Orson Welles' Macbeth

Abstract

Since its release, most critics have regarded Orson Welles' Macbeth as neither a good Shakespearean film nor one of Welles' better works. Although Welles has been criticized for creating such a reductive vision of Shakespeare's text, to date no one has considered the relationship between the political climate in the United States during the filmmaking and Welles' adaptive decisions. E. Pearlman suggests that Welles' version of Macbeth "was influenced by the bleak events of the 1930s and 40s," but does not specify which events influenced the film. The Hollywood hearings conducted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), as well as the peak years of the anticommunist movement, were just beginning when the film was shot, and when viewed within that context, Welles' film becomes a political allegory that captures the disillusionment and divisiveness of the McCarthy era, and reemerges as a more complex, intriguing text.