Macbeth on Film
BFI Education
Catalogue no: BEV002
£27.99 (inc VAT)
Order via tel 0870 241 3764
In the much-publicised recent poll the nation, or those who chose to vote, decided that Winston Churchill, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Diana were all greater Britons than William Shakespeare. He did better than Michael Crawford and Julie Andrews though so it wasn't all bad news for The Bard. It's true that Shakespeare wasn't much good at repelling the Nazis, building bridges or, as far as I am aware, wearing expensive frocks at gala dinners but there are a few areas in which he remains almost untouchable in his greatness. He did write some good plays.
Teachers and lecturers love him, audiences love him and few love him more, it seems, than filmmakers. 400 years after the plays were written, Shakespeare is still one of the film industry's most popular screenwriters. The last decade or so has witnessed screen adaptations of Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus, Twelfth Night, 3 Hamlets (Gibson, Branagh and Ethan Hawke), Othello and Henry V. What better source material then for introducing students to media studies than Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's most celebrated and much filmed works?
Jerome Monahan's Macbeth On Film is an impressively comprehensive resource that attempts to enhance students' understanding of the play and introduce them to some of the key concepts of film studies. It comes in the form of a CD Rom and accompanying video of clips based on three adaptations of the play: Orson Welles' 1948 film; Trevor Nunn's stage-bound television version of 1978 and the 1998 Channel Four film directed by Michael Bogdanov and made as part of the channel's school programming output. No Polanski and Keith Chegwin as Fleance then. Indeed, the introduction on the CD Rom states an intention to move the teaching of Macbeth on film beyond the limits of the 1971 version.
On first exploration of the CD material I was a little overwhelmed, as you might be, by the sheer abundance of what was on offer. I found myself in PDF file heaven, or possibly hell, with no fewer than 27 units available for perusal. Many of these turned out to be the teacher's notes for each of the sections covered but there were also a large number of worksheets, guides and other resources for the use of the students. In any case, the introduction and contents, had I broken the habit of a lifetime and chosen to read them first, set out with great clarity the order in which to proceed. The material is essentially divided in to four sections.
The first of these is intended to provide food for thought before the students view any of the clips on the video. It sets out to compare and contrast presentation of the play on stage and on film and to elicit from the students what they might anticipate from a film version of Macbeth. At this point it is already clear that reading the play beforehand is a pre-requisite for any student embarking on this unit. A fairly sound knowledge of the plot and the characters is required before even the pre-viewing tasks can be undertaken. This, then, is very much a resource for the study of film within the context of an English classroom rather than a dedicated media studies unit. However, the tasks are clear and the worksheets appear simple to use and effective in exploring the differences between stage and screen.
The next section comprises a set of units on the basics of film language. There are substantial teaching notes and accompanying activities on image analysis, shots and framing, lighting, sound, editing and location. Activities are based on the analysis of stills from the three films and on students using selected extracts from Shakespeare's text to experiment with their own ideas on how sound and editing might be used to present them effectively on screen. This approach seems fun because of its interactive nature. Before the play button on the video has been pressed the students ought to have a good idea about mise en scène, diegetic sound, dissolves and other such keystones in film literacy.
Armed with their newly acquired cineliteracy, it's time for the class to be exposed to the clips themselves. The treatment of key scenes and characters in the three films are presented on a compare and contrast basis. Much of this is designed to lead to a better understanding of the play as a literary text, much in the way that one might prepare worksheets based on the printed word; the work on Lady Macbeth focuses on the student listing 'womanly virtues' in one column of a table and 'opposing virtues' in another as a way of exploring her character. However, the method relies heavily on the students being able to analyse scenes using the language of film. In this way the stated intentions of the unit are met. The nuances of the play are studied whilst the students gain confidence in their understanding of film and how it works in delivering meaning.
The media element is very much focussed on language. The idea of film genre isn't discussed and the notion of audience is merely alluded to in passing. There is, however, more than a nod to the hermeneutic code in the section on 'Openings' with an exercise on the questions the audience are left asking after each of the three opening scenes. This might serve as a basis to further work on narrative. That said, each set of clips provides excellent practice in the use of film language in analysing clips and identifying meaning. The final section of the unit is devoted to revision tasks and ideas for assessment pieces. These are a mixture of standard English assignments such as discursive essay and persuasive letter writing and more media-based tasks such as comparative analysis of the same scene from two different screen versions. The variety of these tasks demonstrates the flexibility of the resource as a teaching tool.
Monahan's unit seems an excellent resource. It provides a clear and substantial introduction to the language of film whilst fulfilling its remit as an aid to the study of Macbeth the play. The notes for the teacher are full and suitably detailed. The work for the students is challenging and varied. One problem that might arise is one of selection. I can't imagine that the time could be found to cover all of the clips featured on the video, especially as the play would have to be read before embarking on the work contained within the unit. However, once the section on film language was covered I imagine it would be fairly easy to pick and choose the scenes which best suited your needs.
The introduction specifies 5-14 strands in terms of the learning outcomes but draws attention to the fact the some of the tasks might prove quite demanding when used with this age group. I think that the material might also be suited to Standard Grade. It would certainly provide a good introduction to film for any student thinking of embarking on a media studies course in later years. It might even encourage a few. Macbeth on Film should at the very least ensure that your lessons on the subject are clear and informative rather than appearing to the uninitiated a tale "told by an idiot, signifying nothing".
© 2003 Doug Haggarty - Bridge of Don Academy, Aberdeen
A different bfi pack by Jerome Monahan dealing with the Kurosawa and Polanski film versions of Macbeth is available free to download as a pdf from www.bfi.org.uk/education/teachers/classroom/free/macbeth/index.html