Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4475 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-05-24
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 145 minutes

Synopsis
Trevor Nunn's film of William Shakespeare's tragedy of ambition and witchcraft attempts to recreate his acclaimed 1976 staging of the play. Ian McKellen and Judi Dench play the ambitious pair who murder their way to the Scottish throne. Nunn's film retains the spare, simple look of his stage production, using contemporary costumes and a bare, circular stage to focus attention on the intense imagery of the play's language. The result is an unusual and spellbinding retelling of a classic tale.

Customer Reviews

Terrifying, dark, great!
A TV version of a stage production is normally a recipe for disaster: not so here, however. Ian MacKellen and Judi Dench (not yet Sir and Dame) are riveting as the husband and wife team from hell. McKellen's descent into indifferent, hubristic madness is chilling, and Judi Dench's screech in the sleepwalking scene is - quite simply - unbelievable: if this does not send shudders down your spine, nothing will.
Given the fact that this Macbeth was recorded in 1979, the picture quality leaves a bit to be desired, but any lover of Shakespeare or great acting would be insane not to buy this DVD.
Prepare to be blown away. (And by the way: where is television of this quality today?)

Absolutely superb
The use of light & dark is fantastic. It's in colour but looks like black & white.

Comes across as a stage play (which it is!) and avoids the temptation to go for lavish sets, e.g., the battle scenes, just because it's a film.

I saw the original stage play and this is just as good. The best filmed Shakespeare tragedy I've seen. Absolutely superb

shakespeare as it should be
This is not just another Macbeth. Though faithful to the text and to the poetry of the text, this is used as a springboard to the production's own powerful exploration of what really drove Shakespeare - the issue of good and evil. Neither McKellen nor Dench have quite the right face for their characters (too strong and too warm respectively) but this is unimportant. Their unparalleled intensity of delivery glues the play together from beginning to end, however unpleasant to watch. But the most remarkable achievement is the way the so-called `minor' characters steadily coalesce into a unified force for good that by the end over-rides all else in our attention. The Act IV English scene is extraordinarily strong, `king's cure' and all. The need to produce for TV, usually a noose around the neck of Shakespeare, is mightily used here: no set to speak of, darkness everywhere against which a certain amount of white and occasional flashes of red or gold make their impact, a superb use of camera angles, and music that perfectly matches and supports the tone of the production. And as well as the modern dress there is a curiously modern style of delivery that makes this not Shakespeare's exploration of his theme but our own. Trevor Nunn and his team have out-Shakespeared Shakespeare.