I have an essay due in a couple of days on Shakespeare's Macbeth. We must compare a scene that stood out to us in the movie and compare that same...

There have been many movie versions of Macbeth, including one by Orson Welles. If I had your assignment, and your tight deadline, I would choose a movie scene that was very different from the same scene in the play. This would make it easy to point out the differences. Movies can do visual things that are vastly different from stage plays. The film makers have all kinds of technical effects available. Two scenes I...

There have been many movie versions of Macbeth, including one by Orson Welles. If I had your assignment, and your tight deadline, I would choose a movie scene that was very different from the same scene in the play. This would make it easy to point out the differences. Movies can do visual things that are vastly different from stage plays. The film makers have all kinds of technical effects available. Two scenes I would consider are the following.

You might compare a movie version of the scene in which Banquo appears at Macbeth's banquet to Act 3, Scene 4 in the play. Shakespeare was very limited in props and effects. He could only show Banquo with tattered clothes and a lot of blood on him. Any movie version would make Banquo more ghostly and the whole scene more spectacular. You could focus on the visual effects and ignore the dialogue if you wanted to make your job easier. I am thinking that you have very little time.

Another possibility would be to compare the scene in the movie in which Macbeth confronts the three witches and they show him the three apparitions. This would correspond to Act 4, Scene 1 in Shakespeare's play. No doubt any movie version of the apparitions would be far more spectacular because the film makers could employ all kinds of special effects. Therefore it would be easy to point out the differences.

Movie versions of plays always tend to do things that can't be done on a stage. The filmmakers will try to "open up" the play by showing outdoor scenes. For example, in Act 1, Scene 6, King Duncan can only pretend to be looking up at Macbeth's castle. But in a movie version they would probably show Duncan outdoors looking up at a real castle.

It seems to me that you would be well advised to stay away from scenes in which there are just two or three people talking to each other and pick a scene in which there are lots of visual effects.