The Tragedy of Macbeth

dir: A Coen Brother

2021

For what ever reason, a Coen brother, being Joel, wanted to make a movie all on his lonesome, without his other pesky brother Ethan hanging about. So he struck out on his own, probably out of shame, from people joking for years that he was too afraid to make a movie on his own.

So, with so many of these shameful tears pouring down his face he elected to make yet another version of a Shakespeare play, probably during the peak of lockdowns, and with top tier talent in the lead roles.

I mean, who does Frances McDormand have to fuck in order to get a lead role in a Joel Coen movie?

Probably the director, who happens to be her husband.

I don’t think Denzel has to sleep with anybody, but that’s his business.

The Tragedy of Macbeth looks and feels like homework. I’m sorry. I cannot divest myself of the feeling that I’m doing homework when I watch stuff with The Bard’s original overwritten, bouquet-flowery language. Everything has fourteen different meanings. Everything sounds like it’s being said by people falling down a set of stairs.

It takes a lot, A LOT of concentration to get through it, to not have the mind wander.

I guess I’ve seen as many versions of Macbeth as I’ve seen of Hamlet and King Lear, probably, which means I’ve seen dozens. Chinese versions, Japanese versions, Italian mafia versions, even an Australian gangster version that starred Michael Fassbender.

And I’ve seen a bunch of ‘straight’ versions, period costumes and haughty tones and the like, including the infamous Polanski version from the 1970s. Infamous only because now we know what a piece of shit he was.

The thing is, I have to be honest here, I find the story tedious. I’ve always found the story of Macbeth tedious, no matter the format, no matter the actors, no matter the setting.

I didn’t find it exactly as tedious this time through, because I was curious if Denzel would under or over act, and mostly he does “under”, and of course towards the end does “over”, but also I was curious to see how McDormand would handle Lady Macbeth.

And she knocks it out of the park like you would expect her to. I’ve seen versions where they have Lady Macbeth be quiet spoken yet lethal, or the ones where she comes out screaming bile like she’s the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. McDormand’s is a happy medium between the two.

They both, as husband and wife, imbue their roles with gravitas, because they’re also of a perfect age for this, and their line readings are unhurried, and comfortable. And yet they’re too old for their characters to make any sense. Still, I liked seeing them as these characters.

It’s just that…it’s still this Shakespearean crap.

Who am I to malign the great bard? I am nobody. But I am a nobody who is bored by this story, however well it is told, however much the set design and cinematography is meant to recall German expressionist cinema or the early works of Ingmar Bergman.

Look, the flick is about a loyal aristo who is told by three witches that if he kills the king, he’ll get to be king, but not for long, and that his best mate Banquo won’t be king, but his kids will be kings.

So spurred on by his wife, who totally wants to be queen, he kills the king, feels a bit guilty, becomes king, and then thinks if he murders enough people his reign won’t come to a premature end.

Wife goes mad from guilt, new usurper king doesn’t realise if you base your whole survival strategy on misinterpreting the prophecies of some creepy weird woman who may be three women, or a bunch of crows, or maybe 4 sticks and a scrunchy, the story is not on your side.

The only question I find interesting to consider is, what if the witches never tell Macbeth what he’s about to do and how pear-shaped everything is going to go? Does it happen anyway, or does telling him make him do it? Up to that point where she / they tells him to off the king, he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s still a good man, who’d never consider regicide before just for shits and giggles.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but most of Macbeth’s life choices from then on are dumb and he should feel dumb. Being a tragedy there is no question what fate awaits them all in this tale, full of sound and fury, told by an idiot, signifying nothing, but getting there is still a bit of a slog. I guess I should be grateful that it only takes an hour and 30 or so minutes to tell.

It looks great, the look of it, seeing as it’s black and white, and the sound design is quite amazing too. Drips of water and drops of blood, the booming, knocking noise of fate coming to destroy everyone and everything.

And I loved the weird little woman who plays the witch / witches, and another role as a male character. She is amazing. She goes by the name Kathryn Hunter, but you can’t fool me, I can hear the Greek accent in her voice. I’m sure she’s been in a million things, but the thing I recognise her from most recently is the Disney+ show Andor, where she plays the mother of this weird pasty stalker character. The series “hates” her son, but she seems to loathe him even more, trying, with every line reading, to try and find the right words of withering contempt with which to cause him to spontaneously combust.

It’s a delight to behold, and she brings a tremendously freaky energy to this role here, and clearly she’s very comfortable with the Bard language and stuff, although looking at her biography it seems she prefers playing male roles, and doing this weird contortionist stuff.

I guess you have to be flexible in order to have a successful long term career.

Kids in high school will probably be ‘lucky’ to watch this contemporary version in their English Lit classes, but I doubt they’ll give a damn about Denzel or the sheriff from Fargo. And they, like millions before them, will wonder why new versions of this sterile story have to keep being done every few years, as if we don’t all collectively have something better to do.

6 times Macbeth will sleep no more, for he has murdered sleep out of 10

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“Out, out, brief candle. Life is but a walking shadow... a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” – um okay but I don’t remember asking, bro - The Tragedy of Macbeth