If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it was done by Joel Coen, I suppose. The Tragedy of Macbeth—the play, not Coen’s new film, which premiered at the New York Film Festival on Friday—has indeed been done to death. The last film version of Shakespeare’s swift, haunted play was in 2015, a heavy and little-seen muddle from Justin Kurzel. But on stage, the murder of Duncan and his killers’ subsequent unraveling has been acted out in countless iterations, imagined in different time periods and tones, but always (or, almost always) ending the same way.
So why make another movie out of this oft-told tale? Coen’s film struggles to answer that question, partly because the filmmaker’s fascinations seem to lie not so much with the text as with other movies. The Tragedy of Macbeth’s moody black and white, with pools of light illuminating a shadowy soundstage, resemble expressionist films of another era and many of the old Shakespeare movies, particularly the misty dank of Orson Welles’s own Macbeth. Coen’s film is an homage to those forms, rather than a celebration of Shakespeare’s briefest tragedy.
Which isn’t to say it’s a flat, uninspiring interpretation. Coen and his acting troupe make dense language wholly legible, bending famous phrases into intriguing new shapes. The film moves at a pleasant clip, eschewing cinematic digressions and driving, like a dagger, to the heart of the story. It’s an efficient little film, despite its fussy aesthetics.
But is that enough to justify the revisit? So much of the film plays like a whimsical experiment, a revered filmmaker (working without his brother for the first time) gathering some game actors together to mess around and put on a show. That’s a perfectly fair motivation for making a film; it’s just hard to get very invested in what mostly feels like a lark.
The main draw for curious audiences is likely that Macbeth—the ambitious Scotsman who fulfills a dreadful prophecy that he will become king—is played by Denzel Washington, a lauded Shakespearean actor when he isn’t busy being the most reliable movie star alive. Lady Macbeth, that even more ambitious Scotswoman, is played by Frances McDormand. It’s a dream pairing of serious artistes, given ample room to tuck into their craft. Strangely, though, neither Washington nor McDormand make much of an impression. They adeptly humanize these looming icons of drama, but their delivery—hurried and casual—doesn’t register as potently as hoped. They almost fade into the scenery.
That scenery involves the busy work of many fog machines and sets that have the harsh, imposing lines of fascist architecture. The Macbeths seem to live in the Colosseo Quadrato, decorated in the sparest of Scandinavian design traditions. It’s all rather stagey, which makes one wish that this whole thing was being mounted in some midtown theater instead—and perhaps filmed by PBS to be broadcast elsewhere. Coen heavily references a cinematic lineage, but his Tragedy of Macbeth only proves the play’s ideal format.
The film finds its surest footing is in its supporting performances, delivered by a company of actors well-versed in Shakespeare’s tricky poetics. Corey Hawkins poignantly registers MacDuff’s grief over the murder of his family, a delicate portrait of sudden heartbreak. The great Stephen Root adds some welcome humor in his one nattering scene—it’d be quite something to see him leading his own Shakespeare production somewhere, someday. (Or, at least, playing one of the Rude Mechanicals.)
As a shifty and saturnine Ross, the British actor Alex Hassell glides through the film with menace and allure. His lilting delivery and saucer eyes suggest something otherworldly, an observing being blown through this violent mess, adrift on Highland winds.
But it’s veteran stage performer Kathryn Hunter, as all three of the Weird Sisters (or is there just one?), who conjures the play’s horror most persuasively. As Hunter croaks and contorts, an ancient and frightening myth seems dredged up out of the muddy heath, murmuring a warning about the rot of power for all those who can hear it. Her performance would be quite a thing to behold live and in person. I suppose this film—which is, in the end, but another sturdy and competent Macbeth—will have to do.
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