Why write about Roman Polanski's Macbeth (1971) as part of a series of books dedicated to the classics of the horror movie genre? Because, Rebekah Owens argues, just as Banquo in Polanski's film holds up a series of mirrors that reflect images of his successors that trace back to his own son Fleance, so subsequent milestones in the genre show their lineage to this work, their originator. Polanski had previously made Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary's Baby (1968), so he was fully aware of the conventions of the horror genre and this film provides clues to his own horror...

Aimed at newcomers to literature and film, this book is a guide for the analysis of Shakespeare on film. Starting with an introduction to the main challenge faced by any director--the early-modern language--there follows exemplars for examining how that challenge is met using as case studies twelve films most often used in classroom teaching, including Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and The Tempest.

The first chapter explores how a director can tell the story in a setting that embraces the expectations of realism in cinema, but still pays homage to the theatrical origins of the...