Synopsis

Melbourne, present day. The story begins when Macbeth, a loyal henchman, is rewarded with gifts from his crime boss Duncan for serving him faithfully and performing bravely in a vicious gangland rip-off. But these gifts are nothing compared to what Duncan lavishes on his son Malcolm. Macbeth wonders why he bothers to stick his neck out when Malcolm does nothing at all. Macbeth is then visited by some extraordinary young witches, dabblers in the occult arts, who indicate that he shall be the new crime 'king'. Banquo won’t be of the same standing, but he will father a 'king'. Macbeth is intrigued, but when Lady Macbeth drops the hint that they might kill Duncan and take over the gang for themselves, he realises he may simply be fulfilling his destiny. Duncan is killed in Macbeth’s own home, with Lady Macbeth providing the drugs. Suspicion for the murder falls on Malcolm who leaves town. Macbeth seizes power and rules the gang. The madness that drove him to kill Duncan now compels him to dispose of Banquo.

What The Critics Say

"Aussie Sam Worthington (looking like a rock star) leaps into the lead role with gusto, and this violent, fast-paced film only gets better as you allow the over-the-top fantasy to totally envelop you." OK Magazine "Like an old coat just back from an expensive dry-cleaner, Geoffrey Wright’s Macbeth most definitely isn’t new, but damn, it feels like it. 3 1/2 STARS." Clint Morris MOVIEHOLE "make sure you check it out because you've never seen Macbeth quite like this ..." Rove ROVE LIVE "Brash, bold, bawdy, bombastic and dripping with black blood… makes Baz look like a TV dinner!" Chris Murray Triple M/SUNRISE "Sophisto-cool!" Andiee Paviour 4 Stars WHO WEEKLY "**** stars Chris Murray 5AA "Worthington hits all the right notes. Everything from the level of manipulation versus his own ambition, to his eventual descent into a non-Hamlet-imitating madness is played brilliantly." Latauro AIN'T IT COOL "The novelty of familiar faces playing infamous Shakespearian characters was fun but the fabulous acting and gritty action was what won me. This film is a blessing for any students who have to study Macbeth as it make the play totally easy to digest. I must say that it is hard not to expect Mick Molloy to say something funny he ends up leaving a very dark impression. Highly recommended experience. 4 STARS." Peter William Richards YAHOO MOVIE REVIEWS

"Geoffrey Wright (Romper Stomper) translates one of Shakespeare's most respected plays into a contemporary setting - Melbourne's criminal underworld - in "Macbeth", an overly stylised, ultra-violent, headache-inducing mess of a film that savages the beauty of the original play. The three witches are now sexually charged schoolgirls and figments of Macbeth's drug-addled brain, the "kings" are crime lords with big machine guns, and Macbeth's mansion is protected by a high-tech digital security system." Mark Beirne BRISBANE WHAT'S ON "… the script is impressively economical, yet those familiar with The Bard's immortalised words will not be disappointed. With its strong cast headed by Sam Worthington, the result is a gripping and sharply crafted film layered with emotional density." Louise Keller URBAN CINEFILE "Any new adaptation of Shakespeare which retains the original text but sets the action in a modern timeframe creates a permanent tension for the audience (those that are familiar with it, at any rate) in anticipating how the filmmakers will translate 400 year old circumstances. For most of the film, we are on the alert for inventive translations and relocations. How, for example, does Birnam wood march on Dunsinane in 2006? Geoffrey Wright and Victoria Hill have the answer – but I won’t spoil it here." Andrew L Urban URBAN CINEFILE "WOW! If only Shakespeare had been this interesting when I was going to school. I might have paid more attention during English Literature. Presented in this style it should be compulsory viewing for senior students aged fifteen years and over. What a different learning curve it would provide. 4 STARS" Richard Surfield THE MOVIE PAGES

The Inside Story Tackling a subject such as William Shakespeares "Macbeth" is something most film-makers would never contemplate, not that there hasn't been big screen versions of the famous 'bards' works. Making one set in modern day Melbourne and based on a gang war, well that's really putting your head on the chopping block. Or do most would think. So how did this highly stylized version get its genesis? It all began in 2004 when Martin Fabinyi, Geoffrey Wright and Victoria Hill were in a meeting. "We were sitting down and I suggested that we do a film version of Macbeth", "Romper Stomper" director Geoffrey Wright recalls. "I had always been a big fan of Laurence Olivier’s Richard III and Henry the V and knew that Shakespeare could make for good filmmaking." But why choose "Macbeth"? "Out of all of Shakespeare’s plays I think that 'Macbeth' is the most sensational," he pointed out, noting that, "the 'The Tempest' is probably the most sophisticated, but 'Macbeth' is just down and dirty. There is very little sub-plotting in it. It just hits its main marks very quickly." And when it came to getting producer Martin Fabinyi's support Wright says, "Martin didn’t need much convincing. He was on board and very supportive from the start." In fact it was right up his alley. "The concept of a reworking of Shakespeare's play set in the Melbourne underworld was very appealing, given the furor that surrounded the assassinations in Melbourne at the time. The prospect of the film became a cause celebre and was picked up by the press around the world. It's always fun to have a controversial project", says Fabinyi. With Mushroom Pictures on board things happened at a surprising pace. They took the script to Film Victoria who pledged production investment. The script was then offered to Palace Films for local distribution and they were very keen to participate. Arclight Films, who had worked with Mushroom Pictures on Wolf Creek, took international rights and the Film Finance Corporation green-lit the film in January 2005. Shooting began in July 2005. "From the day Geoff and Victoria started working on the script to the day we started shooting was about twelve months. That’s a very fast development period," Fabinyi remarked. The films director believes things moved so fast because they weren't trying to do a 'true crime' film. "If we had done another type of gangster film, it would have been very different," Wright says. "This way using William Shakespeare as a kind of battering ram we swept away all the resistance and the things just happened and it happened really fast." But how do you tie-in ye olde world of Shakespeare with the world of modern hoodlums in cosmopolitan Melbourne? "What I noticed early on about the story and today’s underworld is that when you kill someone it never ends there. The friends or the family or the colleagues of the person who has been murdered will sooner or later seek revenge and it keeps going," Wright said. "So I very quickly noticed the connection between the dynamics of Melbourne’s underworld and the dynamics of a feudal setting depicted in Shakespeare’s play." Co-screenwriter Victoria Hill (yes, she's the thirty five year old daughter of former Senator, Robert Hill) notes that when it came to adapting Shakespeare to the modern there are "are little or no changes to the original dialogue except that we have edited it, moved it around and reordered things for maximum impact in terms of drama and filmmaking. We did try and do away with anything that was expositional and that allowed us to keep fine-tuning the structure so that Macbeth’s story was clearer and clearer." "All the soliloquies and exchanges that people remember from high school are all there," says Geoffrey Wright. "There is not a single one that we dropped. All the famous, and the most potent ones are still there. If audiences love the play they are not going to feel shortchanged by the film." Hang about Geoffrey, what about that scene involving Banquo? You know, when the witches visit Macbeth for the first time. Wright explains, "In our version we wanted it to be a more subjective experience for Macbeth, particularly, because he’s just plied himself with drugs and alcohol. We wanted to leave open to interpretation whether the witches were supernatural or a figment of Macbeth’s drug-addled brain." And it seems they aren't the only changes. What about the gorgeous Lady Macbeth? "Victoria and I had a discussion about whether Lady Macbeth had any children or not. In the end we decided to set it up so there has been a death of her child and that she is still grieving the loss of this child," says Wright. "This makes Lady Macbeth a lot more vulnerable. She becomes more ruthless in the mind, but desperate as a person." With the screenplay completed the next task was to cast "Macbeth". Under the pressure of a tight time frame, Wright knew they had to get it right the first time. "This was the shortest schedule I’ve had to make a film in my life. That meant approaching it and preparing it in a totally different way. It meant spending a lot more time in casting so that I knew the actors that I eventually brought on board were people who I could trust to largely look after themselves," he says. "They had to be very self-sufficient individuals." With the cast on-board, shooting started in the dead of Melbourne’s winter on July 4th 2005 and, according to Wright, the cast rose to the challenge. "Every actor’s first appearance was fraught with a bit of uncertainty and a little bit of fear. But that melted away very quickly and they soon realised it was just like any other shoot they had to make the dialogue believable and they had to put passion into it, or tenderness, or whatever other emotion is required. It was just like any other piece of writing you’ve got to couple it with the appropriate emotion to make it work. They all rose to the challenge." What They Had To Say "What drew me to it is because it’s a risk. Geoffrey pitched it to me as the most violent film ever made. He said it might be banned and I thought I want to be a part of that, where do I sign? I’d rather go into battle with a director who isn’t afraid than someone who is going to go at it half heartedly," says Sam Worthington.
"When I saw the group together I thought, wow, they all have such big personalities," Victoria Hill recalls. "I was actually worried there would be a war on set. But Geoffrey said that is exactly how it’s got to be. And he was right. It really worked on set when we started filming. The competitive edge between all of the characters was there in a world where you are always looking over your shoulder."
"There was pressure from all sorts of sources outside our unit to cast either this big name actress, or that big name actress and I was very determined that Vic should hold onto the part, which of course she did," says director Geoffrey Wright.
"Working on the adaptation I couldn’t help seeing myself as the female protagonist," says Hill. "It always works out like that when I am writing. So it was almost like dangling a carrot in front of my nose. I was nervous, but I really wanted to play that role and I had the full support of Geoff and Martin."
"Gary was the man because there is a twinkle in Gary’s eye; he doesn’t let anything get too heavy. I wanted audiences to think that in different circumstances Duncan might have caught Lady Macbeth’s eye, or she his, and it made the idea of her trapping him at the house and murdering him with the help of her husband more dynamic and credible," says Wright.
Director of photography Will Gibson remembers, "I came on to the film thinking I would be left to my own devices. We didn’t have any storyboards for the film so I didn’t realise how concise Geoff’s vision was. I quickly realised it’s a precise plan but that within that there is all sorts of room for an infinite range of choice."
"The inspiration for Sam was for him to look like a rock star," says costume designer Jane Johnston. "He begins as a Steve McQueen type character then becomes more of a rock star. A Jim Morrison or Michael Hutchence."
"I wanted to do something that was a modern interpretation of theatre. I knew we would be filming a lot at night and I wanted everyone to be luminous in the dark and have an ethereal quality which was created with very pale bases," says Nicole Lobegeiger The Verdict "Debate will rage over Geoffrey Wrights highly stylized version of the bard's "Macbeth" long after it has finished screening in cinemas, a factor which, by the way, should contribute to it gaining a solid cult following when it is released on DVD. Alas, poor Yorick, me-thinks that had the 'Bard" been born in another place and time, namely Melbourne today, this may well have been the story his "Macbeth" would have told. Highly Recommended. 4 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "MACBETH" stars .......
AFI Award winner Sam Worthington ["Hart's War", "Dirty Deeds", "Gettin' Square", "Thunderstruck" and "Somersault"]; Gary Sweet ["An Indecent Obsession", "The Tracker", "Alexandra's Project" and "Gettin' Square"]; Lachy Hulme ["The Inruder", "Let's Get Skase", "The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course" and "The Matrix Revolutions"]; Matt Doran ["The Big Night Out", "The Thin Red Line", "The Matrix" and "The Great Raid"], Steve Bastoni ["He Died with a Felafel in His Hand", "The Matrix Reloaded", "Fink!" and "Suburban Mayhem"] and Victoria Hill ["Dead End", "Siam Sunset", "Modern Love" and "Boytown"] as Lady Macbeth.
"MACBETH" was .......
directed by Geoffrey Wright ["Lover Boy", "Romper Stomper", "Metal Skin" and "Cherry Falls"]; screenplay written by Victoria Hill ["Macbeth"] and Geoffrey Wright ["Lover Boy", "Romper Stomper" and "Metal Skin"]; original story by William Shakespeare ["Hamlet", "Othello", "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Merchant Of Venice"]; cinematography by Will Gibson ["Sticky Date" and "Wolf Creek"]; production design by David McKay ["Love In Limbo" and "Kevin Rampenbacker and the Electric Kettle"]; costume design by Jane Johnston ["Oscar and Lucinda", "Mission: Impossibel 2", "Unfinished Business" and "Kevin Rampenbacker and the Electric Kettle"] and produced by Martin Fabinyi ["Chopper", "Horse Play", "Gettin' Square" and "Wolf Creek"]. Run Time 109 minutes Rated MA 15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2006 - A MUSHROOM PICTURES PRODUCTION - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2006 - Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved