The first thing that needs to be said is that Orson Welles makes quite a few changes: he removes blocks of text (making the film 107 minutes), reassigns lines to other speakers or moves them around, adds an element of voodoo to the witches, brings them back at the end of the film, depicts things that happen off-stage in Shakespeare’s play (such as Lady Macbeth’s suicide), lets some characters appear in scenes in which they aren’t present in the play (such as Macbeth in the sleepwalking scene), and so on.
The most significant changes are to do with the character of Lady Macbeth. In the play, we can see that right from the beginning, Lady Macbeth thinks of murder in abstract terms and isn’t as strong as she seems—that’s why she has to summon spirits to “Unsex me here/ And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direct cruelty”, that’s why she doesn’t do the killing herself and tries to justify it to herself—Lady Macbeth starts to break when she realises the enormity of what they have done. Macbeth and his wife gradually lose their minds as they’re further and further stepped in blood, and suffer torments of hell whilst on earth.
In the 1948 film, Welles establishes a closer relationship between Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff, and has both the Macbeths present when the Macduff family is getting killed. It seems as though the horrors of watching Lady Macduff and the children getting murdered are the final thing that pushes Lady Macbeth over the edge.
This is an interesting choice and could work, if not for Jeanette Nolan. Judi Dench spoils you for other performances, but Jeanette Nolan really is not good as Lady Macbeth and has no intensity in her performance—after all, it’s her film debut. I can’t help wondering what Vivien Leigh would have done with the role, as she was Welles’s first choice though he didn’t ask her because he thought Laurence Olivier would not support it. And Vivien Leigh was a Shakespearean actress.
As for Orson Welles as Macbeth, he’s quite good. He’s not on the level of Ian McKellen (who is?), but he’s conflicted, tortured, tormented—much better than Denzel Washington in the 2021 film.
One thing I find particularly interesting about the film is its clear influence on Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. Both films are in B&W; Welles’s film is in a studio and looks like a stage, Coen’s is filmed on a soundstage; both films take the expressionistic approach and embrace artifice; both films play with shadows, smoke, and water. Any more comparison would be unjust to Welles and his crew, as they had a relatively small budget and shot everything in 23 days, but I do think the atmosphere of the film is good. They make up for it with the use of sound.
Overall, this is an interesting film, with sadly a weak Lady Macbeth.
Blogger has not let me comment anywhere but on Tom's blog for weeks now. What's up with that, Blogger?
ReplyDeleteI have not seen the Welles film, but now I'm interested. I think Macbeth can absorb some changes to the text; the core of the story is pretty powerful, at least in the right hands. But who can compete with Judy Dench? Have you seen "Chimes at Midnight," about Falstaff? I have not yet, but it's on my list.
We just (well, two weeks ago maybe) finished off the Russian 1962 or whenever film of "War and Peace." It became less like the novel and more a pro-Russia adaptation in the final third, which was pretty unsatisfying. Though Petya's brief scenes were beautiful and heartbreaking. I'm glad they didn't screw those up. The movie ends with Napoleon retreating on the road back to Paris; the real ending, with the two couples talking about the future and how loyalty to the Tsar might come into play, is missing. So a mixed bag, but the ball and battle scenes were amazing. Literal casts of thousands in the battles, herds of riderless horses running rampant, total chaos. Amazing.
I haven't seen Chimes at Midnight, but yes, it's on my list.
DeleteHimadri says the Bordachuk film is epic, but the BBC version with Anthony Hopkins is much better at portraying the characters and their relationships, so I think I'm going to see the BBC one first.
I will also watch the Bordachuk one though, now that it's available for free on youtube. In 4K.
I visited this blog post because I had just seen Ralph Fiennes as Macbeth, so just wanna let you know that I have seen and blogged about Chimes at Midnight and Bondarchuk's War and Peace.
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