Polanski's Version of Macbeth

The witches walk off slowly in to the distance; it is a long shot that makes it seem as if they might take forever to reach the vanishing point.  The wet sand looks unreal as it reflects the image of the witches like a mirror.  

The way this scene is filmed and the way it is carried out it is clear to see it was made to shock.  It wasn’t meant for the theatre goers but more for the cinema goers who seek entertainment and who have little knowledge of Shakespeare.

The BBC’s version of Macbeth opens with a shot of an ancient stone dolmen structure, with a wild storm taking place in the distance with frequent lightning, with a red sky in the background.  The red sky suggesting blood or evil turns slowly to black suggesting wickedness. This scene is not filmed on location and it is not hard to tell.  It appears to be late at night, the surrounding area is overgrown and looks fallow suggesting that these witches remove themselves from everyday life and are isolated from society. The incidental music playing is ambient giving us the impression of evil; it is disaccorded and is very unsettling

The first shot that we are shown of is a stone structure.  This structure looks like a sacrificial alter.  It has three upright oval shaped stones used to support a large slopped slab of rock with three pointed pillars on it.  These pillars are symbolic of the daggers used to kill the king, as they are pointed and stand out.  The fact that this structure looks like an alter is as Macbeth sacrifices his pride, country, family and friends all on the alter of ambition.  

The light shown during this whole set has been misconfigured.  As seen in the far background there is the moon.  If this was real there shadows would be directly in front of the witches, instead the shadow is behind them and to their right.  This implies that there is a single light source placed to the right of the camera shining across to scene centered on the middle witch.  This again gives the feeling that this play is not very professional produced.

As the camera zooms in, in three items that appear it be animals resting on the structure, we can then work out they are in fact humans. They are dressed in dark coloured rags, and look like tramps.  The witches start to rise up from their resting positions, choreographed to the incidental music.  This can be interpreted as a visual metaphor that evil is growing, as in something is about to begin.  The slow movement of each witch rising up adds to the suspense of this scene.  The fact that these witches go unnoticed for the first few seconds of this scene makes the used think that they could almost be omnipresent.

Once the witches have all risen you can see their full appearance, they are ugly and tramp like, the basic stereotype of a witch.  Once they have all stood up the incidental music stops and they begin to speak.   There voices are very stereotypical.  They have guttural and corky voices.  When they are saying there lines, they pause before they say the word ‘Macbeth’ and add emphasis while saying his name.

The ‘coven’ say what seems to be a spell, they repeat the last line together which again it is :-

“Fair is foul and foul is fair”

They join hands as they quote this together as if they were joining in an act of prayer.  Even though this is presented differently this paradox remains highly important in this play.  As the camera zooms in on the witches hands there is a large burst of sound and the camera cuts shapely to another scene,

I think that this scene makes what the witches did seem more of a prophecy than making it seem like they instigated it like Polanski tries to make out in his first scene.  The main thing that stands out in this play is the way it is presented.  This entire play is based tightly around the original work of Shakespeare and little imagination is added to this scene.

Between these two scenes I prefer Roman Polanski’s, from a visual point of view this scene is very effective; it is far more dramatic and more realistic.  I prefer this seen as it is more modern and unconventional that the normal portrayal of this scene.

Roman Polanski’s version of scene five in Shakespeare’s Macbeth is handled completely differently from the way in which it was presented in the BBC production.  This is based tightly around the true text written by Shakespeare, aimed at a more theatrical audience rather than for a cinema spectator.  Unlike the BBC production this production is clearly not a low budget movie, a lot of time, effort and money has gone into the making of this movie.

The first act of scene five is where Macbeth is filmed walking down a hallway in his own castle.  This first act is a soliloquy where Macbeth’s thoughts are spoken aloud to the audience.  Unlike most productions, when Macbeth imagines that there is a dagger  that looks like his leading him to King Duncan’s room the audience can see this happening.  The special effect used to concretise Macbeth’s sight is neither realistic nor believable yet it helps the audience follow the story line with out having to concentrate solely aurally on the play.  

The dagger appears to lead Macbeth into darkness, this creates the feeling that Macbeth is unable to control his own actions, and it is in fact the dagger that is leading him to create this brutal crime symbolized by the darkness in which it leads him.  The fact that this causes Macbeth to appear like he is possessed makes the audience feel sympathy for him.  

The music is discordant and disturbing; it is mainly low notes being played, this all adds to the suspense.  Macbeth slowly walks about the castle until he finally reaches the room in where King Duncan is asleep.  Macbeth walks through a door, the camera shows the door slowly closing, and it then cuts to the other side.  Macbeth stands at the other side of the door, the camera focuses in on a big close up of him.  His face is half in shadow, this is highly symbolic as in most productions good is represented by light and evil by darkness this enforcing the idea that Macbeth is clearly undecided about committing this crime.

The suspense is then added to when the camera cuts to a shot of one of the guards lying still on the ground.  The first impression is that the guard is dead as there is what appears to be blood lying close to him on the ground, this later turns out to be nothing more that wine.  As Macbeth goes to enter the next doorway into King Duncan’s bedroom he pulls out his own dagger, then pauses to think, places his own back and lifts two of the daggers belonging to the passed out guards lying on the ground beside him.  This shows that Macbeth does know exactly what he is going to do, almost like this is not premeditated.

Macbeth proceeds to enter through the next door to the King with both daggers drawn.  He enters the room and we cut to a face close up where we can see Macbeth’s face once again half in shadow.  The camera slowly pans around the room till it stops at King Duncan lying in bed.  He is lying in the bed asleep; the light from the bedside fire has his face fully lite suggesting goodness.  King Duncan looks very paternal, there is total silence, this all adds to the suspense.

We are then presented with a close up of Macbeth’s face only this time more in darkness than the last.  Macbeth is standing above King Duncan with daggers drawn.  There is a long pause, while Macbeth thinks hard about his next action when the camera suddenly cuts to a mid shot of King Duncan.  The camera techniques used here all help to add to the audience’s suspense.  

The audience are in favor of King Duncan, his face is fully in light, his guard is down, he is defenseless, and he has just promoted Macbeth and has praised him all night.  Macbeth pulls the bed covers back from King Duncan almost preparing him to die.  Macbeths face is now fully in shadow, he is breathing heavily and shaking.  We then see King Duncan awaken, he opens his eyes to be greeted by Macbeth looking back at him with daggers drawn, everything has remained static, and there has been complete silence almost like the calm before the storm.  

King Duncan utters ‘Macbeth’; the total silence is then broken by very sinister music.  There is a mid-distance shot, you see Macbeth’s arm rising up above his head and the daggers plunge into King Duncan.  You clearly see him struggling as the young warrior, Macbeth, brutally murders him in his bed.  You hear deep and traumatic breathing; all that can be scene is covered in blood.  The camera then cuts from this brutal and disgusting act of regicide to the king’s crown which has fallen from the bedside table and spins on the ground, this is symbolic of the resulting effects of this murder.

King Duncan then falls on the floor, gasping for a breath, Macbeth plunges one of the daggers into his throat.  This is one of the lowest levels of depravity; it is now impossible for the audience to feel sorry for him after he does this.  We are then shown the crown as it stops spinning on the ground close to where King Duncan lies dead.  All actions are choreographed to the rather ominous music that plays throughout this scene.

This whole scene is based on location at an old 16th century castle, the castle is furnished and looks slightly too modern for the age in which it was set.  This entire act is filmed both outside and inside of the building,  

Polanski’s treatment of Macbeth in this scene is very bias; he has gained complete control of the audience feelings towards the main character.  This scene I feel has been overly brutal for two main reasons, the first reason is to kill any sympathy one may have for Macbeth before the scene.  This allows Polanski to control the audience’s feelings towards each character and also allows him to make them react in certain ways.

The second reason is, money, cinema going audiences want a bit of brutality now and again in a movie.  This helps widen the target audience and lets a whole range of people come along and watch the production.

The BBC’s version of scene five in Shakespeare’s Macbeth is based tightly around the true text written by Shakespeare, aimed at a more theatrical audience rather than for a cinema spectator.  There is no real murder scene in this play as it happens off stage and is left to the viewer’s imagination.  

In this production there is a lot of symbolism used and makes it that little bit harder to watch rather than the somewhat not so similar version of the same production made by Roman Polanski.  This play is very minimalistic in all aspects of its production.  The fact that there is no murder scene in this play means the director will have to make sure what has happened off set is clearly spelt out to the audience via words and body actions.  

The first act of scene five is where Macbeth is filmed in front of a rather grand portal in his castle.  There is a set of concrete steps leading up to the doorway which then has steps leading down on the other side. This scene is very dark with a single light source focused on one side of the actors face making his face half in shadow.

In this scene before King Duncan is killed is a scene where Macbeth psyches himself up to committing this act of regicide.  This scene supposedly shows the evil growing inside Macbeth.

The actor playing Macbeth communicates his thoughts directly to the audience by whispering them aloud.  The opening shot in this scene is of a straight on close up of Macbeth’s face.  This allows the viewer to see his full facial expressions showing clearly his sheer frustration in this situation.  Macbeth’s face is stressed and his movement is minimal, he is concentrating the audience’s attention on his words.

He then pull’s out his dagger and says, “As this which I now draw.”  The dagger and light source are positioned in such a way that the shadow of the dagger falls just below his own throat, this is symbolic of the consequences that will soon follow. The dagger appears to be pulling him up the stairs showing that he is in fact going to commit regicide, that the decision has been made and that he is powerless to stop it.  

Macbeth climbs the concrete steps; the camera follows him always on a straight on close up of his face.  This makes it look like he is coming towards the audience and adds a dramatic effect to it.  The journey up the stairs is symbolic of the rise and fall that he is about to experience throughout this play.  When Macbeth describes King Duncan’s resting place in the after life he refers to him going to hell.  He pauses before he says the words ‘to hell’, this is rather ironic as if anyone is going to hell it will most certainly be Macbeth himself.  He says this as he walks down the other side of the steps into darkness.  As he descends there is ominous music playing bass notes on a descending scale.

We are then shown Lady Macbeth walking up to the portal that Macbeth himself recently departed from earlier.  There is utter silence, this allows the audience to create there own image of what has just happened.  She is very tense and breathes heavily, she over reacts to any noise that she hears.  

Macbeth returns onstage along with Lady Macbeth, “The deed is done” says Macbeth after he has just committed the act of regicide.   His hands are blood stained and he is still holding both blood stained daggers. We can now see how he feels about this crime, as described in act II Macbeth was tearing warriors apart.  He was a well respected warrior, now clearly distort about the single murder that he has just committed.

“Macbeth shall sleep no more,” is the only line that Macbeth can seem to say.  He is fixated on this line that he imagined was said offset three times.  He is in a traumatic state.  He has no control over his speech and he seems to be fairly paralyzed.  

Lady Macbeth struggles with her husband.  The first time when she pulls his arm and he doesn’t respond and the second when she attempts to free the daggers from her husband’s grasp, this is symbolic of the constant struggle of power in their marriage.

Between these two scenes I prefer Roman Polanski’s; from a visual point of view this scene is very effective; not only is it less melodramatic it also adds in a bit of the producers own creativity.  The special effects or camera work may not be the best in this production but at least they are a lot better than the BBC production.  The better technical effect maybe due to Polanski’s being a high budget products and aimed at a cinema going audience rather than a theater audience.