The Tragedy of Macbeth

1. The Tragedy of Macbeth • Roman Polanski 1971

2. Polanski's first feature following Sharon Tate's murder was a bleak and violent film version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which was mostly made on location in the rugged environs of Snowdonia National Park in North Wales; Jon Finch and Francesca Annis appeared in the lead roles. Polanski adapted the text into a screenplay with the British theater critic Kenneth Tynan, and gained financing for the film through his friendship with Victor Lownes, who was an executive for Playboy magazine in London at the time.

3. A number of critics were disturbed by the relentless violence in the film as well as the unsparing bleakness of Polanski's modernist interpretation of Shakespeare's tragedy (influenced by the writings of Polish drama critic and theoretician, Jan Kott). Pauline Kael commented that the slaughter of Lady Macduff and her household appeared to have been staged in an especially lurid manner that was clearly intended to evoke the Manson killings.

4. In Polanski's version, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are played by actors younger than has been tradition. In the person of twenty-six-year-old Francesca Annis, Lady Macbeth is a softer, tamer woman than is usual. Her strength and sanity crumble at a horrific pace when she, at last, is aware of the inescapable nightmare she has helped create. Polanski explained this by noting that "directors always present Lady Macbeth as a nagging b-. But people who do ghastly things in life, they are not grim, like a horror movie". In an audacious departure from Shakespearean convention, Lady Macbeth's famous sleepwalking soliloquy is performed in the nude.

5. When his pregnant wife Sharon Tate was murdered, Roman Polanski quit his latest film project Day of the Dolphin and sank into deep psychological depression, blaming himself for the tragedy. He set to adapting The Tragedy of Macbeth, perhaps the bloodiest work in English literature, but major Hollywood studios refused to finance it. His financial savior was friend Victor Lownes, a senior VP of Playboy Enterprises in Britain who persuaded Hugh Hefner to finance the film. The financing was believed by some to be the reason for Lady Macbeth's nude scene; later Polanski and co-scenarist Kenneth Tynan said they had written the scene before their association with Hefner.

6. For Further Info: • http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks3bitesize/teachers/lessonplans/english/mac_supernatural.shtml

8. More Adaptations • There is an Australian 2006 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. It was directed by Geoffrey Wright and features an ensemble cast. Macbeth was filmed in Melbourne, Victoria and was released in Australia on 21 September 2006.

9. Wright and Hill wrote the script, which — although it uses a modern-day Melbourne gangster setting, and the actors deliver the dialogue in Australian accents — largely maintains the language of the original play. • Macbeth was selected to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2006.

10. This adaptation of Macbeth takes place in the Melbourne underworld. Macbeth (Sam Worthington), a loyal underboss to his crime boss Duncan (Gary Sweet), is told by teenage witches that he will one day assume great power. Driven by their prophecy, his wife (Victoria Hill) plans to kill Duncan and take the leadership of the gang for herself. His obsessive love for her leads him to agree to her murderous plan, but he finds that maintaining his power will require a lot more from him than first imagined.