Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedy as a shrill, tango-fueled fever dream on video.
Fusing Shakespeare‘s tragedy with the Verdi opera, Schroeter's Macbeth is a fascinating television experiment shot entirely in a studio with several electronic cameras. As Schroeter would recall, "I arranged the Verdi music for a quartet of violin, accordion, piano and oboe, but modeled the rhythms on Argentinian tangos and boleros. The actors sang with horrifying, shrill voices.... The use of video allowed me to produce extraordinary colors.... Of all my films, Macbeth was most unwelcome: Audiences don’t like their Shakespeare to be presented in this way, but I do not differentiate between kitsch and culture...". - MoMA
Direction
Schroeter's tango-rhythmed Shakespeare defies every convention imaginable.
Sound
Accordion-oboe-quartet horror singing that haunts long after.
Cinematography
Saturated video colors that look like neon blood spilled in a cathedral.
Director
Werner Schroeter
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Schroeter shot this entire production in a single television studio using multiple electronic cameras, with no location work whatsoever.
This 1971 broadcast arrived during New German Cinema's emergence—Schroeter's deliberate provocation contrasted sharply with contemporaries like Fassbinder and Wenders.
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