A24 is a notorious red flag on the 2020s dating scene. The sight of its smug, bulbous logo can send Pavlovian shudders through those who recognise it as the black, pestilent plague-spot of the ‘film bro’. The production company skirts the realm of self-parody with its slate of ‘dark’, ‘complex’ offerings, which now form almost an indie sibling to the Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut. In the digital sphere, its works have become an easy symbol, brand even, for the artistic genius of the author, the filmmaker, and by extension the consumer. The HBO blockbuster Euphoria, with its dual nature as Emmy-sweeping masterpiece and ubiquitous TikTok meme, embodies the paradoxical yet lucrative fruits of this trade in being ‘special’. The streamer ‘indie’ has acquired a strong whiff of self-serving iconoclasm: an association with those who claim a uniquely ‘innovative’ or ‘groundbreaking’ identity through their connection with ‘art’.

Add to this dubious backdrop a distribution deal with Apple TV, and the novelty hook of a singular Coen brother, and 2021’s Tragedy of Macbeth seems like it was created solely to fuel beam_me_up_softboi. But Joel Coen's vision turns the godlike powers of the entertainment industry to Shakespearean ends. Macbeth is destroyed by the false promise of a story to affirm his superior identity; Coen pulls off an equally stealthy and heinous murder on the viewer's ego.

This Macbeth was ripe for the film-bro; yet instead it proves his downfall. Any rollie-smoking edgelord who corners some poor sod to spout off the references to German Expressionism and Kurosawa, Die Nibelungen and Mexican architecture, has missed the point. Unlike almost any other mainstream, mass-consumed narrative, whether issuing from God, Shakespeare, or Harvey Weinstein, Macbeth does not tell a story to create meaning, and produce action. Quite the opposite; it is about the ultimate and complete failure of storytelling, or action, or desire, or even death, to create any meaning at all. Transgression and rule-breaking mean nothing- make you nothing- when really, there are no rules to be broken in the first place.

Coen’s film succeeds by recognising this immediately, and using the massed artistic and cultural forces at its disposal to bring that sense of insignificance home. Kings of old could never dream of wielding the power of a 21st century big-budget tech giant; offered this godlike ability to do something ‘new’, ‘ambitious’ and self-aggrandising, the director uses it to put the bloody, beating heart of theatrical tradition in the iPhone. Coen shows us how the power of the storyteller has grown to vast and unknowable proportions from Shakespeare’s day; and that this power, this boundless ambition and promise, ultimately means nothing.

Essentially, and astonishingly, The Tragedy of Macbeth conveys its simultaneous nature as something both brand-new and endlessly derivative. Shakespeare often poses this challenge- the almost unthinkable difficulty of how to present something so incredibly well-worn while giving it contemporary meaning. Coen’s version uses every facet of its medium to “defy words”.

While Stefan Dechant’s production design blends the conscious dislocation of a sound stage with expressionistic, dazzlingly sculptural settings, the physicality of the performers proves equally key in giving the text meaning again. Kathryn Hunter’s performance as the three prophetic witches opens the film, and sets the overall tone. No gruesome CGI, no melodramatic vocal distortion, no jump scares; only close, piercing, visions of a creature contorting herself, speaking in a timbre that seems inhuman because it seems to come from a multitude. Phrases like “double, double, toil and trouble”, which should sound completely laughable in 2022, really do become spells on her lips.

Denzel Washington’s Macbeth and Frances Mcdormand’s Lady Macbeth do likewise. Vitally, the film refuses to pander to its modern audiences: the actors spit Shakespeare’s dense, elaborate verse at a sometimes merciless clip, refusing to subjugate the psychological unravellings of the language to slow contemporary ears. The film demands attention, and throws the viewer’s incomprehension back in their face on its spiralling, relentless descent into tragedy. Lady Macbeth and her husband slip from touching marital love to inhuman barbarity as imperceptibly yet seismically as the scenes change from battlements to heath, from castle to flood; each a suggestion of something intense and fearful, yet impossible to place, identify.

Most stories give their audience someone with which to identify, or at least someone to revolt against. Arguably, the modern ‘film-bro’ is the culmination of the human tradition, or rather necessity, of finding identity and meaning in stories, enlivening reality with a fantasy mirror. Amber Rawlings notes the fracturing of the ‘film bro’ genus:

“The first type is the quintessential Film Bro, who emerged in mainstream media back in 2017. It’s the film slogan t-shirt wearing guy who thinks the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are Christopher Nolan, David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino.

The second is the “turtleneck-and-Tarkovsky” type. He’s the pretentious one, smoking a cigarette at a house party while cornering a girl with unsolicited viewing recommendations.

The third subtype, occupying the darkest corners of bro culture, is the “cause-for-concern” Film Bro. He idolises the problematic male protagonists of American Psycho, Fight Club and A Clockwork Orange.”

Humans love to possess the idols of their stories in some way, showing off an allegiance or an affinity to make the identity into the real. Ancient Mesopotamia had sculptures of Gilgamesh; Facebook has Joker profile pictures. The second film bro genus- the ‘turtleneck and Tarkovsky’- pursues the same end by different means, and A24 is his bread and butter. In his understanding, the signature visual tics of the indie- whether Wes Anderson chintz, or the notorious black-and-white visuals common to A24’s Macbeth and The Lighthouse- are his particular language, and the language of his kind. His recognition and understanding- his connection with the auteur, or storyteller- elevate him into a transcendental, intellectual realm of godlike potential. Ironically, this is the exact delusion underpinning Macbeth.

The protagonist recognises his destiny in a tale told by a weird yet apparently wise and prophetic storyteller. The weird storyteller’s authority- their ability to speak across different times and places- fuels a universal desire in the protagonist: the desire to feel special, recognised, superior. Yet the protagonist’s interpretation of this ‘revelation’- really no more than an echo of his existing knowledge- has no higher significance; he mistakes this universal desire, these reactions, for a unique identity. The egoistic pursuit of a meaningless ‘self’ fulfils no great cosmic prophecy, other than causing great suffering for those around him.

The best part of Macbeth- in all its various iterations- is that no one understands it. It offers no reassuring foothold on the winding, blood-slippery path of the narrative. Monstrous and heroic acts pepper the plot, but they offer no emotional stability- no sense of morality- crammed on top of each other, and bleeding into each other with a vicious, schizophrenic intensity. Instead, the play is dominated by Macbeth, who speaks nearly a quarter of the lines in a relatively short work, and thus the audience is forced to identify with him. While most stories try to ‘say something’, Macbeth stands for the utter dissolution of everyone it touches- its authors, characters, actors, audiences- all bound up in the awful realization that what our thoughts, desires, and identities are so insignificant as to be utterly meaningless.

Thank God A24 didn’t make Hamlet.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (dir. Joel Coen, 2021) - Review