In his 2015 film Macbeth director Justin Kuzler takes a great deal of creative license with his source material in order to craft his adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. The film opens with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth mourning the loss of their child in a stark scene that takes place on a foggy Scottish hillside with no dialogue. The chilling image of a dead child being laid to rest coupled with the somber sound of a funeral dirge makes for an opening that is not easily forgotten. The placement of this scene at the beginning of the film shapes the way the audience interprets the events that unfold later in the story. The first introduction the audience has of Macbeth is not of him as a brutal and valiant warrior as in the text, but rather
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It is only ever vaguely mentioned that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth ever had a child, although it does seem plausible that they could have previously lost a child or that they have not had luck in their attempts at conceiving one. While this particular plot point does not exist in Shakespeare’s text, that does not mean that legacy, and Macbeth’s unhappiness with his own, is not presented as a major theme in the play. In the text it is implied that Macbeth is particularly haunted by the section of the Witches’ prophecy that declares that Banquo will be the father to a line of kings, despite never being king himself. In act three just before he decides to have Banquo killed he laments that he has no heirs to inherit the throne and that the crown will pass to Banquo’s son according to the prophecy. He complains that he wears a “fruitless crown” (3.1.66) and holds a “barren scepter” (3.1.67), wondering whether his violent actions were all in vain since he has no heir to carry on his legacy. Ultimately when Macbeth dies and all the other elements of the prophecy have come to fruition, the reader is left to make the assumption that Banquo’s heirs will one day assume the
It is only ever vaguely mentioned that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth ever had a child, although it does seem plausible that they could have previously lost a child or that they have not had luck in their attempts at conceiving one. While this particular plot point does not exist in Shakespeare’s text, that does not mean that legacy, and Macbeth’s unhappiness with his own, is not presented as a major theme in the play. In the text it is implied that Macbeth is particularly haunted by the section of the Witches’ prophecy that declares that Banquo will be the father to a line of kings, despite never being king himself. In act three just before he decides to have Banquo killed he laments that he has no heirs to inherit the throne and that the crown will pass to Banquo’s son according to the prophecy. He complains that he wears a “fruitless crown” (3.1.66) and holds a “barren scepter” (3.1.67), wondering whether his violent actions were all in vain since he has no heir to carry on his legacy. Ultimately when Macbeth dies and all the other elements of the prophecy have come to fruition, the reader is left to make the assumption that Banquo’s heirs will one day assume the