Macbeth (1971) Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Macbeth
Year: 1971
Director: Roman Polanski
Country: UK
Language: English

"Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble" Many artists have re-imagined Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, weaving them into their own styles and putting them on the silver screen. Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood was a brilliant take on the cursed Scottish play, however Polanski may have done it better. A cursed man himself,  Polanski made this beast of burden into his own just two years after his wife was brutally murdered at the hands of the Manson family. 

Jon Finch stars in this Shakespearean tragedy about a Scottish lord who murders the king and ascends the throne. His wife then begins hallucinating as a result of her guilt complex and the dead king's son conspires to attack Macbeth and expose him for the murderer he is.

For me, it was impossible to watch this film and not think about the Charles Manson case which made headlines just a couple of years prior. Polanski's wife Sharon Tate, and others, were brutally murdered by the Manson family. She was pregnant, about two weeks away from giving birth. Her blood was then smeared on the doorway, the word "pig" in bright red letters. The line "untimely ripped from his mother's womb" has great meaning for the Polish Director. His characters resemble Charles Manson; they are ignorant, humorless, small, and neck-deep in lust and violence. In-fact, that is their driving force.

It is a picture full of melancholy and uncertainty, as it should be. Images of blood, torrential downpours and sombre leaden skies fill up the screen. Even the castles are cold, dark and dirty. Polanski's film is more terrifying that any horror film of its era, undoubtedly far more intelligent. The glorious dialogue is even more poignant with Polanski's Direction. While Macbeth is usually seen as a tragic figure, I'm not sure we feel it this time. His death does not move us, rather it is told in a matter-of-fact way; he got what was coming to him.

In conclusion, adapting Macbeth to the screen was one hell of a way for Polanski to vent his stress and anger. He turned negative feelings into grand poetry. It's a very hard film to watch, due to its depressing tone, but ultimately it's very engaging and one of the finest Shakespeare adaptations in the history of Cinema. Praise it! 5/5