Macbeth: Text Still Best
Shakespeare is considered to be the best playwright of all time. His original plays maintain a strong hold on the emotions and resonate with the emotions of the reader. Even with modernised and interpreted versions available, the original text gets the message across with the most expertise.
Take Shakespeares Scottish play, Macbeth, as an example, it has been transformed into movies, but the original words did not need a movie to be understood. The characters lines give the reader an understanding of what is happening without visuals being necessary to get the message across.
Why fix something that is not broken? Why change something that is already wonderful? The original text is magnificent being simple, on its own, with nothing to distract one from those brilliant words.
Furthermore, Shakespeare had the ability to divulge the human mind and dig deep into emotions. He is considered to do this better than any writer before him and any writer after. Neither of the movie directors; Polanski and Brozel, have this claim to fame.
The movie Macbeth, directed by Roman Polanski and released in 1971, is an interpreted version of Macbeth, it is not necessarily how the play would have been set up and acted out. As talented as Roman Polanski is, he cannot claim to be as brilliant as Shakespeare was, nor can he declare the ability to understand the human mind the way Shakespeare did.
Shakespeares Genres
Similarly to a game of broken telephone, as the story gets told and retold, it changes, and soon it is no longer a play by the master playwright, but a weaker diluted version of the sharp original text. When the play is changed, it loses some of its magic and allure.
Where the text has a tight and clinging grip, the movies only have a weak grasp.
Mark Brozel directed a modernized version of Macbeth. The play may be centuries old, but still today it can be understood and the pain of the characters can be felt. The play did not need to be altered into a modern setting, the original idea still holds strong today.
Brozels contemporary movie takes place in a restaurant setting, with the main character aiming to gain control of the entire restaurant. The original text, and the Polanski version, both take place in an old Scottish setting, with the main character attempting to become King of Scotland.
The original text, however, is the one that could be read over and over again, and it is the one that holds the most meaning. Yes, more people can say that they have sat in a restaurant than in a castle, but the setting does not determine what the viewer or reader feels, the theme and expertise does.
The theme is the same in all the versions, but is the most prominent in the text. When the words are read they have an impact, and this impact is greater than the one received from hearing them from a stranger on a screen. When they are read it is as if they are being said by the reader, to the reader, and it resonates the best as it is personal, and not being shared by everyone else watching the screen.
In my opinion, Shakespeare was a genius, and he had the talent of digging into human emotions and pulling out what eats at us all. Nothing, and no one, can recapture that talent the same way that the original text does. Shakespeare spoke to us in a way that cannot be recreated or remade, not by modernising the story line or putting it on a big screen. The original text remains the best.
Besides, isnt it always said that the book is better than the movie?
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