Welcome to SPACE, our adult continuing education program which offers interactive monthly courses for personal enrichment! Learn more here.

Discussion-based
In this course, we’ll watch and discuss three different cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare’s "Macbeth": Roman Polanski’s classic take on this tragedy (1971); Akira Kurosawa’s acclaimed Japanese adaptation, Kumonosu-jō (English title: Throne of Blood , 1957); and the recent innovated interpretation by Joel Cohen (2021), starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. We will also consult reviews and scholarly articles on Shakespeare cinema generally and these films in particular.

This module is structured so that 3 of the 8 meetings will serve as “movie nights” where the class will watch the films together as group. Admittedly, these meetings will be longer than an hour, so attendance beyond the hour is optional, of course. After a General Introduction (Meeting 1), Meeting 2 will serve as the “movie night” for Polanski's adaptation, followed by discussion of the film in Meeting 3. We follow this pattern for the Kurosawa version (Meetings 4 & 5) and the Cohen version (Meetings 6 & 7), before ending with a look back at all three versions (Meeting 8).

Required Texts

Students should have access to the following films: Roman Polanski's Macbeth (1971); Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1957); Joel Cohen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). (Since Signum is not sharing copyrighted material, everyone can watch from their own tv or computer, but we sync up the start in order to watch together.
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Iterations

June 2024 Confirmed

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If you have any questions about the SPACE program, please reach out to [email protected].