Scotland, PA

This article is about the 2001 film. For the community in Pennsylvania, see Scotland, Pennsylvania.

Scotland, PA
DVD cover for the film
Directed by	Billy Morrissette
Screenplay by	Billy Morrissette
Based on	Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Produced by	Richard Shepard Jonathan Stern
Starring	Maura Tierney James LeGros Christopher Walken
Cinematography	Wally Pfister
Edited by	Adam Lichtenstein
Music by	Anton Sanko
Distributed by	Lot 47 Films
Release date	January 22, 2001 (2001-01-22) (Sundance)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Scotland, PA is a 2001 American black comedy crime film written and directed by Billy Morrissette as a modernized retelling of Macbeth. The film stars James LeGros, Maura Tierney, and Christopher Walken. The Shakespearean tragedy, originally set in Dunsinane Castle in 11th-century Scotland, is reworked into a dark comedy set in 1975, centered on "Duncan's Cafe", a fast-food restaurant in the small town of Scotland, Pennsylvania. The film was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Plot

In 1975, Duncan's, a fast-food restaurant owned by Norm Duncan in the tiny hamlet of Scotland, Pennsylvania, hosts a variety of workers. Joe “Mac” McBeth is passed over for a promotion to manager by Douglas McKenna, who has been embezzling the restaurant's money. Three stoned hippies, one a fortune teller, inform Mac that they see a bank drive-thru style restaurant in his future as management. Mac and his wife Pat then play informants on McKenna, and Duncan recognizes the value of Mac's efforts on behalf of the restaurant. Duncan shares with the McBeths his plans to turn his failing burger joint into a drive-thru, and Mac realizes how profitable the drive-thru could be, after which Duncan is hit in the head with a refrigerator door and passes out briefly. Pat then decides to murder Duncan in a staged robbery. Mac and Pat attack Duncan to acquire the combination to the restaurant's safe, and Mac assaults Duncan, but is distracted by a vision of the three hippies, allowing Duncan to fall head first into a deep fryer that splatters and burns Pat's hand. Investigator McDuff arrests a local homeless man, to whom Pat has given Duncan's jewelry, and the restaurant is willed to Duncan's eldest son, Malcolm. Malcolm sells the restaurant to the McBeths who immediately realize Mac's ideas, and the restaurant's business takes off.

Investigator McDuff returns to Scotland, where the homeless man is cleared, and the McBeths focus their attention on Malcolm. Banko, Mac's friend, questions why Mac had never mentioned the drive-thru concept. Mac grows withdrawn and paranoid and on a hunting trip contemplates killing off Banko, but a vision of the three hippies dressed as deer distracts him. Pat becomes obsessed with her burn injury and accuses people of staring at her repulsive-looking hand, though no scar is visible. Mac then kills Banko with the homeless man's gun, and the body is discovered while new celebrity Mac gives a press conference. Mac calls on an hallucination of Banko to ask a question at the press conference and loses his sanity as the town watches on TV. He then returns to the woods to look for the hippies while Pat becomes deluded into thinking her hand is falling off. Mac then completely loses his sanity, answering and talking on the phone when no one is on the other end. In one conversation, the hippies suggest he kill McDuff's family. Mac grabs the sheriff's gun and orders the officer to call McDuff to the restaurant, where he then shoots McDuff, but the gun proves to be empty. They then wrestle for the inspector's gun on the roof of the restaurant and both fall off. Mac is impaled on the horns of his car. Pat self-medicates with alcohol, but then cuts her hand off and bleeds to death. McDuff takes over the restaurant, fulfilling his dream of working with food.

Cast

• James Le Gros as Joe 'Mac' McBeth, Macbeth
• Maura Tierney as Pat McBeth, Lady Macbeth
• Christopher Walken as Lieutenant McDuff, Macduff
• Kevin Corrigan as Anthony 'Banko' Banconi, Banquo
• James Rebhorn as Norm Duncan, Duncan
• Tom Guiry as Malcolm Duncan, Malcolm
• Amy Smart as Stacy (Hippie #1), Three Witches
• Timothy Levitch as Hector (Hippie #2), Three Witches
• Andy Dick as Jesse (Hippie #3), Three Witches
• Billy Morrissette as man walking his dog in front of the diner at the start of the film

Production

In South Windsor, Connecticut, his hometown, "I (Morrissette) was 16 and worked at Dairy Queen, and I hated my boss. I had read 'Macbeth' that same year and started telling people that this play would be hysterical if it took place in a fast food restaurant and everyone in the restaurant is named Mac". Morrissette completed the script in 1998.

Press kit

The press kit for the movie was printed in the form of a CliffsNotes booklet, written by Professor David Linton of Marymount Manhattan College, which is what Morrissette was reading when he was studying Shakespeare.

Music

The soundtrack is made up of Bad Company songs because, in Morrissette's words, "the band's catalogue was surprisingly inexpensive".

Reception

Orlando Weekly called it "high-spirited", with "era-hopping giddiness"and "a rib-poking gambol".

The New York Observer called it "a trailer-trash version of Macbeth that should be avoided like an Elizabethan pox" and "grubby low-budget sendup of 70s pop culture".

Movieguide called it "a hilarious, modern re-telling of William Shakespeare's great tragic play" and a "morality tale".

Salon.com called it "a one-note movie — the note being a smart-aleck adolescent's idea of a Shakespeare parody".

SPLICEDwire called it "deliriously funny, fast and loose, accessible to the uninitiated, and full of surprises".

Awards

The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001.

Adaptation

In 2019 it was announced that a musical adaptation would premiere Off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre by Roundabout Theatre Company. The musical, directed by Lonny Price, features book by Michael Mitnick, music and lyrics by Adam Gwon, and choreography by Josh Rhodes. It starred Ryan McCartan, Taylor Iman Jones, Megan Lawrence, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Jeb Brown, Lacretta, Will Meyers, Alysha Umphress, Kaleb Wells, and David Rossmer.

Further reading

• Rippy, Marguerite. "A Fastfood Shakespeare" The Chronicle of Higher Education 19 Apr. 2002: B16.
• Jess, Carolyn. "Review of Scotland, PA. Directed by Billy Morrissette. Lot 47, 2001." Early Modern Literary Studies 10.1 (May, 2004): 18.1-5 ISSN 1201-2459
• Pittman, L Monique (2004). "Deep-Fried American Dream: Macbeth Under the Heat Lamp in Scotland". Popular Culture Association Conference. ResearchGate.
• Deitchman, Elizabeth. 2006, "White Trash Shakespeare: Taste, Morality, and the Dark Side of the American Dream in Billy Morrissette's Scotland, PA." Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 2, 2006, pp. 140–46. Salisbury University JSTOR 43797269.
• Brown, Eric C. 2006, "Shakespeare, Class, and ‘Scotland, PA.’" Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 147–53. Salisbury University JSTOR 43797270
• Hoefer, Anthony D. 2006, "The McDonaldization of ‘Macbeth’: Shakespeare and Pop Culture in ‘Scotland, PA.’" Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 154–60. Salisbury University JSTOR 43797271.
• Marina Gerzic. 2008 "The intersection of Shakespeare and popular culture: an intertextual examination of some millennial Shakespearean film adaptations (1999–2001), with special reference to music" (Doctoral Thesis, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia)
• Sutliff-Benusis, Alicia Anne (December 31, 2011). Based on Shakespeare: Twenty-First Century American Film Adaptations of Shakespeare. University of Kansas. hdl:1808/9704. Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation, English
• Moore, George. 2017. "Macbeth Goes to Carnival: Otium and Economic Determinism in Scotland, PA." Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 3, Salisbury University JSTOR 48678558
• Wiehe, Jarred (December 13, 2017). "Queer Slackers in Billy Morrissette's Scotland, PA". Shakespeare Bulletin. 35 (4): 575–597. doi:10.1353/shb.2017.0045. S2CID 194763515.
• M. Beyad; M. Javanian. (2018) "Fair is foul, and foul is fair”: A carnivalesque approach to Justin Kurzel and Billy Morrissette's cinematic adaptations of William Shakespeare's Macbeth" Logos et Littera ISSN 2336-9884. Published by: Faculty of Philology - University of Montenegro (10.31902).
• Gearhart, Stephannie S. (March 1, 2020). "'These are modern times': Nostalgia and the adaptation of history in Billy Morrissette's Scotland, PA". Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance. 13 (1): 23–35. doi:10.1386/jafp_00010_1. S2CID 218850709. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
• Jess-Cooke, Carolyn (February 15, 2022). "9 Screening the McShakespeare in Post-Millennial Shakespeare Cinema". In Burnett, Mark Thornton (ed.). Screening Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 163–184. doi:10.1515/9780748630080. ISBN 978-0-7486-3008-0. S2CID 246938760.

Sources

• Burt, Richard (2003). "Shakespeare, 'Glo-cali-zation,' Race, and the Small Screens of Post-Popular Culture". In Burt, Richard; Boose, Lynda E. (eds.). Shakespeare, the Movie II: Popularizing the Plays on Film, TV, Video, and DVD. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 14–36. ISBN 0-415-28299-3.
• Ebert, Roger (February 15, 2002). "Scotland, PA". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved June 19, 2018.
• Fedderson, Kim; Richardson, J. Michael (2008). "Macbeth: Recent Migrations of the Cinematic Brand". In Moschovakis, Nick (ed.). Macbeth: New Critical Essays. Shakespeare Criticism. Vol. 32. New York: Routledge. pp. 300–317. ISBN 978-0-203-93070-0.
• Lehmann, Courtney (2003). "Out Damned Scot: Dislocating Macbeth in transnational film and media culture". In Burt, Richard; Boose, Lynda E. (eds.). Shakespeare, the Movie II: Popularizing the Plays on Film, TV, Video, and DVD. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 231–251. ISBN 0-415-28299-3.

External links

• Scotland, PA at IMDb
• Scotland, PA at Rotten Tomatoes