The Wachowskis aren’t the only siblings going solo this fall. Marking Joel Coen’s first film without his brother Ethan, The Tragedy of Macbeth brings together Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Brendan Gleeson, Corey Hawkins, Moses Ingram, Harry Melling, and Ralph Ineson. Ahead of a world premiere this Friday to kick off the 59th New York Film Festival, Apple and A24 have unveiled the first trailer.
Said to be a faithful retelling of Shakespeare’s iconic story—shot in black-and-white by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who reteams with Coen from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Inside Llewyn Davis––the first trailer is a starkly gorgeous preview of one of our most-anticipated fall films. It also confirms use of a 1.33 aspect ratio, along with a release date: December 25 in theaters, followed by an Apple TV+ debut on January 14.
Watch the trailer below, along with NYFF’s trailer.
Check out NYFF’s synopsis of the film:
A work of stark chiaroscuro and incantatory rage, Joel Coen’s boldly inventive visualization of The Scottish Play is an anguished film that stares, mouth agape, at a sorrowful world undone by blind greed and thoughtless ambition. In meticulously world-weary performances, a strikingly inward Denzel Washington is the man who would be king, and an effortlessly Machiavellian Frances McDormand is his Lady, a couple driven to political assassination—and deranged by guilt—after the cunning prognostications of a trio of “weird sisters” (a virtuoso physical inhabitation by Kathryn Hunter). Though it echoes the forbidding visual designs—and aspect ratios—of Laurence Olivier’s classic 1940s Shakespeare adaptations, as well as the bloody medieval madness of Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Coen’s tale of sound and fury is entirely his own—and undoubtedly one for our moment, a frightening depiction of amoral political power-grabbing that, like its hero, ruthlessly barrels ahead into the inferno. An Apple/A24 release.
