[Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation is a black-and-white affair
starring Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady
Macbeth. And it is a sight to behold.] [[link removed]]

‘THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH’ IS AN ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE  
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Nick Schager
September 24, 2021
The Daily Beast
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_ Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation is a black-and-white affair
starring Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady
Macbeth. And it is a sight to behold. _

, New York Film Festival

 

William Shakespeare’s _Macbeth
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been the source material for two big-screen masterpieces—Orson
Welles’ 1948 _Macbeth_ and Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 _Throne of
Blood_—and to that eminent company one may now add Joel
Coen’s _The Tragedy of Macbeth_, which takes as its inspiration not
only Welles’ predecessor but the works of Carl Theodor Dreyer, Fritz
Lang, F.W. Murnau and Ingmar Bergman (to name just a few). The first
feature produced by the director without his sibling and long-time
partner Ethan
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Coen’s film (premiering Sept. 24 as the Opening Night selection of
the New York Film Festival before theaters and Apple TV+) is a misty,
malevolent, marauding beast, shot with expressionistic flair in
silvery black-and-white and in a virtually square 1.19:1 aspect ratio,
and headlined by a titanic Denzel Washington
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the ambitious Scottish general and Frances McDormand
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his calculating wife. At once faithful to the Bard’s play and
reminiscent of the auteur’s fatalistic noirs (notably, _The Man Who
Wasn’t There_), it’s a triumph that breathes fiery new life into
an enduring classic.

Teaming with accomplished cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (_Inside
Llewyn Davis_, _The Ballad of Buster Scruggs_) rather than long-time
collaborator Roger Deakins, Coen dramatizes _The Tragedy of
Macbeth_ in borderline-abstract fashion, situating his famed tale in
sets marked by brutalist architecture, endless fog, and shadows that
are so sharp they seem capable of severing an artery. Alternating
between towering vertical arrangements whenever focusing on his human
protagonists, and circular, cockeyed, and diagonal lines during those
passages involving the three prophesying witches (Kathryn Hunter) who
set Macbeth’s fate in motion, Coen crafts a visual scheme to die
for. There are more stunning chiaroscuro images in the course of these
105 minutes than in most other 2021 releases combined, and they allow
the director to tap into the tragedy’s stage-bound roots while
simultaneously rendering the action an exercise in pure, bravura
filmic storytelling. Bolstered by a score of low and piercing strings,
thunderously portentous knocking, and the persistent caws of avian
harbingers of doom, it’s an aesthetic marvel, its every sight and
sound infused with psychological torment.

Coen’s approach casts the proceedings in self-consciously stark,
minimalist terms, and yet despite such severity, _The Tragedy of
Macbeth_ boasts a pounding, panicked pulse. At its center stands
Washington as Macbeth, the Scottish Thane of Glamis whose fortunes are
forever altered when he and trusty right-hand man Banquo (Bertie
Carvel) stumble upon a trio of witches, here envisioned by Coen as a
single form whose croaking sisters are initially heard but not seen,
and then spied in a reflecting pool before taking their place by their
sibling’s side. The mystics foretell Macbeth’s destiny to become
the Thane of Cawdor and, shortly thereafter, to occupy the Scottish
throne, and when that first prediction comes true, Macbeth is seduced
by the potential for seizing absolute power. As Banquo sagely opines,
deceivers get their hooks into prey by proffering small truths that
make their subsequent lies appear legitimate. That proves to be the
case for Macbeth, whose fallen-under-their-spell condition is
beautifully conveyed by Washington via a subtly strained smile as he
tells Banquo, days later, that he has ceased thinking about their
supernatural encounter.

Macbeth’s ensuing quest for his homeland’s crown plays out in
familiar fashion, with murder begetting guilt which invariably leads
to madness, folly, and the dawning realization that his hubris will
result in disaster. Yet no matter how many times one has seen this
saga, Washington—back in Shakespearean cinematic territory for the
first time since 1993’s _Much Ado About Nothing_—is a force of
righteously ruthless nature as Macbeth, dexterously suggesting the way
in which his striver slays his early misgivings, only to create fresh
paranoia and insanity with each swipe of his blade. There are shades
of Washington’s _Training Day_ monster in his performance, but
also a wellspring of conflicted determination, self-deception, fury,
and despair, all of which are so timeless, so relatable, and so
explosive that the film develops a dynamic friction between its
roiling emotions and Stefan Dechant’s austere production design.

Even in light of Coen’s brilliantly composed direction, in which
every willowy silhouette and grim vista carries with it an air of
apocalyptic import, Washington is the beating heart of _The Tragedy
of Macbeth_. That, in turn, makes McDormand’s Lady Macbeth its
corrosive soul. Now embodying the role of the original femme fatale
for her husband (this after their film debut, 1984’s _Blood
Simple_), the Oscar-winning actress exudes an overpowering intensity
of purpose and deviousness. Still, it’s her natural and lived-in
chemistry with Washington that’s key to her performance, since their
closeness is central to Lady Macbeth’s ability to infect her husband
with fantasies of treason. McDormand is, unsurprisingly, more than up
to the challenge of handling her character’s iconic breakdown
(“Out, damned spot!”), her hair frazzled and her mouth agape as
she reckons with the consequences of her conduct. However, it’s her
quieter moments with her leading man that resonate the strongest, rife
as they are with whispered promises and reassurances that resound with
love and loyalty—and are laced with poison.

“McDormand is, unsurprisingly, more than up to the challenge of
handling her character’s iconic breakdown (“Out, damned spot!”),
her hair frazzled and her mouth agape as she reckons with the
consequences of her conduct.”

Though _The Tragedy of Macbeth_ is a three-star show, it benefits
from a tremendous supporting cast, be it Corey Hawkins as the resolute
Macduff, Brendan Gleeson as the kind (and not-long-for-this-world)
King Duncan, Carvel as the betrayed Banquo, or a scene-stealing
Stephen Root as one of Duncan’s flamboyantly hung-over compatriots.
Of particular note is Hunter as the witches, with the actress making
her unforgettable introduction on a sandy beach, her body twisted up
in contortionist knots before expanding into circular and rigid
positions. She’s similarly haunting in her latter appearance perched
on ceiling beams and dropping ingredients into her cauldron
(“Double, double, toil and trouble”), which Coen, in one of his
innumerable virtuoso touches, imagines as a pool covering the entire
floor of the chamber in which distraught Macbeth resides. Her eyes
radiating inhuman cunning, and her scraggly voice taking on multiple
dimensions to communicate her triptych nature, Hunter strikes a
revelatory pose as the otherworldly catalyst for this tale of woe.

_The Tragedy of Macbeth_ is ultimately a film of contrasts:
methodical and unruly; precise and impulsive; marble-sculpture cold
and hellishly hot; doggedly theatrical and inherently cinematic.
Blessed with a momentum, weight, and potent desperation and
deliriousness that knows no bounds—and may continue long after these
events are over, as implied by a knockout final scene involving a
twisting hillside path and a flock of crows that blots out the
sun—Coen’s latest is, to quote the play itself, “bloody, bold
and resolute.”

_NICK SCHAGER is a NYC-area film critic and pop-culture writer whose
work also appears in The Village Voice, Esquire, New York
Magazine’s Vulture, Maxim, Complex and The A.V. Club._

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