Sound and Fury--Polanski's Macbeth (1971) DVD

      I had never before seen Roman Polanski's Macbeth, but a film group discussion and the presence of Jon Finch in the lead prompted me to get it from Netflix. A quick glance around the internet turns up reviews that make much of the fact that this is the first film Polanski made after the Manson murders and his wife's death. I'm generally leery of biographical criticism, preferring to let the "text" speak for itself, but there's no denying that Polanski's Macbeth is by far the bleakest version I've ever seen (and I've seen "Throne of Blood"!).
      At first, I liked it. The cinematography is dark and claustrophobic; the sun is almost never seen. When it is, it appears as a faint, distant stain behind the clouds, or as a bit of blue sky, but always outside the dark gates of Macbeth's keep. I've always liked Jon Finch in Shakespeare (he did two really great Henry IV's for the BBC), and he's very good again here. Polanski's Lady Macbeth (Francesca Annis), however, is a disappointing nonentity--she says all of her important lines, but this Macbeth needs little convincing, and she comes off as being weaker than he, which doesn't jibe with my reading of the play at all. If Macbeth is pure ambition from the beginning, then there's no tragedy.
      There's no doubt that this is the production of a talented filmmaker with the skill to transfer his vision to the screen. But Polanski's apparent vision of Macbeth reminds me of some of the complaints about the nihilism of "No Country For Old Men." MacDuff doesn't so much save Scotland as simply put a broken man out of his misery. When a filmmaker actually agrees with Macbeth that life is "a tale told by an idiot/full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," one can't help but wonder, "so why bother?"