Customer Reviews

Macbeth (Educational DVD)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I recently purchased this DVD. As a new teacher, I found this to be an exciting, dynamic and engaging teaching tool. The performances helped my students understand the text and the interactive menus and DVD-ROM extras made my life easy...lesson plans, quizzes...a literary terms glossary! The commentary was also very helpful. I highly recommend this to both students and teachers alike.

This is awful. I was literally embarrassed for the people involved in this.

Using modern costumes can work with Shakespeare. But this was absurd. It's insulting to kids to think that they can't sit through scenes of Macbeth unless it's performed like this. For goodness' sake, Macbeth wrote his letter to Lady Macbeth on a laptop. Can this work? It can, but it didn't. My students ridiculed this version, especially when Macbeth was looking through vertical blinds to see the English army advancing...

The acting is the worst acting I have ever seen anywhere. Lady Macbeth barely can read her lines.

Half the time they pronounce it "McBeth" and half the time "Macbeth." (The latter is preferred.)

The witches were annoying to the point of being unwatchable. The scene with them feeding each other bloody (animal?) parts was gratuitous and disgusting.

Another insult to kids is the idea that they can't sit through a video unless it has flashy graphics. Shakespeare's audience did ok without MTV-style flashes and effects--I think kids can handle it, too. It was just plain annoying. And the graphics were cheesey! It's an assault on the eyes to be watching this. It looked more like it was filmed in a disco.

Or should I say videotaped, and with horrible quality.

Also, almost every scene in Macbeth takes place in darkness or stormy weather, and on a heath on Scotland. This was filmed in the desert somewhere, with bright sunlight in the scenes.

I think it's fine that not every scene is included, but why not include the banquet scene?

Don't waste your money. Write letters instead to Kenneth Branaugh begging him to make an updated movie.

This DVD helped me pass a test on Macbeth. It is the best!

I found this to be an excellent condensed version of the play. I've never seen a DVD like this. It has a wonderful feature that allows you to jump to the text of the scene you are watching to look up words and phrases and back again. The video commentary is very insightful and useful. The DVD ROM extras are well thought out and organized. This thing is like a 21st century "Cliff's notes". Great for anyone studying this play in a literature class.

This DVD was so useful and I thought the acting was just great. It was easy to understand the text of the play, and we all know Shakespeare isn't always easy to learn. Thanks for creating this wonderful tool; I hope you make more.

I am studing this play ina class for school and I bought this DVD. It has a ton of stuff in it that makes this play really easy to understand. The interactive text is way cool. You can look up words on the DVD while you are watching it. I liked that it was modern too. The acting is really good. I totally understood it

Wow. This is a great DVD. The acting is excellent and the extras are mind-blowing. Why aren't there more of these?

This DVD is so cool! I was having a hard time understanding Macbeth so I went online to see if I could get some help. Someone on a chat line told me about this DVD and I am so glad. I learned so much and it even had great extras for teaching (which I shared with my teacher). My older sister said she wished she had something like this to help her understand Macbeth. Hope they make more of these!

I bought this DVD to help me learn Macbeth and it was really good. I liked that it was modern. I also liked all the DVD-ROM extras.

Although the production of this video is a little weak, I have to say that some of the acting is great and the educational extras we're pretty helpful in teaching this play to my class.