Joel Coen distills ‘Macbeth’ down to the bone
By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is an intoxicatingly expressionist Shakespeare adaptation dense in fog and shadow. It’s Coen’s solo debut, a film without his brother, Ethan. The movie has been hailed as one of the finest film Macbeths and an unexpected detour from a filmmaking life that has always been defined by brotherhood. The project was driven partly by Frances McDormand, who had longed to do the play with her husband directing. Coen eventually relented, but only if he could do it as a film — stripped down and stylized, abstracted in black and white and composed in a nearly square frame. It opens in theaters Christmas Day.
