Macbeth (DVD 2002)

If you, or anyone you know is studying Macbeth for GCSE, try this film for size. Although there are a few shifts of plot and some slightly iffy moments, this film version is a straight forward and generally accessible tool for learning.

A classic Polanski film, this really brings the feelings within the play to the surface. Greed, jealousy, ambition, suspicion, fear, loathing - they are all here!
Polanski uses the camera to allow you to see what makes the characters tick. The film was X-rated when first screened in 1971; certainly not a traditional stage version, the images of severed limbs, hanging corpses, truly unpleasant witches and incredible brutality to women and children can still have first-time viewers catching their breath.
If you have not seen this film, or think that Shakespeare is stuffy, you should watch...even if you are not sure of what all the words mean (and you'd be surprised how many are still in use today!), just looking at what is going on allows you to enter the rich and bizarre world of human hopes, dreams and ambition at its worst. As true now as they were then, the ideas behind this play - and Polanski's vision of how to portray them - are timeless!