Orson Welles' "voodoo" MacBeth

[RayKelly]

Newsreel of footage of Orson Welles' "voodoo" MacBeth is now available on youtube.com It runs four minutes long... very beautiful

Orson Welles' "voodoo" MacBeth (click here)

[Glenn Anders]

Ray: Thank you.

In addition to the landmark "community pageant" quality which must have been so exciting to Harlem, and New York City generally, what I find interesting is that Welles ends his adaptation with the same "charm wound up" motif that he uses in his film version over twelve years later.

Glenn

[Tony]

I like it when Macbeth says "My name is Macbeth" and I also like the witches' faces. And of course when everybody runs back and forth on stage- lots of energy.

Could a white director direct a black Macbeth today? Or would it somehow be seen as 'politically incorrect"?

Also: other than Moby Dick Rehearsed, was any other play of Welles's filmed?

???

[mteal]

Welles performed part of his 1956 KING LEAR production on the Ed Sullivan show. I've got it in my collection, although the picture quality is not too good. Others around here do too, I'm sure.

Thanks for the You Tube link to the Voodoo Macbeth clip. I'd never seen it in it's entirety. Yes Glenn, that is interesting how he ends the play on the "Charm's wound up" line too. We can only speculate on what he meant by that.

[Christopher]

Ray, I am grateful to you for these four minutes of "Voodoo" Macbeth footage which I did not know existed. Thank you so much.

An interesting footnote: It was Virginia Nicolson Welles, Orson's first wife, who had the idea of transposing the setting to Haiti and turning the three witches into voodoo witch doctors.

And here is what Welles had to say about African-American actors. (My source is Robert Stam's article, "Orson Welles, Brazil and the Power of Blackness" which appeared in New York University's journal "Persistence of Vision" in 1989.)

Asked in Brazil why he had called on black actors to represent Shakespeare, Welles responded by affirming the superiority of black actors: "In all my years of experience, I have concluded that black actors are more natural, more understanding, and more sure of themselves, even in the most difficult passages, than white actors, and that they perform the roles given them with more facility."

[Store Hadji]

Not to slam Welles, but after that WPA play and Native Son he never used a black actor again. I guess he preferred the challenge of directing the unnatural, confused and insecure.

[Tony]

mteal:
I meant a filming of an actual production, as in this Voodoo Macbeth and the lost film of Moby Rehearsed. I think those are the only two. The TV Lear can't be counted as Welles didn't direct it. It seems a terible loss that his productions of Five Kings, Macbeth (Utah), Othello, Chimes and Around the World weren't filmed.

[mteal]

True, although we do have a partial soundtrack for AROUND THE WORLD, because of the Mercury Summer Theatre program devoted to it. Lilly has about 200 photos from the production - many of them quite spectacular - so a nice little stills recreation could probably be done by combining the stills with the radio program. Anyone interested?

I meant a filming of an actual production,...The TV Lear can't be counted as Welles didn't direct it.

Are we sure that he directed the Voodoo Macbeth newsreel? Just to clarify that we're talking about the same thing in terms of the "TV Lear", I'm referring to the 5-minute excerpt from the 1956 stage production that was broadcast on Ed Sullivan, not the 75-minute Omnibus program from 1953, directed by Peter Brook. The 5-minute excerpt was a scene directly from Welles's own production, which was just finishing it's disastrous New York run. The set up for the Sullivan show was all in one shot, so it didn't require much direction.

Not to slam Welles, but after that WPA play and Native Son he never used a black actor again.

An interesting point, Store Hadji, although he would have used Denzel Washington if he had gotten his CRADLE WILL ROCK film off the ground. And then there were the black performers in IT'S ALL TRUE, and Eartha Kitt in TIME RUNS. I can't think of any other examples, though.

[Store Hadji]

I forgot Eartha. She did that whole tour with him. My bad.

Denzel as Jack Carter, I bet. Would have been stunning.

[Tony]

Was denzel known in 1983?

Also, there are some blacks in bit parts in Shanghai and Kane, aren't there?

[Christopher]

I think the important point here is that Welles was a man uttering lacking in prejudice of any kind. He championed African-Americans long before it was "politically correct." For instance, on his weekly radio show, he came to the defense of a black soldier who had been brutalized and blinded by a racist cop in the Deep South and kept up his weekly appeals until the cop was brought to justice.

[mteal]

You're quite right, Christopher. In fact, we discussed that issue a bit in another thread awhile ago. Welles deserves more credit then he's been given for his contributions to the cause of civil rights for black people (and Hispanics) in the U.S.. One could argue that it was at the very core of his political beliefs. Anyone have any more news about Robert Fischer's film on the Woodard case?

Another black actor in a Welles film: the piano player in Confidential Report.

[Christopher]

Mteal,

The last I heard (this spring), Fischer was still trying to raise money for his documentary. I hope he gets it.

Meanwhile, according to the reviews, Callow's just-published book tells the story of the Woodward case and that's good.
It's time people knew that Welles fought for his principles, even when it cost him personally.

[Glenn Anders]

We should mention "The Sleepy Lagoon Case," where Welles extended himself to see that Due Process was afforded a bunch of hispanic kids in LA. The bigotted cop in the Woodward case and the railroaded hispanics in LA are combined at the heart of TOUCH OF EVIL. His interest and concern for all American citizens got Welles an open FBI file from early on.

Does anyone have a fund for gathering donations to help Fischer complete his film?

Glenn

[NoFake]

What a great idea, Glenn! I never thought of that. If you'd like to start one, count me in!