MACBETH

Scotland, 1997, 142 minutes, Colour.
Jason Connery, Helen Baxendale, Brian Blessed.
Directed by Jeremy Freeston.

This version of Macbeth is one of forty-seven listed in the International Movie Database. There are classic versions from Japan and Russia, Orson Welles did a small-budget but striking black and white version in 1948. The classic is Roman Polanski’s bloodstained and blood-filled film of 1971.

This film, made in Scotland, offers younger actors as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Jason Connery seems to be a slight presence, not like his father Sean Connery, but makes a decent fist of a more emotive Macbeth. Helen Baxendale is also young as Lady Macbeth, a more straightforward performance rather than the intricate evil that seems to emerge from the text.

However, the key elements of the play are there, and audiences will find much to satisfy them, perhaps much to criticise – but plenty to compare with other performances on stage and screen of the classic play.

1.The popularity of Shakespeare in films in the 90s? This film's place among them?

2.The tradition of films of Macbeth, especially Orson Welles' version and Polanski's? The variety of interpretations?

3.The Scots atmosphere of this film, the settings and locations, the isolation and the clans of the highlands? Shakespeare recited in Scots accent? The Scots impact?

4.The settings, the castles, the battlefields, the lair of the witches, the interiors, lighting and shadow? The musical score?

5.The small budget and the style of the film, the action sequences, the battles? The use of close-ups for the drama?

6.The use of the text - cutting? Ending with the decapitation of Macbeth and omitting the theme of the restoration of order?

7.Audience knowledge of Scottish history and its atmosphere? The English? The leadership, the kingdom, the coups and consequent brutality and despotism, the need for restoration of order?

8.The witches and their appearance, being seen as the Fates? The age of the women? The spells and the role of witches at the time of Macbeth (and attitudes towards them in Shakespeare's time)? Their confrontation with Macbeth and Banquo, the prophecies? Macbeth consulting them later? Their role in the events - predestined fate or self-fulfilling prophecy for Macbeth? Freedom of choice?

9.Macbeth and his achievement and tragedy? Jason Connery and his age, appearance, experience? A slighter presence than the traditional Macbeth? Influenced by the witches, his friendship with Banquo and Macduff? The lure of power? The fascination with the prophecies? Telling Lady Macbeth, her belief, her persuading him to murder? The opportunity? His action, the brutality of the death and its repercussions? His initial fears, hardening his heart? Lady Macbeth and her fierce action and stances? The news of the death, his killing the servants, his covering his path? Professions of loyalty?

10.Lady Macbeth and her age, experience? Love of her husband, the temptation of power, seizing the opportunity, her being portrayed as thinking things and reacting with intelligence and shrewdness? The murder, returning the knives, the blood? The achievement of the murder, her relish of the success, the gradual change, brutality in society, her fears, the nightmares, her death? The rendition of her speeches?

11.Banquo and the promise of the witches, his bonding with Macbeth for support? His being killed, his family escaping? His presence as a ghost, the challenge to Macbeth? Macbeth and his becoming a tyrant, meeting the guests, the strangeness of his reactions because of seeing the ghost? Lady Macbeth and her covering up?

12.MacDuff and his situation, support of Macbeth, fleeing, the slaughter of his family, the final confrontation, his not being born of woman, therefore able to kill Macbeth? His decapitating him?

13.The portrait of the doorkeepers and their place in the drama and the comic touches before the revelation and the murder?

14.The nobles, the thanes and the barbarian tradition? Blood and cruelty?

15.Duncan as victim? His son's? the death of their father, suspicions, flight, their being accused, their success and the vincication of their father?

16.The visualising of the final battle sequences? The trees of Birnum Wood? The violence and massacre? Macbeth’s death?

17. The quality of Shakespeare's tragedy and its interpretation? Its relationship to Scottish history and the history of the tribes?