jen+MACBETH+2ND+DRAFT

In British Literature class, we have been learning about //Macbeth//. //Macbeth// is one of the tragedy plays of William Shakespeare. It is also the shortest play of Shakespeare. We read some parts of the original text and we also watched three different movies, all from different times and places.

In the original text of //Macbeth//, Shakespeare describes the first motif, blood and violence, by writing about killing many people around Macbeth. At first Lady Macbeth encouraged him to kill Duncan because they had desire for him to be king. Then he also killed his close friend Banquo and Macduff's family. However, viewers do not actually see Macbeth killing people in the stage play. Moreover, Shakespeare uses blood as a symbol of sin. We can see this when Lady Macbeth trying to wash her hand because she feels guilty even though there is nothing on her hands. The second motif, weather and darkness, we can recognize this motif directly in the text. Because this play is a tragedy, Shakespeare wanted to use a dark and gloomy setting. In the very first line he wrote thunder and lighting as setting. However I think they would have difficulty expressing real darkness in the actual play, because there was almost no technology back then which could make the stage dark intentionally. Lastly, the third motif, supernatural, he describes three witches in dark cave. He made the witches even more weird by showing them do some ritual things.

For the first motif, blood and violence, we actually see Macbeth killing Duncan and other people in Polanski's movie and in the 2006 version. Macbeth had daggers and blood all over his body and there was also blood on Lady Macbeth's hands. Also, in Polanski's movie, Macbeth's people raped women and showed us violence. However, in the Japanese version, they did not show the killing scene directly, they just pretended to be killing people behind the wall.

The darkness and weather motif, I think all three movies well described this motif. They all used foggy and dark settings. In Polanski's movie, it was raining when Macbeth riding horse to three witches for dark setting. Especially in modern version of //Macbeth//, almost every scene was playing in night setting in order to make dark environment. Polanski's movie used rain and thunder when witches were shown. Japanese and modern version of //Macbeth// movie did not use raining setting but they use cave and club to make darkness.

The last motif, supernatural, I think Polanski's movie best described how they look like. At the beginning of the movie, three witches were doing ritual acts which makes them more weird. However in Japanese version, there was only one witch with spinning wheel. For me, the most interesting movie was modern version because three witches wore sexy clothes in the club and danced with Macbeth.

In my opinion, Polanski's movie was the most similar one to the original text by Shakespeare. Shakespeare used no technology in his play because there was no development in technology at that time. However in modern version, characters in the movie use guns which definitely represent technology. Also, in Polanski's movie, actors used old English that used in Shakespeare's play.

sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth - wikipedia http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.html - original text of //Macbeth// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_%281971_film%29 - Polanski's //Macbeth// movie http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/movies/06macb.html - //Macbeth// in 2006