A memorable adaptation of an eternally iconic Shakesperean tragedy.
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Joel Coen, sans brother Ethan after about eighteen collaborative ventures, triumphs with his new Tragedy of Macbeth. Coen keeps essential lines (it is Shakespeare’s shortest play anyway) and doesn’t let the magnificent set design overpower the first-rate performances.
While Denzel Washington as Macbeth lacks the grace and sonority of Olivier or Fassbender, he is the appropriately weary wearer of the heavy crown. He plays Macbeth right by being vigorous before he slays Duncan but drained after. He refrains less from being henpecked to accepting his Lady’s (Frances McDormand, Coen’s wife) advice through her twisted logic and, famously, the witches’ supernatural, duplicitous urging.
Like Welles’s Othello, he is a military man who follows the logic of defense and destiny. Once committed to a cause, blind obedience to fate is the only route. Like Colin Powell, he is wrong and fate will brook no other route than infamy.
For her part, Lady Macbeth is more into working it with a slow force that makes them more a business team than a tag team. The stark, minimalistic set design, with its Wellesean towering ceilings, sharp edges, bare walls, and menacing bright and dark interiors punctuated by light shafts that concentrate evil on its protagonist, has the power and purity of an avenging angel, a lonely film-noir ambience tracking the road to dusty death.
The lighting and 1.19:1 aspect ratio, almost square, echo the stark, unrelenting world of Dreyer, Bergman, and Welles’ 1948 Macbeth cinema.
The iambic pentameter and its accompanying perfect wording are there, and you may miss some, but, hey, he’s civilization’s greatest writer. Washington’s contribution is making this rich language clear and comprehensible. The words of Tomorrow and Tomorrow resonate today for, say, leaders who at the end realize their greatness is an illusion trampled by relentlessly-marching time.
A classy contribution to the best movies of 2021 and Shakespeare’s glorious tragedies.
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Director: Joel Coen (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)
Screenplay: Coen, based on Shakespeare
Cast: Denzel Washington (Training Day). Frances McDormand (Nomadland)
Run Time: 1h 46m
Rating: R
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com
