"Hell is Murky":
Welles' Film Macbeth

April 19, 2006

I find it difficult to write about any Shakespearian production because it seems that I enter a tradition of staging and thematic emphasis that has taken on a life of its own. A scene may seem striking to me, but I hear a voice saying: "in stage versions it is always thus.."

The inevitable rival for the version of Macbeth by Orson Welles is the Hamlet done by Lawrence Olivier in the same year: 1948. both are black and white, and both are skillful as films, not simply as plays that happen to be filmed. Of course, Welles is battling with one arm tied behind his back, as his budget was so severely limited. But I think it would be fair to say that film style is far more intrusive in the experience of watching Macbeth than in Olivier's Hamlet. Welles gave us a murky and dank version of Macbeth, punctuated with screams and cries. Banquo's ghost does not shimmer in a haze of transparent white, but sits with blood dripping down his forehead. The blunt repeated stabbing of Macduff's son, with shrill music in background, is reminiscent of Hitchcock's Psycho. It is as if Welles intuited the style of horror films before they became an accepted genre.. This must have something to do with why Welles' Macbeth was a commercial and critical failure in the United States.. It fell too distant from any decorum of effect.. it was a horror movie.

Another helpful comparison is Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1961), a version of Macbeth which transports the play to Medieval Japan. In this version I was struck by the way Macbeth's actions spread like ripples in a pond to disturb a wide region. Through the use of landscape and travel one builds up a mental picture of that region, with its castles and forests. Macbeth is at the center of a widening rush of lawlessness and destruction, but this all gets out of Macbeth's hands quite quickly. In Welles' version the drama is securely settled on the person of Macbeth and his internal deliverance to darkness. There is no geography to learn beside the central castle (looking very much like Charles Foster Kane's mansion) and our belated introduction to the fact that there is a forest called Birnan out there. Now some of that, surely, goes back to the budget issues faced by Welles, but even with a large budget, I Welles would only have further highlighted the role of Macbeth himself.

Lady Macbeth (Jeanette Nolan) oddly falls prey to this central focus on Macbeth. In his interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Welles makes some revealing statements:

PB: Was Jeanette Nolan your original choice for Lady Macbeth?

OW: She's a fine actress—from our radio days—but, actually, no. Among several others, I wanted Vivien Leigh, but Olivier wouldn't hear of it.
PB: Why?

OW: I didn't ask him.
PB: Why did you want her?
OW: I wanted a sexpot, Peter—and she could speak the lines

So Lady Macbeth was interesting to Welles not because of her psychological manipulation, but because of the rather raw sexual tug exerted on her "Man." To understand her role in this film you have to take quite seriously the kisses and the attraction. Unfortunately, Welles was working with an actor, and not a sexpot.. and it is tough to believe that raw attraction.

Another thematic element added by Welles is the importance of Christian symbols. It is no accident that the forces which come at the end to depose Macbeth carry crosses among their spears, and that the cross sits conspicuously on the helmets of their leaders. Although the Christian religion is at first present in the castle of Macbeth, it is driven out by the dark power of Macbeth.. and not re-established until the end. Welles himself commented on this theme:

The main point of that production is the struggle between the old and new religions. I saw the witches as representatives of a Druidical pagan religion suppressed by Christianity—itself a new arrival. That's why the long prayer of St. Michael (not in Shakespeare at all)—that's why the screen is constantly choked with Celtic crosses.

That struggle centers in the internal world of Macbeth.. who finally delivers himself entirely to the lust for power and control. The film is most effective in the combination of Welles' acting as Macbeth and the films dark angles and murky settings. The high point may be Welles' narration of Macbeth's great lines near the end, with dark layers of clouds drifting slowly on the screen: "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.."