The unsettling mise-en-scène: Shakespeare’s Macbeth as seen through Kurosawa’s and Welles’s lenses

This article will analyse two distinct cinematographic interpretations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: the Orson Welles version from 1948 and Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood 1957. In the first case, Welles’s vision maintained the setting in the spirit of the original, a barren and arid scenery that still represented Scotland; several minor changes were made to emphasize peculiar themes that the director wanted to focus on. This resulted in an interpretation of a more eerie mise-en-scène as will be explained further on. As for Throne of Blood, it re-envisions the setting of Macbeth in feudal Japan, adding stylistic elements from the Noh drama genre, but fundamentally maintaining the common themes of the play and using them as a general guideline for the movie.

The aim of the present analysis is to consider these cinematographic variants and analyse the techniques and stylistic intents of the respective directors in correlation to the visual arts. This approach will consider what key elements Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa emphasized while envisioning the Shakespearean tragedy respectively. Given that these movies were filmed less than ten years apart from one another, it will be important to note not only how the original play was used as a basis, but also how Orson Wells and Akira Kurosawa worked on the setting and scenery of their movie. A node that will be explored for the purpose of the present article is how both directors used the visual arts and illustrations as inspiration in envisioning their own version of Macbeth. Given the effective use of the scenic elements to visually represent and convey the dynamics of the play, the present analysis will also attempt to consider how the visual arts may have influenced both directors; for this purpose, the scene where the main character’s future is foretold will be given close attention to. It is a rightful assumption that various paintings contributed in some capacity to the stylistic choices of both Welles and Kurosawa, especially upon considering that their lives intertwined with the artistic world, at least tangentially. Both of them were in fact directly interested at one point or another in their careers with the visual arts; before becoming a director, Kurosawa pursued a career as a painter, whereas Welles was fascinated by drawing and produced sketches during his entire lifetime. These biographical details point towards the fact that the directors used the visual arts as a basis for their work. Although this article is unable to point towards a specific painting that Orson Welles or Akira Kurosawa used as a primary source of inspiration for either Macbeth or Throne of Blood, it underlines the direct connection between the visual arts and cinema. This link is itself an artistic process that starts with an outline or sketch, a drawing or a painting that is then made to gain motion on the silver screens through the use of scenery, actors, lighting and music.

While there are more than fifty filmic iterations of Macbeth, including the ones by famous directors such as Roman Polanski, this article will consider only Welles and Kurosawa because of their first-hand experience with the visual arts as previously explained. Lastly, although the movies under scrutiny stem from different cultural and cinematographic milieus, this article will demonstrate how the eerie imagery in the play influenced both directors in their choices and scene compositions.

Orson Welles’s Macbeth

Macbeth (1948), as portrayed by Orson Welles, diverges from what might be considered a standardized historical interpretation of the Shakespearean play; the mise-en-scène, the photography as well as several modifications to the text lead towards an expressionistic atmosphere that emphasises the supernatural elements. Throughout the movie, various elements are emphasized to set an eerie and unsettling tone; one factor that heavily influenced Welles’s decision to adapt it the way he did is undeniably his previous work on what is commonly referred to as the ‘Voodoo Macbeth’. This particular adaptation that he directed in 1936 for the Federal Theatre Project in New York featured a different setting, moving the plot of the story from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean Island and involving an entirely Afro-American cast. It was seen controversially and as Fraden explains ‘the voodoo Macbeth, produced by the Negro unit in Harlem, was condemned as a capitulation to stereotypes, the primitive black men superstitious and afraid, and praised for the chance it offered black men and women to perform Shakespeare’.¹ While this account opens up the possibility for various topics of discussion and analysis, this article will mention said production only as a source of inspiration and will not further expound on it.

As previously mentioned, many are the elements in Welles’s Macbeth that create a disturbing and, to an extent, almost alienating perception for the viewers. The preponderant use of fog, shadows and silhouettes is one of the first noticeable factors that distinguish this eeriness. Another element that becomes quintessential in Welles’s view is the use of a desolate scenography, arid and devoid of vegetation; even scenes that would normally take place within the castle walls in the play are replaced by grottos, caves or barren landscapes. As such, this particular mise-en-scène becomes a symbolic representation; the roughness of the settings reflects the harshness of Macbeth’s inner world. The moral dilemma he is experiencing to an extent fuses with a perception of an unavoidable destiny, one that has been foretold and forced onto him by malevolent forces, this is turn is reflected by a scenery that has been deprived by any flourish.

It is also important to note that the wardrobe decisions create a further level of ambiguity: some of the actors wear garments that are either chronologically or geographically erroneous – for instance the preponderance of fur coats, almost in a Cossack style to a degree, or the presence of warriors wearing horned helmets do not fit the play’s narrative. There is no historical evidence for instance to support that Vikings ever had helmets adorned with bone horns; this prop was popularized in the 19th-century German opera and led to the creation of a common-place imagery that would be frequently employed by the Hollywood industry.

Furthermore, minute parts of Shakespeare’s script have been changed to better suit a threatening dimension where supreme forces or beings could be able to control or influence the lives of mortal men. As Harper Rogers remarked, ‘Welles indicates that Macbeth's advisors are evil spirits by changing the word "angel" in Macduff s remark to Macbeth – “the Angel whom thou still hast serv'd” (V. viii. 14) – to “devil”’.² On the same principle, other examples of similar minor alterations can be observed in the ordering of the scenes. Welles interchanges parts of the original play: for instance the cauldron scene with the witches chanting ‘Double, double toil and trouble: Fire burn; and, cauldron, bubble’ (IV. i. 10-11), found in the fourth act, becomes the opening of the movie. Within this scene, it is possible to observe the hands of the three witches creating a clay doll of Macbeth, which is reminiscent of the voodoo aspects previously mentioned.

The moral struggles of the characters are aptly portrayed on screen through the use of interior monologues: the Shakespearean soliloquies are in several cases replaced by the use of the voice-over method. This intertwines with the use of camera technique that either focuses in on the faces of the actors as they are delivering their lines or even puts their character out of focus, thus creating a muddled image and effect. This constant change adds to the sensation of dread and anxiety the viewer experiences and in turn leads to a representation of ‘the characters' inner struggles, transforming them into a battle between good and evil superpowers in which the human figures become mere pawns of the Gods’.³ Given this depiction of interior struggle, especially with the use of voice-overed monologues, sound becomes an important aspect of the movie. In fact, Welles re-recorded parts of the audio to better suit the settings of the grotto and arid scenarios; as Manvell notes, he ‘used at times an echo-channel to give the voices a dimension larger than life’.⁴

The three witches however seem to have a greater importance in Welles’s vision of Macbeth: not only are they present at the beginning of the movie, even preceding the opening credits, but they are also present at the very end of it, overseeing from a desolate hill the castle and the tragedy that occurred. They represent the supreme forces man cannot rebel against and Macbeth’s evil advisors that prompted and guided his ambition.

Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of blood

Before analysing Kurosawa’s movie, it may prove useful to understand the difference between the process of adaptation and the process of appropriation. As Julie Sanders points out, while there are certain similarities between the two approaches and interrelations, there is still a core distinction. An adaptation maintains a clear relationship to the original source text whereas an appropriation provides a more decisive cut with the original. As such, the appropriation may be achieved by ‘extrapolating a particular storyline or character’s trajectory from the original, and reimagining it in a new context, historical and/or cultural’.⁵ In other words, while Kurosawa attributes a clear homage to Macbeth’s story, he appropriates the work to explore other issues he was interested in.

Throne of blood (1957) follows the main steps of the plot of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and envisions them in the setting of feudal Japan. As in the play, Taketoki Washizu and Lady Asaji Washizu (respectively Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) will see their rise to power as well as the downfall caused by their own schemes and ambitions. Yoshiaki Miki (the character of Banquo) will be betrayed by his friend and his son will succeed as ruler after the tragedy has taken its course. As Jerry Blumenthal explains,⁶ Kurosawa’s work goes beyond mere interpretation and much emphasis is given to the natural forces that inhabit the portrayed world: in the director’s vision, the scenery becomes essential to represent the converging point between mortals and supernatural beings, a key component in Noh theatre, as will be explained further on. Blumenthal’s evaluation has however been considered as an exaggeration given his lavish praise towards Kurosawa, elevating the director even more than Shakespeare. It is nevertheless true that Kurosawa effectively used the scenery to create a meeting point between the natural world and the uncanny forces, the same eerie powers that prophesized respectively Macbeth and Banquo’s future in this iteration. The two warriors in fact get lost in the Spider-Web Forest, homonymous to the castle they are expected at; the deeper they get into the forest, the darker and more ominous it becomes. Both of them refer to the woods as “the labyrinth”; in turn, this becomes allegorical for the difficulties of traversing one’s life and making the correct moral choices. Finally, Washizu and Miki arrive at a hut made out of sticks where an androgynous pale figure, possibly an old woman, is spinning a thread; the three witches originally represented in Macbeth are replaced by an eerie figure, one that in fact will be revealed to be more akin to a spirit than a mortal. Various elements add layers of symbolism to this meeting: the act of spinning correlates to the Western imagery of spinning the thread of fate if we consider the Parcae, the name Spider-Web Forest hints towards intrigue and conspiracy, and finally the old woman never seems to directly look at the two warriors, suggesting her to be blind. Her words however initiate the main plot spurring Washizu’s ambition, as in Macbeth, but they also complement the supernatural atmosphere of the setting. She in fact says that humans are strange for being terrified to look into their own hearts; this phrase, alongside her ability to vanish in front of the warriors’ eyes, puts her character in the realm of spirits or transcendental beings.

The Noh theatre is a form of classical Japanese dance-drama; it has a long-lasting tradition of elements, a specific connotation and aesthetic. It relies on the use of masks and embellished robes for the actors, a precise disposition of the stage in function to the audience and a preponderant use of symbolisms. The movements of the actors are almost static and subdued in order to evoke the characters they are portraying. There is an idea of simplicity in the Noh theatre that is meant to emphasize an ideal of beauty. As Savas explains,

Noh mask is virtually expressionless because it represents what may be called ‘neutral expression’ or ‘intermediate expression.’ However, the ‘expressionlessness’ of Noh masks is deliberate. Using the expressionless Noh mask is one of the most effective ways to express what is beyond expression.⁷

Kurosawa rarely uses close-ups because the use of full-shots gives his audience the sensation of stillness; similarly, the stoic acting and movements of some of the characters evoke the qualities of the abovementioned masks. These elements intend to elicit a more profound reverberation in the Japanese audience as they portray a type of Noh theatre. As opposed to genzai or contemporary Noh, in the ‘"mugen", or phantasmal Noh, reality is more complex: it is a blend of natural and supernatural planes of experience’.⁸ In other words, although based on Western elements, Kurosawa’s movie is made for a Japanese audience; as such, Throne of blood does not simply adapt or interpret the story of Macbeth, but rather it ‘reconstructs the familiar plot in terms of consistently effective images’.⁹

Various studies have already emphasised the importance of the Noh elements in constructing Kurosawa’s vision and these are not limited to the scenery; ‘among them the white mask (associated with ghosts and spirits), the flute and drum music, poetic chant, and the symbolic stick hut’.¹⁰ The chants and sounds used in the movie also serve to transpose the viewer from a real and tangible world to a disturbing one. The physical reality that is portrayed, a harsh reality of men and wars, intertwines with one made out of fog, maze-like obscure forests, and finally spirits; the liminal zone becomes quintessential for portraying the action of the play as well as the moral dilemma. While this can be said for Welles’s Macbeth just as well, Kurosawa adds a series of undertones and symbolism that for him are equally important. These features are not limited to the exterior or natural world however, and as Donald Richie suggest,

The Noh elements are mostly associated with Asaji – the Lady Macbeth role – for she is the most limited, the most confined, the most driven, the most evil. She moves, heel to toe, as does the Noh actor; the shape of Isuzu Yamada’s face is used to suggest the Noh mask; her scenes with her husband have a very Noh-like composition, and her hand washing is pure Noh drama.¹¹

The interactions between Washizu and Lady Washizu also add to the complexity of layers regarding the human world and the spiritual realm. If in the first part, the Spider-Web Forest acted as a medium and a place of encounter between two dimensions, in the second one, with Lady Asaji expressing her emotions through the usage of Noh techniques, the viewer starts to question her ambiguity. The castle is no longer a safe place built by man and adds to the unsettling atmosphere the main characters experience, especially once the murder is committed and the spirit of the deceased suddenly appears. This transition is supported by Lady Asaji and the way she manipulates Washizu; her movements are almost those of a spirit, floating instead of walking, but the action of cleaning her blood-stained hands is that of a mortal. As such the character of Asaji amalgamates characteristics from two separate dimensions and further establishes the close proximity between the spiritual and physical worlds that are represented on screen. Furthermore, the close correlation between Noh theatre and Kurosawa’s work, as well as spirit and Asaji, is once again underlined:

In Kurosawa, the visual images attached to the spirit since the first scene in the forest also establish a deliberate cinematic parallel with Washizu’s wife: they have similar white Noh-theatre make-up, and both use a still and undemonstrative style of acting, making a very strong contrast with Toshiro Mifune.¹²

It should also be emphasized that the scenes, except for a few instances, are protracted and the pacing of the action and acting is slowed down; static moments and instances of silence enhance the effect of anxiety and uneasiness that Kurosawa wanted to create. Ultimately, this particular pacing also adds to the symbolic and internal weight of what is being portrayed. ‘More significant than the individual success or failure of these long sequences is the question of their collective impact on the whole film, the way they modify our perception of Washizu’.¹³ The effectiveness of these drawn-out scenes however depends largely on how the audience is able to either empathize or detach itself from the main character. A further consideration could be that this ability to relate to Washizu or understand his predicament also depends on the cultural background of the viewer: a Western audience could be more inclined to correlate the plot to Macbeth’s anguishes while a Japanese one would possibly be able to resonate with the more minute nuances of the Noh theatre. Given the way the movie may be able to relate to either reality, ‘Throne of Blood allows Kurosawa to interrogate both Japanese and Western cultural traditions through his manipulation of Macbeth, Japanese theatre, and contemporary film conventions’.¹⁴

Nevertheless, there is a certain cyclical quality that the movie depicts by ending the way it began: the mise-en-scène is exactly the same, a barren mountain veiled by mist and in the background a repeated and ominous chant. It is a mantra that narrates the events of the movie: a fortress on a mountain where a proud warrior was murdered due to his own ambition. The hubris that motivated the protagonist in the movie is the homage Kurasawa gives to what was depicted in Macbeth.

Influence of the visual arts

While the two cinematographic interpretations use Macbeth as their main source of inspiration, they diverge from the original and from what could be considered a conventional rendition. Orson Welles uses the text but puts a greater emphasis on the opposing forces of good and evil, making the characters mere pawns in the hands of these transcendent entities. On the other hand, Akira Kurosawa foregoes the original script entirely and by doing so uses merely the main narratological scheme to set the plot in motion; he gives more importance to the scenery, setting and the Noh elements which in turn construct a disturbing dimension. It could be argued that Welles’s Macbeth and Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood put emphasis on an obscure and eerie setting. While the antithetical forces have a different origin, either more Christian in nature or with a nuance of voodoo in the case of Orson Welles, or deriving from a realm correlated with spirits and nature in the case of Akira Kurosawa, both interpretations use these transcendental powers to shed light on the inner moral and ethical struggles of human beings. The protagonists, while admittedly encouraged or guided by supernatural powers, made decisions that ultimately lead them towards the path of perdition. In Kinder’s words,

In Shakespeare's version, the conflict between Macbeth's perception and behaviour lies at the center of the tragedy. With full awareness of the futility and immorality of his own ambitious deeds, Macbeth nevertheless makes a total commitment to evil. It is a strong act of will, and it establishes him as an existential hero. The fullness of his consciousness and the power of his imagination are revealed primarily through his language, which Kurosawa sacrifices.¹⁵

While it is true that Welles does not sacrifice the language of the script, the way he ordered some of the scenes, as well as minute changes to the dialogues and the audacious usage of camera and sound techniques, create a similar understanding of Macbeth’s awareness of his own condition and actions.

Equally important is the fact that both directors decided to use a specific element from the beginning of the movie to the end of it. In the case of Orson Welles, the three witches are employed not only as the initial driving force of the plot, but also serve as ominous observers in one of the few wide angle panoramic shots at the very end. They become watchers of Macbeth’s downfall as well as a symbol of cyclicity, hinting towards a story that endlessly repeats itself because of the nature of human ambition. Similarly, Kurosawa’s use of the anguishing chant previously mentioned does not only foreshadow the plot, but also ends the story, becoming yet another rendition of that same cyclicity. Both directors seem to represent on screen the unavoidable destiny of men to repeat their errors; in other words, Macbeth’s story becomes an allegory of this cyclical process.

Given the importance the two directors attribute to the eerie elements that set the tone for their movie, it is opportune to analyse how this is portrayed visually. We shall now turn to a reflection on the moment when Macbeth encounters the three witches and Washizu encounters the spirit.

In Welles’s version, the faces of the three witches are seen only briefly and even then they are almost veiled because of the dim lighting used; they are at one point seen standing bent over, almost hunchbacked, on top of a hill, before being chased away by a cross. This is another correlation with wickedness. Pursued by Macbeth who wants to know more about his future, the three witches vanish in the shroud of a dense mist. Their posture, alongside a close-up on their hands while they are making the clay doll of Macbeth and their shrieking voices, are associated with twisted qualities; they represent the evil forces mentioned previously. Their silence and motionless stance, with their backs towards the viewer, while facing the castle at the end of the movie in a way compose a tableau of uneasiness.

Kurosawa’s envisioning of the encounter between Washizu and the spirit on the other hand is rendered through the usage and emphasis of light rather than darkness. The ghastly spirit wears a white robe, has ashen hair and even its face is coloured white; the white makeup evokes the Noh mask previously mentioned. A Japanese audience would understand the significance of this figure and its correlation to the plot. What is worth mentioning is that the thread the spirit is spinning is set on two bearing nodes, one larger and one smaller, similar to the reels in old movie cameras. This imagery could represent a more subtle metaphor Kurosawa wanted to add to the scene.

 

Two interesting painters that were inspired by Shakespeare’s play and envisioned the encounter between Macbeth and the witches that this article wants to take into consideration are Johann Heinrich Füssli and William Rimmer. It is important to note that Füssli’s Macbeth, Banquo and the Witches (1794), as well as a previous study The Weird Sisters (1783), however points towards a more humane aspect of the witches; they are represented as old, but not as menacing or maleficent. The only outwardly quality they have is constructed through their pale white robes, giving the impression almost of being made out of mist or smoke. Rimmer’s Three Witches (1850’s) adds even more colour to the representation and sees the three sisters wearing a green, a red and a blue robe. These do not exactly match Welles’s and Kurosawa’s bleaker vision within their movies. On the other hand, if we consider the frontispiece used for Macbeth within Nicholas Rowe’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare (1709), then it is possible to notice several important elements: the faces of the sisters, for instance, are quite sinister and the setting of the meeting between them and Macbeth is that of a grotto. Furthermore, the only source of light is provided by the fire under the central cauldron that also illuminates the walls of the cavern. In other words, Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa were certainly not the first to attribute a supernatural or eerie quality to the three witches and the meeting scene, but they did use this ominous mise-en-scène to effectively represent it on the silver screen.

Conclusion: from painting to motion pictures

As stated in the introduction, both directors were not only interested in the visual arts, but they had first-hand experience painting and drawing.

Orson Welles showed an inclination towards art since a young age and as Highman states, ‘he painted excellently (his chief ambition was to be a painter), and he sketched and caricatured with great style’.¹⁶ During his teen years, he even collaborated with Roger Hill on the edition of three play-texts, namely Caesar, The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night, which were published in 1934 at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock under the name Everybody’s Shakespeare. While there have been revised edition and reprints, it is important to note that various of his drawings were included to accompany the texts. In Anderegg’s words, ‘Welles’s sketches - and they are, for the most part, just that, sketches, not finished drawings, some in pen and ink, some in charcoal - lend an aura of incompletion and tentativeness appropriate to a presentation of Shakespeare that eschews solemnity and stresses spontaneity and fun.’¹⁷ In spite of the themes he analyses in his movies, this spontaneity accompanied Orson Welles throughout his life, both private and public, and especially in his sketching.

It is only in more recent years that scholars started to attribute importance to this biographic detail and inquire on his work as an artist as well as a director. Mark Cousins, for instance, directed in 2018 a documentary entitled The Eyes of Orson Welles; he had access to both the Orson Welles archive at the University of Michigan, as well as the exclusive materials provided by the director’s daughter, Beatrice Welles. Within this collection, there were various sketches, painted postcards, drawings and caricatures; these are however not available to the general public. In The eyes of Orson Welles (01:25:16) it is possible to see one such sketch that he did for Macbeth, depicting the encounter with the witches; it is merely a rough outline, but one in which quite possibly the director saw a movie scene in the making. It is fair to assume that this artistic process of passing from a sketch or a rough drawing to the cinematographic form helped Orson Welles to better envision his work as a director.

Unlike Orson Welles however, who continued to dabble with sketches throughout his life, Akira Kurosawa’s encounter with the visual arts was briefer and with a clearer purpose in mind. He wanted to become a painter during his youth, studied for it, eventually produced several paintings but ultimately ended up abandoning it as a career path. Although Kurosawa pursued the life of an artist only during his youth, as a director he still hand-painted the storyboards for some of his movies, emphasizing once again the correlation between still art and moving pictures. As Kurosawa writes in his autobiography: ‘I had dabbled eagerly in painting, literature, theatre, music and other arts and stuffed my head full of all the things that come together in the art of the film. Yet I had never noticed that cinema was the one field where I would be required to make use of all I had learned’.¹⁸ In other words, he used the knowledge he accumulated during his formative years and amalgamated his different passions, especially the one for visual arts, in his cinematographic work.

As stated in the beginning of this article, there is no direct evidence to support that either director took inspiration from any particular works of art; in their interviews they never mention a specific painting or drawing as source of inspiration. It is however undeniable that their vocation as painters and their first-hand experience in the field was used as a basis for their approach to the film industry. The cinematographic world, as such, becomes an extension of the visual arts; it is a passage from stillness to motion, from paintings and drawings to moving images.

Bibliography

ANDEREGG, Michael, Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture, Columbia University Press, 1999.

BLUMENTHAL, Jerry, «”Macbeth” into “Throne of Blood” » in ROSS, Theodore, Film and the Liberal Arts, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.

FRADEN, Rena, Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre 1935-1939, Cambridge University Press, 1994.

FORSYTH, Neil, «Shakespeare the illusionist: filming the supernatural» in JACKSON, Russell, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

GERLACH, John, «Shakespeare, Kurosawa, and "Macbeth": A Response to J. Blumenthal», Literature/Film Quarterly Vol. 1, No. 4, 1973, p. 352-359.

HIGHMAN, Charles, Orson Welles: the Rise and Fall of an American Genius, Martins Press, 1985.

JORGENS, Jack, «Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood": Washizu and Miki Meet the Forest Spirit», Literature/Film Quarterly Vol. 11, No. 3, 1983, p. 167-173.

KINDER, Marsha, «”Throne of Blood”: A Morality Dance», Literature/Film Quarterly Vol. 5, No. 4, 1977, p. 338-345.

KUROSAWA, Akira, Something like an autobiography, Vintage Books, 1983.

MANVELL, Roger, Shakespeare and the Film, A.S. Barns and Company, 1979.

MCDONALD, Keiko, «Noh into Film: Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood», Journal of Film and Video Vol. 39, No. 1, 1987, p. 36-41.

RICHIE, Donald, The Films of Akira Kurosawa, University of California Press, 1965.

ROGERS HARPER, Wendy, «Polanski vs. Welles on “Macbeth” Character or Fate?», Literature/Film Quarterly Vol. 14, No. 4, 1986, p. 203-210.

SANDERS, Julie, Adaptation and Appropriation, Routledge, 2006.

SAVAS, Minae Yamamoto, «The Art of Japanese Noh Theatre in Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood», Bridgewater Review, 30(2), 2011, p. 19-23.

SHAKESPEARE, William, The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare; in six volumes. Adorn’d with cuts. Revised and corrected, with an account of the life and writings of the author. (edited by Nicholas Rowe), printed for Jacob Tonson, 1709.

SMITH, Amanda, «Defining Welles’s “Macbeth”: Hollywood Horror and the Hybrid Mode», Literature/Film Quarterly Vol. 39, No. 2, 2011, p. 151-159.

Films

Macbeth. Orson Welles. Screenplay by Orson Welles (adaptation, uncredited). With Orson Welles (Macbeth), Jeanette Nolan (Lady Macbeth), Dan O’Herlihy (Malcolm), Edgar Barrier (Banquo). Cinematography by John L. Russell. Editing by Louis Lindsay. Music by Jacques Ibert. Republic Pictures, 1948.

The Eyes of Orson Welles. Mark Cousins. Written by Mark Cousins. Mark Cousins (narrator), Beatrice Welles (as herself). BofA Productions, 2018.

Throne of Blood. Akira Kurosawa. Screenplay by Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto and Akira Kurosawa. With Toshirō Mifune (Taketoki Washizu), Isuzu Yamada (Lady Asaji Washizu), Minoru Chiaki (Yoshiaki Miki), Takashi Shimura (Noriyasu Odagura). Cinematography by Asakazu Nakai. Editing by Akira Kurosawa. Music by Masaru Satō. Toho, 1957.

Notes