Instead, he focused on blunt psychology, melodramatic emotions, and easily recognizable motivations this had always been his tendency with Shakespeare, although after the contrived and confusing plot machinations of his previous film, The Lady From Shanghai (1947), he may have felt even more motivation to keep things simple and direct. In adapting the play himself, Welles condensed it considerably, streamlining much of its narrative and characterological complexity and cutting down or otherwise eliminating some of the lengthier monologues (as numerous critics have noted, he did not feel any need to remain slavishly faithful to the particulars of Shakespeare's original text). Thus, it is not surprising that, when given the opportunity, he would translate Shakespeare to the screen in his own unique way and start with the moody, violent Macbeth (he would go on to direct an adaptation of Othello in 1951 and Chimes at Midnight, a compilation of elements from Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V, in 1965). Welles had been adapting Shakespeare since he was a schoolboy (when he was 16 he produced, directed, and starred in a compilation of Shakespeare's historical plays called Winter of Discontent at his boarding school), and it was his daring 1936 Federal Theatre Project staging of Macbeth set in Haiti with an all-black cast that helped garnered him sustained attention at the ripe young age of 20. Stars: Orson Welles (Macbeth), Jeanette Nolan (Lady Macbeth), Dan O'Herlihy (Macduff), Roddy McDowall (Malcolm), Edgar Barrier (Banquo), Alan Napier (A Holy Father), Erskine Sanford (Duncan), John Dierkes (Ross), Keene Curtis (Lennox), Peggy Webber (Lady Macduff / The Three), Lionel Braham (Siward), Archie Heugly (Young Siward), Jerry Farber (Fleance)Īlthough often considered a relatively minor film in his multi-decade oeuvre, Orson Welles's Macbeth is one of his most fascinating film experiments and a bridge between his brief, tumultuous Hollywood career that began with the extraordinary Citizen Kane (1941) and the subsequent decades of exile as an independent filmmaker in Europe. Screenplay: Orson Welles (based on the play by William Shakespeare)
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