Search

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth has had a considerable number of screen adaptations. The legendary Scottish thane has been since played by many actors as diverse in their portrayal as the adaptations themselves have been diverse in their contextualization of the plot and accentuation of certain aspects of the originals. Mark Brozel’s adaptation follows a contemporary perspective on Macbeth, removed from the medieval Scottish realm to a three star Michelin restaurant. The adaptation thus substitutes the title role of a blood-thirsty warrior into that of a no less ambitious masterchef. In this manner, Brozel’s adaptation tackles the issues Shakespeare addressed centuries ago albeit in the context of the 21st century. These issues examine the interplay of power and fate. Brozel problematises the classical play from our contemporary viewpoint. Issues of bloodshed, motherhood, ambition, waste, and alienation intertwine into a general defamiliorization of reality. The cultural-materialist interpretative approach to this work has proven as the most appropriate key to comparatively reflect on the original and Brozel’s adaptation, as it emphasizes Shakespeare’s modus operandi (thanks to which Macbeth so intensely lives to his present day) that makes it impossible to separate the narrative away from its sociopolitical context.

The portrayal of Caliban from The Tempest is a prototypical example of representing the other in Shakespeare. He is described as a savage and deformed slave who is also a monster, a strange fish whose smell is awful and a commodity that could earn his owners a lot of money when exhibited as a freak back home in England. The language employed by colonial discourse in The Tempest portrays Caliban as inhuman and this makes his unjust treatment justified by the colonizer. He is repeatedly described using metaphors of earth (as Ariel is given metaphors of air). Thus Caliban is portrayed as earthy – coarse, heavy and crass. However here is depth to his character. He is aware of the history of the island and that his mother held it first, making him its true heir. He is also resentful that Prospero and Miranda have tried to impose their language and culture onto him as well as sexually uninhibited in that he had tried to rape Miranda. His resentfulness of the burden that Prospero lays on him is so big that he ultimately rebels against him. As such Caliban is the quintessential other, and as such destined to be subjugated by his colonizer by the use of the colonizer’s language. He attempts to undermine Prospero’s authority and challenge the colonial rule over his island.