The Dryden will screen Macbeth (Orson Welles, U.S. 1948, 86 min., 35mm).

Filming on leftover Western sets and in bizarre interiors that deliberately emphasize theatricality and illusion, Orson Welles produced a moody, highly atmospheric, and stylized reinterpretation of Shakespeare's play to fit tidily into his oeuvre. As in the original text, Macbeth is led by a prophecy and his ruthless wife into a bloody act that makes him king but dooms him to guilt and mental instability. In stressing the egocentrism and pride of Macbeth and their role in his rise and fall, Welles's adaptation diverged from the importance of Lady Macbeth's agency in Shakespeare's verse. As Welles implies in a spoken foreword to the film, his is a study of the tensions, the political conflicts, and the religious troubles of an ancient time. Monstrous, tortured, and grotesque attitudes were thus purposely created in both the treatment of the narrative and the portrayal of the characters to convey the vicious moods and ruthlessness of the Scottish warriors in Macbeth's day.

[source: George Eastman Museum website, 2016-Jun-13]