The director is huge, the playwright is legendary, the actors are huge - and the film is just boring

When a director like Joel Cohen makes a film based on Shakespeare starring Frances McDormand and Denzel Washington, we are asked to bow to all of these and declare that this is a masterpiece.

But the truth is that the "Macbeth tragedy" is boring and outrageous

Avner Shavit

07/01/2022

Friday, 07 January 2022, 00:28

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Trailer for The Macbeth Tragedy (A24)

Star rating for movies - 1 star (Photo: Image Processing,.)

Did you get up in the mood for unpopular opinions and slaughter sacred cows? Well, you're in the right place, because we're about to be rude and criticize "The Macbeth Tragedy," an adaptation of one of the most acclaimed directors of our generation into the classic of one of the most acclaimed playwrights ever.

The director is Joel Cohen, who together with his brother Eitan has signed masterpieces such as "Fargo" and "Inside Loin Davis". The playwright is William Shakespeare, whose works have been the basis of films since the beginning of silent cinema. This time it is "Macbeth", one of its most canonical tragedies, which has another advantage - it is a relatively short text, which does not require epic adaptations of Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" style that lasted four hours.

Thus, "The Macbeth Tragedy" spans only a hundred minutes - and nowadays one has to rub one's eyes when approaching a hall and encountering a film of such length.

But as you know, there is no connection between the actual length and the viewer's sense of time, just as the temperature on paper can be ten degrees and you will actually feel hotter or colder.

Disappointingly, this is also true of this processing, which turns out to be incredibly tedious, exhausting and boring, like a queue that does not progress to a corona test.

The film was directed by Joel alone.

His brother took a break until a new announcement from a filmmaker, and given the state of the industry, it's hard not to understand him.

The "tragedy of Macbeth" also had to adapt to the new rules of the game.

It is coming up with us for limited screenings at Lev Cinema, and will be available next weekend on Apple TV Plus, which extended its sponsorship of the project as part of the streaming wars between it and Netflix.

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To the full article

"The House of Cards", the original version.

From "The Tragedy of Macbeth" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)

As you may recall, this is one of the first times a streaming service has produced a film based on Shakespeare.

Of course, his plays in general and this play in particular have been the inspiration for many modern series - for example "Game of Thrones" and "House of Cards".

"Macbeth" has remained relevant for so many years, because it presents a fairly basic story that deals with super-temporal issues like the lust for power and the corrupting power of government.

The play, as well as the film, depict the tragic trajectory of the protagonist as they are called and of his partner, Lady Macbeth, who turns out to be even more ambitious and uninhibited than him.

Together they leave a trail of corpses on the way up.

This path is accompanied by three witches, and it is worth noting the small print in their prophecies about the future of the characters.

Cohen, the sharp and witty writing wizard, preserves Shakespeare's original text, with English sounding completely different and in fact like a completely different language from the modern English that was in his previous films. However, there is one difference compared to the original and its previous cinematic versions. This time, the casting makes the characters older. Lady Macbeth is played by the screenwriter-director's partner, Frances McDormand, and Macbeth himself is played by Denzel Washington, both in their sixties. It also leads to a small but substantial change compared to the original text.

In contrast to the previous cinematic adaptation of the play, which starred Michael Fassbender and Marion Couture, and in keeping with the hot trend of American-British cinema in the past year, "The Macbeth Tragedy" was filmed in black and white.

The Frenchman Bruno Delbonel, who replaced Roger Dickens in the last decade as the almost permanent photographer of Joel and Ethan Cohen (except in "Long Live the Emperor"), gives the text a different visual interpretation than usual.

This time, the result looks like an expressionist horror film, in the style of German cinema of the 1930s.

The heroes of the Cohen brothers would laugh at this movie.

From "The Tragedy of Macbeth" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)

Compared to previous films by the prolific filmmaker, the most dramatic difference is that here there is not the slightest bit of humor or irony. The "tragedy of Macbeth" is bloated and pompous - just the kind of work that the heroes of the Cohen brothers' films would mock. The movie is also going up in streaming but I saw it on a big screen, and it did not change. The experience is completely theatrical. Most forced of all are the game views. Frances McDormand picked up the Oscar last year for "Land of the Nomads" and it seems that "The Macbeth Tragedy" is making every effort she will win again. The statuette for the best actor is given by the previous winner of the actress award, and there is also an attempt to make sure that she gives it to her partner here, Denzel Washington. In practice, they both exhibit two of the most fossilized and lifeless displays of their glorious careers.

Miri Regev chose Chekhov at the time to show her contempt for the old-fashioned establishment.

Too bad she did not choose Shakespeare.

I was in plays at the Shakespearean Theater and survived to tell.

It is hard to think of a more pretentious and arrogant choice than to keep his text as it is, and as Cohen did here.

The obvious solution is to cover your ears and try to at least enjoy what you see and do not hear.

The trouble is that the visual side of the film is based on cheap and empty gestures - flying crows, a blowing wind and such banal poetics.

Eitan Cohen escaped in time.

From "The Tragedy of Macbeth" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)

As in the case of Steven Spielberg and "The Story of the Suburbs," Joel Cohen does not owe us explanations.

Why process Macbeth for the thousandth time?

Who needs it?

He is one of the wonderful filmmakers of our generation, we owe him hours of pleasure, and he is allowed to do whatever he wants.

But it is also permissible to refuse to bow to his face automatically.

"Macbeth's Tragedy" is a horrifying and outrageous film to me, and it only remains to end with a journey warning about the weight of the original text - according to the thumbs up / something bad is approaching me / a lock is opened, it's the threshold / Eitan Cohen escaped in time. "

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Tags

• The Cohen brothers

• Shakespeare

• Denzel Washington

• Frances McDormand