Macbeth
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Actor: Francesca Annis, John Stride, Jon Finch, Martin Shaw, Terence BaylerBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0; English (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 140 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-05-07
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Macbeth
DVD Review: will this sub-plots stretch out until the crack of doom?
Summary: 4 Stars
By removing parts of many scenes, the overall result was more concise and less confusing for those not already familiar with the play or the Elizabethan dialog. As far as I could discern, no dialog was changed. This abridgement also made it possible to depict events which are only reported to the viewer in the full play. For example, the execution of Cawdor was witnessed by King Duncan rather than just reported to him. And MacDuff's final fight with MacBeth was depicted quite realistically with regard to medieval weapons and amour rather than taking place off-stage with MacDuff reappearing with MacBeth`s head..
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Set in a starkly bleak landscape with dreary weather along with highly accurate and minutely detailed depictions of everyday life in the castles, the the film set an ethereal and even fantastical atmosphere.
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Many of the soliloquys were done by voice-over rather than directly spoken. This invited the listener into the mind of the character, and was more realistic when in the presence of others since this removed the need for a hard-to-hear mumbling sotto voce.
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The director put in some additional plot twists which were latent in the original, and indeed I wonder if Shakespeare did himself or expected other producers to so tamper with his script.. These were accomplished without altering the basic story and dialog. I describe two of these below but there might have been others that I missed.
Donalbain, the younger son of King Duncan and disinherited brother of Malcolm, has no function in the play except that his conversation with Malcolm after the murder of Duncan explains their flight from Scotland. (But this explanation could have been done just as well with a soliloquy by Malcolm.) Donalbain tries to suppress an angry snarl when his father announces that Malcolm gets everything. Malcolm's speech terminating the play by proclaiming the restoration of a "kinder gentler" Scotland under his rule is omitted. Instead, the final scene of the film is a lone rider in the rain dismounting and carrying something (perhaps an offering) to the place where the witches can be found. He is recognized only by his slight limp as Donalbain. This of course sets up for a sequel, which would hopefully resolve the as-yet unfulfilled prediction that Banquo's line will be kings, for which his son Fleance is conveniently available. There is a great opportunity for Donalbain to become a sort of Scottish Richard III. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is one such exploration of Shakespearean loose ends; are there any others?
Another interesting touch accomplished without change in dialog is the transformation of Ross. At face value in the play, he is a loyal and honest servant of the new king MacBeth until he can no longer stomach the tyranny, slaughter, and corruption, then defects as a patriot to join other disaffected Scottish lords under Malcolm in England. In this film, he becomes a self-seeking and willing accomplice of MacBeth. Ross is the mysterious and unexpected third murderer of Banquo. [III:3] (It almost seems that this inclusion is some sort of "gateway" put in by Shakespeare for just such a character.) A nice touch learned later by organized crime is that the hired murderers are themselves killed by being thrown into an oubliette in MacBeth's castle. New murderers are then hired for the MacDuff purge.
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Ross' unexplained visit to and comforting of the wife of MacDuff is merely a ruse to throw her off guard and to get the postern to open the castle gates for the murderers. [IV:2] (This is analagous to a well-planned Stalin era arrest in which a collaborator appearing to be friend visits the victim for a few hours prior to the arrival of the NKVD in order to prevent flight, suicide, and destruction of evidence.) The playwrite sets this up when Ross seems suspiciously in a hurry to depart MacDuff's wife before the murders arrive:
I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,
It would be my disgrace and your discomfort:
I take my leave at once.
Ross only defects when Macbeth awards his ill-gotten estate of Cawdor to another lieutenant, leaving Ross unrewarded for all the evil deeds he has done on behalf of Macbeth. Ross is welcomed as a partiot by Malcolm and hypocritically reports the death of MacDuff's family. The tale of his treachery dies with Macbeth.
Description of Macbeth
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