A Comparison Between Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Polanski’s Film Adaptation from 1971 and Kurzel’s Film Adaptation from 2015

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,3, University of Tubingen, language: English, abstract: In the following, the original play will be compared to the film adaptations by Roman Polanski in 1971 and by Justin Kurzel in 2015. Additionally, the most important scenes and essential details in all three will be analyzed. Although technological progress affords humanity new possibilities in all sectors, be it communication systems, the news, education, bank transactions, or entertainment, it is inconceivable to dispense with books, letters or newspapers. Especially in the entertainment category, movies today are what novels were decades and centuries ago. They tell stories, history, sciences, etc. and like books they are grouped into various genres. By this observation they seem quite similar and the obvious difference is the textual information transfer of books compared to the audio-visual of movies. Not only Macbeth, but most of Shakespeare’s plays have been turned into films. His plays are surprisingly relevant in contemporary life and school. They are an integral component of general knowledge. The significance of Macbeth is obvious when you see how often it was reused. Already by 1908, the director Stuart Blackton produced the first film version of Shakespeare’s tragedy whereon many more followed, the best known by Welles, Kurosawa and Polanski. But how could these two famous directors transfer Shakespeare’s stage play into movies? Is the content adopted accurately or is it falsified? And what changes were accidentally or deliberately made?