Reciting the prayer of Saint Michael, this new character interrogates the struggle between the old and new religions. For instance, he very conspicuously challenges Christianity, or even religion in general, with his addition of a character called “the Holy Man”. Welles gracefully poses these many questions with great intention. Just as the characters are swathed in shadow, the film’s themes of immoral aspirations and dreams are also obscured by unanswered questions. This production design - made up of the remains of Hollywood western sets - has the imposing, mysterious likeness of illustrators M. The camera’s low-angle positionings further this theme of darkness, frequently depicting the characters against the looming grey skies above them. Almost everyone and everything in this film is shrouded in such trouble and darkness. Up in the clouds, where winter tree branches quake and where deceit and regret run wild, Macbeth and the Queen are always very evidently troubled. Welles himself described the story as “a perfect cross between Wuthering Heights and Bride of Frankenstein.” Nothing less is achieved in the striking cinematography and bold, ghostly performances by Welles himself, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O’Herlihy, Roddy McDowall and Edgar Barrier as they pace through dimly lit caves and in castle corners.
Visually, the film flourishes by eerily drifting through a wasteland of royalty and witches perched atop foggy rock cliffs. In Welles’s film, the wind is always whipping through the mountain ridges of the Scottish Isle. The performances in Welles’s film have yet to be matched in subsequent renditions and without it as a reference, today’s interpretations would certainly be at a disadvantage. With over a century of Macbeth films to analyze, there is still something significant to be said for Orson Welles’s 1948 classic retelling of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. Among the most notable adaptations are the Indian crime drama revamp Maqbool, set in modern day Mumbai from director Vishal Bhardwaj, Roman Polanski’s grandiose 1971 rendition, Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 Samurai reconstruction Throne of Blood, and director Justin Kurzel’s take on the Macbeth story just last year. By Kai Nealis William Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been adapted for the screen nearly 25 times in one way or another since its first short, silent rendition in 1908 by James Stuart Blackton.
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