the tragedy of macbeth…

I went to the Watershed yesterday - for only the third time in the past two years (I know!) - to see Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, featuring Denzel Washington (Macbeth) and Frances McDormand (Lady Macbeth). We all know the Shakespeare play and there was part of me wondering why they were making another film of it (there have been at least seven other screen adaptations).
But, frankly, it was worth it. Washington and McDormand were both predictably brilliant and the stark black and white film portrayal powerfully and wonderfully apt. I loved designer Stefan Dechant’s imagining of Macbeth’s castle as a giant modernist house, with ‘sharp’ edges, dramatic level changes and courtyards enclosed by huge high walls. The witch apparition was disturbingly impressive and I found Birnam Wood ‘coming to’ Macbeth’s castle, with Malcolm’s soldiers holding tree-branches over their heads, eerily effective.
All in all, it was very good to be back in the cinema (and, happily, EVERYONE was wearing a face-mask!).