A new Macbeth DVD?

[Jeff Wilson]

According to the listings, the new UK DVD of Othello is the restored edition, as I would imagine all future editions to be. Regarding the European cut, does anyone know if the UK VHS edition is said cut or the restored edition? This would be the edition with the red cover, by the way, not the recent August 2003 release to coincide with the DVD.



Edited By Jeff Wilson on Dec. 03 2003 at 10:39

[blunted by community]

if some one here can read french and can scour the french sites for the othello dubbed in french you will be in for an incredible surprise. the french dubbed othello puts all of our english language othellos in the weeds, it has a lot more footage, and it's noto choppy at all. the story flows very well. since i know all the dialogue, i have no problem folowing the french language othello.

[Alan]

Jeff, the UK VHS of Othello (the one with the red cover and the horrific painting of welles) is the restored version. I'm not sure if it says so on the front, but on the back there is a paragraph telling us so - and some information from Castle Hill Films which (I think) is the sole distributer of the restored version.

It was a 'budget' release here, so it was on really cheap video tape and looked really awfull.

...Hope that helps...

[mteal]

Colwood,
I'm glad you got a chance to see Image's 1989 video release of Macbeth. For anyone else interested, here's another VHS copy of it waiting to be swept off the eBay floor:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws....ory=309

[Cole]

Here's a link to an eBay auction page where someone is selling a copy of Macbeth on laserdisc:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws....y=18849

I'm not sure, but I suspect this is the 1989 laserdisc that Mteal mentions above. Only one more day for bidding, and it's selling for $5.

[L French]

Good news for Macbeth fans. The Film Foundatation is funding a completely new restoration of Macbeth, using modern technology that was unavailible in 1980 when UCLA film archives first found and restored the longer version of the film.

Both Welles original 108 minute cut, and the shorter 86 minute version will be restored.

Once this restoration work is finished, the plan will be for Paramount - who now controls Republic films - to bring out the two versions of Macbeth on DVD.

[Wilson]

Here's a link to an article about UCLA's restoration program, which mentions Macbeth as a current project:

Film Restoration at UCLA

[mteal]

That's great news. Hopefully now I can get rid of my rather poor recording of the 86-minute version, which I managed to get when it was broadcast at 3am on a local station many years ago (I've seen no sign of the short version anywhere since).

I don't want to get greedy about it, but wouldn't it be great if they could also get the rights to the AFI's recent restoration of the VOODOO MACBETH newsreel. But even if they can't, I'm very glad they're doing both versions of the film- it should be a terrific DVD. I've got my money ready for that and the ARKADIN set which looks great too.

[Wilson]

Yeah, I'd like a copy of the short version for completeness' sake. They could obviously do a decent release if they tried, but having both versions of the film is certainly a good start. Speaking of the Voodoo Macbeth footage, the Treasures From the American Film Archives box set which included it is being re-released before long at a cheaper price. I have the second set, which is a great release, and looking forward to finally getting the first set.

[ToddBaesen]

Per the suggestion in the study guide for MACBETH, here is a review of the short version of the film:

THE NEW YORK TIMES - December 28, 1950

THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; Orson Welles' Interpretation of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' at the Trans-Lux 60th St.

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Orson Welles' protean film production of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth," cut, re-cut, re-recorded and oft exhibited far and wide in the past three years, finally obtained a local haven at the Trans-Lux Sixtieth Street yesterday and turned out to be less of a vagary than its history might lead one to expect. As a matter of fact, this final rendering, which Mr. Welles directed and in which he stars, may not possess the searching insight and the dramatic clarity that one might desire but it has a great deal in its favor in the way of feudal spectacle and nightmare mood.

In the established Welles tradition, which has been building for a number of years, the theatrical mechanics of the medium are permitted to dominate the play and Shakespeare is forced to lower billing than either the director, the star or the cameraman. On weird sets, concocted by Fred Ritter, which cause the castle of Dunsinane to look less like a Scottish castle than like some sort of chasm or cave and the blasted heath of the witches to look like a bath of live steam, Mr. Welles deploys himself and his actors so that they move and strike the attitudes of tortured grotesques and half-mad zealots in a Black Mass or an ancient ritual.

Especially does Mr. Welles favor the pointing of the camera at himself from all sorts of distorting angles and in close-ups that make his face bulk large. Also he uses heavy make-up to darken and crease his countenance so that his Macbeth, much given to pondering, has a monstrous quality. Except that he offers the suggestion that this fatally ambitious man took rather heavily to drinking in the later phases of his bloody career, he accomplishes no illumination of the classical character.

And speaking of illumination, there is precious little of it in this film, either in the way of mere set lighting or in revelation of character. The Lady Macbeth of Jeanette Nolan is a pop-eyed and haggard dame whose driving determination is as vagrant as the highlights on her face. Likewise, her influence upon Macbeth, while fleetingly suggested in a few taut lines and etched in a couple of hot embraces, is not developed adequately. The passion and torment of the conflict between these two which resides in the play has been rather seriously neglected in this truncated rendering.

But then Mr. Welles implies frankly in a spoken foreword to the film that his is a study of the tensions, the political conflicts and the religious troubles of an ancient time. And the whole purpose of his production seems to be to create the vicious moods, the ruthlessness and the superstitions of the warriors in Scotland in Macbeth's day. Although there are some empty spaces and general vagueness in aligning details, the moods and the dark, oppressive horrors of a people and an age are well displayed.

Alan Napier plays a holy father as a grim, unrelenting militant, wearing a shaggy mop of coarse hair and two long, anomalous braids. Macduff is performed by Dan O'Herlihy as a grief-wracked, inarticulate man and a large cast of others look much better than they speak in subsidiary roles.

It is notable that Mr. Welles has borrowed from Sir Laurence Olivier the device of letting his voice speak some of the soliloquies while his lips do not move. This is not near as effective as it has been in Sir Laurence's Shakespearean films, mainly because the predominance of Mr. Welles' countenance obtrudes. He has obviated that, however, in the "Tomorrow and tomorrow—" soliloquy; while speaking this one, he has simply trained the camera on ominous clouds. The trick is characteristically theatrical, but it has its redeeming point.

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, Todd, for adding this commentary, referred to in Larry French's useful Main Page article.

My reaction is one of slight bewilderment.

Has there ever been a director other than Welles, who had so many versions, edits, or possible "director cuts" of important films to choose from? After CITIZEN KANE, nearly every major picture of his presents this dilemma.

Without many resources, and possibly a small fortune, certainly great patience, it is hard for an individual to pick out the best among most of them.

I have been studying the Criterion "Complete Mr. Arkadin" recently, and what I at first thought was a no brainer has become a rather embarassing surprise to me.

Lord knows, when I shall be able to descend upon Amoeba Music, et al., with enough money in hand, and a steady enough eye, to sort out MACBETH.

Glenn

[IvyMike]

So which DVD of Macbeth is considered the best, (image and sound as most important considerations)? Can't seem to find comparison reviews.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Orson-Welles-Ma ... 932&sr=1-6

http://www.amazon.fr/Macbeth-%C3%89diti ... 861&sr=1-4

http://www.amazon.de/Macbeth-2-DVDs-Jea ... 350&sr=1-3

This one looks like a single disc release of the French 3 disc...Anyone know which version it includes?

http://www.amazon.fr/Macbeth-Version-Po ... 861&sr=1-1

I would assume the 3disc French release is the best bet as far as completist perspective, but how do the image and sound stack up to the other 2? Does the German include both versions as well?

Will we see a decent release of this or even Othello in R1 anytime soon?