THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH and WEST SIDE STORY (2021 VERSIONS)

 
Joel Coen's take on "The Scottish Play" (it's considered unlucky in the theater world to say the real title) is receiving some high praise, but for my taste it drags a story that's a near complete drag down even further into the depths of cynicism. The production has been cited as "film noir" influenced, i.e. shot in black&white, set in spare confined spaces empty and gloomy even when outside, etc. I found all that even more depressing than the already depressing story.

And while I often admire and respect Frances McDormand's acting chops, to me she's miscast here as Lady Macbeth, her usual blunt and often cold characterizations overkill for this story. I kept being distracted by thoughts of other actors in the role. But Denzel Washington's performance as the title character had me accepting him as the tragically brutal, power-tempted, ultimately evil protagonist from his first moment on screen. Well worthy of awards nominations.

There's some other gems in the film, like the revelatory performances by Kathryn Hunter, but for my taste Coen gets a C grade at best.

This newest version of a much more loosely based musical interpretation of a Shakespeare play (R&J), repairs some of the failings of the 1961 version (actual LatinX actors playing LatinX characters and speaking actual Spanish etc.) but it changes some iconic scenes and settings from the '61 version in ways that left me missing the earlier takes (e.g. the "play it cool boy' scene and choreography).

I liked almost all the performances except Mike Faist as Riff, which veered between seeming miscast and mismotivated. But because the music is so great (to me, and I do have a personal connection to the original Broadway cast album that I heard as a teenager at a rich girl's house in 1957, before the movie version, and realized musicals and theater in general could do so much more than I had imagined possible) and the tragic story is so close to themes in my own past, I still found this new version often exhilarating and moving. B+.