The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
Directed by Joel Coen
Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.
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I would compare it visually to the architecture of a cathedral or church, where the black & white creates similar themes of what Ingmar Bergman did with The Seventh Seal , The Virgin Spring , Through a Glass Darkly , and Winter Light .
At different points, the look of “The Tragedy of Macbeth” will recall a silky foreboding film noir, a Val Lewton horror film, a Sirkian soap opera, the cloistered dreamscapes of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s “Ordet,” the fascist hellscape of Orson Welles’ “The Trial,” the hallowed glow of “The Chronicle of Anna Magdalene Bach,” the operatic catacombs of “Ivan the Terrible,” and Welles’ 1948 version of “Macbeth.”
It begins with the imagery, which is lushly rendered in a Bergmanesque gothic greyscale and is inspired by both that master’s more fantastical work ( The Seventh Seal is a pretty clear point of comparison), Olivier’s Hamlet , and Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood .
Emerging, croaking and genderless, lips cracked and limbs bending impossibly, Hunter appears as unsettlingly alien as Bengt Ekerot was as Death in The Seventh Seal .
The classic tale itself is powerful and influential and morbid (yet still not Shakespeare’s most adored work), though this adaptation primarily serves to offer different actors and a somewhat original visual presentation (reminiscent of “The Seventh Seal” and German Expressionism, with an unusually energetic, cinematic showdown), which will surely appeal only to a select audience.
It is clearly shot on a stage but the use of black and white, along with digital effects reminiscent of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, gives the story a play-like feel.
Director Joel Coen -- working for the first time without his brother Ethan -- covers ground formerly trod by Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, and Roman Polanski and surpasses them all with his expressionistic, intensely vivid The Tragedy of Macbeth .
Although I am in love with Coen's "Macbeth" for finding such a rapturous way to bring Shakespeare to life on screen, Roman Polanski's 1971 adaptation with a young Jon Finch (making the character young adds to the tragedy) is my favorite interpretation of the play.
Though Macbeth is not a horror story in the conventional sense of the word, Hunter’s work here will be included in folk horror discussions for years to come.
Coen cleverly directs his “Macbeth” like a crime thriller with horror show elements.
Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” is of a piece with his most recent features, “The Big Short” and “Vice”: savvy but manic manifestations of information overload with political asides bristling for space with inspired (and some not-so-inspired) jokes.
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As Scottish King Duncan’s (Brendan Gleeson) generals Macbeth (Denzel Washington) and Banquo (Bertie Carvel, 2012's "Les Misérables") travel home from victory on the battlefield, they encounter three witches (all theater actress Kathryn Hunter) who prophesy that Macbeth will be named Thane of Cawdor and eventually King of Scotland and that Banquo’s descendents will be kings.