhouses, high-school stages, or cinematic soundstages. When it comes to the latter, just ask Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, and Franco Zeffirelli, who made a lot of their reputations on the works of "Willie".
But some of them are not nearly as easy to pull off as one might think, especially since The Bard had a tendency to delve into dark subject matter. This is the case with "Macbeth", perhaps the spookiest and most disturbing of any of his plays. Welles made a very film-noir adaptation of it in 1948; and the great Japanese director Akira Kursoawa did his own take of it (in 1957's THRONE OF BLOOD); and Joel Coen made THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH in 2021.
And then we come to what may he the most controversial of all cinematic Shakespeare adaptations, the version of "Macbeth" made in England in 1970-71 by director Roman Polanski.
Jon Finch stars as the tragic and murderous 11th century titular character who seizes the throne by murdering the king with the help of his wife (Francesca Amis) and the help of a trio of witches. What ensues is without question an ultra-disturbing, but exceptionally faithful, adaptation of this cautionary tale of madness, tyrannical behavior, and supernatural occurrences of various stripes, all supported by a cast of veteran English actors who, perhaps to this day (with the possible exceptions of Finch and Amis), remain unknown to most American audiences, but who are supremely right in their roles.
Much has been made over the half-century-plus since MACBETH came out of the motivations behind its making. This was, for one thing, the first true effort into cinema by Hugh Hefner and his Playboy organization, so one could not help but expect a fair amount of nudity (though the play itself has an equal amount of that to begin with). But no one could possibly miss that this was the first film Polanski had directed in the wake of his wife Sharon Tate having been slaughtered, along with six others, in August 1969 by the Manson "family" in Los Angeles, and that it seemed to show up in how enormously violent his MACBETH was for 1971, even as it got released simultaneously with films like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and STRAW DOGS, two films which were notorious for their own disturbing uses of violence.
Even by 21st century standards, where so much CGI can simulate the most gruesome stuff, the Polanski MACBETH is still an extremely (though not excessively) violent film, regardless of how much stock one puts in any connections between the inherent bloodiness of the original and how the director felt about what Manson's cult had done. And make no mistake, this is a hugely 'politically incorrect" film not only in terms of its violence, but also its nudity. But it is still a film worth seeing, worthy of an '8' rating.
But some of them are not nearly as easy to pull off as one might think, especially since The Bard had a tendency to delve into dark subject matter. This is the case with "Macbeth", perhaps the spookiest and most disturbing of any of his plays. Welles made a very film-noir adaptation of it in 1948; and the great Japanese director Akira Kursoawa did his own take of it (in 1957's THRONE OF BLOOD); and Joel Coen made THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH in 2021.
And then we come to what may he the most controversial of all cinematic Shakespeare adaptations, the version of "Macbeth" made in England in 1970-71 by director Roman Polanski.
Jon Finch stars as the tragic and murderous 11th century titular character who seizes the throne by murdering the king with the help of his wife (Francesca Amis) and the help of a trio of witches. What ensues is without question an ultra-disturbing, but exceptionally faithful, adaptation of this cautionary tale of madness, tyrannical behavior, and supernatural occurrences of various stripes, all supported by a cast of veteran English actors who, perhaps to this day (with the possible exceptions of Finch and Amis), remain unknown to most American audiences, but who are supremely right in their roles.
Much has been made over the half-century-plus since MACBETH came out of the motivations behind its making. This was, for one thing, the first true effort into cinema by Hugh Hefner and his Playboy organization, so one could not help but expect a fair amount of nudity (though the play itself has an equal amount of that to begin with). But no one could possibly miss that this was the first film Polanski had directed in the wake of his wife Sharon Tate having been slaughtered, along with six others, in August 1969 by the Manson "family" in Los Angeles, and that it seemed to show up in how enormously violent his MACBETH was for 1971, even as it got released simultaneously with films like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and STRAW DOGS, two films which were notorious for their own disturbing uses of violence.
Even by 21st century standards, where so much CGI can simulate the most gruesome stuff, the Polanski MACBETH is still an extremely (though not excessively) violent film, regardless of how much stock one puts in any connections between the inherent bloodiness of the original and how the director felt about what Manson's cult had done. And make no mistake, this is a hugely 'politically incorrect" film not only in terms of its violence, but also its nudity. But it is still a film worth seeing, worthy of an '8' rating.