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Macbeth [DVD] [1971]

Jon Finch (Actor), Francesca Annis (Actor), Roman Polanski (Director, Writer) Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over Format: DVD
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 747 ratings
IMDb7.4/10.0
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Genre Drama
Format Subtitled, PAL
Contributor Noel Davis, Keith Chegwin, Kenneth Tynan, Jon Finch, Stephan Chase, Elsie Taylor, John Woodvine, John Stride, Bernard Archard, Brian Purchase, Paul Shelley, Terence Bayler, Roman Polanski, Francesca Annis, Andrew Laurence, Andrew Braunsberg, Gilbert Taylor, Martin Shaw, Frank Wylie, Nicholas Selby See more
Language English
Runtime 2 hours and 20 minutes

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Product description

Product Description

Roman Polanski presents his nightmarish vision of Shakespeare's classic tragedy about the lust for power-and its bloody consequences. Jon Finch is Macbeth, the Scottish war hero whose insane ambitionunleashes a cycle of violence. Prompted by the supernatural prophecy of three witches, Macbeth is goaded by his Lady (Francesca Annis) into slaying King Duncan (Nicholas Selby) and assuming his throne. Macbeth plunges further into murder and moral decay to keep the unsteady crown on his head. Whilehis wife crumbles away in guilt and madness, the haunted Macbeth fights to prevent another dark forecast which may doom him. Filmed in rugged North Wales, Polanski's MACBETH is a tale told by a master, full of sound and fury-and genius!

Amazon.co.uk Review

Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Macbeth remains one of the most infamous for a number of reasons: the copious amounts of bloody gore, its expert use of location settings (filmed in North Wales), and Lady Macbeth’s nude sleepwalking scene. Despite its notoriety, though, this does remain one of the more compelling film adaptations of the Scottish tragedy, if one of the more pessimistic takes on the story of Macbeth and his overreaching ambition. If you think the play is normally a bit of a downer, you haven’t seen Polanski’s bleak version of it, made in reaction to the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson "family". Jon Finch (Hitchcock’s Frenzy) is a forceful Macbeth, bringing out the Scot’s warrior instincts, and Francesca Annis is a memorable Lady Macbeth, but the main thrust of the film belongs to Polanski’s and noted British playwright and critic Kenneth Tynan’s take on the play: extremely violent, nihilistic, and visceral; this is down-in-th!e-dirt, no-holds-barred Shakespeare, not fussy costume drama. Pay close attention to the end, a silent coda that puts a chilling twist on all the action that has come beforehand and foreshadows more tragedy to come.--Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

Product details

  • Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 16:9 - 2.35:1
  • Is discontinued by manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.5 x 1.5 x 19 cm; 80 g
  • Item model number ‏ : ‎ 5035822066830
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Roman Polanski
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Subtitled, PAL
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 2 hours and 20 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ 17 April 2019
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Jon Finch, Francesca Annis, Martin Shaw, Nicholas Selby, John Stride
  • Dubbed: ‏ : ‎ French, Spanish, Italian, German
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English, Dutch, French, Danish, German, Finnish, Hindi, Italian, Czech, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Arabic, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, Turkish
  • Language ‏ : ‎ German (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
  • Producers ‏ : ‎ Andrew Braunsberg
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00005UWUE
  • Country of origin ‏ : ‎ Austria
  • Writers ‏ : ‎ Roman Polanski, Kenneth Tynan
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 747 ratings

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
747 global ratings

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Hilarion
    5.0 out of 5 stars The best adaptation
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 December 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Very gory in places. Scene in Lady Macduff’s castle needs fast-forwarding if showing to years 9-11 in school. I’d advise teachers to watch it first and make a judgement call on some scenes. Most kids love its violence and darkness. Great film for watching in bits with parts of the text studied chronologically in a school. Fabulous film.
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  • Malcolm Adam
    5.0 out of 5 stars Memories of GCSE’s!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 September 2024
    Verified Purchase
    It’s been a while, but the movie always stuck in my head. So it was great to see it again after all these years. It’s better than I remember. Didn’t know who Polanski was at the time. This is a good film all round. Wish they made more Shakespeare movie. Stories these days are so poor and lacking depth. Shakespeare has layers, you get something new each time you go back.
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  • Roger Chalke
    4.0 out of 5 stars I was very disappointed. From the start – most of the speech ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Wanting to augment my reading of Macbeth – I browsed the possibilities and bought a DVD of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s TV version made in the 1970’s.
    I was very disappointed. From the start – most of the speech was gabbled and/or inaudible. There is no theatrical experience. Actors advance out of darkness into light, speak their lines and retire. They are dressed in a mish mash of costumes – some in modern dress, one in an Aran sweater. There is no break between scenes. I don’t think that a close up of Macbeth dribbling does anything for the story.
    I watched the whole of the RSC version - but knew that better representations of the play must have been recorded. So the following week - I bought Roman Polanski’s film version. From the opening shot, I knew it would be better.
    Admittedly - it is still not a theatrical experience – it is a film experience. But nothing is lost and much is gained. From the opening speeches – the actors were audible and spoke at a decent rate. They used pauses to allow the listener to absorb the impact of the words, the facial expressions matched the words being spoken without (as in the RSC version) melodramatic contortions, and without spraying spittle. The costumes in the film version attempted to represent 11th or 12th century Scotland.
    In parts - the Polanski version is very gory. In addition to Shakespeare’s words – there are lots of visuals of external vistas and interiors which some might think redundant to the play. But I think they were a useful addition.
    Overall – the RSC TV version was not a pleasure to watch. The Polanski version was.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Keith
    5.0 out of 5 stars Undoubtedly the truly definitive version.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 June 2024
    Verified Purchase
    After suffering viewing a trash version of Shakespeare's great play by the RSC, I rushed out to buy this brilliant version by the great director. Yes, it's a nightmare with insane violence, murder and moral decay. Yes, we have a wife who is truly mad with guilt, but that is the very essence of this horror story. Polanski chooses the ideal setting in rugged Wales. Jon Finch and Francesca Annis give wonderful performances. This is surely the version. Buy it!
    One person found this helpful
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  • technoguy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Full of sound and fury
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 May 2010
    Verified Purchase
    Polanski is surprisingly sensitive in filming novels(Tess,Rosemary's Baby,Oliver Twist The Ghost);here he is, turning Shakespeare's drama Macbeth, into Polanski's Macbeth.Like a medieval sequel to Rosemary's Baby,it's filled with necromancy,murder,evil and witchcraft.Dark,dank,muddy and dangerous,filmed in appropriate locations(shot in Wales and Northumberland).The vision of a pagan,nihilistic universe full of death, revenge,superstition and prophecy.The mad ambition of Macbeth, galvanised by the witches and Lady Macbeth,sets him on his vaunting path from warrior virtue, as the Thane of Cawdor, to the murderer of Duncan, to become king.Polanski somehow guts the play(assisted by Tynan) of rhetoric(soliloquies filmed as thoughts),films an imagined blade as a real one,earths the verbal gymnastics in a kinetic narrative,so that pacing,momentum of set-pieces,rich visualization,fluent editing,create an atmosphere of dark nightmare and momentous terror.Gory,bloody,brutish and scary,this primeval world leaves nothing to the imagination,limbs lopped off,decapitations,the murder of McDuff's wife and children in their home,the ripping of babies from wombs is visualised,Banquo's ghost looks freshly murdered,Duncan is savagely stabbed while asleep.Weighed down by guilt and sleeplessness,Macbeth seeks out the witches for reassurance that he will not be defeated and to protect him from despair.

    Distraught with guilt,Lady Macbeth walks(nakedly) and talks in her sleep,betraying the secret of Duncan's murder. The images of the film take the place of Shakespeare's language with spectacular realization and a modernist interpretation, using a rhythm and pacing that is Polanski's own,filmed as it was 2 years after the brutal murder of his wife Sharon Tate.This real experience bleeds into the raw and nasty feelings of dread.Jon Finch as Macbeth has a dark,lean energy and ferocity,Annis as Lady Macbeth,captures the fragility of madness rather than manipulative eroticism.Martin Shaw is superb as Banquo.The ending suggests the whole cycle of betrayal and murder will begin again.Shakespeare,in making a sympathetic Banquo(legendary ancestor of the Stuart kings),intended some flattery to James I;the play also appealed to his well-known interest in witchcraft.The real star is Polanski for one of the best filmed Shakespeares ever.The witches coven is something else.
    15 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Heavy
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 July 2023
    Verified Purchase
    It's a good and strong filming of the play, the story allreaddy was, that it is heavy and I actually don't know what to think of such cruell and bloody heavyness, is more to the story Sir William Shakespear wrote and made, it's strong, but awfull and a good in it's awfullness story as well. But really, I actually were happy when there came another King, question remains, did it get better or worse to it? What if this king is worse, but ,did Sir William Shakespear hate Scotish? With all of this story...
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Cuaig McCuaig
    5.0 out of 5 stars The best of all versions..
    Reviewed in Canada on 28 November 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby) imbues his unflinchingly violent adaptation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy of ruthless ambition and murder in medieval Scotland with grit and dramatic intensity. Jon Finch (Frenzy) and Francesca Annis (Dune) are charged with fury and sex appeal as a decorated warrior rising in the ranks and his driven wife, scheming together to take the throne by any means. Coadapted by Polanski and the great theater critic and dramaturge Kenneth Tynan, and shot against a series of stunning, stark British Isle landscapes, this version of Macbeth is among the most atmospheric and authentic of all Shakespeare films.
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  • Erika Vallström 🦅♥️
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best movies ever made.
    Reviewed in Sweden on 23 January 2023
    Verified Purchase
    The entire production is perfect.
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  • Marco foini
    5.0 out of 5 stars Una delle migliori trasposizioni.
    Reviewed in Italy on 10 March 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Qualità video e audio ottima. Si tratta di una fedele trasposizione della tragedia di Shakespeare che coglie perfettamente l'essenza del dramma e con ottimi interpreti.
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  • Fred C
    5.0 out of 5 stars Le sens de la violence
    Reviewed in France on 3 February 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Polanski sous couvert de Shakespeare nous livre un Macbeth d'une noirceur et d'une violence paroxystiques afin d'exorciser l'horreur vécue avec l'assassinat de Sharon Tate. L'interrogation principale du film étant sur le sens de la destinée amenée par le hasard ou la violence dictée, est saisissante . La brume ambiante rajoute de la crasse à cette oeuvre magistrale et peu connue du grand Roman. Veritable catharsis du malheur de sa vie il se calmera par la suite pour un ultime hommage à sa moitié avec " Tess". Le dvd malgré un générique et un début catastrophique oû se conjuguent salissures et artefacts s'en sort pas mal par la suite. L'image reste belle pour un film de cette époque .
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  • José Antonio Martínez Ramos
    5.0 out of 5 stars Buenos recuerdos.
    Reviewed in Spain on 26 September 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Película que vi hace muchos años en el cine. Curiosamente, aunque he podido recuperar muchas de estas a través de la emisión de diversas cadenas, esta es una de las que nunca han puesto, al menos que yo conozca. El sonido y los efectos especiales son algo deficientes, en cambio tiene la ventaja de contar con escenas eliminadas en su día en el montaje.
    Me ha encantado.
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