Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Ltd.

In teaching Macbeth in my English IV classes this year, I have searched out various productions of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, Macbeth. Before this year I had never seen Polanski’s 1971 film of the play, but I found several activities that use it and so finally watched it.  There are several criticisms of the play, and responding to and considering each of those is going to be the primary focus of this article.

First, some people suggest that the film is too gory, that it relies to heavily on the visual of scenes like the death of Duncan.  This criticism comes, like many of the other criticisms I’ll consider, from those that prefer the play as a play.  On the stage, gore is hard to pull off, and seldom is it the point of the play.  We can see this in the ancient Greek tragedies as well: the murders, suicides, and other gory scenes always happen off stage, with a messenger or someone else coming in to tell the audience what has happened.  The reason for this was primarily that the Greeks consider showing such things to be immoral.

In making the transition from stage to screen, however, the visual element in plays becomes increasingly important, and the gory nature of what Macbeth and Lady Macbeth do during the play is part of that.  For the most part, Polanski is not adding anything to the play that isn’t there in word or implication.  When looked at from a current context, 28 years after the film debuted, much of the gore seems quaint, but even so, I find the more disturbing elements of the film are still those that are not that bloody; for example, the hanging of the traitors (which is also the first time we see Macbeth).

Second, the voice-overs in the film are sometimes seen as being either 1) a perversion of the classic aside or soliloquy or 2) evidence that the actors, specifically Jon Finsh and Francesca Annisi, were incapable of delivering them in camera.  I think this criticism misses, again, the point that Polanski adapted Macbeth from a play to a movie.  While I personally like seeing actors perform soliloquies (ala Mel Gibson in Hamlet), they do work here for one main reason: Polanski pulls them off as the characters thoughts, interspersed with spoken dialogue, just like a real person would.

This use of the voice-overs for the soliloquies really does help to emphasize one of the major differences between movies and plays.  In a movie, the creators are attempting to show a real world (even if its a fantasy world or the imaginings of some crazy person).  This goes back to the earliest days of theatre, when many critics saw film as being the truest representation of real life.  While that may or may not be actually true, the illusion or perception of reality is what matters, and in a movie we have the perception that what we see is supposed to be “real.”  A play does not work that way; there is a distinct difference between “stage life” and “real life.”  We can see the stage, see the set, sometimes even see backstage a little bit.  There is never the potential of thinking that what’s happening on screen could be real.  Aristotle recognized this fact when he called tragedy an “imitation of an action.”

Therefore, when Polanski chose to make the soliloquies as realistic as he could (or as realistic as he thought his audience would accept), that should be perfectly acceptable in adapting the play to the screen.  He is taking the soliloquy, which is part of “stage life,” and adapting it to the “real” world of the movie; he is taking the imitation of action and making it real.

Finally (for now), many people dislike the cuts and rearrangements that were made; part of the objection here is that Polanski had no respect for Shakespeare’s text.  In general I find that these aren’t a problem.  I personally think that it’s more important for the adaptation to stay true to the spirit of the work, rather than the word, and Polanski does this throughout.  For example, immediately after the banquet scene with Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a moment alone.  In the text, this all occurs in the banquet hall, but Polanski cuts some of lines and moves them.  In the final version, after Macbeth says, “Come, we’ll to sleep,” Polanski actually shows the couple in bed and has Macbeth continue with the lines cut earlier.  Sure, Polanski has moved the lines (and, of course, cut some), but having the Macbeths in bed, bathed in red light from the sunrise, is interesting cinematically and doesn’t alter the point of the scene.

In the end, I think Polanski’s Macbeth must be judged on how well it holds to the spirit and theme of Shakespeare’s play.  This is all there, and it’s skillfully and artfully done.  There are the occasional false steps (Macduff’s delivery of his lines right after he discovers Duncan’s murder is uneven, for example), but on the whole it is very successful.  It is certainly not the perfect Macbeth adaptation, but I think it is well worth the attention it’s received.