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Scotland, PA

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

Scotland, PA is a 2001 American black comedy crime film written and directed by Billy Morrissette as a modernized retelling of Macbeth.[1] 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,[2] centered on "Duncan's Cafe", a fast-food restaurant in the small town of Scotland, Pennsylvania. The film was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia.[3][4][5]

Scotland, PA
DVD cover for the film
Directed byBilly Morrissette
Screenplay byBilly Morrissette
Based onMacbeth
by William Shakespeare
Produced byRichard Shepard
Jonathan Stern
StarringMaura Tierney
James LeGros
Christopher Walken
CinematographyWally Pfister
Edited byAdam Lichtenstein
Music byAnton Sanko
Distributed byLot 47 Films
Release date
  • January 22, 2001 (2001-01-22) (Sundance)
Running time
104 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

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In 1975, Duncan's, a fast-food restaurant owned by Norm Duncan in the tiny hamlet of Scotland, Pennsylvania, hosts a variety of workers.[6][7] 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-through, and Mac realizes how profitable the drive-through 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

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Production

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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".[8][9] Morrissette completed the script in 1998.[8]

Press kit

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The press kit for the movie was printed in the form of a CliffsNotes booklet,[10] written by Professor David Linton of Marymount Manhattan College,[11] which is what Morrissette was reading when he was studying Shakespeare.

Music

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The soundtrack is made up of Bad Company songs[12] because, in Morrissette's words, "the band's catalogue was surprisingly inexpensive".

Reception

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Orlando Weekly called it "high-spirited", with "era-hopping giddiness"and "a rib-poking gambol".[13]

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 70’s pop culture".[14]

Movieguide called it "a hilarious, modern re-telling of William Shakespeare’s great tragic play" and a "morality tale".[15]

Salon.com called it "a one-note movie — the note being a smart-aleck adolescent's idea of a Shakespeare parody".[16]

SPLICEDwire called it "deliriously funny, fast and loose, accessible to the uninitiated, and full of surprises".[17]

Awards

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

Adaptation

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In 2019 it was announced that a musical adaptation would premiere Off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre by Roundabout Theatre Company.[18][3] 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.[19]

Further reading

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References

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  1. ^ Kehr, Dave (February 8, 2002). "AT THE MOVIES". The New York Times. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  2. ^ Fedderson & Richardson 2008, pp. 311–313.
  3. ^ a b "An Interview with Michael Mitnick, Adam Gwon, and Billy Morrissette". roundabouttheatre. November 6, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  4. ^ Druckenbrod, Andrew (March 8, 2002). "On Film: Highway 81 Revisited". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved February 25, 2023. Morrissette captured the essence of Pennsylvania's Scotland and the surrounding area without even filming there. The movie was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but it's such an accurate portrait that he surely must have stopped in Scotland at least once.
  5. ^ "Film and Televison [sic] Industry Booming". Film Development News Releases. Nova Scotia. March 8, 2001. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  6. ^ Bowman, James (February 7, 2002). "Scotland, PA". Ethics & Public Policy Center. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  7. ^ Sasser, Tyler (January 12, 2016). "Strode Shakespeare Film Series: Program Notes for 'Scotland, PA'". Nicholas Ryan Helms. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  8. ^ a b Holmes, Emory (February 3, 2002). "Toil and Trouble With Fries on the Side". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  9. ^ Malanowski, Jamie (February 3, 2002). "FILM; 'Macbeth,' Droll and Deep Fried". The New York Times. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  10. ^ Ebert 2002.
  11. ^ Burt 2003, pp. 20–21.
  12. ^ Lehmann 2003, pp. 245–247.
  13. ^ "Do fries go with that Shakespeare?". Orlando Weekly. March 7, 2002. Archived from the original on February 25, 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  14. ^ "Arnold Up Against Bruce". The New York Observer. February 18, 2002. Retrieved February 25, 2023. a trailer-trash version of Macbeth that should be avoided like an Elizabethan pox. Joe and Pat McBeth (James Le Gros and Maura Tierney) are a waitress and short-order cook in a greasy fast-food joint with ambitions to operate a traveling French-fry truck with chicken bits and dipping sauce. First they must murder Duncan, the owner, by frying him alive in deep fat. Not clever enough to be a satire and not creatively sound enough to be a viable revisionist drama, this grubby low-budget sendup of 70's pop culture
  15. ^ "SCOTLAND, PA". Movieguide. August 13, 2012. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  16. ^ Taylor, Charles (February 9, 2002). ""Scotland, PA"". Salon.com. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  17. ^ "'Scotland, PA' review (2002) Billy Morrissette, James LeGros, Christopher Walken, Maura Tierney". SPLICEDwire. 2003. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  18. ^ Ross, Steve (October 26, 2019). "He Says: Roundabout Gets Lost on its Way to Scotland, PA". Times Square Chronicles. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  19. ^ "'Scotland, PA' 2001 Cult Film Set for off Broadway Musical Adaptation". May 9, 2019.
  20. ^ "Logos & Littera: Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text". www.ll.ac.me. Retrieved February 25, 2023. The journal was founded in 2013 by the Institute of Foreign Languages, University of Montenegro.

Sources

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