Roman Polanski's adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy 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-the-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

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

Picture this: Circa 1975, A class of 32 bored, inner city school, O level English kids, dragged off to an arts cinema to see a showing of Polanski's Macbeth. We settled down for a boring couple of hours messing about and talking. Five minutes into the film, you could have heard a pin drop. We were hooked.
We went from complete disinterest, to shakespeare fans in one afternoon. I will always be grateful to that young english teacher (whatever her name was?) for igniting a lifelong interest in literature. If our Headmaster/parents had known what we were going to see, I'm sure the trip would never have happened! But the quality of acting was such, that suddenly we all knew and understood olde worlde english, something which carried on through other plays we studied. We were lucky enough to have our study of Romeo & Juliet underpinned with another of Polanski's films- exam results were good that year!

After directing such dark classics as Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, who better than Roman Polanski to take on Macbeth? And what a great job he does. Jon Finch is very convincing in the title role with Francisca Annis also very good as the scheming Lady Macbeth. Praise also for the costumes and the music(performed by The Third Ear Band). The wind swept landscapes are very eerie, you can almost feel the cold and rain. The killings are suitably bloody. Overall Shakespeare would be very proud. Don't be put off that this film is produced by Playboy or Keith Chegwin is in the cast(fortunately he doesn't say much). Also watch out for the chilling ending. Highly Recommended!

This is it - a full blooded version of a Shakespeare tragedy. Admittedly this was going to be one of the easier ones to give the full on treatment to but that doesn't take away from the achievement. Unlike many films of the bard's plays, you would watch this one as a movie in its own right, and that has to be what film making's about. This is good fluent stuff with plenty of great visual moments and is strong in narrative all the way through. I think this is a near masterpiece in fact, not least for the fact that so few films get it right (with any of his plays). The location shooting is rugged and atmospheric, and both the direction and photography is simply magnificent. Well done Roman! (And the rest of the crew.) Mel Gibson clearly visited this movie for inspiration for his own Scottish period piece - he came nowhere near to matching the atmosphere of menace or capturing the harsh character of the landscape that this far superior movie achieves.

Having consumed a bottle of red I can't be bothered to write a proper literary review at the moment and being inexperienced in this art I shall leave a more detailed analysis of this work to those more eloquent and informed than myself. However I would like to say that when I first saw this film as a 10 year old child-it gave me the most horrendous nightmares and I might add that consequently it has remained for me the most iconic and unforgettable version of a shakespeare play on film. Definately worth a squizz for those who love their Shakespeare and for those who love film making at it's best.

I found Polanski's film of Macbeth disappointing. Having seen the play a couple of times on stage, I was really looking forward to the perspective and breadth of scope the movie might add. I was not disappointed with the opening scene; the witches were fascinating, the atmosphere haunting and disturbing. However, it was all downhill from there. I struggled to find the characters convincing, despite really wanting to be pulled into the play and it's very powerful human emotions, I remained a mere observer. I found Lady Macbeth without any great substance, with no real feeling of her steady tortuous descent into madness until she has truly "lost it". The Scottish setting was most unconvincing, with landscapes & castles which I found distracting as they did just not ring "true". The speeded-up fight scenes towards the end of the film were also distracting almost to the point of turning to comedy. But the worst part of all just had to be young Fleance at the banquet, stepping forward to sing what sounded to my ears like an English folk song & there was no mistaking the very English accent. I really wanted to like this film, but there were too many distractions - perhaps it is very much of its time, the early 1970s, and has just not aged well.