It's been literal years since I've seen a film of a Shakespeare play in which actors spoke the lines like human beings. If The Tragedy of Macbeth is notable for anything it's that Washington and the other actors behave and speak like real people and not like people speaking Shake-a-spear.
The design, however, is a little baffling. The actors are human beings, but the production design is theatrical in the extreme. Joel Coen (working alone) shoots the film in black and white, and stages The Tragedy in a highly theatrical mode.
I didn't mind any of this. I was here for the whole thing. I thought Corey Hawkins and Kathryn Hunter were standouts in their supporting roles. (Alex Hassell, too.) And the cut of Shakespeare's text is very, very good, with (as is appropriate) a focus on Macbeth himself rather than a focus on the weird sisters or Lady M (as so many directors these days want to do).
And Denzel Washington. He's just extraordinary. It's an astounding performance.
I've heard rumors that Washington is going to give us more arthouse fare in the years to come. Anything he gives us like this is a blessing. This is an actor at the top of his game, and he loves to make big Hollywood nonsense, so if he started making arthouse fare? It's hard to imagine being so blessed.
Also: we're in a black-and-white moment, right? Passing and Belfast and C'mon, C'mon and The Tragedy of Macbeth? That seems like a lot of important movies in black and white for one year.
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