Originally, this brief footage of a scene from Shakespeare's "Macbeth" was apparently planned to become part of a longer feature that collected a number of examples of combat from different eras. On its own, it's still interesting in a couple of respects.
In just over a minute of running time, the footage shows Macbeth's brief confrontation with Young Siward, and then the climactic fight with Macduff. No inter-titles survive, because it was originally designed to be shown with a narrator reading a prepared text to go with the scene.
But you could actually make a pretty good guess, just from the footage itself, as to what it represents. The dress of the characters clearly makes them Scotsmen, and the Macbeth and Macduff characters are obviously bitter rivals. You can also easily identify Macbeth as the haughty king and Macduff as the indignant challenger, just from their manner.
The background is the type of painted stage background that was quite common at the time, but Billy Bitzer's photography catches both foreground and background clearly, helping to make it a relatively good representation of the scene given the resources available at the time.
In just over a minute of running time, the footage shows Macbeth's brief confrontation with Young Siward, and then the climactic fight with Macduff. No inter-titles survive, because it was originally designed to be shown with a narrator reading a prepared text to go with the scene.
But you could actually make a pretty good guess, just from the footage itself, as to what it represents. The dress of the characters clearly makes them Scotsmen, and the Macbeth and Macduff characters are obviously bitter rivals. You can also easily identify Macbeth as the haughty king and Macduff as the indignant challenger, just from their manner.
The background is the type of painted stage background that was quite common at the time, but Billy Bitzer's photography catches both foreground and background clearly, helping to make it a relatively good representation of the scene given the resources available at the time.