Macbeth (1948)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

(www.mardecortesbaja.com)

Expressionism is always best to capture the full-bodiedness of Shakespeare’s dramatic verse and suits admirably well here. Moreover, the taut pacing suits the tight plot.

A bloody and gloomy film of a bloody and gloomy play whose high body-count threatens to engulf the entire drama until the inevitable tragedy of the destruction of the self-destructively wicked. Macbeth not only murders sleep but also vainly tries to kill his own conscience over each previous murder with each successive one. As if repeating his crime somehow normalizes it as an affair of state. The Macbeths thus dig themselves ever deeper into the mire of being punished not for their sins but by them.

The conflict between fate and self-determination is well-attested here. The former represents the coward who achieves without real ability and so cannot repeat his success. He is easily destroyed by the first self-determined, man-of-ability he meets.

The sheer bravura style of the piece overwhelms any lingering doubts about its skid-row cheapness since director Orson WELLES turns his budgetary limitations to good account. In any case, any full-blooded Shakespeare production can easily get by with an appreciative audience and the kind of gutsy playing on display here - especially Dan O’HERLIHY’s MacDuff. Jeanette NOLAN, as Lady Macbeth, easily bests the great king-actor WELLES in the acting honors. She is sexually seductive in ways few modern movies can hope to achieve and obtain a PG certificate; representing perfectly the fact that this is a marriage truly made in Hell.

---

Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.