BLOODY HEATH AND BLOODY CHAMBERS
IN MACBETH, BY ROMAN POLANSKI
Brunilda T. Reichmann
brunilda9977@gmail.com
ABSTRACT: This reading of the film RESUMO: Esta leitura do filme Macbeth,
Macbeth, by Roman Polanski, is focused de Roman Polanski, concentra-se em
on interpolations introduced by the film interpolações introduzidas pelo cineasta
director in his adapted version of the em sua adaptação da peça homônima de
homonymous play by Shakespeare. We Shakespeare. Escolhemos três momentos
have selected three scenes in Polanski’ do filme de Polanski que extrapolam o
film that extrapolate the dramatic text: texto dramático: o prólogo ou incipit, no
the prologue, or incipit, in which the qual as bruxas realizam seus encantos; a
witches perform their charms; the visualização do assassinato do Rei
showing of King Duncan’s assassination Duncan, um episódio que é apenas
which is only reported in Shakespeare; narrado em Shakespeare; e a visita à
and the visit to the witches’ den by caverna das bruxas por Donalbain, irmão
Donalbain, the younger brother of mais novo de Malcolm – herdeiro
Malcolm – the legitimate heir to the legítimo do trono e rei da Escócia no final
throne and king of Scotland at the end da peça e do filme. Chega-se à conclusão
of the play and of the film. The conclusion que a interpolação das três cenas
reached is that the interpolation of the three intensifica a dramaticidade do filme,
scenes intensifies the dramaticity of the amplia o questionamento sobre a
film, amplifies the questioning about natureza e o destino humanos e atualiza
human nature and destiny, and updates o rico subtexto que o dramaturgo
the rich subtext that the playwright inscreve em seu texto ao adaptar as fontes
inscribes in his text when he adapts históricas para fazer uma crítica à violência
historical sources to criticize the violence de seu tempo.
of his time.
KEY WORDS: Adaptation. Drama. Cinema. Macbeth. Shakespeare. Polanski.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Adaptação. Drama. Cinema. Macbeth. Shakespeare. Polanski.
Scripta Uniandrade, n. 07, 2009 195
Introduction
Before we speak about the interpolations, it is difficult not to condone
the various criticisms about the choice of actor and actress to represent
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the film. The choice of actors Jon Finch and
Francesca Annis to interpret the protagonists becomes a great questioning
among the production team, because to emphasize the existing sexuality and
complicity between the couple there is no need to remove their strength.
Finch does not seem to have the right build to portray the strength, energy
and boldness of warrior Macbeth; the delicate face of the actress, of a subtle
and plain beauty, does not match the strength of character and the violently
unbreakable spirit of the female protagonist. We are not questioning the
faithfulness to the play, but the compatibility between the physical aspect and
the actions assigned to the protagonist in the film.
The interpolations created by Polanski present distinct characteristics,
in their execution, in relation to Shakespeare’s play. In the first, the scene of
the witches in the moorland, the film director uses, in general lines, the
indications of the source text and includes information of imagery not contained
in the play, eliminating the dependence on the reader’s imagination that is
paramount in Shakespeare’s play, allowing the spectator to visualize the scene.
In the second, the murder of King Duncan, Polanski uses information only
reported or suggested in the playtext, transforming several hints into action
to let the spectator experience the horror of the scene viscerally. In the third,
the film director creates a scene that is not present in the play and, in doing so,
inserts even more incisive “comments” about the propensity of evil in human
nature, an issue that is foregrounded in the tragedies of the English playwright.
In Shakespeare, the introductory scene of the witches on the heath
(I.1.1-13) has thirteen lines. The enigmatic words of the last two lines, uttered
in unison by the hags, convey the main theme of inversion of values in
Macbeth: “Fair is foul and foul is fair / Hover through the fog and filthy air”.3
In Polanski, the scene begins with a bloody sky, reflected by the humidity in
the moorland. The red shades gradually give way to grey shades and spectators
see the crooked tip of a branch, coming on screen from the left hand side.
The branch is being used as a walking stick by one of the three witches. The
crooked branch can be interpreted as a crooked phallus, suggesting the idea
that a valuable general and subject to the king – Macbeth – could become an
insensitive criminal. With the tip, the witch draws a circle in the moist earth
and all three of them crouch down and start digging a hole in the ground with
their hands. Line 12 of Act I, scene 1, in Shakespeare’s play is the first speech
of the witch carrying the walking stick, apparently the eldest, the most flimsy
and leader of the group: “Fair is foul, foul is fair” (translated strangely in the
196 Scripta Uniandrade, n. 07, 2009
subtitles as “The sound of trumpets”), recontextualizing the tragic emphasis
of the playtext. After digging the hole, while the other words of Act I, scene
1, are being pronounced, the witches put into it first a hangman’s noose, then
they unwrap a hand, with a part of the forearm (possibly of the strangled
duke of Cawdor, the traitor whose place Macbeth occupies, literal and
metaphorically) and place it onto the noose with the palm turned upwards,
they arrange a dagger between the index finger and the palm of the hand.
They throw upon these “elements” some small objects and soon after they
cover them with earth. After burying the hangman’s noose, the hand and the
dagger, they cover the hole and pour blood on the earth. All the objects
buried in the moist soil relate to violence and death; both these issues, that
pervade Shakespeare’s tragedy throughout, are enhanced in the film. Polanski
includes a few more deaths than those occurring in Shakespeare’s play: the
murderers of Banquo are also murdered, forming part of the sequence of
deaths, establishing a narrative where you can read the following message:
deaths call for other deaths in an unending continuum. On covering up the hole
where the objects of their charms have been placed, they seem to restore
normality for a short period of time, until blood is poured out on the earth
which covers them, possibly suggesting the alternation of good and evil in the
history of humanity. In terms of time, we could say that violence and death
antecede the experience that is being presented at that time and result from it,
once again emphasizing the idea that they – violence and death – are part of
the giant wheel of existence.
The first interpolation opens the film as a prologue or incipit of the
film. The notion of the incipit is synthesized by João Manuel dos Santos Cunha,
in the article “Da palavra-imagem à imagem-palavra” (2007, p. 98 – “From
the image-word to word-image”), in which he addresses the concept of literary
prologue – or incipit – to the notion of paratext by Gerard Genette. He says:
In the framework of this theoretical articulation, initial sequences of a film
– even when information is given on “technical specifications” under the
form of “opening credits” – the first diegetic information is presented. The
opening of films, thus, can be read in the same way as a literary incipit, or
related to what Genette (1982, p. 150) calls a paratext: “[...] every type of
preliminal or postliminal convention, constituting itself as a discourse
producing the purpose of the text that follows or precedes the text itself ”
(my translation).4
According to André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion, in their article
“Transécriture and Narrative Mediatics: The Stakes of Intermediality”, when
the actor expresses himself, either in the case of creation or adaptation, he is
Scripta Uniandrade, n. 07, 2009 197
confronted with a resistance proceeding from the chosen media. According to
the authors “there is no verb that becomes flesh without conflict in the process
of incarnation itself ” (p. 58). These critical concepts will be applied to
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, having as the source text the report of kings Macbeth
and Duncan included in the Holinshed Chronicle (1587), Shakespeare would be
the first writer to come to terms with the resistance or conflict in the process
of creation or materialization, to use the expression of the French authors, in
transposing a historical report to literature. The geniality of the playwright,
however, does not seem to reveal any trace of this resistance which the literary
text would suffer in dealing with the historical report. It is important not to
forget that, despite the peculiar characteristics of the historical report and of
the literary creation, both of them materialize through language, not needing,
therefore, a transposition from one media to another. The historical report is
elaborately and densely recontextualized in Shakespeare’s play.
With Polanski’s film adaptation, we are speaking of a recreation that
could find resistance offered by the materiality of the means of expression
selected. The fictional germination, another expression of the French theorists,
seems, however, to have found fertile ground also in the mind of Polanski
that, on confronting with the Shakespearean, is not intimidated by it. In the
interpolations idealized by the film director, the means, i.e., the cinema, offers
the film director the possibilities of reading that the theatre, for example,
could inhibit. In the first interpolation, the immensity of the moorland, the
weight of the bloody sky, and human frailty, are not examples of deformation
rising from the transposition to another media, but elements that aggregated
the tragic density to the Shakespearean text, as well as the action of the witches
in burying objects related to death. Macbeth, by Polanski, seems to demonstrate
the strength of attraction that certain media have in relation to a certain
subject explored previously by another medium: the Shakespearean text flows
into the cinematic medium, without major losses, incorporating peculiar readings
and creations of the film director.
The second interpolation of Polanski does not differ in spirit from
the first one: the murder of King Duncan, shown in visual images softens
and/or thrills the heart of the most insensitive spectator, because besides
seeing what they only tried to imagine when reading Shakespeare’s play, and
have possibly never seen, the spectator cannot miss out on sharing with Macbeth
the great indecision that still troubles him, and the desire he has of returning
to his wife without having committed the act. However, it seems that, on
waking Macbeth and observing the dagger in his hand, Duncan seals his fate.
The close up scene, with the high-angle camera, of the king’s eyes, defines the
status of vulnerability of the man who is political and hierarchically above
198 Scripta Uniandrade, n. 07, 2009
Macbeth. Despite being king, Duncan is Macbeth’s cousin and guest. Next,
the monarch is stabbed several times in his chest and blood invades the screen
until the final blow, the insertion of the dagger into one of the king’s carotid
arteries, which makes blood spurt out everywhere. As it were the film Macbeth,
filmed in England, the country where Polanski became a refugee after the
violent murder of Sharon Tate, his wife, seven months pregnant, was the first
production of the film director. Just as the bloody murder of his wife invaded
his existence and had taken his still unborn child, Polanski puts on screen a
film in which he seems to reproduce scenes that have had a great impact on
his mind. The images of the rape and murder of the wife and sons of Macduff,
as well as the servants, can be read as the murder of his wife and child.
Despite being the greatest encourager in the murder of the king and taking
care of the king’s guards’ daggers by “smearing them” with blood (“If he
[Duncan] do bleed I will gild the faces of the grooms withal; For it must seem
their guilt.” (II.2.56-58)), Lady Macbeth is not used to seeing a bloody scene
like this one, and the image of blood will remain with her for the rest of her
life. In an anthological scene, years later, while sleepwalking in a daze through
the castle and rubbing her hands together, she says:
Lady Macbeth: Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One: two: why, then ‘tis time
to do ‘t. Hell is murky. Fie my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What
need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow’r to accompt?
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much
blood in him? […] What, will these hands ne’er be clean? […] Here’s
the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will no
sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh! (V.1.38-43, 46, 53-55, my
emphasis)
Concluding this idea of a sanguinary character in the play and film,
but not in the bloody images of the film, suggesting the bloody reign of
Macbeth, it is important to remember that the crown is placed on Malcolm’s
head, as soon as Macbeth is beheaded, still stained with the blood of the
murderous monarch. The words of Caroline Spurgeon, in her book Shakespeare’s
imagery (1961, p. 334), offer a comment on the bloody imagery of the film:
The feeling of fear, horror and pain is increased by the constant and the
recurrent images of blood; these are very marked, and have been noticed by
others, especially by Bradley, the most terrible being Macbeth´s description
of himself wading in a river of blood, while the most stirring to the
imagination, perhaps in the whole Shakespeare, is the picture of him gazing,
rigid with horror, at his own blood-stained hand and watching it dye the
whole green ocean red.
Scripta Uniandrade, n. 07, 2009 199
The third interpolation of Polanski validates Shakespeare’s vision of human
nature, expressed by Hamlet in dialogue with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
“What a piece of work is man – how noble in reason; how infinite in faculties,
in form and moving; how express and admirable in action; how kike an angel
in apprehension; how like a god; the beauty of the world; the paragon of
animals. And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?” (II.2.259-274). The
final scene of Donalbain entering the witches’ cave, however, does not catch
us by surprise. There are two warnings in the film about the nature of
Donalbain’s second son. The first establishes the association of imagery with
the crooked walking stick used by one of the witches. Donalbain, King Duncan’s
second son, is portrayed with a disability in one of his legs, a defect that could
lead the spectator into expecting a failure of character in the king’s youngest
son. The second occurs in the scene at the beginning of the film, when the
king announces that Malcolm is the Prince of Cumberland, thus, announcing
that the eldest son is his heir. Macbeth is not the only one who looks disturbed.
The camera closes in on Donalbain’s face and his deeply jealous sideward
glance at his brother leaves no doubt as to the future of the dynasty. Malcolm
will not have his brother as an ally, but as a foe, maybe not as bold and
courageous as Macbeth, Duncan’s general, had been, but with similar
inclinations.
On including this final scene, Polanski builds his film inside a circular
structure, closing the first circle – of the witches at the beginning and the
witches at the end – when Macduff ends the story of the horrible reign of
Macbeth having killed the Scottish sovereign. However, another circle begins
with Donalbain’s visit to the witches and reminds the spectators of the idea
that the presence of evil is recurrent and that his reign – the evil reign –, the
current one, will never end. Despite closing the circle another way, Shakespeare’s
play also suggests the closing of a circular structure on seeing Malcolm, as
soon as he is proclaimed king, compensating for the “love” of Macduff, just like
his father, at the beginning of the play, compensates for the “love” of Macbeth:
Macduff. [...] Hail , King of Scotland!
All. Hail, King of Scotland!
Flourish
Malcolm. We shall not spend a large expense of time
Before we reckon with your several loves.
And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an horror named. What’s more to do.
Which would be planted newly with the time –
As calling home our exiled friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,
200 Scripta Uniandrade, n. 07, 2009
Producing forth the cruel ministers
Of this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen,
Who as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life – this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace
We will perform in measure, time, and place:
So thanks to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invited to see us crowned at Scone.
Flourish. Exeunt Omnes. (V.8.60-75)
Final considerations
The scene of Donalbain entering the witches’ cave can be read as an
epilogue in Polanski’s film, but the diegesis concludes before this, because the
battle for the legitimate heir of Duncan to take what is rightfully his, thus
reestablishing the prosperity and “health” of the state, has already happened
and has thus concluded a cycle in the history of the kingdoms of Scotland.
However, I would like to raise a question concerning the adaptation
technique that could become a future theme for discussion. The cardinal
functions in Shakespeare’s play, functions introduced in the theory of Brian
McFarlane, are maintained in Polanski’s film, among which are the ambiguity
of the witches’ prophecies, the murder of Duncan, the coronation of Macbeth,
the murder of Banquo, the second visit to the witches, the murder of Macbeth,
the proclamation of Malcolm as king of Scotland. The recognition of these
cardinal functions bring a certain pleasure to the spectator who is also a reader
of Shakespeare. The pleasure of recognition might give the impression of
favoring the discourse of fidelity which is currently rejected, instead of
privileging the adaptation process. Maybe we should seek a mixture of fidelity
and creativity in the media’s reincarnation of literary pieces, steering well
away from notions, such as receptivity, conflict and resistance, laws of attraction
or of gravity, and becoming silent in face of the creative energy that exceeds
any attempt of theorization.
Notes
1 Hubris: In Greek tragedy, the pride, the arrogance of the hero, responsible for his/
her downfall.
2 Nemesis: The wrath of the gods provoked by hubris.
3 All of the references and citations of Macbeth are from The Signet Classic Shakespeare,
included in the bibliography.
4 Original in Portuguese: “No quadro dessa articulação teórica, sequências iniciais de
um filme – mesmo enquanto são passadas as informações sobre a ‘ficha técnica’ sob
Scripta Uniandrade, n. 07, 2009 201
a forma de ‘apresentação de créditos’ – apresentam já as primeiras informações diegéticas.
A abertura de filmes, assim, pode ser lida nos mesmos termos de um incipit literário,
ou ao que Genette (1982, p. 150) denomina paratexto: ‘[...]toda espécie de pré ou
pós-liminar, constituindo-se como um discurso produzido a propósito do texto
que segue ou que precede o texto propriamente dito’.”
BIBIOGRAPHY
CUNHA, João Manuel dos Santos, “Da palavra-imagem à imagem-palavra: análise
do incipit fílmico de Lavoura arcaica”. Revista Brasileira de Literatura Comparada, N. 10,
2007, p. 95-125.
GAUDREAULT, André & MARION, Philippe. “Transéscriture and Narrativa
Mediatics: The Stakes of Intermidiality”. In STAM, Robert & RAENGO, Alessandra.
A Companion to Literature and Film. London: Blackwell, 2004.
MCFARLANE, Brian. Novel do Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation.
New York: Oxford, 1996.
POLANSKI, Roman. Macbeth. Columbia Pictures, 1971.
SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. Trad. Anna Amélia de Queiroz Carneiro de
Mendonça. Rio de Janeiro: Lacerda, 2004.
________. The Tragedy of Macbeth. The Signet Classic Shakespeare. New York:New
American Library, 1963.
________. Hamlet. Eds. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. The Arden Shakespeare.
London: Thomson Learning, 2006.
SPURGEON, Caroline. Shakespeare´s imagery and what it tells us. London: Cambridge
University Press, 1961.
STAM, Robert. Introdução à teoria do cinema. Campinas: Papirus, 2003.
Artigo recebido em 15 de abril de 2009.
Artigo aceito em 11 de agosto de 2009.
Brunilda T. Reichmann
PhD em Literaturas de Língua Inglesa pela Nebraska University em Lincoln.
Professora Titular de Literatura Inglesa e Norte-Americana do Curso de Letras
daUNIANDRADE.
Editora da revista Scripta Uniandrade.
Professora do Mestrado em Teoria Literária da UNIANDRADE.
Professora Titular de Literaturas de Língua Inglesa da UFPR (aposentada).
202 Scripta Uniandrade, n. 07, 2009