Il Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:47:01 +0200, Benedetto Zaccaria
xxxx.com> ha scritto:

Ho sempre creduto che avesse girato nei carrugi genovesi ! (quale
posto migliore ???!!!)
Invece non fu cosi. Ti riporto il parere del dott. Kevin Hagopian
della Universita di Pensilvania. E' esauriente.
Piccola curiosità : Ti studi Macbeth perchè hai intenzione di
concludere....in maniera così cruenta? :-))
Ho fatto i calcoli e ho scoperto che sei più vecchio TE !!

QUOTE :

Location shooting in Wales consumed four weeks. The weather there was
wretched, and the film's gray, rainswept look mirrored Polanski's
continuing depression during the filming. As always, he sought
catharsis for his inner turmoil in actions both grotesque and cryptic.
On Hefner's birthday, for instance, Polanski sent Hefner a short film
of three aged naked women, intended to evoke MACBETH's witches,
singing "Happy Birthday, Dear Hef." He was ruthless to his actors,
muscling them about, japing them pitilessly, seeking a control over
the filmic world that had eluded him offscreen. Critics of MACBETH
were amazed at its torrent of violence and cruelty, and indeed,
Polanski drags much of the offstage mayhem in the play into audience
view. Still, MACBETH, for all its depravity, was less violent, less
ironic, and less shadowed by evil—by far—than Polanski's own life had
been since his earliest days. For a man who had known the depredations
of Hitler, Stalin, and Charles Manson quite intimately, the intrigues
of Cawdor looked delicate by comparison.

Polanski lost himself in the shooting, finding in the freezing winds
of Wales and the closed world of Shepperton studios the kind of
crowded solitude he preferred. He seemed loath to surrender his
hard-won mastery, and the film began to run alarmingly over budget. By
the time shooting was over, he had spent ten extra weeks and $600,000
more than the film's small budget. The film would still manage to lose
3.5 million dollars. Hefner stood by Polanski, providing him with more
money and intervening for him in a dispute with the completion bond
company which threatened to halt shooting. In gratitude, Polanski gave
a pre-opening interview at Hefner's London Playboy Club. He began by
ostentatiously sending back his meal as inedible and finished by
mocking Hefner's generosity. The whole thing, from the overcooked
trout almondine to the insults, made the Evening Standard.

It got worse. The film opened in February 1971, in a misguided attempt
to showcase Playboy's hipness and its aspirations to high society
respectability at the same time. The event was a full-dress benefit
for spina bifida and hydrocephaly victims, a singularly inappropriate
association with a film like MACBETH. As squadrons of Playboy Bunnies
served cocktails, Lownes introduced Polanski to Princess Anne, the
event's royal sponsor. Looking closely at Anne's famously long face,
Polanski joked, "I'll never make another film with horses in it."
Lownes's friendship with Polanski was at an end. Angrily, he returned
a cherished gift to Polanski, the life-sized gold penis Polanski had
modeled for during happier days. Lownes wrote that "I'm sure you'll
have no difficulty finding some friend you can shove it up."

Meanwhile, the film lost money precipitously. Polanski was unwilling
to participate in the publicity effort at all, preferring to lose
himself in work on a tiny documentary on Grand Prix driver Jackie
Stewart. It made no difference, for it seemed no one wanted to see a
Shakespearean film, a horror film, or a documentary in 1971, and
MACBETH was all three. Polanski's MACBETH, wrote one critic, was "a
world flooded with blood." It was, in a manner of speaking, Polanski's
blood. When it came time to shoot the murder of Lady Macduff and her
children, the cast and crew were edgy, nervous, aware of the tragic
resonances the scene would have for Polanski. Instead, they found him
eerily calm, apparently reconciled to a fate that condemned him to
relive his worst agonies in order to make his greatest art. As he
wiped fake blood on a child actress, Polanski did not even seem
surprised to find out that her name was Sharon. When Terence Bayler,
the film's Macduff, argued with Polanski over the character's reaction
to the massacre, Polanski quietly ended the dispute, saying, "No,
you'll do it this way. I know."

— Kevin Hagopian, Penn State University

UNQUOTE