Descent Into Madness: Orson Welles' Macbeth

It is often debated as to whether the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth represent instruments of fate or whether they are simply manipulating and toying with Macbeth and influencing him to act in certain ways. However, Orson Welles, in his 1948 adaptation of Macbeth, uses the witches in a completely different sense, depicting Macbeth’s descent into insanity by leaving the witches in Act 4, Scene 1, out of frame while Macbeth toils onscreen, causing the audience to wonder whether, in this scene, the witches are truly present or are instead of Macbeth’s mind’s creation, thereby drawing parallels to the own turmoil and absolute paranoia of the times.

Though much is to be made for the argument that the witches truly were present, as Welles inserts a scene prior to Macbeth’s crowning that shows the witches placing a crown on top of a doll’s head (likely taking influence from his own groundbreaking 1936 production of Voodoo Macbeth), the purposeful absence of the witches seems to intentionally show his madness, since Act 3, Scene 4, in which Macbeth hallucinates both Duncan and Banquo appearing at his banquet makes him cause a fit. The purposeful cutting and pasting of these two scenes next to each other, removing the two in between, strongly emphasizes that, like Duncan and Banquo, the witches in this scene were also figments of his imagination. He writes Macbeth as insane, making everything in the movie the fault of his own lack of sanity, and not his lack of morals. His drifting thought is often spoken aloud for others to hear, and he breaks out into bursts of madness at the worst of times. His eyes are devoid of any clear thought once the murder of Duncan has fully commenced, and even Lady Macbeth, the great provoker of these violent actions fears the intense madness she sees in his eyes.

But beyond the written word, Welles’ plays with the lighting and scale in this scene, as once the witches cry his name, the screen turns pitch black and Macbeth seems to shrink in size and become absorbed wholly into the background, almost as if he himself is lost in a pit of absolute darkness. Welles is known to have worn makeup during this adaptation to purposefully make himself look either larger or smaller depending on the scene, and in this scene, it is most likely true that he hoped to look as minuscule and hopeless as possible, as he crouched on the ground, only a dim light shining on him and he takes up a proportionately small portion of the screen. Welles also chose not to set this scene in a cavern as directed by Shakespeare. Instead, he sets it in the open air, in the pitch black, where anyone could have intruded and heard Macbeth’s shouting without Macbeth having known. The absolute paranoia captured in Macbeth’s face at this time was most likely what Welles was going for, as this adaptation of Macbeth seems to be a commentary at the United States and the state of Hollywood at the time.

In 1948, the same year that this adaptation had been produced and released, Orson Welles had moved to Europe in fear of the entertainment industry blacklist, or the blacklisting of all individuals accused of having ties to Communism. Welles, a known progressive, had much to fear, for if he was accused of being a Communist, his career in the United States, a prime consumer of his media, would reject him and he would be out of work. However, by moving to Europe, he allowed himself room to make commentary on the red scare in Hollywood through Macbeth. Macbeth’s own insanity reflected the cultural attitude at the time, with Hollywood being Macbeth, the United States Government being the witches, and all those accused being those Macbeth either killed or ordered killed. Though Welles never explicitly states this as his influence for his 1948 adaptation of Macbeth, the liberties he takes with the play draw parallels to the culture of Hollywood and the United States at the time. For example, Welles inserts a scene which replaces the Porter scene where all character must shout that they renounce Satan in a group setting where everyone can see. This parallels earlier events in the United States wherein 1947, directors and other members of Hollywood were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committee, a clear indicator to Hollywood executives that these people were either Communists themselves or Communist sympathizers, neither of which would be tolerated by them, creating the first effective blacklist in Hollywood history.

Furthermore, it is likely that Orson Welles fled to save his reputation in the United States as he himself had prior been investigated by the F.B.I. for Communist involvement and feared that that would soon be struck again by further investigation and that the Hollywood 10 would become the Hollywood 11, himself being the additional member. His new adaptation of Macbeth may also play on his own paranoia that he felt while being investigated. The F.B.I. files on him show his case constantly closing and then opening, always looking around for possible indicators that Welles was Communist, even having people follow him around to check his every action. His own paranoia, though most likely justified, may have also been the inspiration for his adaptation of Macbeth, as we know that Welles was followed possibly without having known, and as stated prior, Macbeth may have been followed or heard in Act 4, Scene 1. If so, it is notably ironic that he films it only after moving to Europe to escape further investigation. Whether or not Welles was truly a Communist, it is not known, but it is no matter either way. Had the Government wished to find his work Communist, they would have surely found a way, as in their files they cited the R.K.O. as calling his work “too leftist.”

It seems that Orson Welles finds Macbeth to be a perfect play for political or cultural commentary, as his first adaptation of Macbeth was the first to use an all-black cast and was one of the reasons he was looked upon for possible communist association in the first place as it placed him in connection with the Negro Cultural Committee, the first committee on a long list cited by the F.B.I. to be proof of his links with Communism. However, the creative liberties he took while adapting the 1948 version of Macbeth to screen show his deliberate attempt to convey a message to his crowd, whether that be the Government’s own paranoia and insanity when it came to Communism, or his own when it came to his investigation by the Government. Either way, Welles’ deviations from the script play into the feeling of paranoia in a post-World War II society that the audience experienced day-to-day. His control over every aspect of production ensured that the message he hoped to create would come across seamlessly. Act 4, Scene 1 of Orson Welles’ adaptation curates a feeling of hopelessness, despair, and paranoia that many may have felt after the war. The red scare had not yet hit full-throttle, and yet many, like Welles, were already feeling, fearing, and warning others of what was soon to come.