1971 Film Version of Macbeth Roman Polanski\'s

1971 Film Version of MacBeth

Roman Polanski's 1971 version of Shakespeare's play Macbeth is dark, suspenseful and quite bloody for a film that was made before the slasher genre was even in existence. What is particularly good about Polanski's take on the play is that he seems to not have taken into account any versions of the play before he made his own; that is, Polanski has put his own mark on the film that proves itself to be quite different from any of the films that he would do before -- or after. Considering the year that Macbeth was made -- 1971, just two years after the Manson murders that claimed his wife Sharon Tate's life, their unborn baby, and three others (Garber 104), it might not be crazy to think that Polanski's ample use of blood in this film was a way of avenging the death. This is merely speculation, but Polanski's Macbeth is one of the most violent films even by today's standards.

Jon Finch as the murderous Macbeth is fine in the role, though Francesca Annis who plays Lady Macbeth is far more convincing. Polanski has always had a knack for directing his actors in a way that brings out the best in them, and this is precisely what he has done for Annis. Annis' Lady Macbeth is complex (in much the same way that Mia Farrow's Rosemary was in Polanski's Rosemary's Baby). Physically speaking, Annis is quite innocent and warm looking. Physically, she is the perfect juxtaposition to the role she plays -- a woman who is not warm at all, a woman who is the manipulator behind the murders she convinces her husband to commit.

Shakespeare, precisely, is a playwright where one doesn't have to show everything that is happening onstage. He is very good at using words to describe, obviously. However, Polanski doesn't consider this in his version of Macbeth. He wants to show the blood, the guts, the stabbings and the cutting off of heads. It is often easy to watch films (especially those of the slasher genre) today and become desensitized to what is being depicted onscreen, but this doesn't happen during Polanski's film. Each stab and each bludgeon bites through the gritty quality of the film's overall look.

One problem with the film is because of the fact that it is so gritty and so frightening to watch, one loses a bit of the importance of Macbeth's journey as a man. He is essentially a good man. We meet him as a very dignified warrior; however, he is a warrior who has some serious ambition problems. In some versions of Macbeth, and in reading the play, we almost feel as if Macbeth has no other choice in his fate. He is a tragic hero, an Oedipus. When he meets the witches, they bring out that inner desire in him, which he has thus far been able to keep in check. His wife doesn't do much to save him from his fate either as she is there constantly nudging him toward darkness. While Annis is incredibly good in this role, one's feelings about Finch as Macbeth are more difficult to pinpoint. There are scenes in which he is convincing, but others where he doesn't seem very three-dimensional. It could simply be that Macbeth is a much more difficult of a character to play than Lady Macbeth. After all, Macbeth has to have all of these elements to him -- dignity, ambition, compassion, greed, violence -- that are so disparate.

It can be argued that Polanski was trying to numb the audience with the gruesome violence he shows onstage muck like Macbeth is numbed to all of the acts that he is doing. There is reason to believe that Polanski wanted to shock the audience while at the same time numbing them to the murderous acts. Rothwell (2004, 66) states, "audiences arrived at the theatre expecting to see a link between the stabbings of Duncan and Sharon Tate."

Again, it is hard to not think about the fact that his wife and baby were brutally murdered just two years before this film. There has to be some amount of vengeful feelings that went into Polanski's visions because they movie is just so different in style from anything else. The scene that is probably the most difficult to watch is the scene where Macbeth's followers kill Lady Macduff, her children and the servants. Once again, one can't help but think of the fact that Polanski's own wife and unborn child were killed not much before this film as we watch Lady Macduff run through the castle. While it is interesting to see artists take a different approach to Shakespeare, one where we don't just see people walking around in robes talking very fancily (e.g., Orson Welles' version of Macbeth), it's not clear if the violence helps the film.

The overall look of the film is grungy. The rain is relentless, pigs are running around the town, and the people in the film look like they haven't washed in decades. The text sounds just as dirty as the film looks. In other versions of Macbeth, Orson Welles's version, for example, there is the sense that the text is so revered that no one dare move to quick while speaking a line. This is quite different in Polanski's version. The actors are actually acting, really fighting, really stabbing (convincingly, that is) while they are speaking. The film has a very real quality about it because of this. There are scenes that are awkward as well, which gives the film a more realistic vibe than one would normally associate with Shakespeare. Morrison (2007, 108), however, doesn't find the language in the Polanski's version something that can be considered a success for the film. He states: "In this play, language fails as symbol because it cannot communicate, so larded as is it with conflicting motives."

Interestingly enough, Morrison finds similarities between Welles' and Polanski's versions of the play-turned-film. Morrison says that Polanski's film "points back to Orson Welles's 1948 film version by stripping away much of the play's psychology and bringing its primitive edge to the foreground" (2007, 108). This may be true, but if it is, it is the only similarity between the two versions. It can indeed be argued that Polanski has taken away some of the psychology in the play, which is why it feels like it lacks a true journey for Macbeth, and which is also why Polanski has created such a grim perception of human beings and how human life is viewed as quite meaningless.