Olive Films Signature Edition of Welles' Macbeth

[Dark Horse 77]

http://www.olivefilms.com/2016/09/olive ... re-titles/

'Olive Films Announces November Olive Signature Titles'

It’s time to announce the next titles to get the Olive Signature treatment! Highlighting cult favorites, time-honored classics, and under-appreciated gems, each Olive Signature edition boasts a pristine audio and video transfer, newly designed cover art, and exciting bonus material. Coveted editions of the films you know and love, Olive Signature is our gift to the many fans, aficionados, and cinephiles who hold these films near and dear.

For release on November 15th, we proudly present the next two Olive Signature titles: Macbeth and Hannie Caulder.

MACBETH

New High-Definition digital restoration
Includes 1948 and 1950 versions
Audio Commentary with Welles biographer Joseph McBride
“Welles and Shakespeare” – an interview with Welles expert, Professor Michael Anderegg
“Adapting Shakespeare on Film” – a conversation with directors Carlo Carlei (Romeo & Juliet) and Billy Morrissette (Scotland, PA)
Excerpt from We Work Again, a 1937 WPA documentary containing scenes from Welles’ Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth
“That Was Orson Welles” – an interview with Welles’ close friend and co-author, Peter Bogdanovich
“Restoring Macbeth” – an interview with former UCLA Film & Television Archive Preservation Officer Bob Gitt
“Free Republic: The Story of Herbert J. Yates and Republic Pictures”
“The Two Macbeths” – an essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

Something wicked this way comes in Orson Welles’ cinematic retelling of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Welles stars as the titular Macbeth—a doomed Scottish lord tragically undone by his own ambition. Welles’ noir-tinged interpretation bubbles over with supernatural prophecy and murderous intrigue, effectively mixing the use of shadow and oblique camera angles to achieve an ominous sense of a land in peril. Beautifully shot by John L. Russell (Psycho) and starring Orson Welles (who also adapted, produced and directed), Jeanette Nolan (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), Dan O’Herlihy (Robinson Crusoe), Roddy McDowall (How Green Was My Valley) and Alan Napier (TV’s Batman), Macbeth is an altogether unique interpretation of Shakespeare’s Scottish play. This special Olive Signature edition includes both the original 1948 107-minute cut, replete with affected highland accents, and the 1950 pared-down 85-minute re-release that removed most of the accented dialogue.

YEAR: 1948, 1950
GENRE: DRAMA
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LABEL: OLIVE FILMS
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 107 mins (1948), 85 mins (1950)
RATING: N/R
VIDEO: 1.37:1 Aspect Ratio; B&W
AUDIO: MONO

Coming to DVD and Blu-ray November 15th.

[atcolomb]

I wish Olive Films would have release this the first time around and not to have two blu-rays of Macbeth. But happy I guess for the new stuff on the upcoming release.

[atcolomb]

Blu-ray.com review of the new release of Macbeth. Since I have the first Blu-ray release I will wait until the price goes down.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Macbeth-B ... 23/#Review

[Wellesnet]

Macbeth out in stores tomorrow:
http://www.wellesnet.com/deluxe-orson-w ... e-tuesday/

"The curious fact that Macbeth resembles at times both a Western and a musical is actually intrinsic to how it was made... Welles shot it in only three weeks at Republic Pictures, a studio specializing in low-budget Westerns... and the experimental method he employed was to prerecord most of the dialogue and then have the actors lip-sync it to playback, the same technique used for songs in musicals." --Jonathan Rosenbaum, in his essay Orson Welles's Macbeths.

[Wellesnet]

Tony Williams review for Film International:
http://filmint.nu/?p=19885

Now available for comparison with Welles’s first version that has been around for some time, one can understand why most people reacted against the truncated version of a film that in many ways was a travesty of the original.

Scarlett Film Magazine:
https://scarletthefilmmagazine.wordpres ... s-blu-ray/

Orson Welles’ Shakespearean films were labors of love that were often created against time constraints, budget problems, and often, negative press and indifference audience responses. They were often forgotten, or, at best, footnotes when people referenced his other studio masterpieces.

OLIVE FILMS release of both versions (of Macbeth) will let you decide which version that you prefer.
The image and sound quality of each is superb, and comes from the best elements available with new High Definition digital restoration. The superb cinematography by John L. Russell (later to work on Hitchcock’s PSYCHO(Paramount,1960) really shines in this transfer. The blacks are rich and dark, with the fog and various gray scales allowing characters to drift in and out as if in some nightmare.