Score: 4 / 5
It's always tough to stomach a new adaptation of the Bard's work. Whether it's Kenneth Branagh's latest diva turn or an indie attempt at sacrificing substance for visuals, filmed Shakespeare often leaves a lot to be desired, at least for this viewer. And Macbeth, no doubt due to its already lean and mean plot, gets adapted more often than most of Shakespeare's work. Most recently, Justin Kurzel's 2015 adaptation was visually stunning but bereft of so much content that it felt more like an undergraduate's capstone than actual theatre. And, when I saw that the new adaptation from Joel Coen (as a solo writer and director, for the first time without his brother Ethan) had a running time of just under two hours, I panicked that it would travel the same, sorry road.
But turn, hellhound, as Macduff says, for this movie took me by blissful surprise. It's not the best version of the play I've ever seen, and it's not always a great movie, but it bravely pushes forward into fascinating new areas and, mostly, succeeds in telling its story anew. Shot in Gothic black and white by Bruno Delbonnel in gorgeous expressionistic sets by Stefan Dechant, the film reads visually somewhere between the nightmare aesthetic of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the foggy grit of seedy L.A. or San Francisco films noir. Add a brooding score by Carter Burwell, and this film is pretty much exactly what I needed to see, cuddled up with a bottle of wine on a cold, snowy winter night while the fire crackled over the hearth.
To start with what we loved, let's start with the beginning. Veteran Shakespearean stage actress Kathryn Hunter appears in an almost blinding white desert, using her famed contortionist abilities to impressive and disturbing effect, growling out the witches' lines in her androgynous voice. She is the one and only witch, you might say, and the film occasionally highlights her acting acrobatics by placing her in relation to herself; one early moment has her standing over a pool of water as he pronounces fortune to Macbeth and Banquo, while her reflection shows two figures, making the trio of myth literal. There are also lovely visual cues to the boundary between worlds, usually heralded by crows (or ravens, perhaps) or still water reserves, as during the brilliant and chilling scene later when Macbeth returns to the witch(es) to learn more from them and their "masters." Hunter appears, too, as another important character usually treated as a cameo or cut altogether, and I love that this inclusion helped showcase her immeasurable talents.
Alex Hassel plays Ross, one of the "other" Thanes in a role more obvious and interesting than I've ever seen, one that plays more intentionally off Ross's fascinating character as one vacillating between loyalty to the crown -- whoever is wearing it -- and loyalty to whatever side will win the power struggle for Scotland. As this film makes him into the mysterious third assassin of Banquo, and it is he who discovers the hiding Fleance before the scene blacks out on him smiling at the boy, there is a lot to unpack there. As intimately familiar as I am with the play, this use of Ross made me want to re-read it again just to find justification or reason for it, because I'd never even considered his character much before, and now he feels like a dark parallel line to Macbeth himself. Oh, and I'd be remiss to say Corey Hawkins wasn't a pretty great Macduff, though I wish the stunted screenplay had given him a bit more to do.
And that, friends, is a segue into the criticisms. This film sounds like a SparkNotes audio summary of the tragedy, not so much like the Bard made manifest. Of course it hits all the beats it needs to, narratively, but for one of Shakespeare's shortest plays, I can't help but begrudge them for slicing his beautiful prose. Further, the players are largely not playing this film as a presentation of Shakespeare, despite the lavishly evocative sets (I thought more than once of Lars von Trier or even Bertolt Brecht) that should have informed a stylized acting technique. They play it as, instead, a deeply inverted chamber piece, grunting and hissing their lines to the point of being nearly inaudible most of the time.
No doubt this style was headed up by Denzel Washington as the titular antihero, whose occasional acting work for the last fifteen years or so has left me repeatedly underwhelmed (with some exceptions, like Fences and Roman J. Israel, Esq., of course). He injects his blasé grunts and typical deadpan "huh" into what should be glorious dialogue, and never allows himself to tip into madness, something that the role absolutely and unequivocally requires. A case could be made that he uses nuance to internalize his madness, but it just doesn't read on screen. Conversely, but also in tandem, Frances McDormand pops in for her limited scenes as Lady Mac, and while she naturally has a slightly wild glint in her eye, she too delivers her performance in atypically understated fashion. It's chilling until it's not, and even her sleepwalking scene felt a little too self-conscious. And then the film gives her death a visual, and that's just something I'm never down with in adaptations of the work.
On the other hand, I really liked the idea of Mac and his wife as an older couple. They are normally played young -- which checks out with his recent battle experience against Ireland and Norway, as well as their profoundly sexual dynamic -- but this time we can more deeply feel her desire to be "unsexed" when she turns toward murder, his lust for power and control as the end of his family line, and of course the weight of his legacy as he ponders "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." This also makes their attempted murder of Fleance and successful murder of Macduff's son more desperate and cruel. It also makes MacB's murder of King Duncan (Brendan Gleeson), which is fully shown on screen, a shockingly intimate moment, one that feels more like a betrayal of friendship and even kinship rather than simple regicide.
Light thickens, as Mac says, and this is a delicious cocktail to mull over as the snow continues to fall. Get into it, y'all.
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