Product Details

• Actors: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O'Herlihy, Roddy McDowall, Edgar Barrier
• Directors: Orson Welles
• Writers: Orson Welles, William Shakespeare
• Producers: Orson Welles, Charles K. Feldman, Richard Wilson
• Format: Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Run Time: 92 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004U400
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,278 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Macbeth" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Korea DVD Imports RULE! So does this "Ed Wood Meets Wagner" Macbeth, March 20, 2008

By 

E. E. Kuersten "Psychedelic Surgeon" (East Village, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Macbeth (Import, All Region) (DVD)

Any Wells lover who may be wondering whether this is a gray market washout and worth avoiding in favor of some Criterion future thing or other, relax and trust in the power of Korea to do a good job. The subtitles are removeable and the soundtrack is the original and amazingly clear. I had the old Republic VHS tape and it was rough going understanding around 30% of what was said, but I could hear every luscious shakespearean syllable this time around, and the picture is mighty fine, not Criterion level, but maybe old Criterion level, or old Kino level, and even better than some of the big studio's more lazily transferred film noirs, like BODY AND SOUL or SUDDEN FEAR. In short, dear Welles fan, pounce!

And if you've never seen it, Welles MacBeth is like a crazy 1930s German Expressionist bad acid trip, with Welles in florid ham actor mode, his Irish brogue soaring like a hawk. If you love cinema though, you will love crazy Welles drunken sweaty rampaging through his cheap papier mache caverns with his weird statue of liberty crown way more than you could ever love similar more "perfect" adaptations like say, Olivier's HAMLET which came out that same year. That film is amazing, but Olivier is just too graceful, too perfect and measured and his horrible blonde bangs. Let's put it this way, Olivier's film is much better, but Welles' is greater. Olivier is the piano prodigy who plays for the old ladies and gets all the grant money; Welles is the rebel down at the jazz joint, tearing it up in a threadbare tux with a wailin' bebop trio. Who would you rather hang out with, even if you didn't know where your next meal was coming from?

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Orson Welles Fan Who wasn't Disappointed, January 20, 2008

By 

Eric Hofmann "Sonthert" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Macbeth (Import, All Region) (DVD)

This movie is beautifully restored visually and has a fairly good reconstruction of the audio track. A shining counterpoint to the awful vinegar washed copies of "Mr Arkadin" and "The Stranger" you see available from various hack-restoration companies. This edition is a "Director's Cut" that brings the movie back from the mutilation at the hands of Republic Pictures. Its an important piece for people who appreciate the work of Welles, like myself. Welles always liked doing Shakespeare and other classic novels. Some of his unfinished or rejected ideas included "Moby Dick", the "Merchant of Venice" and "Heart of Darkness". Ironically, 35 or so years after Welles's idea to make "Heart of Darkness" into a movie was rejected, it was made into a movie, the classic "Apocalypse Now". Much of what he accomplished was far, far ahead of its time...or perhaps far, far behind the times. Either way, this cut of MacBeth shows the fecundity of Welles vision and not the slashed and burnt profligacy that was attributed to him in his lifetime. For Roddy McDowell fans, you get a glimpse of him years before "Planet of the Apes".

Drawback: No English Subtitles, only Korean ones. I guess its not a drawback if you read Korean well enough. I don't, so...

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fair and Foul Shakespearean Rendition, March 28, 1998

By 

Tyson D. Rahmeier - See all my reviews

This review is from: Macbeth [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Any film directed by Orson Welles is engrossing and worth the time. MACBETH is no exception. For those of you familiar with the 1971 Roman Polanski version, Welles brought to the screen a darker, more nightmarish world than Polanski could envision. The lighting is stark and the shadows ominous. Macbeth's madness increasingly pervades the atmosphere of the entire film, making the viewer unwilling to view this film with the lights out. The restored version presents Welles's original conception; the actors speak their lines with authentic Scottish burrs (Welles was forced to redo the soundtrack by the studio brass). A fascinating journey and imaginative interpretation of Shakespeare, Welles's MACBETH remains a major additon to American cinema and reveals the classical literary talents of one of the US's greatest visual artists. END