[In the restored version] Welles's Macbeth is now a bold, exciting, innovative film.

It is not Shakespeare's Macbeth. I'm not going to reopen the old critical hassle of whether or not there is an ideal Macbeth …; I simply tell again the beads of my Shakespeare-on-film rosary: no film of a Shakespeare play can be that play….

But Welles knew all this…. [It's] no surprise that his Macbeth has often been called expressionist. But in aesthetic terms, the most striking aspect of this restored film is Welles's apparently quite conscious attempt to fuse a third form out of theater and film. (p. 24)

[Most] of the standard objections to this film seem to me to miss the point. It's been dubbed the "papier-mâché" Macbeth because of its sets, it's been castigated for its obvious studio lighting. These strictures, and more, grow out of the belief that film automatically equals...