Shakespeare coursework - Macbeth. The supernatural is vital to the plot and the actions of the characters in Macbeth. As a director of a film version, how would you put across this influence to your chosen audience?

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Shakespeare coursework - Macbeth.                        

The supernatural is vital to the plot and the actions of the characters in Macbeth. As a director of a film version, how would you put across this influence to your chosen audience?

In this essay I am going to explain how I would go about directing the first two witches' scenes in Macbeth. I will sum up why I am doing a certain action, for example the symbolism it has and what relevance it has to the witches. First of all I need to know some background about the impact of witches on peoples lives at the time in which it was written.

Macbeth was written in 1606 in the time of the Elizabethans when the supernatural was in the forefront of many peoples' minds. Witches were the objects of morbid and fevered fascination. In each village of Elizabethan England the 'evil' goings on were blamed on the old spinster who owned a black cat and never came out of the house. The witch. They were punished or interrogated by being forces to sit on a stool and then 'ducked' in the river. If they floated then they were a witch and if they sank then they weren't a witch but most died of drowning anyway. There were many famous witch hunts at this time and everyone was scared of them.

In 1604 an act of parliament decreed that anyone found guilty of witchcraft would be executed. Many people who watched Macbeth saw the witches as a sign of evil and hatred. This was apparent in many of their lives. Shakespeare's audience would hear Macbeth as an echo of the Christian faith. The religious imagery would remind them of the challenges on earth of Christian beliefs.

In Macbeth the two witches' scenes that I am studying are full of mystery and confusion. A paradox, "Fair is foul and foul is fair" is used throughout the play. This is also an alliteration. In my version of Macbeth I am going to begin with thunder and lightening to immediately give the audience the impression that supernatural powers are at work. I will them have the camera zooming in through darkness and fog or smoke to one of the witches ugly faces (one of the two old witches) while she says her first line in old Shakespearean language so that there is an added effect of an old feel. I think that if I was to use modern translated language, then the sentences would not seem as powerful and evil.    

Shakespeare coursework - Macbeth.                        Rob Jones

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The supernatural is vital to the plot and the actions of the characters in Macbeth. As a director of a film version, how would you put across this influence to your chosen audience?

According to the script of the original version, the first scene begins at a desolate place, and I am going to replicate that by having the camera starting off looking at a snow blizzard and then zooming in on three dots in the distance. This will be the three witches with ragged clothes on and shivering. The whole of the background will be white with ...

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