Three Witches - Other Representations - in Film

In Film

Orson Welles created a film version of the play in 1948, sometimes called the Übermensch Macbeth, which altered the witches' roles by having them create a voodoo doll of Macbeth in the first scene. Critics take this as a sign that they control his actions completely throughout the film. Their voices are heard, but their faces are never seen, and they carry forked staves as dark parallels to the Celtic cross. Welles' voiceover in the prologue calls them "agents of chaos, priests of hell and magic." At the end of the film, when their work with Macbeth is finished, they cut off the head of his voodoo doll.

Throne of Blood, a Japanese version filmed in 1958 by Akira Kurosawa, replaces the Three Witches with the Forest Spirit, an old hag who sits at her spinning wheel, symbolically entrapping Macbeth's Japanese equivalent, Washizu, in the web of his own ambition. She lives outside "The Castle of the Spider's Web", another reference to Macbeth's entanglement in her trap. Roman Polanski's 1971 film version of Macbeth contained many parallels to his personal life in its graphic and violent depictions. His wife Sharon Tate had been murdered two years earlier by Charles Manson and three women. Many critics saw this as a clear parallel to Macbeth's murders at the urging of the Three Witches within the film.

Scotland, PA, a 2001 parody directed by Billy Morrissette, sets the play in a restaurant in modern Pennsylvania. The witches are replaced by three hippies on marijuana who give Joe McBeth drug-induced suggestions and prophecies throughout the film using a Magic 8-Ball. After McBeth has killed Duncan, one of them suggests, "I've got it! Mac should kill McDuff's entire family!" Another hippie responds, "Oh, that'll work! Maybe a thousand years ago. You can't go around killing everybody."

Geoffrey Wright's 2006 Macbeth takes place in the midst of a modern Australian gang and drug culture. The Three Witches are replaced by three teenage goth schoolgirls who are knocking down headstones in a graveyard in the opening scene. They whisper their prophecies in Macbeth's ear as they dance in a deserted nightclub joined by his wife, urging him to murder in order to gain power.

Vishal Bharadwaj's 2004 film Maqbool takes place in the setting of warring gangs in the Bombay underworld. The Three Witches are replaced by two corrupt policemen, who don't just pronounce prophecies but also actively shape events in order to 'balance forces'.