The Tragedy of Macbeth

Working for the first time without his creative partner brother, Ethan, Joel Coen becomes the latest filmmaker to take on Shakespeare’s violent tragedy, Macbeth. Previously adapted for cinema by such notable directors as Orson Welles, Roman Polanski, and Béla Tarr, Macbeth tells the tale of a Scottish general who, upon returning from a heroic victory overseas, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King. The knowledge drives the ambitious soldier and his wife to commit foul, murderous deeds. The play is the shortest of the Bard’s tragedies, and Coen’s film is easily the breeziest screen version yet. At 105 min, it’s even shorter than the heavily condensed Welles picture (1948) and it feels even faster paced. Though there are spots where you wish Coen would slow down and let us sit with the characters as they express their feelings of anger, envy, regret, fear, enmity, suspicion, disappointment, and dismay, overall the speed of this telling places the focus on the plot machinations rather than what’s going on in the minds of the players—a first for a film version of this play, I believe.

The lean approach to the storytelling also enables this Macbeth to overcome the issue that bedevils many productions: the greedy and driven Macbeth isn’t the brightest of the Bard’s protagonists. In his wife, Lady Macbeth, he has the counsel of a superior intellect with an even greater desire for power. Both are eager to embrace the appealing aspects of the witches’ prophecies, without giving much thought to the more negative ramifications until they have progressed too far down the dark path to turn back. The inevitability of the narrative’s outcome is what makes this play a tragedy in the truest sense of that term. Yet once the predictions begin to come true, one after the other with what seems like complete accuracy, the actions of both main characters can feel frustratingly obtuse in productions that lack dynamic actors in the lead roles. With Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, this picture doesn’t want for great stars, but it also moves so quickly that we get the sense that the Macbeths, and indeed all the characters, lack the time to fully process the events they witness, experience, and are told about; and instead react accordingly in haste.

The speed of the storytelling is also well suited to the expressionist style of this movie. Actors of many nations, (American, English, Irish, etc.) populate the cast with no one adopting an accent other than their own (I don’t think there's a single Scottish performer). The action all takes place in cold, cavernous sets that are unnaturally clean and sparse. This is the polar opposite of the muddy and bloody Polanski film (1971). Polanski’s magnificently atmospheric version is one of my all-time favorite film adaptations of Shakespeare because it creates a palpable sense of the awful conditions a story like this would have unfolded in historically, but it desperately lacks a first-rate cast.

Though Coen is a very camera-centric filmmaker and has never (to my knowledge) directed a stage play, this picture is far more theatrical than it is cinematic—but this is not a criticism. Coen limits himself to a monochromatic palette, the narrow 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio, and those giant expressionistic sets. Even the sweeping, foggy exteriors feel as if they have been created for the stage. All the impressive supernatural elements are executed to appear theatrical, though I assume most were achieved via digital effects. The impressive fights scenes are staged a bit more for the camera and, like everything else in this picture, they unfold with swift efficiency. 

These choices all draw our eyes to the actors and our ears to the verse. Washington and McDormand deliver powerful performances, and Coen has surrounded them with an excellent supporting ensemble. The stand-out is the American-born British actress and stage director Kathryn Hunter, known for her movement-based approach to theater. Hunter plays all three of the witches. This is an inspired choice, the first time I’ve heard of it done (though I’ve certainly seen lots of youth productions where the witches are played by a dozen actors reciting the lines in unison). Hunter’s performance dazzles and Coen stages each appearance of the witches with eerie grandeur.

The question always arises: do we really need another film version of Macbeth, especially one that doesn’t go out of its way to comment on anything contemporary?  After all, we just had the 2015 film with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, the televised Patrick Stewart stage production of 2010, and Geoffrey Wright’s 2006 contemporary retelling set in the ganglands of Melbourne Australia. But my answer to that is a resounding yes. Shakespeare’s works should be performed and adapted into film, and all other mediums, as often as possible. These are the greatest plays in the English language and the more versions of each work I see, the more I understand the nuances of the writing and the more I glean from the narratives. We do not need these plays to be fashioned in ways that comment directly on the issues of the day, though many productions have done so with great success. The play’s the thing, and these stories will inevitably comment on contemporary life. When great actors and directors decide to take on a work of Shakespeare, it is almost always worth seeing, and The Tragedy of Macbeth is no exception.