A STUDY OF FILM ADAPTATION OF MACBETH

                Hello, I am divya parmar. I am writting this blog to complete task of Macbeth. for that I am going to write Blog on 'A study of film Adaptation of Macbeth' I am giving brief information of films which have adaptation form original Macbeth by Shakespeare. 

MACBETH BY SHAKESPEARE : 

                     The full tittle of the drama or book is " Tragedy of Macbeth". Macbeth is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.it is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, who was patron of Shakespeare's acting company, Macbeth most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with his sovereign.[1] It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy.

                      A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death.

                      Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. The events of the tragedy are usually associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

                   In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as "The Scottish Play". Over the course of many centuries, the play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comics, and other media.

WHAT IS FILM ADAPTATION? 

                     A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, recent academic developments by scholars such as Robert Stam conceptualize film adaptation as a dialogic process. A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film. Other works adapted into films include non-fiction (including journalism), autobiography, comic books, scriptures, plays, historical sources, and other films. From the earliest days of cinema, in nineteenth-century Europe, adaptation from such diverse resources has been a ubiquitous practice of filmmaking.

A STUDY OF FILM ADAPTATION OF MACBETH : 

                      In the rich history of Shakespeareantranslation/transcreation/appropriation in world, Macbeth occupies an important place. Macbeth has found a long and productive life on Celluloid. The themes of this Bard’s play work in almost any genre, in any decade of any generation, and will continue to find their home on stage, in film, literature, and beyond. Macbeth can well be said to be one of Shakespeare’s most performed play and has enchanted theatre personalities and film makers. 

                  critical reception of the adaptationamong audiences. The films to be mentioned are not set in any chronological order but according to their critical acclaim.

1. orasn welles's Macbeth (1948) : 

American film director Orson Welles released his Macbeth version in 1948. He acted as Macbeth in his film and presented a ‘real’ Macbeth. Jeanette Nolan was in the role of Lady Macbeth, Edgar Barrier acted Banquo and, Erskine Sanford was in the role of Duncan. Orson Welles's visual strategy, in this black-and-white adaptation, offers more to the view, but in a blurring style that favors fluidity, uncertainty, and instability through a misty setting, out-of-focus shots, and slow dissolves. In the established Welles tradition, which has been building for a number of years, the theatrical mechanics of the medium are permitted to dominate the play and Shakespeare is forced to lower billing than the director,the star or the cameraman. Welles transforms Macbeth into an expressionistic morality play. The swirling mists and vague outlines of three crouching figures lure an audience into a disturbing world where supernatural powers seem to controlling events. Faceless witches defy our attempts at definition and the sight of them plunging their hands into the bubbling cauldron confirms our fear.

2. Akira Kurosawa's throne of blood (1957):

                    Throne of Blood was made in 1957 by Akira Kurosawa starring Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura,Chieko Naniwa and Minoru Chiaki. Akira Kurosawa, in this film, translates “Scottish tragedy” to feudal Japan and replaces the Scotsmen with Samurai warriors and Japanese barons. Throne of Blood creates a dark phantasmal universe that is so captivating that many critics have considered it the best ‘Macbeth’ film of all time and called as one of the most satisfying films based on a Shakespeare play. The film is set in 15th century Japan revolving around a story of betrayal,and power. For rather than creating an interpretation of the text, Kurosawa has lifted Macbeth from its original culture and transformed it into a film of medieval Japan. Still, the film stays true to the plot, as well as the characters’ roles in the original text. With vital irrelevance Kurosawa has translated Shakespeare’s words into Japanese image, Shakespeare’s lords into Japanese barons. Kurosawa’s cross cultural and cross medium adaptation of Macbeth is neither merely a “grotesque” Japanified version of Shakespeare’s tragedy not a straight transposition of the play’s essence into universal visual images; rather, it stages a historically specific negotiation between traditional Japanese and imported Western culture. The film explores complicated aspects of the relation of theatre to cinema. In some respects the film has clearly theatrical commitment, yet there are dimensions of its spatial strategy which remove it from the kind of pure theatrical Japanese films.

3.Roman polankski's Macbeth (1971):

                    Roman Polanski who is a renowned British film director translated Macbeth as film in 1971 with the same name starring Jon Finch, Francesca Amis as lead actors. The film was set in the open countryside in Scotland and his castle was more like the setting of the original play which makes it more traditional. It was the first film Polanski made after his wife’s brutal murder. That is why this film is renowned for its horror, nudity and violence. Polanski wrote screenplay with Kenneth Tynan and translated Bard’s play with his own ideas and changed many scenes and situations symbolically confronting the spectators with a dangerous “gorgon” that could amaze them. This film stages the play in a cruel and pagan world, between the Neolithic and the middle age. The film nonetheless inserts new possibilities into the play. From beginning to the end there are notable changes. At some places, however, Polanski presents the key scenes of murder of King Duncan, and Macbeth differently. The murder of the king Duncan, shown in visual images thrills the heart of the spectators that isolates them to imagine what they felt at the time of reading the play.

                  The whole cast of the film is impressive. The actors are young fellows. Even the king lived young and died young then. John Finch as Macbeth is both athletic and impassioned enough to carry off the soldiering, and young and introspective enough to be moved by his wife as a women and a co-conspirator as well. In many respects Polanski’s Macbeth seems near to the original play. For instance the castle keeps are cold, dark, and dirty. The common sleeping cottages, straw bedding, flaring smoky torches, seeping walls, and muddy yards all contributes to the historical accuracy of this production. All the scenes of murders are nasty which try to show that medieval Scotland was nasty and bloody.

4.vishal Bhardwaj's macbool (2003):

                      Maqbool is a 2004 Indian film directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and starring Irfan Khan, Tabbu, Pankaj Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah and, Om Puri. Maqbool is acclaimed as a ‘Macbeth meets the Godfather’ film, for it defies convenient categorization as it combines Bollywood gangster film, Muslim social drama, ethnography, and postmodernist artwork. Although set in the dark underworld of Bombay (Mumbai), features Bollywood actors, and draws from conventions of theBollywood film such as festivities, songs and dances, the film remains close to Shakespeare where Maqbool (Macbeth) is part of a crime family whose head is Abbaji (Duncan) yet the latter’s mistress, Nimmi (Lady Macbeth) is in love with Maqbool. And instead of witches, the movie has two corrupt policemen predicting Maqbool’s rise to power. In Maqbool Vishal Bhardwaj sets Maqbool against the backdrop of Mumbai’s underworld. Maqbool deftly blends the basic plot structure of Shakespeare’s play with the increasingly popular genre of Bollywood gangland films. Macbeth, widely considered Shakespeare's most enduring tragedy, is a tale of murder, revenge, guilt and moral ineptitude. No wonder it translates brilliantly when taken in a Bollywood context.

5.Geoffrey Wright's Macbeth (2006):

                     Australian film director Geoffrey Wright presented his version of Macbeth in 2006. He took Sam Worthington as Macbeth and Victoria Hill as Lady Macbeth. She assisted Wright in writing the script also. Wright sets the film in modern day Melbourne underworld. The language is also fully inspired from underworld and the accents are pure Australian. The film appeals largely to modern desires for blood and sex. Geoffrey Wright changed the play at a large scale. He shows the kingdom as a gang and the warriors as gangsters and Duncan is also shown as a crime boss. There are multiple gunfights with machine guns in place of sword fighting, luxurious Audi cars and dirt-bikes rather than horses and carriages, and high fascination in the film. He filmed much of the picture with HD photography - thus capturing a broader range of imagery and a much blacker darkness in his nighttime sequences - and lit a pivotal action scene exclusively with red laser gun sights. It attempts to make the play appropriate to the modern audiences and fits the classic tale of greed and over ambition into the contemporary modern setting. The contemporary updating of Shakespeare's timeless story of power and ambition is supposed to make the drama more accessible but only distracts instead. Macbeth’s gated estate bears a sign identifying it as Dunsinane, Banquo likes to ride motorbikes just so he can ride something when he gets whacked, and Birnam Wood turns out to be a logging company. Wright turned the king Duncan into the Drug Baron and the Lords the valued members of his crime unit. Three witches (acted by Maisie Mac Farquhar, Elsie Taylor, and Noelle Rimmington) are also three attractive school girls, far away from traditional witches, who indulge in an orgy with Macbeth. They are projected as a bunch of doped-up Goth chicks that prefer a foggy dance floor to the heath. Due to huge violence, bloodshed and reddish approach, many people consider it a bloody, bold and resolute film.

  

                   The plays of Shakespeare have become undisputed literary classics. They have undergone exhaustive interpretative and bibliographic explication so that in addition to their own literary canonization, they have generated an immense volume of centrifugal literature. The uncertainty about just what Shakespearean film ought to strive to accomplish will no doubt continue unless there is an attempt to discern clearly the subtle and significant difference which distinguishes the two media in their presentation of dramatic material. They are differences which do not merely concern the mode of work’s presentation, but they crucially modify the relationship between the audience and the presented work. The reality of ‘target audiences’ influencing the rendering in the target culture is a dominant factor behind this introspection. Commercial compulsions force a director to present an ‘experimented’ Shakespeare in many ways. Therefore, it is an attempt to liberate him from a single language and culture, thereby extending the scope of his genius far behind his own text and filmic practice. Macbeth is a tragedy about how power destroys people who don't deserve it and are not ready for it. In both- Shakespeare and all the film versions of Macbeth it is seen that links between power and gender are retained but portrayed differently in order to cater to a contemporary audience. In all of the productions studied, the meanings and values expressed are the same (greed, guilt and ambition) but the medium of production is adapted to the audience (in order to cater to the respective social contexts).

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