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Monday 14 February 2022

Brief thoughts on Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth

I don’t have a lot to say about Joel Coen’s film adaptation of Macbeth, but I’m going to jot down some brief thoughts anyway. 

The first thing that must be said is that the mise-en-scène is fantastic. It is so rare for a modern B&W film to look good, and the B&W of The Tragedy of Macbeth is very, very good. (Almost) all the shots are striking—Joel Coen and his cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel play with light and shadow, play with shape, as they should. Those of you who have praised the cinematography of Roma or Mank (philistines!) should look at Joel Coen’s film and note the difference. But it’s not only the cinematography and lighting, I also love the production design, the semi-abstract sets, and the staging.

Another good thing about the film is Kathryn Hunter as the witches. She steals the show.


That is my roundabout way of saying that I don’t have a high opinion of the two leads, Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. Frances McDormand’s performance is, I think, passable, but once you have seen Trevor Nunn’s production, Judi Dench spoils you for other performances. Put it this way, Frances McDormand’s Lady Macbeth is the Lady Macbeth in popular culture, a villainous woman who manipulates her husband into killing the king; Judi Dench’s is the Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s text, an ambitious woman who urges her husband to kill the king and thinks of it in abstract terms but isn’t as strong as she thinks she is, and who falls apart as she realises what she has done. 
Judi Dench’s acting has more complexity, more depth. 

I think Denzel Washington as Macbeth is a weak performance—not just in comparison to Ian McKellen, who is phenomenal—but weak. Why? I don’t feel anything in his performance; I don’t see any struggle, any conflict for a large part of the film, except for a few moments; I don’t think he truly feels what he’s saying, especially in the key soliloquies “Is this a dagger which I see before me” and “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”. 

Here is a clip. 

He glosses over many lines. Let’s look at Ian McKellen. 


See the difference?  

Denzel Washington is probably better than Michael Fassbender as Macbeth—I haven’t seen the 2015 film as a whole but I have seen many clips, and neither Michael Fassbender nor Marion Cotillard knows how to speak the lines. Here’s the same speech:


That clip gives me the impression that the 2015 film (dir. Justin Kurzel) has the disease of many modern films: a fear of text, of dialogue. This is an important soliloquy in Macbeth and isn’t so long, but Justin Kurzel has to break it into pieces, mixing in epic battle scenes and flashbacks and special effects and drowning music. The 2021 film, even though there are cuts (which is understandable and judicious), at least shows respect for the text.

Another thing I don’t like about Joel Coen’s film, which is perhaps personal, is the American accents. I suppose what I really don’t like is the mixing of accents—if the entire thing were American, I wouldn’t care, and one of my favourite Shakespeare productions is the 1976 ACT The Taming of the Shrew—but there is a mixing of accents in this film, and Denzel Washington and Corey Hawkins (as Macduff) especially stand out as very American. 

So what’s the verdict? I’d probably say 3 out of 5. That’s probably fair. 

28 comments:

  1. Short but good review, it made me want to check out the movie, due to the cinematography you mentioned.

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    1. You should also watch Trevor Nunn's production (on youtube), just to see how good Shakespeare's play truly is.

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  2. We watched this a couple of weeks ago, and thought it was okay, on balance. The cinematography, as you say, is pretty great. I like that it's clearly all shot on a sound stage with no attempt at "realism." I was reminded a lot of Renaissance art.

    I think the real problem with Coen's Macbeths is that they do not change; they end the play the same people they were when they began. They don't go mad; they already are mad, which I think works if you don't already know the play, though it works on a much shallower level than the real thing. So the very meaning of a lot of the speeches is altered, if they're already mad, and in this sense the "tomorrow and tomorrow" speech works here, because while McKellen's Macbeth is talking about his wife, Washington's Macbeth is talking about himself. McKellen feels his loss, but Washington doesn't, he acknowledges it as something curious and human but without any meaning at all, he shrugs off Lady Mcbeth's death, and everything else at the same time. So it's not Shakespeare's "Macbeth," but I think it's internally consistent. It's just one-dimensional, but that's sort of what the Coens do to material. Their take on Ulysses was reductive burlesque, because what the Coens do best is set pieces, not story arcs.

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    1. Yeah, I like that Joel Coen doesn't go for the naturalistic look. The 2015 film does, and the actors, at least the leading actors, also speak the lines as though it's normal dialogue, which is silly.
      When you say that the Macbeths in this film are already mad, do you mean that they already don't care from the beginning? Because that's how I feel, from the start they already don't care, don't struggle with anything.

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    2. Yes, that's what I mean. Things happen to them in the movie, but they do not change as personalities. Their challenges are all logistical, not psychological. They whisper and sigh and murder, but they just seem to be impatient with all of it, killing time until death.

      I sort of feel that the whole film was bold, stark, and flat (not just the visuals, but Coen's general interpretation). I will say that given what he asked to work with, Washington did a fine job. I believed his character (I just didn't think his character was Shakespeare's Macbeth). I liked the superhero warrior Macbeth at the end; Washington has always been a great physical actor.

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    3. I could easily believe that this version of Macbeth was hallucinating before the start of the play. Maybe his entire scene in the woods with Banquo and the Weird Sisters was a hallucination. I mean, normal people do not assassinate kings on the word of some bizarre randos met on a heath. Well, maybe they do in Scotland.

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    4. I think some critics have said that the two lead actors here are much older than the actors who usually play the Macbeths, so it changes the story, and to the characters, this is like their last chance. What do you think about that?
      I agree that the whole film is flat. Would you agree with 3/5, or would you give it a 2?
      I read your comments to my bf, because he watched it with me, and he said yeah, the last fight was a Denzel Washington thing.

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    5. I don't know about rating systems like that; it's not how my mind works. I'd say the film is worth watching as an entertainment. It's got interesting photography and sets, but it's not Shakespeare. It's less than Shakespeare, but I'm glad we saw it.

      That's a good point about the age of Washington and McDormand in these roles. They do seem like people in late middle age, trying to shake themselves out of the fog of habit, forced to react to something new. Maybe Coen was deliberately working with that idea, which is an interesting one. The Macbeths as Antony and Cleopatra, but not debauched?

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    6. I'm glad I saw it because I love the mise-en-scène. Good modern B&W films are rare.
      But if people ask about watching Macbeth, I would direct them to Trevor Nunn's production.
      I don't know if Joel Coen was deliberately working with that idea, or he just cast Frances McDormand in everything and cast a Macbeth of appropriate age, hahaha.

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    7. I assume this was a McDormand vanity project, her anniversary or Valentine's present from her husband.

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    8. HAHAHAHAHHAA.
      I imagine that it's something like, Frances McDormand recited sonnet 18 in Nomadland then said to her husband "I wanna do Shakespeare now, I'm ready for Shakespeare".
      And that film happened.

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    9. Yeah, had it been a Coen Brothers(tm) production, George Clooney would've played Macbeth. John Goodman as Duncan. John Turturro as Banquo, etc. You'd still get McDormand as Lady Macbeth, though.

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    10. *thinking about George Clooney as Macbeth and John Goodman as Duncan*
      Hmmmmm.

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    11. This is it: https://www.facebook.com/a24/posts/4631344906991285?__cft__[0]=AZXrmRBASKRnzUzmgWil_HA1MEch_7iq7rPsTSRdUxQ8uB3cGq_4ovEP-fEiFQCl2RF3Yj26jHFRs-0UhDEaDpulKSk-_lZT6x9yFY-5QY-89TlqOSGzPj9p8LybiqzYoRASo_7oVYRBwhmORhr6dej-T46fqtsyTrK8hWEDJqqgyg&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-y-R
      Joel Coen says he made the film because his wife asked him to.

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  3. Also, yes, the Trevor Nunn production is terrific. So stark and brutal and deeply felt.

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  4. Good review. I did enjoy this version. Definitely an A+ for atmosphere. But I do find, a few days after watching it, that it didn't make so much of a lasting impression on me. There is something a little dry about the production, despite its stylishness. Not to mention the strangeness of suggesting that the side character Ross is -- what? In league with the witches? I didn't get what that added to the production. I thought Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand were both good -- but that Washington's performance was a little too low key, a little too cool, in line with the rest of the film. Finally, and this is a small quibble, but in cutting lines, I notice they omitted Lady Macbeth's inability to kill the king because he reminded her of her father. This is the very first crack it the veneer of her cold-bloodedness, and its an important harbinger of the psychological frailty that will destroy her. To leave out that one line is to rob Lady Macbeth of some of her depth. In what is already (for Shakespeare) a short and economical play, cutting should be done very carefully.

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    1. I perhaps should have waited and thought more about it before writing the blog post, but I'm quite busy this week so...
      I wouldn't say Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand were good, no. Their Macbeths are not the Macbeths in Shakespeare's play. The film doesn't have the horrors, the hell on earth that the Macbeths go through as they live with the consequences, the awareness of what they've done. Denzel Washington is too cool, like he doesn't care for almost the entire thing. Frances McDormand is two-dimensional in her ambition and calmness- at the beginning- why would she go mad? She doesn't have the vulnerability and conflict you can see in Judi Dench.
      That's why I said Frances McDormand's Lady Macbeth is the Lady Macbeth in popular culture, not Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth.

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    2. As for Ross, I see that Joel Coen lets Ross save Fleance, I'm not sure how I feel about the implication that he kills Lady Macbeth.

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    3. I thought the implication was that Ross was in league with the witches, perhaps even one of them. He is the one who offers the sword to Macbeth to execute Cawdor. He's the one goes to warn Lady Macduff, but -- seeing the approaching killers through the window -- says nothing to her. He delivers the evil tidings to Macduff. He kills Lady Macbeth (why?). He finds Macbeth's head and delivers the crown to Malcolm. He saves Fleance (as the "Third Murderer"), and then spirits him Fleance off in the end, disappearing into a cloud of ravens. And he has that very strange scene with Kathryn Hunter (as an old man??) where she recites the closing song from Twelfth Night, of all things. No clue what that was supposed to mean. To what end is all of this, other than to show that he is somehow in league with the evil powers, or even its manifestation?

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    4. When I was watching, at first I was wondering "who's this?" because I forgot who said what in the early scenes, then I got distracted thinking about his body's proportions (?), so I'm going to revisit some bits in it.
      But yeah, I did wonder about the implication that he killed Lady Macbeth. I don't think I like it. And I did think, why was the song from "Twelfth Night" in here?
      So I should have left it for a few days before writing a blog post, but hahaha.

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    5. Update: It's been about 10 days since I saw this, and I have to say, it seems to have made no lasting impression on me at all. None. As if I had slept through it. Again, a stylish but very dry presentation of Macbeth. Macbeth should not be dry.

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    6. Yeah, same.
      I thought about Shakespeare's play and Trevor Nunn's production for a long while after reading/ watching, and still think about them both sometimes.
      But this film makes no lasting impression on me at all, which is surprising because I did think the mise-en-scene was fantastic.

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  5. It looks a bit the the 1948 Orson Welles film to me, which is fine - I love that movie's look. McKellan is certainly the best MacBeth I've ever seen; of all the actors I've seen in the part, on stage or on film, he's the one who makes MacBeth's master motive clearest: literally everything MacBeth does, he does out of FEAR.

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    1. Thanks for that, I've been trying to get a certain person (you know who you are) to watch Ian McKellen.
      I haven't seen the Orson Welles film.

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    2. The McKellan MacBeth was broadcast on PBS in Los Angeles in 1979 0r 80. This was before VCR's...so I set a cassette tape recorder in front of my television and recorded the whole thing on audio. That's how crazy I am.

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    3. Hahaha. Understandable though.
      I have a DVD of the play, and I rarely buy DVDs.

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  6. I only heard about this movie when I saw the oscar nominations. It looks gorgeouz from the trailer, and I'm sure Denzel's performance is amazing. Unfortunately it won't be shown in theaters and I'm not really into Netflix and its replicas.

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    1. That's what I was saying though, Denzel Washington's performance was not amazing. Very few things are amazing.
      There are other ways if you really want to watch it.

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