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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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Macbeth (1971)

Rating: 3 Stars (out of 4)

Out Damned Spot!

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Macbeth on DVD.

Like Hitchcock and De Palma, Roman Polanski (who recently won the Cannes Film Festival's Palm D'Or for his new film The Pianist) is a filmmaker that works out his inner demons on film. So it's not surprising that he would be the first to tackle William Shakespeare on film with modern-day violence and nudity. As much as I love Shakespeare films, however, this was something of a disappointment. Its ferocity has faded over the years, and the precision that made Polanski's Repulsion and Chinatown so superb is not evident here. Not to mention that Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa both made superior versions of the same play. Nevertheless, Columbia/TriStar's disc finally presents the film in widescreen, and it's easily the best version available. Theater critic Kenneth Tynan co-wrote the screenplay.

Starring: Jon Finch, Francesca Annis, Martin Shaw, Terence Bayler
Written by: Roman Polanski, Kenneth Tynan, based on the play by William Shakespeare
Directed by: Roman Polanski
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 140 minutes
Date: June 5, 2002