MEN OF RESPECT
(1991)
William Reilly (director, writer)
BEFORE THE FILM
1. What happens when a play is moved to another place and/or time?
How much of the story is locked into a time or place?
Does Macbeth work as a play when moved to the 20th century as Men of Respect?
2. How much of the story has to remain the same to be seen as the “same” story or “adapted from”. How does this relate to genre?
3. How much like the Shakespeare version is this?
How much like the Kurosawa?
4. How are supernatural/psychological elements depicted?
5. Turning the play into a “gangster” type film allows for filmic borrowings from other genres. Can you spot them?
1. What happens when a play is moved to another place and/or time?
West Side Story – ghetto with no drugs?
2. How much of the story has to remain the same to be seen as the “same” story or “adapted from”. How does this relate to genre?
Prophesy of coming power
Name similarities are deliberate since they have little meaning to the story. Keeping them is reference to original:
Genres are major “abstractions” from many plays showing what they share in common, Generally not enough to be the same story or adapted from a story but sharing key thematic materials
3. How much like the Shakespeare version is this?
Lack of introspective conversation.
Much told with camera. Major soliloquies are missing.
Witches => gypsy fortune teller (with husband and friend makes three)
Filmic Additions:
There are several instances of slow motion in the film. When are they? How might they be interpreted?
Macbeth has some time to grieve over wife’s death
Film tells story – newspaper story about MacDuff wife and kid in bomb
Standard Questions:
4. How are supernatural elements depicted?
5. Macbeth when updated allows for borrowings from both gangster films of the 30’s and the film noir films that began in the 40’s.
How are the prophesies handled to make them work in NYC?
How much of the story is locked into a time or place?
Rigoletto moved to Manhattan underworld “Need to disguise girl as boy” Why?
Men of Respect seems to work. The questions of social structure needed are present both in the gangster world as well as they were in feudal Japan.
Husband and wife team who are ambitious – wife more so
Psychological implications about prophecies being fulfillment of something already there
Prophesy of charmed life and what appear to be impossible conditions to be met for death of protagonist.
Psychological manifestations of guilt in both parties.
Death of the husband and wife team – he by fulfilling the prophecy and she by suicide.
Set of oppositions marked by “fair is foul and foul is fair”
Mikey Battaglia (case says MB) Macbeth
Matt Duffy= MacDuff
D'Amico=Duncan
Banky Como=Banquo
Philly Como=Fleance
Carmelo Rossi=Ross
How much like the Kurosawa?
Time period is different. Reilly focuses on personal aspects. Adds new dimensions about Macbeth’s aborted child, indicates some reasons for Ruth’s guilt manifestations (sleep walking changing linen etc. (discovery that MacDuff’s wife and kids were killed. Perhaps reminds her of abortion)
Birnam Wood => fireworks (stars fall from sky)
Attempt to seize country => Gang war
Letter scene=>telephone
Fair is foul weather => weather report on radio
Mixing of potion by witches of disgusting things=>preparation of sheep’s head on TV
Swords=>pistols and other firearms
Dagger of the mind =>drops of blood from ceiling (see Angel Heart)
Hand washing=> changing table linen, washing hands, cleaning tub
Use of mirrors – duplicity
Reflections of noir:
Mirrors indicate duplicity here too. Fortune tellers speak of being two faced – the one we show the world and a darker hidden one. Mirrors often show 2 faces in the film.
Opposition tied to “fair is foul and foul is fair”
Shadows across face often indicative of entrapment.
Shots of Mikey’s face have half in darkness half in light.
Banquo “butchered” in butcher shop
One standard problem– why does Lady Macbeth (Ruth), who manages to get through the banquet scene with the ghosts without any problems, suddenly start to crack? How does this film deal with that?
Witches are downplayed (No show of many generations)
Banquo’s ghost is visible. Sometimes.
Blood on Ruthie’s hands?
Dagger? (drops of blood from the ceiling)