Masterful
Take peacham's opinion, and I am the reverse.
Perfection in cinematic expressionism. Jeanette Nolan is exquisite as Lady Macbeth and Welles is her many mooded counterpart.
Totally engaging.
Indeed, his stark use of chiaroscuro, his use of rich, textured black and white colouring, and his jarring-yet-steep high and low angles, all make every image we see on screen visually evocative, impressive, menacing, and nightmarish.
The fires burning, the sulpherous fog, the blighted landscape and jagged volcanicesque rock formations, the severe angles and height and breath and volcanic structure of the battlements, the primitive cavernous interior, the pitchfork staffs and sceptors, the sharp points of the satanic-looking crowns, the primordial bubbling burning concoction that mysteriously yields a clay man, all of it enveloped in starkly contrasted silhouttes, and sheathed in sulpherous fog, makes the film visually stunning, and it makes the viewer feel the fires burning, feel the fog strangling the landscape, feel the fear, feel the savagery, the impulses, the murderous intentions, the guilt.
I love it too. :)
I'd agree with your use of the word "primitive" TempOne. You were referring specifically to the decor, but it also seems rather base in an emotional sense, similar to its successor, the much revered (by me too) "Throne of Blood".
At least *some* of the love shown that film needs to be sent this way. The films are certainly not identical (Kurosawa is, of course, much more methodical and precise than the Welles of this era), but I think screening the two back-to-back would ably demonstrate just how much common ground exists. Tonally, anyway.
I would've loved to have done this with my grade 11 English class last year, alas, my copy arrived today, far too late.
I agree with you, and incidentally, when I obtained Welles's Macbeth, I decided to rewatch Throne Of Blood back-to-back with Macbeth, and the experience was visually thrilling. Welles' Macbeth is undoubtedly emotionally primitive, barbarous, diabolic. The decor of the film represents the characters' innermost thoughts, souls.
shareI very much enjoyed Welles' version of Macbeth. Like you, I also liked the darkness of it all. Two scenes that I really loved, and the first is rather innovative for the time, is the opening scene of the three witches and the moving of the forest.
"I know you're in there, Fagerstrom!"-Conan O'Brien
Casting Roddy McDowall was a major mistake.
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