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Orson Welles and "Macbeth"
von Hagen ·
26 Januar 2010
Kategorie:
Shakespeare,
Welles
Aufrufe: 87.077
Apart from the prologue and the credits the film’s first scene is the one of Macbeth and Banquo meeting the witches.i The visual representation of the witches is, like in the play, one of uncertainty. Their age is impossible to guess and what appears to be long grey hair might just as well cover up a beard. Aural representation is used as another means of expressing the air of uncertainty that surrounds the witches. The witches seem to speak with more than three voices, not at the same time, but one after the other. Some of these voices are normal, some sharply distorted, some female, some male, others old, and yet others young.ii Furthermore, when the witches turn around to look at Macbeth, they appear to speak without moving their lips [0:12:08].
The witches have sculpted, in the very first seconds of the film, a clay manikin from a boiling pot. It represents Macbeth, which becomes evident when they place a miniature crown on its head as they reveal their prophecy to Macbeth. The manikin itself, reminiscent of a voodoo figure, may be a case of Welles borrowing from himself, elaborating on and including ideas from his staging of the Voodoo-Macbeth. This initial impression, that the clay figure could be some kind of voodoo-figure, is reinforced by the end of the film, when in the moment of Macbeth’s death, Welles cuts to the figurine which is decapitated just as the same happens to Macbeth off-screen.
This figure implies two things. Firstly, it creates the impression that there are forces at work in the film’s world, that control or influence man’s destiny in a way that is beyond human control. Man could be the plaything of these dark forces, his ambitious enterprises and his downfall a thing of their amusement. The fact that the birth of this figure echoes scripture – the creation of man from clayiii – reinforces this impression. Secondly, there is the fact that the figurine is literally a “little man”, which could just as well serve as a moral judgment of Macbeth and his petty ambition. Once king, Macbeth knows not what to do with his power. There is no greater scheme at hand for his reign, no grand principle guides his hand and he even fails at being a successful Machiavellian prince and protect his power for power’s sake.
There are several visual links between the witches and Macbeth. Macbeth’s court seems to be of the same material, surface, and texture as the small voodoo figure.iv The castle’s surface is often wet, water is running down the walls in some places. Macbeth himself is often covered in sweat, most visibly during the banquet scene [0:27:04], and there is a shot of the voodoo figure, a zoom in on it, that shows it to be sweating [0:50:22]. The shot occurs after the murder of Duncan: Macbeth is restless at the scene’s end, there is a zoom in on the witches, followed by the aforementioned zoom in on the voodoo figure, which then is followed by zoom out, that starts with a distorted shot of Macbeth, which is revealed as his reflection in a mirror. Both the zoom in on the figure and the zoom out of the mirror image have an element of visual distortion to it, the latter because of the imperfection of the primitive mirror, the former because the zoom in is out of focus. Macbeth, sweating and in emotional turmoil after the murder, wandering around through the dripping halls of the castle, is linked to the “sweating” figurine of the witches, which in turn is linked to Macbeth and the distorted image he sees of himself: The mirror scene is the first time the crown is placed on his head and the image that should make him happy does not. The distorted image reflects the immoral means he applied to achieve his goal.
Similarly the unconventional design of Welles’ costume with its decorative metal bubbles links Macbeth to the bubbles in the witches pot in which his clay effigy is born.v
Macbeth is also linked to the witches by the shape of the canes they carry, each of which looks like a giant “Y”. Macbeth also wears a similarly shaped cane in the end and the design of his throne is slightly reminiscent of the same shape. This symbol, its use and meaning will be discussed in more detail a few paragraphs later.
All the visual links between Macbeth and the witches that have been pointed out so far seem to imply, that in Macbeth’s world man is a plaything of evil supernatural forces that control his fate and send him on journeys that will end in his death.
But there are other choices. Welles has added a new character to the play, a priest. The father has dialogue from several figures in the play, Ross, Banquo, and Macbeth. He appears for the first time right after Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches and hear their prophecy. He is carrying a huge Celtic cross and chases away the weird sisters. He and the Celtic cross stand for a counter-force to the witches and the powers they represent. The priest is also present when Macbeth writes his letter to his wife. To be more precise: Macbeth dictates the letter to the priest. Thus the priest knows about the prophecy. He is also present when Macbeth and Banquo talk about this prophecy. He plays the role of a conscientious objector. When Macbeth stops dictating the letter and talks to Banquo for a while, the priest reminds him that the letter should be finished by repeating the words of the witches to Macbeth: “Hail, king that shalt be!” [0:16:34] He does so with a disapproving look. But he already warned Macbeth about the nature of such prophecies and cannot do more at that time.vi
The next scene in which the priest can be seen is another addition by Welles. When king Duncan arrives, the priest holds a short ceremony, a version of the prayer of St. Michael as it seems.vii Candles are handed out during the prayer. At the end of the prayer, when everyone is asked if they will renounce Satan, everybody vows to do so. While they say this aloud they raise their candles as an accompanying gesture. Macbeth does as they do, but noticeably slower – as if he is not familiar with the ceremony, as if he is lacking the compassion and the resoluteness of the others or, another possibility that could coexist with any of the two others, as if he has something else that is on his mind. That something is, of course, the tempting thought of regicide. When the king arrived Lady Macbeth told her husband he should not let his face betray his thoughts: “Look like th’ innocent flower,/ But be the serpent under’t.” [I.5.63-64] [0:21:56] That the prayer of St. Michael happens after this seems to reinforce the role of the priest and the religion he promotes as representatives of Macbeth’s other choice. The serpent, as a Christian symbol, often stands for the devil. His wife advising Macbeth to be more like a serpent stands for the evil decision he can make. The prayer of St. Michael, who is often depicted as slaying a dragon symbolizing the devil, stands for the good decision Macbeth can make. During the prayer Macbeth is yet undecided: He cannot renounce Satan but also cannot embrace the idea of committing the crime. In other words: He is certainly not like “the innocent flower” but he is also not a cold Machiavellian power broker to pretend he is.
After the prayer, before and during the brief meeting of Macbeth and Duncan, the Celtic crosses make a first important appearance. Welles uses them a number of times in the film. They, like the priest, stand for Macbeth’s alternate, good choice. But like the priest, who knows about the weird sisters’ prophecy but could not free Macbeth of the ideas this prophecy gave him, they are not a sign of pure good. Their first important appearance is in fact rather disconcerting. Duncan is shown the head of the former Thane of Cawdor. It has been fixed on a thin, long stick. Slightly underneath the impaled head another, much shorter stick has been added horizontally to the vertical stick, making it resemble a cross. Adding the round shape of the cut off head to the whole, all the geometric ingredients for the Celtic cross are there – a vertical line, a horizontal line, a circle. Welles reinforces this impression when he unites both in one shot: the Celtic crosses are carried by marching soldiers who pass the head on a stick. In one frame one of the crosses passes directly in front of the head, briefly uniting the cross and its bizarre approximation [0:25:14]. This is unsettling in many ways: Not only does the primitive rite of displaying beaten enemies’ heads – no matter how evil their deeds – go against the values of a religion promoting forgiveness and should thus not be part of the victory routines of a Christian king, but the direct linking of cross and crude gesture of triumph, and the fact that the Celtic crosses are being carried by soldiers, not monks, priests or the like, make clear that the agents of morality in Welles’ film are an ambiguous lot. “Fair is foul,” at least to a certain degree.
The witches on the other hand might not exactly embody the “…and foul is fair”-part of the equation but they are not as strong and influential as the aforementioned strong visual links between them, Macbeth and the castle imply at first. That Macbeth has a choice has been shown during the prayer of St. Michael. Welles’ edition of Shakespeare’s text does also not exclude Macbeth’s hesitation before the murder (“We will proceed no further in this business” [I.7.32]), although in Welles’ version it is said by Macbeth directly in front of the kings bedchamber, shortly before the murder [0:32:27]. The way Welles staged Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches is interesting in respect to the question of their powers over Macbeth. He conjures the witches, a storm gathers, thunder fills the air and lightning throws leafless trees and a Celtic cross’ shadows on Macbeth [1:12:40] – then silence and darkness follow, and Macbeth is seen as a tiny white spot in the midst of an otherwise black frame. This shot turns out to be a long take, that is done as a slow zoom in on Macbeth. It lasts over one and a half minute [until: 1:14:27]. In this time span Macbeth talks to the witches, but they are nowhere to be seen. Though Welles’ film presents the witches as a physical reality, this scene shows that Macbeth, at this point in the story, does not need the suggestions the witches put into his head anymore. By now he is very well capable of convincing himself. In other words: The witches are not to be seen and only to be heard because they are not there. Macbeth is talking to himself, growing more and more confident in the process. The slow zoom in visualizes the effect of the process of self assertion: Macbeth, starting out as a tiny, lost dot in the darkness, becomes bigger and bigger, until his face fills the screen in a close up, emphasizing the growth of his determination.
Of course it could be argued that Macbeth is in a twilight zone into which the witches have transported him or that he is not speaking to himself, but that the witches have found a way into his head, that they have so much control over him that they need not be present to communicate with him. Both of these interpretations of the scene have their merits, yet none can entirely solve the question why Welles in his otherwise very cinematic film would have chosen to leave the witches out visually had he not intended to cast doubt on their presence in this scene. Welles said about his understanding of the witches for the film: “I think it’s important that the witches don’t really prophesy—they give Macbeth ideas which make things happen. (…) [The witches] aren’t foretelling the future, they’re making it happen.”viii This second, imagined meeting is evidence of the strong influence of the ideas that they gave Macbeth, considering the powerful process of self deceit it generates. At the same time, as mentioned before, this scene shows that the witches are not omnipotent figures controlling man like a puppeteer controls his marionettes. They are merely able to set a process of thought in motion – and even that depends on the person they try their tricks on. Banquo does not fall for their mind game. He could have slain the king to fulfill the first part of the initial prophecy and make Macbeth king, and, like Macbeth, could have tried to change certain realities thereafter to make the second part of the prophecy more becoming for himself. But Banquo, tempted as he might have been, did not chose this course of action. The witches could not play him like a puppet.
The priest and the Celtic crosses stand for one side in this conflict of moral values, the witches for the other side. They, too, have their own symbol. It is, as I mentioned earlier, a “Y”-shaped cane that each witch carries. Similarly shaped forms can be found in Macbeth’s court. The stone throne on which Macbeth sits, looks like the upper part of the letter “Y”. Another “Y” becomes more important near the end. Macbeth, by then, is preparing for the attack of the army that is on its way to end his reign. He has replaced his old four-horned crown, “the devil’s headgear”ix as Peter Conrad calls it, with another model at this point and carries a giant sceptre-cane, uniting both the “Y”-form and the shape of his new crown. In its entirety this sceptre-cane seems to represent two things: while the attacking army is plastered with images of the Celtic crossx Macbeth expresses his moral choice by displaying his side’s religious symbol as well. Furthermore the unity of crown and religious symbol suggests that Macbeth interprets his sovereignty as that of a priest-king. What happens shortly thereafter, when the army arrives before the castle’s walls, reinforces this impression: Macbeth kills the priest. In fact, he kills him with the sceptre-cane, revealing that is has not only decorative and declarative value but also excels as a weapon. Macbeth throws it at the priest and spears him in the result. Macbeth has finally found his answer to the priest’s question after the prayer of St. Michael. Not only does Macbeth not renounce evil, he actually inverts the iconic image of St. Michael spearing the devil and kills the priest in similar fashion.
The religious subtext Welles infused into the play surfaces in another detail, namely Macbeth’s pronunciation of Seyton’s name. When Welles speaks his name it sometimes sounds as if he says “Satan.”xi Seyton is played by Welles’ chauffeur and close friend George Chirello, a little person. This casting choice seems to suggest more than a service to a friend, at least it seems feasible that Welles wanted to establish a connection between the devilish witches and their “little man”, the clay manikin, and Macbeth and the little “Satan” who accompanies him to the end.
Both sides of the religious conflict that Welles has added to the play are not pure. Neither Christianity nor its counterpart are very powerful. Both side’s symbols are directly linked to images of death, are seen penetrating bodies or body parts – the head of a traitor, the priest’s body. Both symbols are carried like weapons or even used as such: the Celtic crosses in the soldiers hands look like replacement halberds, Macbeth’s sceptre serves as ersatz spear. Both side’s kings have their flaws: Macbeth is a tyrant and Malcolm, the king-to-be, is, in comparison to the other men, a soft voiced weakling.
These opposites are not total. There are grey areas. The world Welles depicts is a world in which uncertainties, ungraspable threats and grey areas are expressed by nature. The land is barren, the sun rarely shines. Even when it does, as in the scene of king Duncan’s arrival, the highland’s omnipresent fog does not disappear [0:21:21, right hand side of the frame]. It is a metaphysical universe: the landscape could be interpreted as a “psychological landscape,”xii a portrait of the world how Macbeth sees it, full of fog and mist, without fixed rules. Everything is in flux. The weather in this world is often used as a comment on the protagonist’s emotional uproar. When Macbeth first contemplates the witches prophecy, says “my dull brain was wrought/ With things forgotten” (I.3.150-151), distant thunder roars [0:14:51] as if nature itself comments on Macbeth’s unnatural ideas. The same happens on a number of other occasions such as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s discussion before the murder of Duncan, when Macbeth says “I dare do all that may become a man;/ Who dares do more, is none.” (I.7.47-48) [0:32:55].
Similarly there are two instances when a monologue, one by Macbeth, one by his wife, is illustrated by pictures of fog. In both cases the camera wanders off into the mist while the characters’ voices are heard as voiceovers. In Lady Macbeth’s case – “Come, thick Night” [I.5.48-52] – this is done for about 20 seconds [0:18:12-0:18:31], in Macbeth’s case, the “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow”-monologue [V.5.19-28], it lasts for almost a minute [1:41:22-1:42:21]. Everything in this world is, in Peter Conrad’s words, “dissolute, halfway between solid and liquid states. The air is murkily condensed, or thick with smoke. Mud bubbles, and light itself ‘thickens’.”xiii
Furthermore the prayer of St. Michael is accompanied by a choir on the soundtrack that, initially, sounds like howling of the wind. It is as if the country’s wild savage nature, represented by the wind, is tamed by civilized man, represented by the prayer choir into which the wind turns. At the end of the prayer the men blow out their candles and although it is them and not the wind that blew them out this seems like an omen, a small hint that the light of their religion might not shine too bright in their world.
Additionally the weather plays an important role during Macbeth’s summoning of the witches and his imagined talk with them. The abrupt change from thunder and lightning to absolute silence, darkness and isolation is impressive. Again, the storm seems to be nature’s resistance against Macbeth’s plans – thus the Celtic cross’ shadow that falls on him. The following silence isolates him completely. He seems to have been taken out of the world, as if the territory he is now entering is one of utter darkness. And indeed what follows is Macbeth’s most brutal crime: He does not simply order the killing of Macduff’s family, he leads a group of his own men to do it.
There are other technical and artistic choices with which Welles adds to the film’s atmosphere and subtext and conveys information about the world the film takes place in. Welles is known for his penchant for long takes and the use of deep focus. The long takes were not only a stylistic device for Welles but also a good method to win over people during the production. On Macbeth it worked for the crewxiv, on Touch of Evil Welles used his “magic touch” on the producers. One particular long take crane shot in Touch of Evil ran for almost a full reel and covered fourteen pages of the screenplay.xv The script material in that long take in Touch of Evil was originally scheduled to be filmed conservatively over the course of three days, the first three of the production. Studio executives were visiting the set. Much to their delight Welles filmed the 13 pages of dialogue in one take on the first day. Charlton Heston remembered:
We did several takes—seven or eight takes. Finally we got a print, just before six o’clock. And Orson said, “OK, that’s a print. Wrap. (…) We’re two days ahead of schedule.” (…) Everybody thought it was marvellous. (…) They never gave him any trouble again after that. They thought, “My God, he did three day’s work in one shot! [xvi]
Of course, that film’s post-production phase meant similar and partially worse troubles than the ones he had with Macbeth. In both cases the economy of his filming was dearer to the hearts of his producers than the work he finally submitted.
But of course the long takes were neither only a trick to win Welles’ producers or crew’s confidence nor a meaningless gimmick of Welles’ style. In Macbeth long takes and deep focus shots create an almost claustrophobic effect. The unity of time and space reveals that the space in this world is limited. Welles’ Scotland is always crowded or at least only one cry for help away from being tumultuously crowded. It is “a world in which no one is truly alone.”xvii Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are never truly alone, geographically separate from other people. This changes the nature of their secret conspiracy. In Welles’ film this conspiracy is less secret. The presence of the priest during the writing of Macbeth’s letter to his wife alone makes the protagonist’s ambition less obscured. The priest is also the first person to enter Duncan’s bedroom a split second after Macbeth has killed the guards as scapegoats. The priest’s face can be seen in one of the films rarer close-ups: He is frowning. This close-up emphasizes the impression the deep focus long shots give. The latter paint a picture of a world in which nobody can hide from the others – neither physically, nor his thoughts –, the former confirm that suspicion about other people’s motive’s are common. Between Macbeth’s completion of his cover up of the murder and the first indication that nobody will believe in this decoy not more than a few seconds pass. That itself says something about Macbeth’s world: Macbeth’s plan cannot be a secret when the first meeting with the witches is interrupted by the priest and messengers, when Banquo and the priest know some of Macbeth’s thoughts about the witches prophecy, when his hesitation during the prayer happens while he is surrounded by virtually everybody – and still, Macbeth can proceed with his plan and kill his king.
Another technical choice, Welles’ lighting, makes Macbeth’s world resemble the world of the Universal horror movies or the film noir. In both cases the lighting style implicates a world that is out of order – not only during Macbeth’s usurpation of the throne but also before and after it. More on the connection between Macbeth and both styles will be mentioned later.
Sound also plays a crucial role in Welles’ film. In the 1950-version several changes were applied that did not only concern the accent. Welles had, in his original sound mix, a three-dimensional sound space, which was now partially dismantled. Hard to hear lines spoken in the background and only overheard by characters were mixed into the foreground, making the scenes easier to understand but eliminating the subtly of the soundtrack.xviii Welles use of sound was just another reason for the audience’s troubles with understanding the film. The newly dubbed version had the downside of changing the nature of some of the vocal performances, which were in many cases often made softer, less frenzied, more in tune with traditional concepts of performing Shakespeare.xix Technically they were not as well done as the original soundtrack, creating “displaced diegetic sound,”xx diegetic sounds that are asynchronous. That itself and the sometimes obvious redubbing could of course be taken as another sign of Welles’ depiction of a strange world out of order.xxi But of course the sound mix of the longer, original version should be of more interest in that question. Welles uses an effect similar to “displaced diegetic sound” during Macbeth’s first encounter with the witches, when they speak without seemingly moving their lips. The aforementioned more subtle sound mixing, which made some lines barely audible, also reinforced the impression that Macbeth’s world is one where secrets are never completely secret and hidden from those who should not about them. Something can always be overheard by someone in this world in which, again, “no one is truly alone.”
Montage is another means of conveying information. The film begins with a montage of “seemingly unconnected images and sounds, (…) [a] mélange of sound and musical effects, some of which have only an oblique association with what we see.”xxii This montage sets the tone for the whole film and is the first indication about the world that is presented, a world in which the rational and the irrational overlap, in which pagan forces are at work, and in which the boiling witches’ pot resembles the wet castle and the foggy weather that never disappears. Similarly Welles’ intercutting of the execution of Cawdor and Macbeth’s ride home link both men. The execution is a “a system of organized brutality,”xxiii casting light on the kind of order that exists in Duncan’s kingdom. Furthermore the scene has one Thane of Cawdor die as a traitor and another Thane of Cawdor arrive to become a traitor. Treason cannot be made to disappear from this world and the death of one rebel does not prevent another man from becoming a rebel.
The same connection between both Thanes of Cawdor is expressed through Welles composition in a later shot. In [0:25:19]xxiv Macbeth is kneeling before his king, looking up to him. Behind the king the head of the former Thane of Cawdor can be seen – it is part of Macbeth’s line of sight. In this shot the king is framed by the two Cawdor’s: he has left the dead, rebellious one behind him and now trusts the new Cawdor. Macbeth, the new Thane of Cawdor, is looking up to his king, but in extension of his line of sight the old Cawdor, quite literally, “rears his head.” For Macbeth, thinking about the king means thinking about rebellion. Later Lady Macbeth will enter the frame in the distance, between the king and Macbeth. When her husband looks down [0:25:25]xxv his already telling placement in the frame becomes more suggestive as he appears, interpreting the composition on a purely two-dimensional level, to be looking at his wife. Her role in the murder of Cawdor and her influence as a factor of Macbeth’s decision is visually represented by this composition. Again, a technical and artistic solution serves to underscore the story’s underlying processes and the relations between characters.
Illustrations 1 and 2: Macbeth looking up to the king and the former Thane of Cawdor, then seemingly looking at his wife.
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[i] This discussion is only concerned with Welles’ cut of the film and all mentioned time codes are therefore in reference to this version. Notes on the shortened version can be found in chapter 2.3.
[ii] see: Simon Callow. Orson Welles. Hello Americans (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006) p. 426.
[iii] Peter Conrad, though, was reminded of “Ovid’s cosmic maker, or Prometheus who moulded the first man from the mud of a river bed.” (Conrad (2003) p. 44.) One could also think of the Moirai of Greek or the Norns of Germanic mythology, three maidens who spin the fate of man. The latter were considered to live by Yggdrasill, the “world tree”, whereas Welles’ witches make their first appearance next to a leafless, dead tree.
[iv] see: Simon Callow. Orson Welles. Hello Americans (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006) p. 427.
[v] see: Anthony Davies. Filming Shakespeare’s plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) p. 97.
[vi] This scene ends with an interesting device. Welles uses not only a dissolve from a shot of Macbeth dictating the letter to his wife reading it, but he precedes this with a similar effect on the soundtrack. While Macbeth dictates the letter, the sound of Lady Macbeth’s reading the letter fades in and slowly becomes the only voice that can be heard. This dissolve is not only a smooth transition from one scene to another but also a way of expressing the deep connection, the understanding between Macbeth and his wife, who seem to be able to read between the lines of what their significant other says.
[vii] see: Robert Garis. The Films of Orson Welles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) p. 137.
[viii] Jonathan Rosenbaum (Ed.). This is Orson Welles. Orson Welles & Peter Bogdanovich (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993) p. 214, 215.
[ix] Peter Conrad. Orson Welles. The Stories of His Life (London: Faber and Faber, 2003) p. 80. Lady Macbeth has a similar crown, that has two smaller “horns”. It can be seen in the banquet scene [1:07:40].
[x] Each soldier carries a long, thin stick on whose end the cross is to be found, the army’s leaders have small crosses on the top of their helmets, all soldiers have it painted on their shirts, and the priest carries a massive wooden cross.
[xi] see: Simon Callow. Orson Welles. Hello Americans (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006) p. 434.
[xii] Michael Anderegg. Orson Welles, Shakespeare and popular culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999) p. 84.
[xiii] Peter Conrad. Orson Welles. The Stories of His Life (London: Faber and Faber, 2003) p. 70, 71.
[xiv] see: chapter 2.3.
[xv] see: Jonathan Rosenbaum (Ed.). This is Orson Welles. Orson Welles & Peter Bogdanovich (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993) p. 308.
[xvi] James Delson. “Heston on Welles”, in: Beja, Morris (Ed.). Perspectives on Welles (New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1995) p. 70, 71.
[xvii] Michael Anderegg. Orson Welles, Shakespeare and popular culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999) p. 82.
[xviii] see: ibid., p. 90.
[xix] see: ibid., p. 92.
[xx] ibid., p. 91.
[xxi] Welles' intended version is also not free of some breeches in the audio-visual integrity. Macbeth’s aside after meeting the witches (“If good, why do I yield to that suggestion” [I.3.134-137], [0:13:42-0:13:57]) has a short but noticeable loop of the visual material – to make more room for the lines that are spoken as voice over. These lines must have been a post production addition, making Welles trick to prolong the shot’s duration necessary. Something similar happens during the second, imagined meeting with the witches, when the slow zoom in on Welles becomes slightly slower in one passage – Welles use of this partial slow motion gives room to another voice over line, spoken by a witch. That, too, is surely a post production addition. Both examples are hints as to why the post production of an Orson-Welles-film took longer than other director’s works, as Welles obviously considered post production to be part of the creative process and not merely a technical phase of assembling ready made pieces.
[xxii] Michael Anderegg. Orson Welles, Shakespeare and popular culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999) p. 81.
[xxiii] Robert Garis. The Films of Orson Welles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
p. 140.
[xxiv] see: Illustration 1.
[xxv] see: Illustration 2.
The witches have sculpted, in the very first seconds of the film, a clay manikin from a boiling pot. It represents Macbeth, which becomes evident when they place a miniature crown on its head as they reveal their prophecy to Macbeth. The manikin itself, reminiscent of a voodoo figure, may be a case of Welles borrowing from himself, elaborating on and including ideas from his staging of the Voodoo-Macbeth. This initial impression, that the clay figure could be some kind of voodoo-figure, is reinforced by the end of the film, when in the moment of Macbeth’s death, Welles cuts to the figurine which is decapitated just as the same happens to Macbeth off-screen.
This figure implies two things. Firstly, it creates the impression that there are forces at work in the film’s world, that control or influence man’s destiny in a way that is beyond human control. Man could be the plaything of these dark forces, his ambitious enterprises and his downfall a thing of their amusement. The fact that the birth of this figure echoes scripture – the creation of man from clayiii – reinforces this impression. Secondly, there is the fact that the figurine is literally a “little man”, which could just as well serve as a moral judgment of Macbeth and his petty ambition. Once king, Macbeth knows not what to do with his power. There is no greater scheme at hand for his reign, no grand principle guides his hand and he even fails at being a successful Machiavellian prince and protect his power for power’s sake.
There are several visual links between the witches and Macbeth. Macbeth’s court seems to be of the same material, surface, and texture as the small voodoo figure.iv The castle’s surface is often wet, water is running down the walls in some places. Macbeth himself is often covered in sweat, most visibly during the banquet scene [0:27:04], and there is a shot of the voodoo figure, a zoom in on it, that shows it to be sweating [0:50:22]. The shot occurs after the murder of Duncan: Macbeth is restless at the scene’s end, there is a zoom in on the witches, followed by the aforementioned zoom in on the voodoo figure, which then is followed by zoom out, that starts with a distorted shot of Macbeth, which is revealed as his reflection in a mirror. Both the zoom in on the figure and the zoom out of the mirror image have an element of visual distortion to it, the latter because of the imperfection of the primitive mirror, the former because the zoom in is out of focus. Macbeth, sweating and in emotional turmoil after the murder, wandering around through the dripping halls of the castle, is linked to the “sweating” figurine of the witches, which in turn is linked to Macbeth and the distorted image he sees of himself: The mirror scene is the first time the crown is placed on his head and the image that should make him happy does not. The distorted image reflects the immoral means he applied to achieve his goal.
Similarly the unconventional design of Welles’ costume with its decorative metal bubbles links Macbeth to the bubbles in the witches pot in which his clay effigy is born.v
Macbeth is also linked to the witches by the shape of the canes they carry, each of which looks like a giant “Y”. Macbeth also wears a similarly shaped cane in the end and the design of his throne is slightly reminiscent of the same shape. This symbol, its use and meaning will be discussed in more detail a few paragraphs later.
All the visual links between Macbeth and the witches that have been pointed out so far seem to imply, that in Macbeth’s world man is a plaything of evil supernatural forces that control his fate and send him on journeys that will end in his death.
But there are other choices. Welles has added a new character to the play, a priest. The father has dialogue from several figures in the play, Ross, Banquo, and Macbeth. He appears for the first time right after Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches and hear their prophecy. He is carrying a huge Celtic cross and chases away the weird sisters. He and the Celtic cross stand for a counter-force to the witches and the powers they represent. The priest is also present when Macbeth writes his letter to his wife. To be more precise: Macbeth dictates the letter to the priest. Thus the priest knows about the prophecy. He is also present when Macbeth and Banquo talk about this prophecy. He plays the role of a conscientious objector. When Macbeth stops dictating the letter and talks to Banquo for a while, the priest reminds him that the letter should be finished by repeating the words of the witches to Macbeth: “Hail, king that shalt be!” [0:16:34] He does so with a disapproving look. But he already warned Macbeth about the nature of such prophecies and cannot do more at that time.vi
The next scene in which the priest can be seen is another addition by Welles. When king Duncan arrives, the priest holds a short ceremony, a version of the prayer of St. Michael as it seems.vii Candles are handed out during the prayer. At the end of the prayer, when everyone is asked if they will renounce Satan, everybody vows to do so. While they say this aloud they raise their candles as an accompanying gesture. Macbeth does as they do, but noticeably slower – as if he is not familiar with the ceremony, as if he is lacking the compassion and the resoluteness of the others or, another possibility that could coexist with any of the two others, as if he has something else that is on his mind. That something is, of course, the tempting thought of regicide. When the king arrived Lady Macbeth told her husband he should not let his face betray his thoughts: “Look like th’ innocent flower,/ But be the serpent under’t.” [I.5.63-64] [0:21:56] That the prayer of St. Michael happens after this seems to reinforce the role of the priest and the religion he promotes as representatives of Macbeth’s other choice. The serpent, as a Christian symbol, often stands for the devil. His wife advising Macbeth to be more like a serpent stands for the evil decision he can make. The prayer of St. Michael, who is often depicted as slaying a dragon symbolizing the devil, stands for the good decision Macbeth can make. During the prayer Macbeth is yet undecided: He cannot renounce Satan but also cannot embrace the idea of committing the crime. In other words: He is certainly not like “the innocent flower” but he is also not a cold Machiavellian power broker to pretend he is.
After the prayer, before and during the brief meeting of Macbeth and Duncan, the Celtic crosses make a first important appearance. Welles uses them a number of times in the film. They, like the priest, stand for Macbeth’s alternate, good choice. But like the priest, who knows about the weird sisters’ prophecy but could not free Macbeth of the ideas this prophecy gave him, they are not a sign of pure good. Their first important appearance is in fact rather disconcerting. Duncan is shown the head of the former Thane of Cawdor. It has been fixed on a thin, long stick. Slightly underneath the impaled head another, much shorter stick has been added horizontally to the vertical stick, making it resemble a cross. Adding the round shape of the cut off head to the whole, all the geometric ingredients for the Celtic cross are there – a vertical line, a horizontal line, a circle. Welles reinforces this impression when he unites both in one shot: the Celtic crosses are carried by marching soldiers who pass the head on a stick. In one frame one of the crosses passes directly in front of the head, briefly uniting the cross and its bizarre approximation [0:25:14]. This is unsettling in many ways: Not only does the primitive rite of displaying beaten enemies’ heads – no matter how evil their deeds – go against the values of a religion promoting forgiveness and should thus not be part of the victory routines of a Christian king, but the direct linking of cross and crude gesture of triumph, and the fact that the Celtic crosses are being carried by soldiers, not monks, priests or the like, make clear that the agents of morality in Welles’ film are an ambiguous lot. “Fair is foul,” at least to a certain degree.
The witches on the other hand might not exactly embody the “…and foul is fair”-part of the equation but they are not as strong and influential as the aforementioned strong visual links between them, Macbeth and the castle imply at first. That Macbeth has a choice has been shown during the prayer of St. Michael. Welles’ edition of Shakespeare’s text does also not exclude Macbeth’s hesitation before the murder (“We will proceed no further in this business” [I.7.32]), although in Welles’ version it is said by Macbeth directly in front of the kings bedchamber, shortly before the murder [0:32:27]. The way Welles staged Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches is interesting in respect to the question of their powers over Macbeth. He conjures the witches, a storm gathers, thunder fills the air and lightning throws leafless trees and a Celtic cross’ shadows on Macbeth [1:12:40] – then silence and darkness follow, and Macbeth is seen as a tiny white spot in the midst of an otherwise black frame. This shot turns out to be a long take, that is done as a slow zoom in on Macbeth. It lasts over one and a half minute [until: 1:14:27]. In this time span Macbeth talks to the witches, but they are nowhere to be seen. Though Welles’ film presents the witches as a physical reality, this scene shows that Macbeth, at this point in the story, does not need the suggestions the witches put into his head anymore. By now he is very well capable of convincing himself. In other words: The witches are not to be seen and only to be heard because they are not there. Macbeth is talking to himself, growing more and more confident in the process. The slow zoom in visualizes the effect of the process of self assertion: Macbeth, starting out as a tiny, lost dot in the darkness, becomes bigger and bigger, until his face fills the screen in a close up, emphasizing the growth of his determination.
Of course it could be argued that Macbeth is in a twilight zone into which the witches have transported him or that he is not speaking to himself, but that the witches have found a way into his head, that they have so much control over him that they need not be present to communicate with him. Both of these interpretations of the scene have their merits, yet none can entirely solve the question why Welles in his otherwise very cinematic film would have chosen to leave the witches out visually had he not intended to cast doubt on their presence in this scene. Welles said about his understanding of the witches for the film: “I think it’s important that the witches don’t really prophesy—they give Macbeth ideas which make things happen. (…) [The witches] aren’t foretelling the future, they’re making it happen.”viii This second, imagined meeting is evidence of the strong influence of the ideas that they gave Macbeth, considering the powerful process of self deceit it generates. At the same time, as mentioned before, this scene shows that the witches are not omnipotent figures controlling man like a puppeteer controls his marionettes. They are merely able to set a process of thought in motion – and even that depends on the person they try their tricks on. Banquo does not fall for their mind game. He could have slain the king to fulfill the first part of the initial prophecy and make Macbeth king, and, like Macbeth, could have tried to change certain realities thereafter to make the second part of the prophecy more becoming for himself. But Banquo, tempted as he might have been, did not chose this course of action. The witches could not play him like a puppet.
The priest and the Celtic crosses stand for one side in this conflict of moral values, the witches for the other side. They, too, have their own symbol. It is, as I mentioned earlier, a “Y”-shaped cane that each witch carries. Similarly shaped forms can be found in Macbeth’s court. The stone throne on which Macbeth sits, looks like the upper part of the letter “Y”. Another “Y” becomes more important near the end. Macbeth, by then, is preparing for the attack of the army that is on its way to end his reign. He has replaced his old four-horned crown, “the devil’s headgear”ix as Peter Conrad calls it, with another model at this point and carries a giant sceptre-cane, uniting both the “Y”-form and the shape of his new crown. In its entirety this sceptre-cane seems to represent two things: while the attacking army is plastered with images of the Celtic crossx Macbeth expresses his moral choice by displaying his side’s religious symbol as well. Furthermore the unity of crown and religious symbol suggests that Macbeth interprets his sovereignty as that of a priest-king. What happens shortly thereafter, when the army arrives before the castle’s walls, reinforces this impression: Macbeth kills the priest. In fact, he kills him with the sceptre-cane, revealing that is has not only decorative and declarative value but also excels as a weapon. Macbeth throws it at the priest and spears him in the result. Macbeth has finally found his answer to the priest’s question after the prayer of St. Michael. Not only does Macbeth not renounce evil, he actually inverts the iconic image of St. Michael spearing the devil and kills the priest in similar fashion.
The religious subtext Welles infused into the play surfaces in another detail, namely Macbeth’s pronunciation of Seyton’s name. When Welles speaks his name it sometimes sounds as if he says “Satan.”xi Seyton is played by Welles’ chauffeur and close friend George Chirello, a little person. This casting choice seems to suggest more than a service to a friend, at least it seems feasible that Welles wanted to establish a connection between the devilish witches and their “little man”, the clay manikin, and Macbeth and the little “Satan” who accompanies him to the end.
Both sides of the religious conflict that Welles has added to the play are not pure. Neither Christianity nor its counterpart are very powerful. Both side’s symbols are directly linked to images of death, are seen penetrating bodies or body parts – the head of a traitor, the priest’s body. Both symbols are carried like weapons or even used as such: the Celtic crosses in the soldiers hands look like replacement halberds, Macbeth’s sceptre serves as ersatz spear. Both side’s kings have their flaws: Macbeth is a tyrant and Malcolm, the king-to-be, is, in comparison to the other men, a soft voiced weakling.
These opposites are not total. There are grey areas. The world Welles depicts is a world in which uncertainties, ungraspable threats and grey areas are expressed by nature. The land is barren, the sun rarely shines. Even when it does, as in the scene of king Duncan’s arrival, the highland’s omnipresent fog does not disappear [0:21:21, right hand side of the frame]. It is a metaphysical universe: the landscape could be interpreted as a “psychological landscape,”xii a portrait of the world how Macbeth sees it, full of fog and mist, without fixed rules. Everything is in flux. The weather in this world is often used as a comment on the protagonist’s emotional uproar. When Macbeth first contemplates the witches prophecy, says “my dull brain was wrought/ With things forgotten” (I.3.150-151), distant thunder roars [0:14:51] as if nature itself comments on Macbeth’s unnatural ideas. The same happens on a number of other occasions such as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s discussion before the murder of Duncan, when Macbeth says “I dare do all that may become a man;/ Who dares do more, is none.” (I.7.47-48) [0:32:55].
Similarly there are two instances when a monologue, one by Macbeth, one by his wife, is illustrated by pictures of fog. In both cases the camera wanders off into the mist while the characters’ voices are heard as voiceovers. In Lady Macbeth’s case – “Come, thick Night” [I.5.48-52] – this is done for about 20 seconds [0:18:12-0:18:31], in Macbeth’s case, the “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow”-monologue [V.5.19-28], it lasts for almost a minute [1:41:22-1:42:21]. Everything in this world is, in Peter Conrad’s words, “dissolute, halfway between solid and liquid states. The air is murkily condensed, or thick with smoke. Mud bubbles, and light itself ‘thickens’.”xiii
Furthermore the prayer of St. Michael is accompanied by a choir on the soundtrack that, initially, sounds like howling of the wind. It is as if the country’s wild savage nature, represented by the wind, is tamed by civilized man, represented by the prayer choir into which the wind turns. At the end of the prayer the men blow out their candles and although it is them and not the wind that blew them out this seems like an omen, a small hint that the light of their religion might not shine too bright in their world.
Additionally the weather plays an important role during Macbeth’s summoning of the witches and his imagined talk with them. The abrupt change from thunder and lightning to absolute silence, darkness and isolation is impressive. Again, the storm seems to be nature’s resistance against Macbeth’s plans – thus the Celtic cross’ shadow that falls on him. The following silence isolates him completely. He seems to have been taken out of the world, as if the territory he is now entering is one of utter darkness. And indeed what follows is Macbeth’s most brutal crime: He does not simply order the killing of Macduff’s family, he leads a group of his own men to do it.
There are other technical and artistic choices with which Welles adds to the film’s atmosphere and subtext and conveys information about the world the film takes place in. Welles is known for his penchant for long takes and the use of deep focus. The long takes were not only a stylistic device for Welles but also a good method to win over people during the production. On Macbeth it worked for the crewxiv, on Touch of Evil Welles used his “magic touch” on the producers. One particular long take crane shot in Touch of Evil ran for almost a full reel and covered fourteen pages of the screenplay.xv The script material in that long take in Touch of Evil was originally scheduled to be filmed conservatively over the course of three days, the first three of the production. Studio executives were visiting the set. Much to their delight Welles filmed the 13 pages of dialogue in one take on the first day. Charlton Heston remembered:
We did several takes—seven or eight takes. Finally we got a print, just before six o’clock. And Orson said, “OK, that’s a print. Wrap. (…) We’re two days ahead of schedule.” (…) Everybody thought it was marvellous. (…) They never gave him any trouble again after that. They thought, “My God, he did three day’s work in one shot! [xvi]
Of course, that film’s post-production phase meant similar and partially worse troubles than the ones he had with Macbeth. In both cases the economy of his filming was dearer to the hearts of his producers than the work he finally submitted.
But of course the long takes were neither only a trick to win Welles’ producers or crew’s confidence nor a meaningless gimmick of Welles’ style. In Macbeth long takes and deep focus shots create an almost claustrophobic effect. The unity of time and space reveals that the space in this world is limited. Welles’ Scotland is always crowded or at least only one cry for help away from being tumultuously crowded. It is “a world in which no one is truly alone.”xvii Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are never truly alone, geographically separate from other people. This changes the nature of their secret conspiracy. In Welles’ film this conspiracy is less secret. The presence of the priest during the writing of Macbeth’s letter to his wife alone makes the protagonist’s ambition less obscured. The priest is also the first person to enter Duncan’s bedroom a split second after Macbeth has killed the guards as scapegoats. The priest’s face can be seen in one of the films rarer close-ups: He is frowning. This close-up emphasizes the impression the deep focus long shots give. The latter paint a picture of a world in which nobody can hide from the others – neither physically, nor his thoughts –, the former confirm that suspicion about other people’s motive’s are common. Between Macbeth’s completion of his cover up of the murder and the first indication that nobody will believe in this decoy not more than a few seconds pass. That itself says something about Macbeth’s world: Macbeth’s plan cannot be a secret when the first meeting with the witches is interrupted by the priest and messengers, when Banquo and the priest know some of Macbeth’s thoughts about the witches prophecy, when his hesitation during the prayer happens while he is surrounded by virtually everybody – and still, Macbeth can proceed with his plan and kill his king.
Another technical choice, Welles’ lighting, makes Macbeth’s world resemble the world of the Universal horror movies or the film noir. In both cases the lighting style implicates a world that is out of order – not only during Macbeth’s usurpation of the throne but also before and after it. More on the connection between Macbeth and both styles will be mentioned later.
Sound also plays a crucial role in Welles’ film. In the 1950-version several changes were applied that did not only concern the accent. Welles had, in his original sound mix, a three-dimensional sound space, which was now partially dismantled. Hard to hear lines spoken in the background and only overheard by characters were mixed into the foreground, making the scenes easier to understand but eliminating the subtly of the soundtrack.xviii Welles use of sound was just another reason for the audience’s troubles with understanding the film. The newly dubbed version had the downside of changing the nature of some of the vocal performances, which were in many cases often made softer, less frenzied, more in tune with traditional concepts of performing Shakespeare.xix Technically they were not as well done as the original soundtrack, creating “displaced diegetic sound,”xx diegetic sounds that are asynchronous. That itself and the sometimes obvious redubbing could of course be taken as another sign of Welles’ depiction of a strange world out of order.xxi But of course the sound mix of the longer, original version should be of more interest in that question. Welles uses an effect similar to “displaced diegetic sound” during Macbeth’s first encounter with the witches, when they speak without seemingly moving their lips. The aforementioned more subtle sound mixing, which made some lines barely audible, also reinforced the impression that Macbeth’s world is one where secrets are never completely secret and hidden from those who should not about them. Something can always be overheard by someone in this world in which, again, “no one is truly alone.”
Montage is another means of conveying information. The film begins with a montage of “seemingly unconnected images and sounds, (…) [a] mélange of sound and musical effects, some of which have only an oblique association with what we see.”xxii This montage sets the tone for the whole film and is the first indication about the world that is presented, a world in which the rational and the irrational overlap, in which pagan forces are at work, and in which the boiling witches’ pot resembles the wet castle and the foggy weather that never disappears. Similarly Welles’ intercutting of the execution of Cawdor and Macbeth’s ride home link both men. The execution is a “a system of organized brutality,”xxiii casting light on the kind of order that exists in Duncan’s kingdom. Furthermore the scene has one Thane of Cawdor die as a traitor and another Thane of Cawdor arrive to become a traitor. Treason cannot be made to disappear from this world and the death of one rebel does not prevent another man from becoming a rebel.
The same connection between both Thanes of Cawdor is expressed through Welles composition in a later shot. In [0:25:19]xxiv Macbeth is kneeling before his king, looking up to him. Behind the king the head of the former Thane of Cawdor can be seen – it is part of Macbeth’s line of sight. In this shot the king is framed by the two Cawdor’s: he has left the dead, rebellious one behind him and now trusts the new Cawdor. Macbeth, the new Thane of Cawdor, is looking up to his king, but in extension of his line of sight the old Cawdor, quite literally, “rears his head.” For Macbeth, thinking about the king means thinking about rebellion. Later Lady Macbeth will enter the frame in the distance, between the king and Macbeth. When her husband looks down [0:25:25]xxv his already telling placement in the frame becomes more suggestive as he appears, interpreting the composition on a purely two-dimensional level, to be looking at his wife. Her role in the murder of Cawdor and her influence as a factor of Macbeth’s decision is visually represented by this composition. Again, a technical and artistic solution serves to underscore the story’s underlying processes and the relations between characters.
Illustrations 1 and 2: Macbeth looking up to the king and the former Thane of Cawdor, then seemingly looking at his wife.
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[i] This discussion is only concerned with Welles’ cut of the film and all mentioned time codes are therefore in reference to this version. Notes on the shortened version can be found in chapter 2.3.
[ii] see: Simon Callow. Orson Welles. Hello Americans (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006) p. 426.
[iii] Peter Conrad, though, was reminded of “Ovid’s cosmic maker, or Prometheus who moulded the first man from the mud of a river bed.” (Conrad (2003) p. 44.) One could also think of the Moirai of Greek or the Norns of Germanic mythology, three maidens who spin the fate of man. The latter were considered to live by Yggdrasill, the “world tree”, whereas Welles’ witches make their first appearance next to a leafless, dead tree.
[iv] see: Simon Callow. Orson Welles. Hello Americans (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006) p. 427.
[v] see: Anthony Davies. Filming Shakespeare’s plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) p. 97.
[vi] This scene ends with an interesting device. Welles uses not only a dissolve from a shot of Macbeth dictating the letter to his wife reading it, but he precedes this with a similar effect on the soundtrack. While Macbeth dictates the letter, the sound of Lady Macbeth’s reading the letter fades in and slowly becomes the only voice that can be heard. This dissolve is not only a smooth transition from one scene to another but also a way of expressing the deep connection, the understanding between Macbeth and his wife, who seem to be able to read between the lines of what their significant other says.
[vii] see: Robert Garis. The Films of Orson Welles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) p. 137.
[viii] Jonathan Rosenbaum (Ed.). This is Orson Welles. Orson Welles & Peter Bogdanovich (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993) p. 214, 215.
[ix] Peter Conrad. Orson Welles. The Stories of His Life (London: Faber and Faber, 2003) p. 80. Lady Macbeth has a similar crown, that has two smaller “horns”. It can be seen in the banquet scene [1:07:40].
[x] Each soldier carries a long, thin stick on whose end the cross is to be found, the army’s leaders have small crosses on the top of their helmets, all soldiers have it painted on their shirts, and the priest carries a massive wooden cross.
[xi] see: Simon Callow. Orson Welles. Hello Americans (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006) p. 434.
[xii] Michael Anderegg. Orson Welles, Shakespeare and popular culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999) p. 84.
[xiii] Peter Conrad. Orson Welles. The Stories of His Life (London: Faber and Faber, 2003) p. 70, 71.
[xiv] see: chapter 2.3.
[xv] see: Jonathan Rosenbaum (Ed.). This is Orson Welles. Orson Welles & Peter Bogdanovich (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993) p. 308.
[xvi] James Delson. “Heston on Welles”, in: Beja, Morris (Ed.). Perspectives on Welles (New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1995) p. 70, 71.
[xvii] Michael Anderegg. Orson Welles, Shakespeare and popular culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999) p. 82.
[xviii] see: ibid., p. 90.
[xix] see: ibid., p. 92.
[xx] ibid., p. 91.
[xxi] Welles' intended version is also not free of some breeches in the audio-visual integrity. Macbeth’s aside after meeting the witches (“If good, why do I yield to that suggestion” [I.3.134-137], [0:13:42-0:13:57]) has a short but noticeable loop of the visual material – to make more room for the lines that are spoken as voice over. These lines must have been a post production addition, making Welles trick to prolong the shot’s duration necessary. Something similar happens during the second, imagined meeting with the witches, when the slow zoom in on Welles becomes slightly slower in one passage – Welles use of this partial slow motion gives room to another voice over line, spoken by a witch. That, too, is surely a post production addition. Both examples are hints as to why the post production of an Orson-Welles-film took longer than other director’s works, as Welles obviously considered post production to be part of the creative process and not merely a technical phase of assembling ready made pieces.
[xxii] Michael Anderegg. Orson Welles, Shakespeare and popular culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999) p. 81.
[xxiii] Robert Garis. The Films of Orson Welles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
p. 140.
[xxiv] see: Illustration 1.
[xxv] see: Illustration 2.
