Word: macduffs
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...ringing of bells and the chanting of plainsong, the show opens with King Duncan receiving communion and ends with his son Malcolm being crowned. The officiating priest, crosier in hand, also functions as the Old Man who talks with Ross, and later as the Messenger who urges Lady Macduff to flee with her children...
Weaver's final duel with Macduff is much too tame, particularly for those who saw Christopher Plummer's breathtaking swordplay in Cyrano recently. At the end, he pulls out a dagger and seems about to commit suicide when he falls off a parapet; suicide is something no real Macbeth would entertain...
...felicitous touch to have him embrace Macbeth before retiring to his final sleep. Kurt Garfield's bleeding Captain sounds more Jewish than Scottish, Theodore Sorel's Angus is poorly spoken too, and Richard Backus' Donalbain is weak. Jeanne Bartlett is adequate as the ill-fated Lady Macduff, and William Larsen's old Siward is a decided asset. Macduff's son (Glenn Zachar) is far too old; so is Fleance (Keith McDermott), who seems to be assisted in his escape by the mysterious Third Murderer engaged to kill him (is a double agent at work here...
...unsurpassed abundance in the text. The only scene placed in England, which comes well towards the end, is the single instance where its three main participants show a full feeling for the melody and rhythm of their lines as well as the sense. Praise, then, for Michael Levin's Macduff, Alvah Stanley's Ross, and, above all, Philip Kerr's Malcolm. In this colloquy these three men talk to each other, listen to each other, and demonstrate their musicality. But it is a long, long time before we get to this beautifully spoken scene...
...brutal and bloody, and here the Polanski of the cinema of cruelty is completely at home. The murder of Banquo and the appearance of his bloodied ghost at the supper table, the discovery of the slaughtered Duncan, the madness of of Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth's final battle with Macduff--in all these scenes Polanski approaches a Shakespearean enjoyment in the sheer physical stuff of tragedy...