The Tragedy of The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

For me, the new film of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Joel Coen is one of the biggest disappointments of cinema’s class of 2021. Joel, of course, is one half of the writing/directing team known as the Coen brothers, with brother Ethan being the other. Apparently, Joel has always wanted to tackle Shakespearean tragedy. As he has oft pointed out, many if not most Coen brothers’ movies owe a lot to the traditional themes of Shakespearean tragedy: about how an overabundance of ambition and chutzpa leads to a person’s downfall.  The Tragedy of Macbeth is his first solo project.

Coen himself directed, wrote the screenplay and co-edited The Tragedy of Macbeth and he assembled a great team for the movie. His director of photography is six-time Oscar nominee Bruno Delbonnel, the cinematographer for such pictures as Amélie (2001), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), and Darkest Hour (2017). The production design (for which the film has received an Oscar nomination) is by Stefan Deschant, whose previous diverse work includes Cast Away (2000),  Avatar (2009), and The BFG (2016). The casting director is long-time Coen brothers stalwart Ellen Chenoweth, whose credits go back to the early 1980s with pictures like Diner (1982) and Terms of Endearment (1983), followed by titles such as Broadcast News (1987), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and Michael Clayton (2007). 

The Tragedy of Macbeth does boast a great cast too, with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand in the leads as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Brendan Gleeson as Duncan, Bertie Carvel as Banquo, Corey Hawkins as Macduff, Harry Melling as Malcolm, and Kathryn Hunter as the witches.

With all this talent then, why is the movie so disappointing? I’ll explain in a moment. First, I want to give credit where credit is due and talk about its strengths.  

Simply put, the film looks really, really great. It’s filmed in stark, high-contrast black and white. Highlighting the throwback quality of the photography, the aspect ratio is 1.37 : 1, the dimensions regularly seen in Hollywood films from the early 1930s until the advent of widescreen in the 1950s. The picture quality is so sharp and the scene composition so fine, it’s like viewing a museum quality photography exhibition (and this is meant in the most complimentary way).  The atmosphere and visual feel of The Tragedy of Macbeth has much in common with some of the darkest noir films of the late 1940s with their dramatic, high-contrast chiaroscuro lighting effects – a great example being Robert Siodmak’s The Killers (1946). 

It's not just the photography and lighting that are wonderful. The set design is very cool – like an homage

to the classic films from the German expressionist period – movies like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) and Fritz Lang’s Siegfried from 1924 - especially the interior scenes, where most of the action occurs. The castle halls and long, arched arcades and galleries are largely bereft of furnishings. They are places where voices and other sounds reverberate, and deep, sharp shadows loom forebodingly – very theatrical and frankly spectacular effects that heighten our attention to the tragic narrative. 

All of this  beautifully.suits Shakespeare’s gothic high stakes story of the Macbeths’ amoral, ambitious rise and crushing fall, of cold-blooded murder begetting more cold-blooded murder.  The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw says this Macbeth is “a black and white world of violence and pain that scorches the retina.” True. 

Also great are how some of the key scenes are staged and the text subtly manipulated. This is particularly true with respect to how the 'weird sisters' are presented and represented.  When Macbeth and Macduff first meet them early in the first act, we see one witch standing before a calm pool with her reflection in the water producing two more. The witch(es) prophecies are spoken by one actor (the amazing Kathryn Hunter ) with three different, hauntingly creepy voices as their images coalesce. Later, when Macbeth seeks them out again, they materialize in his castle’s rafters – shadowy, black-clad, malevolent creatures with twisted frames and twisted motives.  Coen’s staging of the prophesied coming of Birnam Wood to Dunsinane is much briefer, but also creatively accomplished.

Getting back to why I found The Tragedy of Macbeth so disappointing. In a word, the acting. I am referring particularly, but not exclusively, to the leads – and most especially to Denzel Washington as Macbeth.

Washington is, of course, a superb actor. Among many other accolades, he was been Oscar-nominated for Best Actor nine times, winning twice so far, putting him right up there with other greats such as Meryl Streep, Kate Hepburn, Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando. Yet time and again as Macbeth, his speeches are delivered in a hurried, unhesitating, uninflected monotone as if reading the lines for the first time with little to no understanding of their substance or connotation. Much of what he is saying is meant to express Macbeth’s thoughts and concerns in the moment; thus, his sentences are often long, rambling and digressive. Yet, Washington’s delivery is mostly rushed - devoid of thoughtful hesitation, expressive pauses or other dynamics that could add substance, connotation or other clues to what his character is thinking and feeling. The only real exception to this is during the concluding battle scenes, in which the doomed Macbeth seems much more invigorated and credible.

This performance is quite possibly the worst of Washington’s career. But I don’t totally blame him for this. McDormand’s delivery of Lady Macbeth’s lines is just as muted much of the time and suffers similarly. The same can be said for many of the other performances. The usually superb Brendan Gleeson, for example, gives a relatively short speech to Lady Macbeth upon his arrival at Macbeth’s castle – four sentences over six lines – which Gleeson delivers as if it were one long monotonous run-on sentence.    For all the attention that Coen and his team gave to the look and feel of the production, my first reaction is to say that not nearly enough effort was spent on how the text was to be delivered. It’s been suggested Coen deliberately sought a low-key approach to dialogue and speeches for some reason.  If so, this was a terrible mistake.  I’ve seen quite a few productions of Shakespeare plays, and of Macbeth in particular, in numerous iterations. The best ones are those in which the actors make the characters’ lines their own and deliver them as naturally as possible, with such nuance and meaning that we in the audience mostly forget that we are listening to a relatively ancient form of the language. 

There are a few bright spots:  Corey Hawkins as Macduff and Moses Ingram as Lady Macduff are both excellent, for example. I’ve already mentioned the incredible portrayal of the witches by Kathryn Hunter.

Let me quote again from the British press, to which I attribute a deeper appreciation of the bard. The Guardian’s Bradshaw puts it more delicately than I do: “Washington takes the big speeches at an even pace, sometime rolling over shades of meaning.” Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent notes that the lead actors in this production are considerably older than usual for Macbeth and his spouse, but that with more mature actors, “Coen … has directed both Washington and McDormand to take a wearier, more cool-headed approach.” That weariness did come across to me and even makes some sense. But this observation does not excuse the dull incomprehensibility of too many lines from Washington/Macbeth.

Given all this, I am truly astonished that Denzel Washington is one of the five finalists for the 2022 Oscar for best actor in a feature film. Really? Surveying the field, it seems that mine is a minority viewpoint among critics. That does not mean I am wrong. Watch The Tragedy of Macbeth and see for yourself.  I suspect that you’ll love the look and mood of the movie and, like me, will be frustrated and disappointed with most of the performances. [If not, I encourage you to let me know.]

So: Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth has great design, great photography, high production values, and a very effective cool, gloomy mood. On the other hand, the acting - especially from the lead actors, who can and should do much better - is so muted and the elocution so dull as to bury much of the beauty of the bard’s language. Despite the terrific look of this movie, the net result greatly diminishes the tragic sensibility of one of the preeminent tragedies in the English language.  Not a terrible movie exactly, but very disappointing.

1 hour 45 minutes

Grade: B- / C+

Streaming on AppleTV+ and still showing in select theaters nationwide.