I'll tell you why so serious

best movie i've ever seen.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Witches deliver a prophesy to Scottish warlord Macbeth that he will be King. Macbeth's wife pushes him towards the notion that the only way to ensure this is by killing the current King himself. And so he embarks on a fateful course of events.Roman Polanski's 1971 adaptation of Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's darkest plays, makes full use of cinema to place the words of the play into a grim, grey, grimy reality. As you watch Macbeth work his way further along a road to tragedy, the visuals which accompany Shakespeare's words place those words into a brutally real world.The performances are great, but this is an excellent adaptation, and makes you think that this is perhaps the sort of presentation which Shakespeare might have been involved in making had he still been alive.

Probably the strangest bit of trivia about this version of MacBeth is that it was produced by the Playboy corporation, of all things. Or perhaps it's not really that surprising given director Roman Polanski's lecherous ways that he was in alliance with Hefner et al. Certainly, this isn't soft-porn Shakespeare (unless you count some elderly nakedness and the leaving in of one of the bard's penis jokes). No, this is in fact more in keeping with the era's penchant for realism, especially in the field of violence.The bleakness of a Scottish picture really suits Polanski, but it is his trademark feeling of enclosure that most of all gives this MacBeth its character. With the simplest of elements he can make the image feel maddeningly hemmed-in. There is a lot of heavy foreground business, as well as visible ceilings and low angles, but the real trick is the way Polanski gives us just a tiny glimpse of an exit. There is, for instance, a shot just before MacBeth gets made thane where he awakens in his tent. As he raises his head a gap in the seams of the tent comes into view, and the result is more claustrophobic than if it had been simply bare canvas behind him. This confined atmosphere is of best effect in the Duncan murder scene, which has echoes of the demon rape in Rosemary's Baby, Polanski's previous picture. Note that there is no dialogue in this scene; it is not an official part of the play and most versions do not include it. So Polanski is taking a gamble in showing the act, but he pulls it off fairly well. Also very good is the dreamlike series of visions in the witches' den, which go for a warm, prickly fear rather than spooky chills.In coaching his actors Polanski seems to want to shear the production of all theatricality, treating Shakespeare's play as if it were a new screenplay rather than a thing of grand traditions. Hence we get the witches' rather businesslike manner of stating that they are off to meet with MacBeth. As such, while not badly acted, the performances don't really stand out. The naturalism is nice to see, but it could do with a little more heart and soul. Another problem is that some of the more quirky bit players, for example Richard Pearson as the doctor, seem strangely out-of-place amid the more sober lead actors. Polanski makes up for the lack of grandiose hamming with plenty of blood-spattered medievalism, with stabbed-up corpses, bear-baiting matches and rolling heads. This is all fair enough, but perhaps the production could have done with a bit more of the old theatrics, to bring out the life in Shakespeare's lines.And it also seems somewhat that Polanski has got caught up in the gore and authenticity and neglected some of the more abstract elements of the original work. For example, I would have liked to see a better realisation of the idea that the land itself, via the metaphor of the transplanted forest, is rejecting its false king. Not that one necessarily has to be faithful to every thought of the bard – I am all for reinterpretation – it's just that without some kind of commentary, some kind of ideal, it seems MacBeth becomes little more than a dreary catalogue of unpleasant happenings.

To say that this adaptation is a bit of a bloodbath is a bit of an understatement, but you cannot deny that this film from Roman Polanski is quite possibly the definitive film version of Shakespeare's play, which is very complicated to even contemplate transcribing to screen. The cinematography is excellent, as is the script. It is true that there are a lot of disturbing scenes, chiefly Lady Macbeth's nude sleepwalker scene and King Duncan's death. Roman Polanski should be commended for how much he managed to get into the film, and he somehow made it all effective. Any scene with the three witches, the murder of Macduff's family, plus the part when Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost was very well done.(I saw an amateur production of this, and not only was it disappointing, but that particular scene was the worst aspect of it) The performances were brilliant, Jon Finch(who did start off uncomfortable) is great on the whole as the treacherous thane-turned-king, and Francessca Annis was nigh-on-perfect as Lady Macbeth. And Martin Shaw was excellent as Banquo. From the suitably eerie opening scene, to the superb climax, this is a near-perfect adaptation, there were just some bits that were really disturbing to watch, that deserves more recognition. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Shakespeare's "Macbeth", not so much re-imagined by director Roman Polanksi as reconfigured. The picture has been shot on appropriately grim and chilly settings, with medieval castles and farms and landscapes in brackish color, actors distinctly unglamorous--but with the bloodshed in abundance. Macbeth, a Scottish nobleman, is goaded by his wife into committing regicide, leaving the door open for him to be King; Loyal Thayne Macduff becomes increasingly suspicious of Macbeth, eventually mounting an uprising against him after his family is slaughtered. Perhaps only scholars can comment on Shakespeare's perceptions of his own literary creations, yet I don't think the Bard meant for Macbeth to be the savage monster he's presented as here. Polanski doesn't allow Jon Finch's characterization of Macbeth to have any dimensions--we don't see or sense how his horrifying actions affect him--and Shakespeare's poetry becomes simplified in order for the narrative to go Polanski's way. In that sense, the picture isn't well-crafted, though it is wholly incredible to look at. There are some vivid sequences (particularly the witches coven, a weird and enthralling hallucination, and a brutal third-act sword fight), however the overall results are soulless and mean. **1/2 from ****