My Review- The Tragedy of Macbeth
My Rating 6.5/10
On Apple +
I found this Joel Cohen version of " The Scottish Play." a little underwhelming while I thought Frances McDormand's casting by husband Joel Cohen inspirational I can't say the same of Denzel Washington's casting as Macbeth .
He is a fine actor but I thought he mumbled a lot and just didn't match the intensity of Frances McDormand who steals every scene she appears in.
I missed the fire and brimstone of other versions stage or screen and Denzel's Macbeth seemed to passive for my liking.
I must admit I'm spoiled as we saw Derek Jacobi years ago in 1993 as Macbeth at the RSC Barbican with Cheryl Campbell as Lady Macbeth and it was truly a sensational and unforgettable performance.
Of course this new Cohen adaptation is a film not a play but it really does look like a film of a play and I'm looking at it as a movie not a play.
There are some fabulous visual moments like Lady Macbeth in silhouette on the precipice of a cliff face and the approaching army that camouflages itself with tree branches from Birnam Wood on their march to Dunsinane fulfilling the witches prophecy that "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him".
Some film critics say Cohen's concept is new and original but it's not really very different in look to the 1948 black and white Orson Welles version . This Cohen version is narrow frame aspect and also monochrome.
This worked superbly in The Lighthouse (2019) a Robert Eggers film which I rated 9 because it perfectly captured the stormy bleakness and dark emotional aspect of the story but in The Tragedy of Macbeth just looks arty and a little contrived.
The sets are totally minimalist and stagey but do lend themselves to the shadows and film noir ish monochrome effect that's reminiscent of the famous Ingmar Bergman Max Reinhardt and Fritz Lang monochrome movies.
The costumes by Mary Zophres are also simple but effective and compliment the simple geometric set designs by Nancy Haigh.
The score by Carter Burrell is effective but not very noticeable apart from the end credits.
Shakespeare is often performed by ethnically diverse casting but I doubt the famous Othello portrayal by Laurence Olivier in black face would be even tolerated today in the new era of colour blind casting.
However it seems perfectly acceptable in reverse for traditional Caucasian characters to be portrayed by black actors?
This colour blindness I found overdone in this Macbeth as most of the main Scottish characters except Lady Macbeth are black actors from Macbeth Denzel Washington to the MacDuff's with Corey Hawkins and his lady Moses Ingram plus Sean Patrick Thomas as Monteith .
Remember all the recent publicity blurbs about the cast of West Side Story being ethnically accurate at last with a Puerto Rican cast ? It worked beautifully helping to portray the characters and giving the film an authenticity . Imagine the fuss if Will Smith's character in King Richard was cast with a white actor or heaven forbid Barack Obama being played by a famous white actor like Leonardo de Caprio both totally unimaginable and silly suggestions.
As unimaginable perhaps as Jodie Turner - Smith becoming the first black actress to portray Anne Boleyn in a new drama series about the final months of Anne Boleyn's life.
As long as the most suitable Actor gets the role no matter if they're black white straight gay male Trans or female it's ok with me I don't think this is the case in The Tragedy of Macbeth the colour blindness just seems overdone and contrived.
Shakespeare often doesn't work well in the film medium for me with some exceptions including Max Reinhard's 1935 A Midsummer Nights Dream, Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew 1967 Romeo and 1969 plus Hamlet 1990 , Derek Jarman's The Tempest 1979 , Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing 1993 .
All these in my opinion successfully took the plays off the stage and transformed them into film a medium Shakespeare could never have dreamt of .
Joel Cohen's Macbeth while interesting was not innovative enough for me but worth seeing for the brilliant Frances McDormand's portrayal of the most calculating and ambitious wife in theatre history and it's lovely to see her with a hairstyle that suits her.
My Rating 6.5/10
On Apple +
I found this Joel Cohen version of " The Scottish Play." a little underwhelming while I thought Frances McDormand's casting by husband Joel Cohen inspirational I can't say the same of Denzel Washington's casting as Macbeth .
He is a fine actor but I thought he mumbled a lot and just didn't match the intensity of Frances McDormand who steals every scene she appears in.
I missed the fire and brimstone of other versions stage or screen and Denzel's Macbeth seemed to passive for my liking.
I must admit I'm spoiled as we saw Derek Jacobi years ago in 1993 as Macbeth at the RSC Barbican with Cheryl Campbell as Lady Macbeth and it was truly a sensational and unforgettable performance.
Of course this new Cohen adaptation is a film not a play but it really does look like a film of a play and I'm looking at it as a movie not a play.
There are some fabulous visual moments like Lady Macbeth in silhouette on the precipice of a cliff face and the approaching army that camouflages itself with tree branches from Birnam Wood on their march to Dunsinane fulfilling the witches prophecy that "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him".
Some film critics say Cohen's concept is new and original but it's not really very different in look to the 1948 black and white Orson Welles version . This Cohen version is narrow frame aspect and also monochrome.
This worked superbly in The Lighthouse (2019) a Robert Eggers film which I rated 9 because it perfectly captured the stormy bleakness and dark emotional aspect of the story but in The Tragedy of Macbeth just looks arty and a little contrived.
The sets are totally minimalist and stagey but do lend themselves to the shadows and film noir ish monochrome effect that's reminiscent of the famous Ingmar Bergman Max Reinhardt and Fritz Lang monochrome movies.
The costumes by Mary Zophres are also simple but effective and compliment the simple geometric set designs by Nancy Haigh.
The score by Carter Burrell is effective but not very noticeable apart from the end credits.
Shakespeare is often performed by ethnically diverse casting but I doubt the famous Othello portrayal by Laurence Olivier in black face would be even tolerated today in the new era of colour blind casting.
However it seems perfectly acceptable in reverse for traditional Caucasian characters to be portrayed by black actors?
This colour blindness I found overdone in this Macbeth as most of the main Scottish characters except Lady Macbeth are black actors from Macbeth Denzel Washington to the MacDuff's with Corey Hawkins and his lady Moses Ingram plus Sean Patrick Thomas as Monteith .
Remember all the recent publicity blurbs about the cast of West Side Story being ethnically accurate at last with a Puerto Rican cast ? It worked beautifully helping to portray the characters and giving the film an authenticity . Imagine the fuss if Will Smith's character in King Richard was cast with a white actor or heaven forbid Barack Obama being played by a famous white actor like Leonardo de Caprio both totally unimaginable and silly suggestions.
As unimaginable perhaps as Jodie Turner - Smith becoming the first black actress to portray Anne Boleyn in a new drama series about the final months of Anne Boleyn's life.
As long as the most suitable Actor gets the role no matter if they're black white straight gay male Trans or female it's ok with me I don't think this is the case in The Tragedy of Macbeth the colour blindness just seems overdone and contrived.
Shakespeare often doesn't work well in the film medium for me with some exceptions including Max Reinhard's 1935 A Midsummer Nights Dream, Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew 1967 Romeo and 1969 plus Hamlet 1990 , Derek Jarman's The Tempest 1979 , Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing 1993 .
All these in my opinion successfully took the plays off the stage and transformed them into film a medium Shakespeare could never have dreamt of .
Joel Cohen's Macbeth while interesting was not innovative enough for me but worth seeing for the brilliant Frances McDormand's portrayal of the most calculating and ambitious wife in theatre history and it's lovely to see her with a hairstyle that suits her.