[Charlotte Innes]

Hi everyone,

May I have some opinions, please, on the best movies of Macbeth and Othello? I figured that there are many teachers among you, and you just might know! Even if you're not a teacher, do weigh in!

I just finished reading Macbeth with my 12th graders (17, 18), and I'm into Act 2 of Othello with my 9th graders (14, 15-ish). The 12th graders need some entertainment, and the 9th graders need enlightening--they are really struggling with the language, and I thought I could show a few scenes as we go. I haven't taught either play before so I'm still trying to see what works.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much!
Charlotte

[Sharon Fish Mooney]

Not sure about this version but it is available on-line via PBS -- look at the site as there are a lot of teacher comments if you scroll down about various versions for the ten set

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episod...-program/1030/

[Susan McLean]

I tend to show my students the Oliver Parker Othello (Branagh is the best Iago I have ever seen) and the Roman Polanski Macbeth, though both have some problems. My students tend to get more restless while watching a filmed play than a film.

Susan

[Vernon Sims]

This link is a complete list of film adaptations of Shakespeare

There is a modern dress version set as gang wars in Chicago and several others. The Sir Laurence Olivier version of Othello is probably the best. He lowered his voice an entire octave to play the role.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lm_adaptations

hope this is useful.

Vernon''

ps I recommend the Orson Welles 1948 film version of Macbeth

[Charlotte Innes]

Dear Sharon, Susan, Vernon,

Thanks so much! I'll look into all these suggestions.

Sharon, I'm not sure I can get the PBS link to work. But I do know that version is available.

Susan, that's good to know about Branagh's Iago--my students seem quite interested in him, the character I mean. Is the Polanski version of Macbeth very violent? Oh I think I read that there's a nude scene in it... Hmm.

Vernon, thanks for your recs. I've found there are YouTube clips for some, so I can get a sense of the acting.

Charlotte

[Max Goodman]

I strongly encourage looking for filmed stage productions, particularly--though not only--when sharing them with students. Not only is stage Shakespeare's medium, but young people tend not to be very aware of the theater and exposing them to a stage production can open an entire new world for them.

The Globe Theater has released a good Othello on DVD. This would give students a sense of the theater in which the play was originally performed.

http://www.google.com/products/catal...d=0CJQBEPMCMAg

The closest thing to a filmed stage production of Macbeth I'm aware of is a DVD usually sold as A Performance of Macbeth. In 1979 (I think), Trevor Nunn directed a famous and influential staging of the play starring Ian McKellen and Judi Dench, which he later filmed. It's sort of a cross between a film and a recording of the production. Very strong performances.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Susan McLean

I tend to show my students the Oliver Parker Othello (Branagh is the best Iago I have ever seen) and the Roman Polanski Macbeth, though both have some problems. My students tend to get more restless while watching a filmed play than a film.

Susan

I agree on both counts. Bear in mind that both versions have some pretty racy content though. There are sex scenes in Parker's Othello and full-frontal nudity in Polanski's Macbeth (which was financed by Playboy, I might add). Lady Macbeth's "out damn spot" scene is performed completely in the buck, so you might get some (ahem) tittering from your students there.

Parker's Othello is one of my favorite screen adaptations of Shakespeare though (next only to Michael Radford's Merchant of Venice and Branagh's own Henry V), and the chemistry between Fishburne as Othello and Branagh as Iago is fantastic. Indeed, Branagh's performance of Iago has somewhat ruined the play for me, as it was really the perfect way to play the character, and I've seen staged performances since that have paled in comparison. Bear in mind that the movie is slightly abridged though. I'd guess about a quarter of the text is removed for the sake of a standard movie run time.

[David Rosenthal]

I am a huge Welles fan, but I don't know if I would show his movies to students new to the material. His Othello is probably one of the best movies ever made, though it does suffer from many of the technical difficulties that plagued his post-Hollywood movies, and might not therefore be just right for today's teenager. The Parker Othello with Fishburne and Branagh, which others have mentioned is good -- I'd use it.

Welles' Macbeth has moments, but it was shot quickly on a low budget, and as a result it looks a little campy. But I still prefer it to Polanski's. The best Macbeth movie, IMO, is Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, but that is really a Japanese Samurai movie, so if your intention is to highlight Shakespeare's English, it won't help.

David R.

[Christopher ONeill]

I can go with all the recommendations here, though I would think twice about using any Orson Welles version of Shakespeare unless I had a small and highly motivated group. Welles assumes his audience is familiar with 1940's Hollywood film conventions, and the last thing you want to do with most teaching groups is suggest that Shakespeare is even more old-fashioned than they already believe him to be.

The Polanski Macbeth, and the Oliver Parker and Trevor Nunn Othello's, are all wonderful films. You probably need to watch them before using them (all of them contain some unchildish material, the Polanski in particular), but I am usually happy to trust my students with grown up material. I could handle it at that age. (On the other hand, most of my school teaching was done in the third world).

The BBC TV Shakespeare versions stay very true to the text, and are 'stagey' within TV conventions. Bob Hoskins is an excellent Iago, though Anthony Hopkins is surprisingly wan as Othello; Jane Lapotaire and Nicol Williamson in Macbeth are solid rather than inspired;- but sometimes when you are teaching the play as a text, that is what you want.

The absolute worst Macbeth ever filmed is Geoffrey Wright's transferral of the story to a racial gang war in late twentieth century Melbourne. The witches are teenage goth girls who live in a cemetery (this might have worked if they would only stop giggling so often) and the porter scene is clearly driven by amphetamines not alcohol (which is interesting, but not in a good way).

Everybody should see the Geoffrey Wright film at least once: one doesn't realise just how good Macbeth is until you see it start to shrug off the worst production in the history of the world.

But I wouldn't let students anywhere near it.

[Gail White]

Although in general the Polanski Macbeth is not my favorite, how could I ever forget Maisie McFarquhar as the witch with pockets of skin over her eyes?