Adaptation
In bringing Macbeth to the screen, Welles made several changes to Shakespeare's original. He added sequences involving the witches to increase their significance. At the beginning of the film, they create a clay figurine of Macbeth, which is used to symbolize his rise and ruin. It collapses in a heap, seemingly of its own volition, immediately after Macbeth is beheaded. The witches also return at the end of the film, viewing the drama from afar and uttering "Peace, the charm's wound up" as the final line (this line is spoken in the first act in the original text, when the witches initially confront Macbeth).
Because of censorship, the Porter's speech was shorn of all its double entendre.
A major change is Welles' introduction of a new character, the Holy Man. The priest recites the prayer of Saint Michael. Welles later explained that the character's presence was meant to confirm that "the main point of that production is the struggle between the old and new religions. I saw the witches as representatives of a Druidical pagan religion suppressed by Christianity – itself a new arrival."
Two more subtle changes include an insinuation that Lady Macbeth fatally stabs Duncan prior to Macbeth's attack on the king, and the fact that Macbeth is witness to Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking and madness scene; in the play, he is not present.
Other changes were made to make the play more cinematic. Nearly all of King Duncan's scenes at the beginning of the play have been cut as well as the character of Donalbain, his second son. Macbeth is seen dictating his letter to his wife, rather than writing it himself. In the play, no such dictation scene exists. The Thane of Cawdor's execution takes place on-stage amid great pomp. Lady Macbeth's suicide and the final battle between Macbeth's forces and Macduff's army are depicted on-screen; in the play, both scenes occur off-stage. Rather than fatally stabbing Macbeth and then beheading the dead body, Macduff kills Macbeth by slashing off his head. Needless to say, lines have been cut, speeches have been reassigned, scenes have been reordered, etc. This scandalized many critics at the time; today it is accepted practice to do so in film versions of Shakespeare plays, but not to such an extreme extent as this production.
Read more about this topic: Macbeth (1948 Film)
Famous quotes containing the word adaptation:
“The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“In youth the human body drew me and was the object of my secret and natural dreams. But body after body has taken away from me that sensual phosphorescence which my youth delighted in. Within me is no disturbing interplay now, but only the steady currents of adaptation and of sympathy.”
—Haniel Long (1888–1956)