Macbeth
The opening scene of the three witches at the end of the meeting, just as they are making an appointment to meet again this time with Macbeth. "When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightening, or in rain?" is dramatic these are the opening lines of the play which immediately draws the audience's attention to the presence of the super natural. The witches in this, opening scene, set the mood of the piece. The audience is prepared for a dark, mysterious and dangerous play, in which the theme of evil is central. Shakespeare's use of language is partially captivating cryptic although the lines he gives to the witches are brief and few, which adds to the tension and excitement. The witches seem to chant as they speak in rhyme with short seven or eight syllable lines. Their speech of meeting Macbeth "When the hurly burley's done when the battles lost and won." Informs the audience that the play involves turmoil. Macbeth will win the battle on the battlefield, but will lose the battle for his soul. They speak of "fog and filthy air" creating a bleak and mystical atmosphere. The opening scene serves to awaken the curiosity of the audience but not to satisfy it. Shakespeare gives few directions throughout the play, which allo
Polanski does not give his witches "beards" and omits the lines spoken by Banquo "you should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so". Only the sound of their breathing laboured with their efforts and the infrequent and eerie sound of a single solitary seagull is heard by the audience. The scene is set for the story to unfold. It is not harmonious nor does it have a rhythm but evokes discord and in stark, cold and piercingly uncomfortable to listen to. Polanski chooses to emphasize this theme of madness by ending the scene at this point by having Macbeth and Banquo's ride off excitedly and widely into the distance laughing almost hysterically. Are the audience "seeing things" as Macbeth is destined to? The paradox of "fair is foul, and foul is fair" will be a recurring theme through out the play. Polanski's version of Macbeth displays originality and imagination, in some ways detracting from Shakespeare's original script, yet not detracting from the underlying intention. It is almost as though there is so much tension, and suspense that the audience is holding it's breath in anticipation of what is to come. The weird sisters are dressed in drab rags. He portrays the battlefield after the opening scene. He changes the order of speech and the lines are spoken only by two of the witches. One old scrawny and blind, one plump, deaf and middle-aged and one young, more attractive and mute, paradoxically representing the three wise monbeys "see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil". Polanski's portrayal of the witches in act one scene one and scene three is powerful, realistic and captivating. Shakespeare's witches have the conventional "familiars" of the time. He is able to portray the images in the way he does, mainly because he is using a different media, that of film, rather than theatre.
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Acceptance Essays
