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Toil and trouble: Rachel Lopez picks 5 favourite screen adaptations of Macbeth

Feb 04, 2022 04:28 PM IST

As a new version, Joel Coen’s 2021 film, streams on Apple TV+, a look at other great adaptations of Shakespeare’s immortal story (including one featuring prisoners, staged in an Irish prison).

Something wicked this way comes. And it’s landed on Apple TV+. Director Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth was released in theatres in the US in December and began streaming last month. Already the film -- sparse, shot in black-and-white and with fantastic swordfighting -- has been getting glowing reviews. Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand shine as an ageing Lord and Lady. There’s Oscar buzz.

Shot in black-and-white, with light used almost as a third colour, Joel Coen’s 2021 film, The Tragedy of Macbeth, stars Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. (Apple TV+) PREMIUM
Shot in black-and-white, with light used almost as a third colour, Joel Coen’s 2021 film, The Tragedy of Macbeth, stars Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. (Apple TV+)

William Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedie of Macbeth has been performed over and over since at least 1606. It tells of the Scottish general Macbeth, returning from battle, who receives a prophecy from three witches that he’ll be king one day. It taps into a latent lust for power. Spurred on by his wife, Macbeth plots and kills the king. Then, wracked by guilt, but even more determined to succeed, he murders everyone else in his way – friends, possible witnesses, one-time allies. Of course, it doesn’t end well. Lady Macbeth spirals into madness, and dies. Macbeth is killed in a bloody fight.

Across the centuries, Macbeth has gone from being “the Scottish play” to a universal tale of politics and its inevitable toll on the mind and society. It holds up well on screen; the sly witches, Macbeth’s guilt, Lady Macbeth’s scheming, and those introspective soliloquies look good in closeup.

Roman Polanski filmed one adaptation in 1971 – featuring violence, nudity, special effects and other big-screen thrills. Ian McKellen and Judi Dench starred in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1978 televised staging – brooding but brilliant. There’s a 2015 film we’d rather forget – but what’s done cannot be undone. Here are more memorable Macbeths.

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Mickey B (2007)

Inmates of Maghaberry Prison in a retelling of The Tragedie of Macbeth in Northern Ireland.
Inmates of Maghaberry Prison in a retelling of The Tragedie of Macbeth in Northern Ireland.

The Macbeth few have heard about but everyone should watch. It’s written and performed by inmates serving time inside Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland, and Shakespeare’s Scotland is reimagined as the prison’s Wings A, B and C. Macbeth is the ambitious ganglord Mickey B, ruddy-cheeked, pensive but unpretentious. Lady Macbeth is his effeminate partner Ladyboy. Inmates take bets on who’s going to survive the power play. Director Tom Magill does a lot with very little, making the 400-year-old play startling all over again. The award-winning film was funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

(Available to rent or buy on Vimeo)

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Throne Of Blood (1957)

In Akira Kurosawa’s take, set in feudal Japan, a samurai is trying to wrest control of a castle. (Toho Pictures / Photofest)
In Akira Kurosawa’s take, set in feudal Japan, a samurai is trying to wrest control of a castle. (Toho Pictures / Photofest)

Film buffs tend to consider Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese classic as not just the best Macbeth, but possibly the best Shakespeare adaptation to be released on screens. It sets the story in feudal Japan. Warrior Washizu Taketoki, a samurai trying to wrest control of Spider’s Web Castle, ends up haunted by ghosts and meeting his end in a shower of arrows. It’s a loose adaptation, relying largely on sets and music to convey characters’ psychological turmoil. But it’s the cautionary tale Shakespeare wanted it to be.

(Available to stream or buy on Criterion.com)

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Maqbool (2004)

Irrfan Khan and Tabu in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool.
Irrfan Khan and Tabu in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool.

Director Vishal Bharadwaj plays out Macbeth’s rise and fall through the tale of a gangster in the Mumbai underworld. The play’s plots and twists take on new implications as the prophecies come not from witches, but corrupt policemen. And the flames of Miya Maqbool’s ambition are not fanned by a wife, but by Nimmi, the mistress of the gang leader and Maqbool’s secret paramour. Loyalties shift and shift again as Maqbool becomes the don but meets his end.

(Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar)

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Macbeth (2010)

Patrick Stewart in a Macbeth set in central Europe, where the prophecy is delivered by war-time nurses.
Patrick Stewart in a Macbeth set in central Europe, where the prophecy is delivered by war-time nurses.

Until Alan Cuming played Macbeth (and every other role in the play) in a one-man Broadway play set inside the mind of a patient in a psychiatric ward, Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth was the modern stage version to beat. Stewart’s stage performances from 2007 were reworked for the screen in director Rupert Goold’s TV adaptation. It’s a contemporary production set somewhere in central Europe. Stewart plays it tough, trying to overthrow a communist dictator only to become one himself. The prophecy is delivered by war-time nurses. Kate Fleetwood plays Lady Macbeth, who seems menacing even when she’s sleepwalking.

(Available to stream on Vimeo)

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Scotland PA (2001)

Christopher Walken as McDuff in Billy Morrissette’s dark but delightfully silly Duncan’s Café.
Christopher Walken as McDuff in Billy Morrissette’s dark but delightfully silly Duncan’s Café.

Eventually, even tragedy gives way to comedy. Billy Morrissette’s adaptation of the play is dark, but also silly. In Duncan’s Café, a family-owned fast-food outlet in a small town called Scotland in Pennsylvania, an employee named Mac fumes when he is passed over for promotion to manager. Three hippies, clearly high (one wielding a Magic-8 ball), proclaim that Mac will take over the café and turn it into a drive-through, if only he takes control of his destiny. There’s no arguing with stoners. Mac sets about making it happen. There’s a staged robbery, a murder, more murders, guilt and shame along the way. And there’s Christopher Walken as McDuff, a cop investigating the robbery, who might just harbour a dream too – to run his own fast-food joint.

(DVD on sale on Amazon.com)

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