Macbeth on Film Lesson Plan | Unit Objectives
1. Through viewing Orson Welles’s, Roman Polanski’s, and Michael Bogdanov’s film versions of Shakespeare's Macbeth, students will see how one director interprets the text of the play.
2. Students will see the choices that each director makes to bring the visual elements to the screen.
3. Students will hear prominent actors speak Shakespeare's language, clarifying the meaning of some of the more difficult passages.
4. Students will answer questions to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the main events and characters in Macbeth as they relate to the director’s choices.
5. The writing assignments in this unit are geared to several purposes:
a) To have students demonstrate their abilities to inform, to persuade, and to express their own personal ideas.
Note: Students will demonstrate the ability to criticize by developing and organizing their own reactions to convey information about the film. Students will also demonstrate the ability to write criticism effectively by expressing their personal ideas in a critical essay format.
b) To check the students' comprehension of what they have seen.
c) To make students think about the ideas presented in the film by the film.
d) To encourage thinking about the text itself as Shakespeare wrote it.