This version of Shakespeare's play was "written" and directed by Joel Coen alone, without his brother being involved.
The cast is biracial throughout; Denzel Washington is Macbeth and Frances McDormand is Lady M.
The cinematography is excellent. It's black and white (very beautiful) and also in 4:3 format.
The sets are bare and minimalist and symbolic, interchangeably using large black birds as stand-ins for the Three Weird Sisters (who are all played by the same person). Toward the end, as Macbeth's options narrow, so does the set, literally. Maybe that's why the format is "narrower" than the usual big screen format as well.
The text has been cut somewhat (from what is already Shakespeare's shortest play) and the last 1/4 is a bit hurried as a result. The conversation between MacDuff and Malcolm is very truncated and leaves out the whole idea that Malcolm mistrusts MacDuff and is testing him. It's about an hour and 40 minutes in length.
Denzel is a bit up and down but overall terrific. McDormand does a fine job with her lines. Everyone else is first-rate. Directors who combine American and British actors in a Shakespeare production are always taking a chance that the American accents will not work very well, but I did not find that problem here.
The director diverges from Shakespeare's plot/characterization a bit in order to underline a point the play makes. I am something of a stickler about following the text so this bothered me somewhat.
Overall it is a visually arresting production in which the actors pay close attention to the lines and enunciate them carefully and intelligently (though a minor gaffe occurs with one of Denzel's lines; not sure how that was missed).
I watched it on my desktop.
The cast is biracial throughout; Denzel Washington is Macbeth and Frances McDormand is Lady M.
The cinematography is excellent. It's black and white (very beautiful) and also in 4:3 format.
The sets are bare and minimalist and symbolic, interchangeably using large black birds as stand-ins for the Three Weird Sisters (who are all played by the same person). Toward the end, as Macbeth's options narrow, so does the set, literally. Maybe that's why the format is "narrower" than the usual big screen format as well.
The text has been cut somewhat (from what is already Shakespeare's shortest play) and the last 1/4 is a bit hurried as a result. The conversation between MacDuff and Malcolm is very truncated and leaves out the whole idea that Malcolm mistrusts MacDuff and is testing him. It's about an hour and 40 minutes in length.
Denzel is a bit up and down but overall terrific. McDormand does a fine job with her lines. Everyone else is first-rate. Directors who combine American and British actors in a Shakespeare production are always taking a chance that the American accents will not work very well, but I did not find that problem here.
The director diverges from Shakespeare's plot/characterization a bit in order to underline a point the play makes. I am something of a stickler about following the text so this bothered me somewhat.
Overall it is a visually arresting production in which the actors pay close attention to the lines and enunciate them carefully and intelligently (though a minor gaffe occurs with one of Denzel's lines; not sure how that was missed).
I watched it on my desktop.