Film Analysis Act 5 Sc 1

Act 5 Scene 1

1:14:50

Lady Macbeth is shown wide eyed and smiling brightly as she reminisces about her baby. She is wearing very little make-up and looks natural (which might make her look less manipulative and more trustworthy/pitiful).

When talking about the procedure in the hospital, she says ‘They cut me open.’ This generates sympathy for LM, but also puts into our minds the idea that she has been hurt before. This is not like in the original script at all where LM merely talks about her crimes as she is sleep walking.

1:15:18 “Some night Joe and I sat looking at him in his little box.” This adds a totally human element to the two characters. The fact she refers to them by their first names, and the scenario we imagine them in, looking after their sick child, means we can feel nothing but sympathy for them as a couple.

In a modern setting, this couple would have received counselling for their grief – not like in the original script where the audience would not find sympathy in their hearts at all.

“…all hooked up with tubes.” LM begins to cry at the memory of her trauma, evoking more sympathy.

“We didn’t go to sleep.” – an interesting comparison to the original text. In the original text LM is sleep walking in this scene. Here, she is merely dillusional and thinking back to this sad time when she could not sleep. Sleep is used as a powerful image here to show her mental state.

1:15:30 – “I held him once” – Sympathy for LM again.

1:15:45 – Begins to smile again when she says “he put his little mouth to me” – interestingly, LM looks at her happiest when she is reminiscing about being a mother, a role which (in this version) she has been robbed of. Little is made of her role as a mother in the original.

1:15:50 – “and then he died” – followed by a very long/dramatic pause to allow us to feel sympathy for the character.

1:16:00 – “The size of the coffin: It was so small, it made me laugh.” shows us the deteriorated mental state of LM.

All this time, the director has chosen to have LM deliver this monologue whilst the camera angle is panned in close to her face which makes the scene seem very personal and upsetting. At this stage, the camera pans out, and we realise that LM is actually standing at the front of the restaurant, again emphasising her mental state.

The sympathetic and confused reactions of the onlooking customers signifies the sympathy they feel for her loss/worry (despite the fact that we know she is a criminal) – totally different to original.

Onlookers are blurred to signify the fact that LM has lost contact now with the outside world and is completely introverted.

Camera pans out to show a distant and lonely shot of LM.