The Tragedy of Macbeth: Terrific style, flawed substance

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

Shakespeare’s plays have been modified, mutated and mangled in all manner of wild, wonderful and wacky ways, on the stage and screen: modern settings, cross-gender casting, larkish animation and much, much more.

 

Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble: Macbeth (Denzel
Washington) is about to learn that an apparently promising prophecy carries
nasty consequences.

(It sometimes seems unusual when a faithful adaptation arrives, although 1996’s Twelfth Night and several sumptuous Kenneth Branagh entries come to mind.)

Even by the unusual standards of some that have come before, director/scripter Joel Coen’s Tragedy of Macbeth is quite outré.

 

The film’s look is simultaneously gorgeous and disorienting. Stefan Dechant’s eye-popping production design is an opulent blend of 1920s German Expressionism and imposing Gothic sensibilities, saturated with a 1950s film noir atmosphere courtesy of Bruno Delbonnel’s gorgeous monochrome cinematography. Buildings and individual rooms have impossibly distant ceilings, with quirkily geometric windows that cast striking lights and shadows.

 

The result is unsettling and even hallucinatory: quite apt, given the nature of this grim, blood-drenched story.

 

Carter Burwell’s moody, often ominous orchestral score similarly adds much to the film’s macabre tone.

 

Casting is intriguing; Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand are much too old for the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, although their advanced years do further emphasize their characters’ frustration over having failed to produce an heir.

 

There’s also the matter of Coen’s bold decision to considerably enhance the role of Ross, generally a minor supporting character, but — as superbly played here by Alex Hassell — transformed into a Satanic key player, trickster figure and master manipulator. He frankly blows Washington and McDormand off the screen.

 

The story begins as Scottish generals Macbeth, his good friend Banquo (Bertie Carvel) and their army have successfully defeated the allied forces of Ireland and Norway. En route to rejoining King Duncan (Brendan Gleeson), Macbeth and Banquo wander onto an ominous heath and encounter three witches.

 

All three of these supernatural beings do — or sometimes don’t — inhabit the single body of actress Kathryn Hunter, whose contortionist abilities and feral malevolence are extremely unsettling. She may be the creepiest witch ever brought to the screen, and her varying appearances are quite creative: most strikingly, a single body with two reflections in a pool of water, thus becoming three “selves.”

The Old Guard: New take on a familiar concept

The Old Guard (2020) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and graphic violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.24.20

Immortality isn’t as cool as some folks likely assume.

Popular comic book writer Greg Rucka provocatively blended that premise with conventional action-hero thrills in the 2017 series The Old Guard, with artwork by Leandro Fernandez; the graphic novel immediately attracted Hollywood’s attention, with a well-cast Charlize Theron adding another notch to her re-invention as a bad-ass mercenary type.

Although Andy (Charlize Theron, center right) does her best to explain the abilities that
she shares with the much younger Nile (KiKi Layne), the latter isn't interested in playing
nice: a rather foolish attitude, while in a transport plane being flown by a Russian
drug smuggler.

Gina Prince-Bythewood was an unlikely but ultimately just-right choice as director, having previously helmed gentler fare such as Love & Basketball and The Secret Life of Bees. As a result, her approach here is much more character-driven than the soulless slugfests that distinguish most action thrillers. We care about these folks: far more than you’d expect, given the far-fetched premise. They’re well sculpted, and equally well played.

Prince-Bythewood, editor Terilyn A. Shropshire and their stunt/fight coordinators — Brycen Counts, Adam Kirley and Danny Hernandez — also choreograph some furious skirmishes.

The film — debuting on Netflix — is quite faithful to its origins; credit for that goes to Rucka, who wrote his own script adaptation. Fans of the original series will note that he made one significant change, as we slide into the action-laden climax; this new element significantly enhances the pathos of Theron’s performance.

It’s actually a shame that all previews — and media publicity — reveal the immortality angle, because that awareness spoils the jolt of surprise unknowing viewers otherwise would receive, when this detail is revealed midway through the first act.

Andy (Theron) heads a quartet of independent mercenaries who’ve devoted their lives to righting wrongs, saving innocents, executing war-mongers and so forth. They’ve always chosen their assignments carefully; they’re definitely “good guys,” even as they act as judge, jury and executioner.

The team includes Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), who liaises with entities looking to hire them; and Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli), passionately devoted lovers. All four are impressively capable warriors, and no wonder; they’ve been around for a long time.

Joe and Nicky met while fighting on opposite sides during the Crusades; Booker was a French soldier during the Napoleonic era.

Andy — actually Andromache of Scythia — is thousands of years old.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: Minor-key melodramas

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R for strong violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.7.18

Anthology films — also known by the far niftier term “portmanteau films,” with interior short subjects usually linked by genre, author, premise or even star — have been mini-fads at various points in cinema history.

Having unwisely left the wagon train in search of her wayward little dog, Alice
Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan) is terrified to discover that she and her sole companion have
been spotted by a band of angry Native American warriors.

They became something of a vogue during the 1940s, starting with 1942’s Tales of Manhattan. That was followed by 1943’s occult-laden Flesh and Fantasy; 1945’s deliciously spooky Dead of Night; 1948’s Quartet, with its four Somerset Maugham stories; 1950’s Trio and 1951’s Encore (Maugham again); and 1952’s O. Henry’s Full House.

Occasional one-offs notwithstanding, portmanteau films didn’t become popular again until 1968’s The Illustrated Man — with its selection of Ray Bradbury tales — led to a series of horror entries: The House that Dripped Blood, Asylum and Tales from the Crypt, ad infinitum to this day.

High-tone entries included 1989’s New York Stories, with segments directed by Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen; and 1995’s Four Rooms, with Roald Dahl short stories loosely adapted by directors Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.

This brings us to Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which gathers half a dozen short concepts they’ve had kicking around for the past quarter-century. The tales are linked by their setting in the American West, which rarely has looked more vicious; and by a clever framing device that “lifts” each yarn from the pages of a vintage hardcover book, complete with gorgeous color illustrations whose captions — in each case — give a dramatic clue to what we’re about to see.

As always is the case with portmanteau films, the contents vary from excellent to good to not such a much. But since we’re dealing with the Coen brothers, even the lesser entries are worth viewing for tone, acting, cheeky directing, and Bruno Delbonnel’s lush cinematography.

The segments also have a few things in common: a darkly comic, even macabre tone; unexpected bursts of gruesome violence; and — in most cases — an atmosphere of grim despair.