‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ transports you to the Twilight Zone | movie review
Joel Coen adapts his version of The Tragedy of Macbeth as a minimalist psychological thriller with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand taking on the borrowed robes of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
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The Tragedy of Macbeth immediately justifies its existence by removing all markers of time and place. Director Joel Coen, tackling his first solo film after working with his brother Ethan as the Coen brothers, sets the play on minimalist sets of massive concrete walls, dresses the characters in abstract costumes, and captures the action in crisp black and white that makes it feel like the movie is taking place somewhere else entirely. Everything is impressionistic. We get just enough to give us the general time period but not enough to latch on to specifics. The effect is offputting but needed. This isn’t your grandma’s Shakespeare adaptation.
As much as we rolled our eyes at our English teachers as we analyzed nearly every Shakespeare…