Kiernan Ryan: I think there's something rather interesting about the development of Macbeth's…
..characterisation by Orson Welles, at the start he's youthful and charismatic…
..and athletic looking, every inch the warlord, the successful glamorous warlord,
and once he attains to the crown…
(Kiernan Ryan) after the murder he becomes in a very Citizen Kane-like way, rather bloated,
(Kiernan Ryan) heavy drinking, slightly comical sinister monster…
(Kiernan Ryan) a point that's underlined very dramatically,
(Kiernan Ryan) this is a good example I think of the subtle use of sound in movies,
(Kiernan Ryan) by a kind of pumping tuba.
(tuba on film soundtrack)
(Kiernan Ryan) And so in that regard at least, you can see potentially tragic contrasts…
..between the kind of man he started out being, and the sort of bloated buffoon in a way,
or rather… sinister and lethal bloated buffoon that he winds up being.
Sue Wiseman: Interestingly actually after that rather wonderful banquet scene…
..there is a moment where the question of what Lady Macbeth has become and…
..the question of what Macbeth himself now is - this kind of rather bloated figure…
..who is also I think in the banquet scene, been a tragic figure,
(Sue Wiseman) they're sitting alone together and when he's saying he's gonna do in…
(Sue Wiseman) ..all the McDuffs, and he sits there and he's this very solid kind of,
(Sue Wiseman) ..the whole of his body sort of one pendulous thing sitting on this kind of…
this end of the bed posture isn't it, like we're locked in this terrible relationship…
..I was gonna tell you about my death, and she is increasingly…
..she says "oh, you'll see to it will you", and then she moves right off…
(Sue Wiseman) ..and in a way that' s the last time we see them together,
(Sue Wiseman) and that's the point at which they both become those things…
(Sue Wiseman) ..that they're going to be to the end. -(Keirnan Ryan) That s right, yes,
they're strange and isolated and on a one way track collision course with…
..their own private obscure tragedies, yes.
Stephen Regan: We do see some very striking uses of cinematic technique in the…
..Orson Welles Macbeth, particularly the dissolves, the way in which…
..certain images just turn into a very fluid state.
Sue Wiseman: Yes that's the area in which the film organises ambiguity as opposed to...
..the black and white imagery which creates contrast. It seems to me that...
..the hallucinatory quality of Macbeth's own life and the way his life is turning into…
..a phantasmagoria, is really beautifully conveyed by the dissolves, and there's…
..a wonderful moment when he's thinking about the murder of Banquo and Fleance,
and there's a tree branch and that dissolves into the murderer sitting on the tree branch,
and it creates a lovely kind of set of questions about what he is acting out,
and how far fantasy is motivating that in that point.
(Kiernan Ryan) Yeah, I think that' s a wonderful example of the way cinematic technique...
..in this case the use of montage and dissolves, can really capture the use of that…
..the pre-figurative use of that same technique in Shakespeare s own poetry…
..which is notorious for the way it can slip and slide and slither from one idea,
one connotation or association or image to another within the space of a single line,
I think that's really marvellously caught, that's a terrific example I think of...
..finding a cinematic equivalent for the poetic resonances of Shakespeare's language.
(dramatic film music)
(Stephen Regan) It's fascinating as well how through cinematic technique we see…
(Stephen Regan) ..a comment not just on Shakespeare's age, but on our own,
the way in which cinema seems to pre-figure so much of what is happening in our own time.
Not surprisingly the Orson Welles Macbeth drew on fears of fascism prevalent in the 1940s,
as much as on issues of kingship in Shakespeare's own time.
Roman Polanski was just a child when the Welles' Macbeth was being made,
but his version of Macbeth also seems to show us specifically 20th century power struggles.