Delayed Reaction: The Tragedy of Macbeth

Premise: You know the play Macbeth? Yeah, it’s that.

 

I’ll be upfront here. I don’t like this movie. I don’t really dislike it either. More than anything, I don’t get why it exists. It’s a Coen movie (just Joel) adapted from the Shakespeare play. That’s already odd, seeing one of the most idiosyncratic filmmakers opt to see how well he can ape the Bard. Because, this is Coen trying to bring Shakespeare’s words to the screen, not Coen bringing his writing to Shakespeare’s words. I feel any competent screenwriter could’ve written this script. The film is very pretty to look at, but again, it feels like he just took the crew of The Lighthouse, made them watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and shot a film. I’m tiring of the use of black and white as a shortcut to praised cinematography. In this film, it calls attention to itself. I remain way more impressed when a film like Moonlight looks beautiful while controlling more than two colors.

 

I get why actors love doing Shakespeare in the same way that I get why they like delivering Tarantino dialogue. It’s fun to talk in this very distinctive, lyrical way. Since it’s so far removed from how we talk now, the lines are almost a puzzle for the actor to solve. While not striving to be naturalistic, they have to make the lines make sense as something a human would say out loud. That’s all acting. So, I get why everyone from Denzel to Frances McDormand to Corey Hawkins would want to do this. And they are all very good in it. The one problem I have is that I can see on their faces how hard they are working to make the dialogue sound natural. That’s a problem with so many films, of course. The same could be said of the Lord of the Rings movies, which I adore. However, when mixed with the cinematography and production design, I found myself begging to see someone in The Tragedy of Macbeth declench.

 

I won’t pretend I went into this movie 100% without an opinion. I’m cautious about Shakespeare adaptations as a rule. I went into this with a partially formed stance on modern black and white filmmaking. It’s fair to say this movie had to prove itself to me more than some other films. It would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise. What I can safely say though is that The Tragedy of Macbeth did nothing to dispel my notions of it. A decent adaptation by all accounts. Not much else.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend