Comparisons of the Tragedy of Macbeth as Seen in Films Directed by Roman Polanksi’s and Michael Bogdanov

Matthew Stone 10/17/02

Comparisons of the Tragedy of Macbeth as Seen in Films Directed by Roman Polanksi’s and Michael Bogdanov

Roman Polanksi’s version of the tragic tail of Shakespeare's Macbeth is shown to us, the viewer in its most traditional way, having it been filmed and directed entirely in South Wales allowed us, the viewers to imagine what Shakespeare wanted his audience in his time period to feel. Roman Polanski uses both words and settings to enhance Shakespeare Message in which he understood it. While Michael Bogdanov uses Shakespeare’s classic text in his production that is set in a timeless world in a raw, urban, industrial environment giving the film a surreal quality. The abstract setting puts this version of Macbeth alongside other more traditional versions of how Macbeth is usually filmed.

Roman Polanksi's film, Macbeth opens with a long shot of the sky and the beach at dawn. All is quiet and still as the shot is held. You notice that the sky is red - a warning sign of danger, but it's a very beautiful image. The sky then gradually turns to a blue-grey, and a far more foreboding colour. The red bleeds out and disappears. This is not going to be a bright day bathed in sunlight - there's no sun in this tragedy. Polanski draws the attention of the audience by the use of colour in the film. The shot is held as a cough is heard and a stick gradually appears in the bottom left foreground. A wrinkled hand is guiding it, as a circle is drawn in the sand. The hands of three weird looking women scoop out the earth and dig down. The witches have a face; one of which looks young and does not look like a witch that we would have imaged to be, her skin still smooth unlike the other two. Similar connections can be made with Michael Bogdanov’s production of Macbeth. Two of the three witches are slightly older and by far, less attractive then the one. Her skin is also smoother then the rest. For what the directors objective was; I do not know or was this just by chance?

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Continuing with the opening scene of Polanksi’s production a severed hand and forearm are buried by the three witches, a dagger placed in its clenched fingers. This gives the idea of ambition, and an indication that daggers are going to be important later in the story. But at this stage it creates mystery, and intrigues the audience. A phial of blood is thrown on the buried things, and its vivid redness takes us back to the opening shot. The witches spit on the sand. The dialogue is spoken low-key, very quietly - these witches are in control and self-assured. The witches walk off slowly into the mist and soft, eerie music starts. As in Michael Bogdanov film Shakespeare's dialog is also kept the same, and they finish on the name Macbeth, so right from the start you know who the story is going to be about. Though instead of the buried ritual that the witches preformed in Polanksi’s film in futuristic Bogdanov’s production the withes open by them sitting and conducting conversation over a game of cards.

Although both films use Shakespeare's Act One scene i as a starting point, the approaches are completely different. There's more concrete detail in the Polanski film that we can respond to in a variety of ways, while you know what effect Bogdanov is aiming for in his version.

Polanski made Francesca Annis play Lady Macbeth not as the nagging shrew, but as a woman who loves her husband and has a sexual power over him, which enables her to spur on his ambition. As she mentally reads allowed the letter sent by Macbeth in Act I, her facial expressions shows joy in which I believe she is pleased to hear her husband could possibly become the king. This is one of the successful aspects of the film - you do feel from the way that it's shot that there's a relationship between them. Unlike in Michael Bogdanov film, where Lady Macbeth is portrayed as manipulative and childless and so the focus of her characterization falls more squarely on the sexual and the controlling aspects of her personality. She is also shown to be more ambitious than Macbeth. For example as she reads the letter allowed (unlike Polanski film where she reads the note mentally) with her eyes evilly opened. You could actually see the dark ambition that she desired and wanted. Bogdanov must have realized that the more attention given to a conception of Lady Macbeth’s influence and ensuing fall, the more fascinating Macbeths’ relationship towards Lady Macbeth will be to audiences.

In the end you have two different versions, both of which are worth seeing. What they both show is that there are endless approaches to the play, and every director can find something different in the text.

I found that the modern intake of the film played too much of a distraction through some parts of the scenes and I personally preferred having it been played in a traditional atmosphere as done by Roman Polanski. Though some ideas and views are clearly shown, for example the actor who played Lady Macbeth in Michael Bogdanov production of the film, her ambitions where clearly and cleverly shown. I felt that Bogdanov may have felt that because we live in a visual society kids and teenagers today are more visually sophisticated than at any previous time. On the other hand, they are less verbally-orientated: TV has replaced the book as the filler of children's imaginations. If we want Shakespeare to survive to be read and know through to the next decades we’re going to have to use the techniques of the visual age to make him accessible. Though I felt that major improvement could have been done to improve the modern futuristic approach