Adapting the Adapter: Cinematography in Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth”

It has been a common theme of mine across several different publications to write on the idea of adaptation, particularly of classic works of literature. Recently, I had the pleasure of watching A24’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, featuring Denzel Washington in the titular role. Coming from one of the makers of my favorite adaptation of The Odyssey, I suppose I should not be surprised, but I am delighted to say that this adaptation of the Shakespeare classic is a masterpiece, blending Joel Coen’s grotesque, Flannery O’Connor-esque vision from his previous films with stunning set pieces and traditional cinematography rarely used in bigger pictures. The combination of the two makes for a quite thrilling experience. Everything is shot in 1.37:1 and black and white, as though one were watching a classic film from the silver screen of the 1930’s through 50’s, something of Orson Welles or Akira Kurosawa.

This trend of bringing back the 1.37:1 or the 4:3 ratio has become increasingly popular in recent years, with directors choosing this classic “box ratio” over the widescreen for any number of reasons, from Zach Snyder’sJustice League to Robert Egger’s The Lighthouse. A24 films are, however, the most prominent in this trend, and thus the most likely to be critiqued for notions of “pretension” in their directors’ use of this ratio. Yet it is an art style like any other, with associations both good and bad. In this case, the use of black and white and the 1.37:1 ratio add a special nuance to the film. For one thing, as previously mentioned, it serves as a callback not only to film classics but also specifically to classic adaptations of Shakespeare plays. Indeed, Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth bears a strong resemblance in several of its shots to Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, considered by some Shakespeare critics as one of the best film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth to date. The way the leaves fall as the end approaches for Macbeth, as well as some of the armor designs, especially bears a significant resemblance to Kurosawa’s version.

However, the use of this ratio is not limited to mere callbacks to film history. The Coen brothers have always been masters of depicting the uncanny, giving the supernatural a facade of natural realism, creating a grotesque world where the supernatural seems to always lurk just around the corner, hidden behind the grinning mask of a human face, never quite fully revealing its true colors. One need look no further than Oh Brother Where Art Thou for an abundance of examples, but here in The Tragedy of Macbeth, this same artful masking is true to form, playing off of the aspect ratio and the black-and-white coloring to give the world a more surreal, supernatural feeling, as though we are looking at a world like our own but not our own, more veiled in the mist and fog of unreality, more subject to the whims of fate and prophecy. A world, in other words, that has entered into fairy-tale. And what better world is there for the playing which Coen makes of the witches?

In a remarkable feat of costuming and acting, the Weird Sisters not only dress like crows with long black cloaks, hooded heads, and bare legs, they also have the mannerisms of crows. This is a point I cannot stress enough. When we first meet one of the sisters at the beginning of the play, she wanders across a bloody battlefield exactly like a crow, hopping from place to place, pecking at anything interesting or valuable among the scraps and heaps of dead, her arm twitching occasionally. It’s uncanny. It’s disturbing. It’s amazing. It also bears a strong resemblance to the possessed woman of another Kurosawa film, a seer who communes with spirits of the dead and acts in a similar manner.

This bird imagery continues throughout the film, and it is not limited only to the Weird Sisters. The ghost of Banquo, who visits Macbeth after his death, also takes on the form of a bird when Lady Macbeth stumbles on her husband shouting at the spirit (Macbeth 3.4). So do the spirits appear to Coen, flitting back and forth, preying like scavengers upon mortal men, perching and watching the play set by their doings unfold beneath their feet. For there are several scenes where we appear to be watching things unfold from above, as though from an upper landing or a perch. The sets of The Tragedy of Macbeth are undetailed but impressive in design, evoking a sense of wide spaces, long shadows, and narrow hallways with many arches — but all barren, all sterile and cold, like looking into an abstract painting. This allows the director to play with shadows in the old filming fashion, rendering some gorgeous shots, but it also adds to the sense of the world, its unreality and closeness to an idea, something less concrete and detailed but abstract. Combined with the aspect ratio ,it also gives a much greater focus on each individual character as they take their turn at the center of the stage; some of the shots bring us uncomfortably close to the faces of characters staring directly into the camera as though addressing us, the audience, again adding to that uncanny feeling.

Most stunning of all, though, is the transformation of the king’s pavilion into a forest full of falling leaves, where we begin with a series of gothic arches, tree-like columns sprouting up all around, that with a twist of the camera become real trees as the leaves begin to fall and the end finally comes for Macbeth. This moment in particular, though in the play having little significance, being but the prelude to Macbeth’s duel with Macduff (Macbeth5.7) in the film takes on much greater prominence and becomes its own scene, showcasing for us just how Joel Coen has merged his own filming techniques and themes with Shakespeare’s own. Macbeth has just completed his famed soliloquy on the slow on-crawling movement of bitter time as it “creeps in this petty pace from day to day / to the last syllable of recorded time” (Macbeth 5.5) and now he sits alone on his throne in resigned despair, contemplating the oncoming of Birnam Wood and his prophesied death. A challenger, the young Siward, approaches and is swiftly dispatched. Yet death is coming for Macbeth, and will soon be upon him. Siward manages to wound Macbeth, and as he does, the abstract palace, the well-proportioned floors and walls, always roofed against nature, begins to crumble, begins to change. Gothic pillars become trees, leaves begin to fall. Nature has broken in to the abstract palace, has brought in the swift rush of natural time, the end of slow, creeping, conscience-wracked time, signaling the approaching end. It is a powerful scene, one almost completely crafted by Coen yet devotedly serving Shakespeare’s themes. Which is precisely what one should hope for and delight in in an adaptation.

Joel Coen combined his mastery of unreality, the O’Connor-esque merging of the natural and the supernatural in grotesque movements of spirits and grace, with something very similarly portrayed in Shakespeare’s works: the hell within the conscience, the creeping uncertainty of time and the world around oneself, and the diabolic in man. Combined, these elements allowed Coen to essentially create a whole new Shakespearean scene: Macbeth 5.7.1, the penultimate scene, in which the death bell tolls and the world begins to crumble and Macbeth, resigned, sits in uneasy immortality upon a bloody throne.

Here is adaptation at its best, where a new artist brings his talents in service of the old art to draw out something new, something which perfectly fits within the original but which had not been made explicit until now. This requires faithfulness to the original, careful heed to the themes and intent of the original author — these are not the characteristics of many modern filmmakers, but they are the characteristics of the Coen brothers. And for that I am very grateful.