Macbeth

 Posted on July 23, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  731 words  |  Martina Birk

Welles' idea of Shakespeare is such a personalized version. Production was comparatively inexpensive # and looks it. Mood is as dour as the Scottish moors and crags that background the plot. Film is crammed with scenery-chewing theatrics in the best Shakespearean manner with Welles dominating practically every bit of footage.

Welles’ idea of Shakespeare is such a personalized version. Production was comparatively inexpensive # and looks it. Mood is as dour as the Scottish moors and crags that background the plot. Film is crammed with scenery-chewing theatrics in the best Shakespearean manner with Welles dominating practically every bit of footage.

Only a few of the Bard’s best lines are audible. The rest are lost in strained, dialectic gibbering that is only sound, not prose. At best, Shakespeare dialog requires close attention; but even intense concentration can’t make intelligible the reading by Welles and others in the cast [who adopt Scottish accents].

Macbeth, the play, devotes considerable time to depicting femme influence on the male to needle his vanity and ambition into murder for a kingdom. Macbeth, the film, devotes that footage to the male’s reaction to the femme needling. Several Shakespeare characters have been turned into a Welles-introduced one, a Holy Father.

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Welles introduces Jeanette Nolan as Lady Macbeth. Her reading is best in the ‘out, damned spot’ scene. Dan O’Herlihy fares best as Macduff, his reading having the clearest enunciation.

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Macbeth

  • Production: Republic/Mercury. Director Orson Welles; Producer Richard Wilson (assoc.); Screenplay Orson Welles; Camera John L. Russell; Editor Louis Lindsay; Music Jacques Ibert; Art Director Fred Ritter
  • Crew: (B&W) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1948. Running time: 106 MIN.
  • With: Orson Welles Jeanette Nolan Dan O'Herlihy Roddy McDowall Edgar Barrier Alan Napier

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