Customer Reviews

Macbeth

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The good news? For his last Hollywood film of the 1940s, Orson Welles delivered a low-budget, inventive, expressionist Shakespeare adaptation that served as a template for his experimental European films. The bad news? Welles perhaps captures the eerie mood of "The Scottish Play" all too well; the film is an unrelentingly dark and often uncomfortable experience. The lugubrious pacing and indifferent acting offer little respite from the play's fatalism.

A little background helps one better appreciate this film. After a string of box office failures (including "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "The Lady from Shanghai"), Welles signed on with Republic Pictures to do a low-budget "Macbeth," hoping that he could popularize Shakespeare on film as he had done on radio and in the theatre. His actors rehearsed the play on tour, and painstakingly pre-recorded their dialogue in Scottish brogues. Welles then shot the film in 23 days, some kind of record for him. Well, you can guess what happened: The studio hated it. They forced Welles to cut 20 minutes from the film, and made the actors re-dub their dialogue with "normal" accents - wasting all that time they spent in pre-production. The film bombed on release and Welles spent the next 10 years working in Europe.

Years later, the original prints were found and released as another "Lost Welles Classic." Unfortunately, time has devalued that label; "Macbeth" doesn't quite meet the standard set by "Othello" or "Touch of Evil," two other films that were restored after Welles' death. While the Scottish accents are a nice touch, the extra running time actually robs the film of some momentum. Welles did wonders with the cheap Republic sets; the film is a masterpiece of expressionist set design. The same can't be said of the costumes, which make Welles look like the Statue of Liberty at one point. Constrained by having to sync their movements to pre-recorded dialogue, the actors deliver wooden performances (only the soliloquies, delivered in voice-over, resonate). Fortunately, the last twenty minutes are visually captivating and offer enough Wellesian moments to make the viewing worthwhile.

If Welles fails to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear - as he would later do with "Othello" and "Chimes of Midnight" - he succeeds in developing an expressionist style that he would later perfect with his bizarro masterpiece "The Trial." "Macbeth" isn't exactly an enjoyable movie experience; indeed, "returning were as tedious as go o'er." But for the Welles aficionado, "Macbeth" provides an essential link between Welles' Hollywood years and the independent style of his European work.

I own this film on VHS and on Laserdisc and I am hoping that it will soon come out on DVD. Certainly there are some technical problems with the production, but it is a 1948 film so some of that can be excused.

Welles vision of MacBeth has the texture and feel of a nightmare. The backdrops are unfinished, muddy charicatures of the objects and places they represent. Scotland is an eerie, nightmarish landscape that is constantly misty and partially unformed. The use of the b&w medium superbly creates a feeling of dread and foreboding in the audience who is drawn ever deeper into the madness of the story. This is vintage Welles, who loved to make the tone, timbre, hue and texture of every part of the movie relate to and support the story he was filming. Certainly the work of a genius.

Most people know the basic story. MacBeth (Which literally means "Son of Life"), is given a prophesy that he will become king of Scotland and tells his wife of the prophesy. Lady MacBeth then uses MacBeth's insecurities to manipulate him into murdering the true king and assuming his throne. Guilt-ridden and paranoid, MacBeth begins a reign of tyranny and sinks into madness. Finally, the English invade and end his reign of terror. MacBeth, who is shown as no more than a pawn in this story, finally gains a measure of grace and dignity when he faces MacDuff in combat. We finally see in death the couragous man MacBeth could have been - indeed was before he allowed his and his wife's greed to corrupt him - MacBeth rises above his fate and becomes master of his own destiny by crying-out the infamous phrase "Lead on MacDuff, and damn the man who first cries hold - enough".

All in all, I have been impressed with this film from the first time I viewed it and I do hope it comes soon to DVD.

A note on the soundtrack - In 1949 the studio refused to release this movie until Welles overdubbed the original Scottish Brogue with more traditional Shakespearian English-accented speech, arguing that the Scottish was unintelligible. I think the most important part of the reconstruction of this film is the return of the original Scottish soundtrack - It adds so much to the grittiness and the darkness of the movie. After two or three viewings, most of the dialog comes clear, so in the first viewing the accent is just a bit of an inconvenience.

Many have cited "Macbeth" as a horror story, and whether or not that's exactly true, Orson Welles' superior production is certainly an excursion into nightmare that even a Murnau would have envied. The sets and camerawork create a world of wet, windswept badlands and dark stone mazes in which it is difficult not to believe in witches and omens and where bloodletting indeed seems the order of the day. Though a low-budget production, Welles' movie never looks cheap and his mileu never less than convincing. Welles' own portrayal of the doomed protagonist is dead-on, and while Jeanette Nolan's performance as the scheming, hard-hearted Lady Macbeth is often harshly criticized, in many ways her vampiric interpretation of the character is unsurpassed. Likewise Roddy McDowall (Malcolm) and Dan O'Herlihy (Macduff) are definitive in their roles, and Alan Napier is strong as a "Holy Friar" who is the movie's conscience. An enrapturing cinematic experience from the Weird Sisters' mesmerizing invocation to the climactic siege of Macbeth's castle (featuring a great sword fight between Welles and O'Herlihy), Welles' "Macbeth" is classic moviemaking that will endure as long as darkness moves the hearts of men and women.

This production is not without some virtues, such as the eerie realism with which it presents the primitive, brutal, and pious texture of life in medieval Scotland. The sheer quietness that pervades most of the film evokes the isolation at the heart of this cruel drama. Unfortunately, these virtues are eclipsed by the arrogant stupidity with which Welles approaches the text. The most obvious fault is that he seems to find it necessary -- or at least justifiable -- to cut a passage from this scene and paste it in that scene. Never mind that this is presumptuous; if these transpositions worked better than the original, that would be one thing. But they don't. There's also no sense of real tension or focus; if you didn't know the story going in, you'd have a hard time following the action. The portrayal of Lady Macbeth makes her uninteresting, and merely hysterial, thus annoying. The Scottish accent is annoying, too; it just gets in the way. The whole thing is a colossal waste of 112 minutes, an exercise in self-indulgence for Welles, who apparently thinks he's even more of a genius than the author of Macbeth.

People talk about Citizen Kane, but they forget that Orson
Welles "wowwed them on Broadway" with his West Indies style
Macbeth, and then did it again with a modern-dress version
of S'spear's Julius Caesar. Orson Welles was practically born
performing Shakespeare, and his Shakespeare Trilogy, Macbeth
Othello, and Falstaff are his true greats. This Macbeth
is the first, an experiment really. A transition from
those fleeting stage dramas to the epic sweep of Othello
and Falstaff/Chimes at Midnight

Orson Welles tackles one of Shakespeares most bizarre tragedies. Filled with blood, hallucinations, revenge, villainy and three prophesizing witches, MACBETH borders on the fantastical. This production, however, seems to have been created with the intent of boasting efficiency. The film often uses natural lighting(read really dark), pre-existing sets from old westerns and extended film shots, severly limiting the number of shots needed to bring the tragedy to the screen. Welles uses his theatrical understanding to not only get into the soul of Macbeth, he also uses it in its staging. Quite often the film resembles a video taped play on PBS complete with performer shadows appearing on the "sky" backdrop. Then in the last 20 minutes of the film, we suddenly see some muscle as the prophecized wood marches toward battle and Macbeth's ultimate destination. The film is obviously a Welles creation. Even without the budget, it resembles CITIZEN KANE and even moreso OTHELLO. A pretty solid effort but not the greatest of film expereinces.

Can't say I really cared for this, though it did evoke plenty of atmosphere. I was reminded of G.K. Hunter's remark that Welles "set the play (evidently) in the sartorial reign of Genghis Khan." Combine that with the spooky disjointed music, the crags and rocks and deep shadows, and the unrelieved glowering and glaring of everyone, all on a restored black-and-white print, and you could turn "Oklahoma" into a downer, not to speak of this gloomy Scottish tragedy. The only bit of comic relief (pretty scant even when given its due) is the porter's scene, which was essentially cut entire.

Welles plays fast and loose with the order of speeches, who delivers them, and whether they are actually spoken. The real fun of the play, the witches, gets short shrift. Now, it is probably true that any performance of "Macbeth" requires some preparation by the audience. The fact is, the motivations in the early scenes are difficult to establish: Macbeth and his Lady seem to jump too quickly into planning Duncan's murder, and many of the characters are difficult to sort out without a preview. But this film exacerbates all that. And cutting the second scene, which establishes that Macbeth is a great warrior, leaves out an essential facet of his character. The banquet scene, in particular, was poorly done: where Macbeth should have alternated between conviviality and terror, gradually losing control, here he ONLY addresses the ghost(s), not the guests, and the scene loses its point as turning point.

I liked Jeannette Nolan as Lady Macbeth, though, and Orson did well as Macbeth; he has good Shakespearean delivery (I can't be sure right now, but I believe he dropped the Scots burr for the "tomorrow and tomorrow" speech). Roddy MacDowell as Malcolm was, alas, typical - a squeaky-voiced youth behind whom these booming masculine warriors presumably rally. But I think having everyone use broad Scots accents was a good touch: we can put up with a lot of unreality in the Bard, but not that the players sound American.

I love this play, and I usually love Welles, but this film doesn't do it for me. The loooong dramatic pauses and sing-song treatment of lines turn it into a reverent Recital Of Shakespeare - rather than the gorgeous, powerful, bloody, sexy, terrifying drama that it was meant to be. Let's recruit Julie Taymor to do this one right.

My only complaint about this movie is that some important scenes like the march of 8 kings followed by Banquo's ghost are deleted. But that is the only negative thing I can say about this. Welles is phenomenal as Macbeth. Macbeth (like Claudius from "Hamlet") is one of the most difficult roles to perform. He is bloody and ambitious. BUT, it is clear that he DOES have a conscience. It is also clear that Macbeth honestly regrets his actions and suffers for them. Nolan is OVER THE TOP as the evil and later remorseful Lady Macbeth. Edgar Barrier could have done better as King James' ancestor Banquo, but he does a fairly good job. O' Leary is excellent as Macduff. Duncan, Malcolm, and Siward are done fairly well. It is interesting that this movie portrays Lennox as a priest. (This provides an interesting insertion of good to contrast with the witches' evil.) The scenery, effects, and music are excellent (especially considering limited resources back then). Also, Welles does an excellent job of shifting scenes around to make more sense. Also interesting (one thing Shakespeare did not do) is the fact that Macbeth is haunted by Banquo's voice before he is confronted by his ghost. One thing I must personally commend Welles on is that rather than having Lady Macbeth's suicide reported by a very biased enemy, we actually see it, and we can feel sympathy for her remorseful character. While I feel some important scenes are deleted, Welles actually makes some improvements. I will say that the book and this movie are about equal.

Without a doubt Orson Welles is the perfect American compliment for William Shakespeare. Superbly directed and acted on a melancholy stage in haunting black and white, the poetic license with Shakespeare's Macbeth can be forgiven because of the intensity and brilliance with which this play is performed. There is a great supporting cast which includes Roddy McDowall that as in all ensemble productions draw the viewer into the play not as a witness - bystander but as a performer in concert with the actors. Welles of course was a genius, being one of those rare performers - entertainers who made the audience beg for more! I wish he had produced versions of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and other Shakespeare plays. Even if you already own a good version of Macbeth, you must have this version! Welles set the standard by which all others are measured.