Word: macbeth
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Macbeth...
...North Sea. On the other, hundreds of movie extras, dressed as medieval soldiers, crouched behind uprooted spruce and pine trees. Suddenly, groaning and clanking, huge siege catapults hurled fireballs through the air toward the castle. The climactic battle scene in a new film version of Shakespeare's Macbeth was under way. As black smoke billowed into the sky, the extras threw down their camouflage and charged the spiky fortifications with a battering ram and scaling ladders. Exciting stuff? "These epic scenes bore me to death," said Director Roman Polanski. "The real stuff is in the studio, where...
...interpreted by Polanski and his fellow adapter, Critic Kenneth Tynan, those characters are a radical departure from tradition. "Usually," says Polanski, "Macbeth is played as an unpleasant bearded chap, Lady Macbeth as a nagging bitch-and both are middle-aged." By contrast, Polanski has given the roles to attractive young unknowns: Jon Finch, 28, and Francesca Annis, 25. The idea is to make them more sympathetic, and to make her power over him more plausible by stressing its sexual basis. Argues Tynan: "This way it's a more fascinating personal story of an ambitious couple, very much in love...
...Luck Play. The macabre and violent streaks in Macbeth-ghosts, witches, murders, beheadings-seem ready made for Polanski, whose previous films include Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion. But he is trying to avoid the gloomy, selfconsciously tragic mood that he says pervades most stage productions. "One reason this is known among actors as a bad-luck play," he maintains, "is that it's done in the dark, and people are always falling off parapets and breaking their ribs." Polanski is bringing it into the daylight. His witches are not spirits, but real, scruffy women. His actors, wearing...
...interrupt a sword fight sequence to adjust the fold of a cloak, or, if a natural rainstorm did not seem convincing enough, supplement it by hosing the actors with water. Far from complaining, the youthful cast seemed caught up in his energy. When Jon Finch was not starring as Macbeth, he would hop on a horse and ride in the background as an extra...