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454. The Coen Brothers Brothers: The Tragedy of Macbeth

🕑 Added 2022-01-24 14:01:04 +0000 UTC

Comments

Damien Lupo

I was super excited about this movie, and then after I saw it, I was super excited about this episode, and I was not let down by either of them. Great work, everyone!

Sam Gillis

Absolutely terrific episode!

Arlo

Regarding Ross and Michael’s question about him: He is traditionally a very minor character, one who is for most of the play aligned with Macbeth for standard feudal reasons, and eventually defects to Malcolm and Macduff amidst the general psychological/moral collapse of Macbeth. Joel completely reinvents the character, making him far more prominent and simultaneously acting out of self interest and as a kind of pseudo-supernatural engine of upheaval and fate (similar to the witches). The most meaning-laden scenes of Ross are ones where he is not actually saying anything and would not be present in most stagings. The movie also has him kill Banquo, which in the original text is performed by an unnamed character, followed by the whole film-only Fleance stuff which will presumably result in further tumult and bloodshed. Joel basically makes Ross into a part of the Anton Chigur/Charlie Meadows/Loren Visser/etc taxonomy of emissaries from the void.

HPLoveshaft

“In the United States, the series aired on HBO and featured live-action introductions by Robin Williams.” Good lord, I vaguely remember that. 😮

HPLoveshaft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare:_The_Animated_Tales?wprov=sfti1

Andrew Duck

I imagine that Joel is Abe, seeing as Joel seems to be the primary force behind the directing of the Coen Bro’s movie. So if we’re doing parallel Bro to Bro, Joel = Abe and Micheal = Ethan.

HPLoveshaft

Also, everything I know about Shakespeare I learned from watching Gargoyles (and HBO’s animated Shakespeare program for children).

HPLoveshaft

This may be apocryphal, and you may get to it (I’m still in the recap), but I had always heard that as a young boy, JRR Tolkien was so disappointed in Macbeth, specifically that “the wood marching on Dunsanay” was a bunch of soldiers with sticks tied to them, it would be the seed of inspiration for the Ents destroying Isengard.