Chatverock Takes itself way too seriously

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Alain English After a battle to repel Irish and Norwegian invaders, Scottish warrior Macbeth (Nicol Williamson) is named Thane of Cawdor. But a chance encounter with some demonic witches sets on him on a course, encouraged by his voracious wife (Jane Lapotaire), to seize the Scottish crown with bloody consequences...As a Scotsman, I always find it odd to hear the words of "Macbeth" being spoken in RP English accents. It doesn't hurt the text but it adds so much more hearing Scottish vowels enunciate Shakespeare's words.So is it here, with Nicol Williamson giving a suitably schizophrenic performance as the main character and Lapotaire evincing an electric sexual energy as his wife. The two head up a strong cast who who carry the story very well.They are helped by a great musical score and some strong direction. The stage fighting in this piece is easily among the best in the series, and the story in each fight is told with clarity and realism. The absence of gore effects for the supernatural elements of the play might have been a cost-cutting factor but it actually helps. When Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo at his dinner table, we only see an empty chair but it's cut together and scored just right that the audience still gets Macbeth's panicked sense of guilt.A fine rendition of a still hugely-popular play.

Calibanhagseed This is an entertaining rendition of Bill's dark and moody play.Shakespeare's play about the rise to power and overthrow of Macbeth is not something to be made even more heavy by too mush subtext. Let's leave that for the Scholars who tear apart Shaky Bill's works with over zealous need to analyze this plays.MacBeth is not a hero, he's a villain, plain and simple. A villain plagued by his guilty conscience that deprives his of his wholesome sleep and eventually his mind and enjoyment of life. He resorts to very masculine measures to assure his usurped throne and retain some dregs of life. Violence, plotting and eventually black magic. He is torn between wavering guilt and dynamic force to change his wretched state. In the end he sub-comes to a monomaniacal assurance of his own power and to a fatalist view of life. (MacBeth is not a profound character study like Hamlet, and any such "in depth" speculating only takes away from the performance) These two things tear him asunder. What makes him so appealing and tragic is his manly defiance and power.Nicol Williamson portrayal of Macbeth incorporates all these things, most of all Williamson captures MacBeth's masculine force. People might argue that his acting is reminiscent of a 19th vaudeville villain, So what! (So it isn't as inventive and ceremonial as Ian Mckellen's excellent McBeth.) I loved the way Williamson ranted and sneered and his theatrical gesticulations that bordered on over-acting, but it takes a great actor to play a ham enjoyable and Williamson acting was excellent and enjoyable. (Many things seemed heat of the moment,which I like)The Rest of the cast was adequate, though Ian Hogg's Banquo used what I call the "Shakespeare finger" a bit to much an some of his acting was strained. Tony Doyle as MacDuff too, his acting lacked in any real enjoyable dramatics, I did not find his lamentations concerning his murdered family moving. The gatekeeper wasn't funny at all(well, not that Shakespeare's humor is funny, frankly I find it dull) If you want a good solid "comic" performance of the gatekeeper watch Ian McDiarmed in the Trevor Nunn directed version.As for Lady McBeth. I found Jane Lapotaire's interpretation strange, yet not bad. I agree there are discrepancies between Shakespeare's meaning and her performance, but She was incredibly seductive as Lady MacBeth. Which made her inducement to MacBeth to murder Duncan a great sensual piece of acting. (Who can say no to a bad girl, right.) Though her madness in the end lacked some of the dignity and power of Judy Dench's version of the role.This version of MacBeth is not a simply a good version you can enjoy intellectually by yourself, but one that can be enjoyed with your friends drinking beer 'n booze, eating pizza, due to it's "go-for-the-guts" virility. It'll have you cheering on MacBeth as he murders, plots and rages. In fact this movie is a great instructional video how to be a real man, in an age where metro-sexuality castrated most men."...Give to th' edge o' th' sword His wife, his babes and all those unfortunate souls that trace him in his line." Heck, yeah!!!!

tonstant viewer The good news is that the sets, costumes and lighting are close to the top of the BBC Shakespeare series. Simple, powerful and expressive. The witches are shown at the Callanish Standing Stones in the Western Isles, and the castle is distinctly Highlands. Wonderfully evocative.The bad news is, everything else.Macbeth has the shortest text of Shakespeare's tragedies. But not here. This is endless. Much of the line reading is slow and straight into the camera, presumably on the assumption that American schoolchildren need underlining. No thanks. In this series, only the "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is delivered more slowly. And that one's unbearable.Theatrical tragedy is defined as a man or woman with noble qualities who is brought down by an act of hubris. Nicol Williamson is unable to convey any positive qualities to the character of Macbeth even when mouthing noble sentiments, and gives us a psychotic thug who just deteriorates. Unlike Lear or Othello, he has no transfiguring flash of insight when facing death - in defiance of the text, this Macbeth appears to have learned nothing.Williamson gave interviews at the time of his calamitous Hamlet saying he got no joy at all from performing Shakespeare. Indeed his Macbeth is glum, trapped and looking like he was being forced to take some very nasty medicine. He makes the verse sound as ugly as possible, and his rudimentary classical acting technique consists of opening his eyes very wide and counting up to 257 under his breath.Jane Lapotaire's Lady Macbeth is a simpler matter. She oscillates between orgasm and tantrums, with occasional rest stops at wheedling. She is every bit as baroque as he. Things got so weird that by the time we got to Banquo's ghost at the banquet, I thought I was watching the Pod People - I fully expected their heads to pop off and little "Mars Attacks" heads to rise up out of their shoulders.Ian Hogg is a sympathetic Banquo, but he's no warrior. Tony Doyle has a good, solid moment as Macduff when he gets the news of the murder of his wife and kids. But he is unable to sustain interest, and the rest of the cast is notably weak, ranging all the way down to a pitifully incompetent Donalbain. Just about any other BBC Shakespeare video has a more effective supporting cast than this.The major value of the BBC Shakespeare series is in less familiar plays. "Much Ado About Nothing," "Cymbeline," "Twelfth Night," "Henry IV," "Troilus and Cressida," "Love's Labour's Lost," "Henry VIII," these are great, life-enhancing experiences and are worth seeking out. It is a pity that so many people will never see these, only a middling "Julius Caesar," a weaker "Hamlet," an oddball "Lear," a clumsy "Romeo" and this outright disastrous "Macbeth."

Popeye-8 Nicol Williamson obviously belongs to the "Macbeth is Nuts" school of the Bard because he's virtually a drooling lunatic by the time he spits out "Tomorrow, and tomorrow...".A shame that no one sought fit to sign up a rational human for the role, especially because the BBC series is so popular--this was the first word-by-word Shakespeare performance I saw...thank God I've seen others since.