Stockholm Film Festival

The fact that Playboy and Hugh Hefner financed Polanski's version of Shakespeare's play Macbeth overshadowed the film itself for a longtime- at least in the press. Was it really going to be nude a la pin-ups as Hefner was implying at the press conference? And afterwards came the tabloid press' disappointment because it didn't happen. Lady Macbeth is only naked in the scene where she is sleepwalking. All the film versions of Shakespeare are related to each other, and Polanski's Macbeth - with about 20 predecessors - was no exception. For example, he saw Orson Welles' 1948 version as a failure, and he claimed that - together with other attempts of re-enacting a bloody fight about the hunger for power, sexual manipulation and doom - ''directors always portray Lady Macbeth as a whining bitch. They interpret her under Charles Addams-terms. But people who commit dreadful acts in life are never horrible in a horror film way.'' He managed to break the stereotype of Lady Macbeth as Morticia Addams personified in Francesca Annis' youthful and apparently innocent portrayal. Instead the Lady Macbeth we meet in Polanski's version is monstrous and at the same time piteously touching- in a film that uses all of film stocks' extraordinary colour range, from bright red, gold and blue to deep green and brown, used to emphasise and deepen the meaning of Shakespeare's rumbling, murderous drama. Single scenes were added whilst he was working on the script together with the highly acclaimed critic and theatre personality Kenneth Tynan, to make it even more suitable for the film. 

Medverkande

Jon Finch, Francesca Annis, Martin Shaw

Producent

Hugh M. Hefner, Andrew Braunsberg

Manus

Roman Polanski, Kenneth Tynan

Foto

Gilbert Taylor

Musik

The Third Ear Band

Talat språk

English

 

Andra filmer från sektionen Tribute

Se alla festivalfilmer från 1999