Tia sucks.
Get out of my apartment.
Nope. I will live here. Again.
I’m getting a deadbolt on my room door this summer.
Nope. You can’t alter school rooms :P
Tia sucks.
Reflective Essay
This semester went by really fast and what a shame it is for this class to come to an end. I had a lot of fun writing about and reading Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. I’ve always liked Shakespeare, but now I have a deeper understanding of the texts and more appreciation for the performances.
At the beginning of this class I felt like I had a strong concept of Shakespeare, but I was wrong. I knew how to read the language, but not how to critically analyze the text through other scholarly articles and sources. The fact that I needed to find sources was an exercise in itself. I have a greater understanding of the library resources and actually know how to use some of them! I’ve also developed my critical writing and feel I’m in a better place with my writing than I was at the beginning of the semester. Class discussions helped me to understand what I was reading and allowed a space to hear others opinions on the texts. Everyones opinions made me think of the text in different ways, expanding my view of what the scripts meant. I participated in discussions too but only if I had something important to say, I dislike talking for the sake of talking.
Through the leadership exersizes I’ve learned how to better convey ideas that I have to a group of people in an effective and brief manner, and how to lead and control a discussion to include many different views. Focusing on one author was really cool because Shakespeare is so relevant and will continue to be relevant long into the future. Shakespeare focuses on themes that were important in his time that are also important in our time. The social commentary can be applied to many different cultures in many different eras. I wish I would have grasped the concept of quoting sources and critically analyzing a little earlier in the course because now that I understand I just want to keep going.
In these ways, I have achieved the course goals and had a great time doing it!
Macbeth Paper Final Draft
Fog clouds the air over desolate hills with few trees. Low chanting begins, breaking the silence and howling of the wind. Crows fly near a small graveyard. The fog clears and a castle slowly begins to appear. Switch gears to mid 20th century war time. Soldiers run in panic, lights flicker and the sounds of battle ring out. Chaos is in the air as three nurses try to save a dying soldier, but when the general who had accompanied the soldier leaves, the nurses lethally inject the soldier and watch him flatline. Two very different scenes to open the same story. Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most awesome and gripping tragedies, filled with murder, insanity, and powerful characters. Consequently, directors Rupert Goold and Akira Kurosawa use the script to convey social commentary on power hungry politicians and Glaucon’s view on morality that rings through Shakespeare’s script.
In Kurosawa’s 1957 adaptation of Macbeth, Throne of Blood, Kurosawa had used the same form for Throne of Blood that he used in Seven Samurai, jedai-geki, to present the film as “historically informed at the same time that they are visualized in a completely modern and dynamic manner.” (Goodwin, 177) While Kurosawa had written the film while envisioning the Sengoku civil war periods (1467-1568). When the set was actually built, on Mount Fuji, designer Yoshiro Murakai realized, “…we created something which never came from any single historical period,” (Richie, 123) being that they had studied old castle layouts from multiple time periods. The costuming was kept in the period Kurosawa had envisioned while the castle wasn’t conducive to the costumes. Putting both the set and the costumes in a different, or no, time period created a focus on the story rather than historical context because people couldn’t focus on the movie’s historical accuracy. This also took the social commentary that Kurosawa had put into the film out of the time it was intended for (the time of production) because directors were not able to produce anything against the government. He took on the task of questioning why humans can’t get along with each other and looking at human ambition, questioning whether we are being ourselves or wanting to but not being willing to sacrifice others to get what we want. By choosing the Macbeth story to question these things, Kurosawa is able to make the political statements he wants in an indirect way, that the politicians, “particularly intelligent, sensitive, feeling people-learn the rules of the world and then, unfortunately, believe them.” (Richie, 119) Asaji (Lady Macbeth) and Washizu (Macbeth) are the perfect contrast. Because Asaji knows what she wants the whole way through the story while Washizu wants the same things she does but needs convincing to fully get to Asaji’s state of mind. Asaji is focused and determined to realize herself. ”To advance themselves in this world, parents will kill children, and children, their parents. In this degenerate age, one must kill so as not to be killed. I cannot help wondering if Miki (Banquo) has already informed the Great Lord (Of the prophecy).” (Kurosawa, 1957) Asaji says that to Washizu when he is telling her he does not want to murder Tsuzuki (Duncan). Shakespeare’s original words that Lady Macbeth says have a similar effect, “Art thou afeard/To be the same in thine own act and valor/As thou art in desire?” (I.vii.39-41) Both lines are taken from the same scene, but its evident that Kurosawa’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s language reflects Kurosawa’s message through Glaucon’s thoughts on morality that, “Someone who had the power to get whatever he or she wanted would not worry about what is just.” (Mattison, 22) Asaji has this kind of morality, she has the power to obtain what she wants and does not care that killing the Lord is treason. Glaucon’s morality of happiness is a recurring theme in Shakespeare’s original language, Kurosawa’s adaptation, and Goold’s adaptation. Kurosawa makes the statement about politicians that because they have the power to do what they want, they will do it to make themselves happy rather than do what would make the country happy. Which is precisely what happens in Throne of Blood and Rupert Goold’s 2010 Macbeth.
Goold has taken “one of Shakespeare’s most violent plays is to make it even more horrific, freely mixing bone-chilling supernatural shivers with vicious warmongering, Machiavellian politics, psychological unease.” (Rooney) Goold has the same theme that Kurosawa has in his use of the Machiavellian politics that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth embody. These characters take noticeable joy in their actions of killing to get higher power in the government. In Act I scene v, when Macbeth returns home during their conversation in lines 50-70, Lady Macbeth has her robe much more open than before and throws herself at her husband when he comes in the kitchen. She knows that Duncan is coming and has already decided that he will not leave their castle alive and is portrayed by Goold turned on by the concept of the potential power she could gain that night. In her lust for power, Lady Macbeth becomes a symbol of power herself. In the movie she acts seductively towards Macbeth while she is convincing him to kill Duncan and claim the title of King for himself. She seduces him just as he is seduced by the power that Lady Macbeth and the witches are presenting him with. However, even though they show him the possibility of the political power he could have, it is ultimately his decision to enact the deeds to obtain that power.
The witches that Goold presents are subtly creepy. The nurses in the opening scene are the witches who continue to appear. Goold has the witches appear in more places than Shakespeare wrote them to be. They always appear before something tragic happens, including the discovery of Duncan’s death or the appearance of Banquo’s ghost. The three witches become a portents of evil in the film, creating the aura that they bring bad deeds wherever they go. In the opening scene, the image of three nurses killing their patient and watching him die is chilling because nurses are normally a sign of good and healing. The way the witches are introduced sets up their characters for the rest of their appearances. Shakespeare calling them witches means that they’re evil because in Shakespeare’s time, women were still being burned for “witchcraft.” Goold took this to a new level, after that opening scene the audience has a wariness about the witches because of the calm way they watched the soldier die and the witches become associated with death from the first action. They continue to appear surrounding acts of death and evil. When the witches are seen it is a foreshadow of immediate evil acts that are to follow their appearance. It’s Goold’s warning sign that something terrible is about to happen.
But the strongest image in Goold’s interpretation is the hand holding between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Goold has them hold hands at three crucial points in the film which shows the degrading status of their relationship and the power change from Lady Macbeth to Macbeth. They hold hands going into the dinner with Duncan, after Duncan’s murder, and going to the dinner with the nobles. Going into the dinner with Duncan, Lady Macbeth is in control, just having convinced Macbeth to go on with the plan of killing Duncan and she offers her hand. Macbeth accepting her hand show that she has the power in the relationship and that Macbeth is allowing her that control and influence over him. The second hand holding takes place right after Duncan’s murder when the Macbeths are going up to bed. They are in the elevator, covered in blood and offer each other their hands. Offering each other their hands shows the partnership at this point in the relationship. They both plotted and executed the murder and are both horrified by their actions. This is the equilibrium of power because both of them are equally drenched in sin which is represented by the blood that covers them, and niether of them has the power. The action that they just performed has taken the power away from both of them. The last hand holding is after Macbeth has sent murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance and before Macbeth and Lady Macbeth enter the dinner where Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost. Macbeth says, “Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,/While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse./Thou marvell’st at my words; but hold thee still:/Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill./So prithee go with me.” and as Lady Macbeth offers up her hand to meet his, Macbeth grabs it. He has taken the power back from her and it is shown in the speech he gives. Goold has Macbeth be excited in an insane way while he says all this to Lady Macbeth and Lady Macbeth cringes and hides behind a room divider from him. When he offers his hand she is almost disgusted at the thought of touching him and shudders when he does touch her. This scene really is the final blow to the relationship because the audience sees that the Macbeths have been driven so far apart that Lady Macbeth is afraid of her husband. And Goold ends the film with the second hand holding shot, bloody Macbeths in the elevator. He does this because this image is very strong and brings back two main themes Goold is conveying, the shot shows what the lust for power has done to the couple and how Glaucon’s morality plays out when people do what they want at the expense of others. The shot brings the film full circle by reminding the audience where the Macbeth’s downward spiral from honorable people to cold calculating killers began.
Kurosawa and Goold took Shakespeare’s original script of Macbeth and made interpreted it into two amazing films, visually and intellectually. Despite the time between the making of the two movies, had two of the same, strong themes. Social commentary on what politicians will do to get and maintain power, and Glaucon’s take on morality which is not a view that people like to think happens.
Macbeth Paper
Fog clouds the air over desolate hills with few trees. Low chanting begins, breaking the silence and howling of the wind. Crows fly near a small graveyard. The fog clears and a castle slowly begins to appear. Switch gears to mid 20th century war time. Soliders run in panic, lights flicker and the sounds of battle ring out. Chaos is in the air as three nurses try to save a dying soldier, but when the general who had accompanied the soldier leaves, the nurses lethally inject the soldier and watch him flatline. Two very different scenes to open the same story. Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most awesome and gripping tragedies, filled with murder, insanity, and powerful characters. Consequently, directors interpret the script in their own way. Rupert Goold creates a modern and creepy interpretation in his 2010 film adaptation of the play whereas Akira Kurosawa transposed Macbeth into his 1957 film adaptation, Throne of Blood, to make the story more accessible to a Japanese audience. The adaptations hold major differences in characterization, camera shots, and the appearance of symbolism.
Throne of Blood is like Macbeth with samurais, and it’s so cool! But the movie cuts quite a bit of the story out, focusing on Washizu (Macbeth) and Asaji (Lady Macbeth). Asaji was one of Kurosawa’s only woman villians. She is much more cold and calculating than the Lady Macbeth that Goold presents. Asaji stays straight faced the entire time as she taunts her husband into commiting a murder that he does not want to do. ”Without ambition, man is not a man.”(Kurosawa, 1957) Asaji say challenges Washizu’s manhood right away when he does not like the idea she has to kill the lord so that they may rise to power. During the entire conversation, Asaji is seated, very relaxed, and her face is blank while Washizu is clearly mortified by what his wife is saying and suggesting they do. Introducing Asaji this way sets up her character for the rest of the film. Kurosawa immediatly brings our attention to her drive and ambition for power that Washizu is lacking. She is a character who wants to prove herself and gain power, which she thinks she will attain by killing, being a believer in cause and effect. Asaji pushes Washizu to kill Tsuzuki (Duncan), and Washizu is resistant the entire time. The final push Asaji gives him is to tell him she is with child. Is this true or just another manipulation tactic? Asaji is never visably pregnant in the movie, and her attendant later tells Washizu that the baby was stillborn, which is what drives her to madness. The twist of having Asaji with child is a pretty big one because it is an issue that Washizu has no heir, which is why Macbeth goes after Banquo and Fleance in the play. Instead, Asaji plans those murders entirely herself. This action both shows just how cold and evil she really is and that she could be lying about the pregnancy and wanting to ensure the prophecy the witch told would not be fulfilled or this is the beginning of her descent into madness and even though she is pregnant, she wants to make sure there are no mistakes and that they do not loose power. Both are plausible causes for her actions. Goold’s Lady Macbeth on the other hand, is more emotionally dynamic and visibly power hungry. There is no question what she is thinking or what her intents are, she wears her agenda on her sleeve. From the first time she reads that Macbeth has been promoted the wheels in her head start turning. The show of emotion she has makes her more human. She is less evil, but just as manipulative when it comes to twisting Macbeth’s arm. But Goold presents a much more corruptable Macbeth. Washizu is a samurai and therefore tries to abide by that samurai honor. Macbeth abandons that after killing Duncan and becoming obsessed with the power enough to give up the honor he once had. Macbeth is much more calm and his descent to madness is much more subtle that Washizu’s.
The witches that Goold presents are subtly creepy. The nurses in the opening scene are the witches who continue to appear throughout the film. Goold has the witches appear in more places than Shakespeare wrote them to be. They always appear before something tragic happens, like the discovery of Duncan’s death or the appearance of Banquo’s ghost. The three witches become a portents of evil in the film, creating the aura that they bring bad deeds wherever they go. In the opening scene, the image of three nurses killing their patient and watching him die is quite chilling because nurses are normally a sign of good and healing. The way the witches are introduced sets up their characters for the rest of their appearances throughout the movie. Kurosawa, however, only had one witch, a spirit. Kurosawa’s spirit is less evil because the Japanese culture has a harder time with evil spirits, let alone three evil spirits. &&&&&&&&
The camera shots that the directors chose to use have a great effect on the feel of the scene and the movie. Kurosawa goes against the traditions of Japanese film making and has a lot of wide shot, incorporating the characters and everything around the characters. Its traditional to use close ups during emotionally stressful times in the film to show the emotions the character is going through and the actor is emulating. Kurosawa makes the wide shot, especially during times of emotional stress on the characters, to make them seem more alienated and alone. Like Washizu and Asaji are alone in their evil deeds, no one is there to help them, and now they are suffering the consequences of their acts. Goold, on the other hand, uses a lot of close up shots, which are very effective especially during soliloquoys and asides because the close ups make the shot more intimate, like it’s only the audience and the character. Goold creates this personal connection between the audience and the Macbeth’s in particular with the close shots on them while they’re talking. A good scene to contrast the style of the two directors shoots is the scene where Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost. Kurosawa has Washizu staring at Banquo’s spot, almost angry, with a wide shot that shows the empty spot and Washizu’s glare. When Washizu sees the ghost, the audience sees his reaction first. The audience sees him leap in fright, grab his sword and such before seeing the depiction of the ghost. There is a wide shot on Washizu as he freaks out and leaps around with his sword challenging an invisible figure (the audience sees the ghost in a couple shots and then the ghost is gone and the audience is seeing the events from the guests point of view) to a duel. In the shot he is both backed into a corner and then the audience can see the reaction of the nobles at the dinner. Washizu is shown as powerless in the corner, that he is losing control more than he has. His wife has control, he has no control anymore. When the nobles reaction is seen they all look at Washizu like he is crazy and leap to their feet when he pulls the sword. Now goold does the same thing where he allows the audience to see the scene from the perspective of the nobles and Macbeth’s perspective (No ghost and ghost). But Goold brings the camera in tightly and changes the lighting dramatically between the ghost being visible and invisible. When Banqou is entering in ghost form, all the sound becomes muted and surreal, the lights go down, and a cold spot is on Banquo. He enters through the back double door and slowly walks toward the table, onto the table and stands in front of Macbeth at the end of the table glaring at him. Goold pans slowly up Banquo’s body while he is walking toward Macbeth, not revealing his face and bloodied figure before he is seen by Macbeth. Filming this scene the way Goold did gives Banquo’s ghost an extra unearthly quality with the change in light and the slow close up pan is building the anticipation to see who, or what, has entered the dinner. The close shots provide an intensity to the character and a closeness, as though the audience is sitting at the table with the nobles, or the audience is Macbeth and Banquo is glaring at them, accusing them of murder.
Nature symbols are a part of both films. Kurosawa takes a more direct approach, having the birds fly into the palace while the advancing army is displacing them by cutting the trees down to use as camoflouge. The birds are a sign of the evil that is about to rain down upon the castle. The birds only caw for Goold and make small appearances here and there. Blood is a huge symbol through both directors interpretations. Kurosawa does not have nearly as much blood as Goold, but he certainly talks about it enough. The main symbol of blood in Kurosawa is when Tsuzuki comes to stay with Washizu and Asaji, the two of them end up staying in the room that &&&&& had killed himself in and the blood stains were still covering the room. They had servants try to clean it off the walls and floor but the stains would not go away. Similar to the blood stains that Asaji begins to see on her hands after her baby has been stillborn. The blood in the room is totally forshadowing the blood that Asaji is imagining as well as the metaphorical blood that Washizu and Asaji cannot wash away. But there isn’t much of a relationship between Washizu and Asaji to crumble later in the film. However macbeth and Lady Macbeth have an awesome relationship that Goold has built well. The Macbeth’s hold hands when they walk various places at various parts of the film. The hand holding is symbolic of what point their relationship is at at that point in the story. They start off walking proud, holding each others hands happily and end with Macbeth taking his wife’s hand instead of her giving it to him. The best part of the hand holding is when they are in the elevator riding up to bed after they murder Duncan. The image of the two of them in the elevator, both covered in blood, Lady Macbeth looking terrified and Macbeth in shock and then they hold hands. As if to say that they are in this together, it was there decision together and it will be their burden to bear together. That shot is the best imagery in the entire film. And at the end of the film, Goold decides to end with a couple seconds of that same shot. There was no better way to bring the movie to a close because that shot shows the Macbeth’s realization of what they have done, the strength of their relationship, and is a reminder at the end of the film just how far they fell from that first, very crucial, turn to evil.
The fierce changes in characterization, camera shots and depiction of symbolism makes these two films both very important in the Shakespeare movie repetoire. Goold’s modern, emotional, and griping journey through the story of the Macbeth’s and Kurosawa’s medival, cold, and action filled picture bring two perspectives alive on the screen.
We have the greatest President.
(Source: fleetwoodmacs)
An Article Written by Someone ELse
Title: Macbeth
Author(s): David Rooney
Source: Daily Variety. 298.30 (Feb. 15, 2008): p2.
Document Type: Theater review
Full Text:
(BAM/Harvey Theater; 784 seats; $90 top)
A Brooklyn Academy of Music, Duncan C Weldon and Paul Elliott for Triumph Entertainment presentation of a Chichester Festival Theater production of a play in two acts by William Shakespeare. Directed by Rupert Goold. Sets and costumes, Anthony Ward; lighting Howard Harrison; original music and sound, Adam Cork; video and projection design, Lorna Heavey; movement director, Georgina Lamb; fight direction, Terry King; production stage manager, Jane Pole. Opened, reviewed Feb. 13, 2008. Running time: 3 HOURS.
Macbeth Patrick Stewart Lady Macbeth Kate Fleetwood Duncan Paul Shelley Malcolm Scott Handy Banquo Martin Turner Macduff Michael Feast Lady Macduff Suzanne Burden Lennox Mark Rawlings Ross Tim Treloar Seyton Christopher Patrick Nolan Witch Sophie Hunter Witch, Gentlewoman Polly Frame Witch Niamh McGrady
With: Ben Carpenter, Bill Nash, Emmett White, Christopher Knott, Hywel John, Gabrielle Piacentile, Jacob Rosenbaum, Phoebe Keeling VanDusen, Oliver Birch
Pathos is an essential element of roles like Lear and Hamlet, but Macbeth, not so much. Yet one of the qualities that resonates most unexpectedly in Patrick Stewart’s interpretation of the butchering tyrant is the mental frailty of a man overpowered and undone by his own ruthless ambition. Exactly how well Stewart is served by the blood-soaked flamboyance of Rupert Goold’s overburdened production will be a matter of taste, but the rising-star Brit director’s “Macbeth” is as cinematic as it is boldly theatrical. It may not always elucidate the plot or characters to best advantage but it sure keeps you glued.
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A hit last year at the Chichester Festival Theater and subsequently in the West End, the production arrives for a six-week Brooklyn Academy of Music season laden with awards and every superlative London critics could fling at it.
Goold’s take on one of Shakespeare’s most violent plays is to make it even more horrific, freely mixing bone-chilling supernatural shivers with vicious warmongering, Machiavellian politics, psychological unease and technological intrusions.
It’s an aggressively contemporary “Macbeth,” depicting the usurperking and his black-hearted wife (Kate Fleetwood) as highly evolved social animals, decanting wine, passing out canapes and entertaining with the same steely sense of purpose they bring to plotting murders. Naturally, that should heighten the schadenfreude of the couple’s downfall. But despite his despicable nature, the death of Stewarts Macbeth nonetheless registers as a human loss, not just the elimination of a power-mad oppressor. This is no mean feat when the character ultimately is paraded out as a severed head slick with gore—a choice forewarned in every nasty flourish that’s come before it.
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Continuing a long-established trend of darkening the political overtones of Shakespeare’s tragedies by dropping them into Orwellian totalitarian states, Goold shifts the Scottish play to an Eastern European setting at the height of the Cold War. Designer Anthony Ward’s austere set is a grimy, white-tiled expanse that effectively serves as infirmary, kitchen, morgue, banquet hall and even a train compartment in an audacious reimagining of the murder of Banquo (Martin Turner).
A single video monitor feeds projected images across the rear wall that range from vine-like bloody tendrils to huge, Stalinist military assemblies, and a smoke-filled, doublegated industrial elevator disgorges its passengers—flesh and spirit—into this living hell.
The production’s single most imaginative stroke—and the one that sets its tone—is the transformation of the three witches into sinister nurses, initially seen tending to a prophetic wounded soldier in the opening scene, before it’s revealed they are offering not assistance but a hastened demise. More omnipresent than in straightforward productions, the “weird sisters” also serve as kitchen hands and servants.
Impressively choreographed by movement director Georgina Lamb, and rarely seen without a dagger, meat cleaver, hacksaw or some such instrument of carnage in hand, these petite figures in their crisply starched uniforms and with their disembodied, electro-enhanced voices seem to have stepped fight out of a ’70s horror movie. There are shades of Dario Argento, George A. Romero and vintage David Cronenberg, along with echoes of Lars von Trier’s “The Kingdom” and frequent splashes of bloody Tarantino-esque excess.
Goold stages the “Toil and trouble” incantation as a zombie rap, with J-Horror static playing across the back wall and Adam Cork’s dense soundscape working overtime as the witches draw their deadly predictions out of body-bagged corpses on mortuary slabs. Mining a similar undead aesthetic, the often interminable porter’s scene is sexed up by having Christopher Patrick Nolan writhing and hissing like a lascivious ghoul.
All this is undeniably transfixing and makes for non-stop visual, visceral spectacle, atmospherically saturated in Howard Harrison’s eerie, hard-edged lighting. What it doesn’t always do is serve the play. Goold appears to have missed the memo that “Macbeth” is the swift Shakespeare. Stretching the drama out to three full hours, the director’s embellishments often distract from the essence of a scene or dilute the characters’ motivations, layering on creepy-cool effects in a style that’s more showoffy than illuminating.
And sure, it’s hypnotic to watch these vile climbers performing simple domestic tasks, such as Lady Macbeth retrieving a chocolate layer cake from the refrigerator or hubby making a cheese and pickle sandwich. But the nagging suspicion arises repeatedly that Goold doesn’t believe the text alone can sustain audience attention.
Some touches add texture, such as replaying the appearance of Banquo’s ghost twice, immediately before and after intermission, showing the apparition to the audience the first time and only to Macbeth the second, as his dinner guests look on in alarmed perplexity. Reworking the interrogation of Ross (Tim Treloar) as a torture scene also is a smart stroke, and the convergence of Macbeth and his killers on the Macduff family is a coldly terrifying image. Elsewhere, however, Goold appears to have ignored the warning from Macbeth’s own lips about “sound and fury signifying nothing”
The theatrical pyrotechnics calm down somewhat in the second act, allowing the full force of some terrific performances to be revealed. Notable among them, Michael Feast’s Mac duff is intensely moving when learning of the slaughter of his wife and children, his devastated silence sputtering slowly into rage; Suzanne Burden strikes a fine balance of indignation and fear in Lady Macduff; and Scott Handy’s genteel but resolute manner makes his Malcolm a worthy successor to the contested throne.
But the key casting of course is the Macbeths themselves, and the age difference between Fleetwood and Stewart of what appears to be about three decades adds fascinating nuances. Slinking around in Ward’s ’50s-chic wardrobe, with lips like a fresh scar, Lady Macbeth here is the most dangerous kind of trophy wife, her jaw set in a permanent state of tense hunger as she goads her husband to action. Fleetwood is equally compelling later, when her scheming gives way to guilt and madness.
Stewart is somewhat older than the traditional take on the title character, giving his brutal bid for power a suggestion of resentment at being a valiant, long-serving warrior overdue for leadership. He starts out relaxed and almost affably chatty, his thirst for advancement fueled by his wife. But there are affecting moments of befuddlement in his performance, becoming increasingly addled as his paranoia spirals and the encroaching shadows of his own misdeeds crowd in on him.
It’s a commanding, meticulously shaded performance in a production generally far less subtle, but unstinting in high-style inventiveness.
Source Citation
Rooney, David. “Macbeth.” Daily Variety 15 Feb. 2008: 2+. General OneFile. Web. 23 Apr. 2012.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A176048391
Ingredients of life
Illustrations of Chemical compounds by Rex
i feel like it says alot that love looks like the most complex molecular structure but happiness is really simple..
Essay Proposal
Hannah France
ENGL 2270
Dr. Gaskill
04/23/12
Macbeth: Differences through time and culture
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most awesome and gripping tragedies, filled with murder, insanity, and powerful characters. Consequently, different directors interpret the script in their own unique way. Rupert Goold creates a modern and creepy interpretation in his 2010 film adaptation of the play whereas Akira Kurosawa transposed Macbeth into his 1957 film adaptation, Throne of Blood, to make the story more accessible to feudal Japan. Despite having the same plot and characters, the two adaptations are vastly both from a cultural standpoint and the time period in which they were produced.
Working sources:
Rooney, David. “Macbeth.” Daily Variety 15 Feb. 2008: 2+. General OneFile. Web. 23 Apr. 2012
Richie, Donald. The Films of Akira Kurosawa. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1998. Print.
Goodwin, James. Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. Print.
Moschovakis, Nicholas R. Macbeth: New Critical Essays. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.
Macbeth by William Shakespeare; Rupert Goold
Theatre Journal , Vol. 60, No. 4, Popular Culture and Theatre History (Dec., 2008), pp. 664-665
Macbeth: A Critical Guide. Films Media Group, 1997. Films On Demand. Web. 23 April 2012.<http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=7767&xtid=7076>.
Macbeth: Shakespeare for the Modern Age. Films Media Group, 2003. Films On Demand. Web. 23 April 2012. <http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=7767&xtid=32650>.
Cornyetz, Nina, and Keith Vincent. Perversion and Modern Japan: Psychoanalysis, Literature, Culture. London: Routledge, 2010. Print.
