Type of bind: DVD
EAN num: 0889046777189
Format: Black & White, Full Screen, Import, NTSC
Region Code: 0.0
Running Time: 107 unknown-units
Sale Popularity Level: 15816
Theatrical Release Date: 1948
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Rated by buyers 
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The only thing I didn't like about this version was that it doesn't have a menu with a scene selection option on it, which is inconvenient. If you want a version you can watch straight through, this is a good pick. It is really entertaining and not as violent as some versions.
Orson Welles plays a really whacked-out Macbeth - the picture on the cover of the DVD really says it all. The shadowy, glowering stare, the jutting chin - topped with that bizarre crown and the on-again, off-again accent, you can easily see him as the conscience-free usurper of the Scottish throne.
Lady Macbeth (Jeannette Nolan) is quite a study, too. I think that Welles might have played her in full dominatrix gear if he'd been able to get away with it. She has an oily yet commanding demeanor and a snaky hairdo - a long ponytail thing that looks like a grey python draped over her shoulder. Fitting!
The scenery is perfect - the crazy, blurry witches fit in perfectly with the deserted moor; the Macbeth's castle looks like the waiting room for a torture chamber. Done in 1930s grey and white, it wonderfully highlights this dirty, nasty plot.
I bought this DVD to show my high school and middle school Shakespeare classes so that we could compare/contrast it with the BBC version (available here: BBC Shakespeare Tragedies DVD Giftbox ) and with the A&E MacKellan/Dench version Macbeth / McKellen, Dench (Thames Shakespeare Collection)
Rated by buyers 
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Orson Welle's take on William Shakespeare's timeless tragedy of one man's lust for power and his decision "To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself..." is mediocre, at best. I liked some of his decisions (such as having the murderers hide atop a tree whilst they wait for Banquo and Fleance), but he completely butchered the play (transposed lines and scenes where they didn't occur in the play, eliminated Ross and inserted
"Holy Father" instead, etc). After viewing his finest movie, "Citizen Kane," I expected much better from the man who introduced low-angle shots and other camera moves that we now take for granted. Had Sir Laurence Olivier done this play (either before or after "Hamlet," which remains his greatest achievement as a director, actor, producer and uncredited text editor; he chose to do "Hamlet" when he found out that Welles was planning a film version to be released in the same year that he was hoping to release his version; the inexplicable finacial failure of "Richard III" in 1955 and the death of the would-be-producer soon after forever derailed his plans for a film version), he would have done it the justice it merited. However, when you consider that Orson Welles shot this film in 21 days (I guess under pressure from movie studios; they always interfered with his work after "Citizen Kane"), it's amazing that he was able to film it at all. Watch for a young Roddy McDowall as Malcolm, King Duncan's son. I don't recommend the 1971 (R-rated) trash directed by Polanski (please see my review on it; among other things, there is uneccessary nudity). I've yet to see another version of this play. This film is Not Rated.
Rated by buyers -
Any Wells lover who may be wondering whether this is a gray market washout and worth avoiding in favor of some Criterion future thing or other, relax and trust in the power of Korea to do a good job. The subtitles are removeable and the soundtrack is the original and amazingly clear. I had the old Republic VHS tape and it was rough going understanding around 30% of what was said, but I could hear every luscious shakespearean syllable this time around, and the picture is mighty fine, not Criterion level, but maybe old Criterion level, or old Kino level, and even better than some of the big studio's more lazily transferred film noirs, like BODY AND SOUL or SUDDEN FEAR. In short, dear Welles fan, pounce!
And if you've never seen it, Welles MacBeth is like a crazy 1930s German Expressionist bad acid trip, with Welles in florid ham actor mode, his Irish brogue soaring like a hawk. If you love cinema though, you will love crazy Welles drunken sweaty rampaging through his cheap papier mache caverns with his weird statue of liberty crown way more than you could ever love similar more "perfect" adaptations like say, Olivier's HAMLET which came out that same year. That film is amazing, but Olivier is just too graceful, too perfect and measured and his horrible blonde bangs. Let's put it this way, Olivier's film is much better, but Welles' is greater. Olivier is the piano prodigy who plays for the old ladies and gets all the grant money; Welles is the rebel down at the jazz joint, tearing it up in a threadbare tux with a wailin' bebop trio. Who would you rather hang out with, even if you didn't know where your subsequent meal was coming from?
Rated by buyers -
This movie is beautifully restored visually and has a fairly good reconstruction of the audio track. A shining counterpoint to the awful vinegar washed copies of "Mr Arkadin" and "The Stranger" you see available from various hack-restoration companies. This edition is a "Director's Cut" that brings the movie back from the mutilation at the hands of Republic Pictures. Its an important piece for people who appreciate the work of Welles, like myself. Welles always liked doing Shakespeare and other classic novels. Some of his unfinished or rejected ideas included "Moby Dick", the "Merchant of Venice" and "Heart of Darkness". Ironically, 35 or so years after Welles's idea to make "Heart of Darkness" into a movie was rejected, it was made into a movie, the classic "Apocalypse Now". Much of what he accomplished was far, far ahead of its time...or perhaps far, far behind the times. Either way, this cut of MacBeth shows the fecundity of Welles vision and not the slashed and burnt profligacy that was attributed to him in his lifetime. For Roddy McDowell fans, you get a glimpse of him years before "Planet of the Apes".
Drawback: No English Subtitles, only Korean ones. I guess its not a drawback if you read Korean well enough. I don't, so...
Rated by buyers -
Despite the claim in another review here this very free adaptation of the Tragedy of MacBeth is not at all faithful to the Bard of Avon, including the introduction of a new main character, featured for his great face and braids. In fact it leaves out several scenes and condenses many others. As MacBeth walks out to his death, we finally see Lady MacBeth wringing her hands. Nevertheless, there is much that is indeed recommendable, including the interpretations by the mainly excellent actors (MacBeth and Lady). MacDuff simply posed like a California beach boy.
The major difficulty with this production and the studios lay in their cutting out twenty minutes and erasing the Scottish accents. You will find the listing of a dialogue director her, apparently for the accent alone. I find the application of the accent rather inconsisten, with Welles at times speaking Scot and at other times MidWesterner. Perhaps the dialogue was not fully restored in this presentation.
One thing to note about this adaptation: it really gets pretty boring about a third of the way through, mainly due to the adaptation and unfaithfulness to the bard and showing us things like horsemen in the distance and bad acting. Up to that point we feel very much and very strongly an influence much later on Kurasawa's excellent and powerful and moving adaptation Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection. In fact many of the images, including the warriors and witches, appear directly reflected in that later film. Then Welles goes south and I go to sleep. We have yet to find an excellent and true production of MacBeth for film. Even Macbeth / McKellen, Dench (Thames Shakespeare Collection) falls short and from the beginning does not ring true. Welle's opening is on the other hand spectacular and true.
One interesting point upon which Welles makes us dwell is the execution of the fist Thane of Cawdor. MacBeth at very first protests that Cawdor is a fine and honorable gentleman. The others say he confessed under torture. Knowing as we now do of the unreliablility of forced confessions, in which anyone will admit to anything at all just to ease the pain if only for one moment, perhaps MacBEth's madness began at that point: knowing that Cawdor is innocent yet forced to confess to what he did not do and thus put to death. For this insight alone we owe much to WElles.
One further point: the back of the box indicates a return to Welles's ghost story with Peter Bogdonavitch but I could not find it.
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