Saturday, February 5, 2022

Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

I haven't seen it. Didn't know it existed, but Rotten Tomatoes says reviews were 93% positive, so here's a dissenting voice:

I didn’t hate Joel Coen's film of Macbeth, but it did leave me feeling kind of empty. As so often with Coen’s movies, it largely riffs off of previous Macbeth films, lifting from Welles and Kurosawa–both much more intriguing and satisfying interpretations than this one. But in it’s cold, noirish b/w Coen avoids the film closest in spirit to the play, Polanski’s splatterfest made soon after Sharon Tate’s murder, a truly unnerving cinematic experience. Moreover, the two lead actors are both old enough to play Lear, defusing one of the propulsive forces of the play. Coen’s Macbeth has all the sexual tension of Ronnie and Nancy plotting the political knifing of Jerry Ford and the October Surprise against Carter…

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/04/roaming-charges-42/

That's from Jeffrey St. Clair. 

He's probably right about the stars' advanced ages. 67-year-old Denzel Washington says he wants to play King Lear next. 

Reagan was 69 when he was elected which actually seems pretty young now.

https://www.mailplus.co.uk/edition/showbiz/151351/baz-on-friday-bitten-by-the-bard-bug...-denzel-aims-for-king-lear 

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