BURT BACHARACH: A MAN AND HIS MOVIES

A TRIBUTE TO THE CINEMA MUSIC LEGACY OF COMPOSER BURT BACHARACH  

Burt Bacharach

May 12, 1928 - February 8, 2023

I don't think it's entirely my fault that, even to this day, a part of me still thinks Cole Porter looks like Cary Grant, Frédéric Chopin is a ringer for Cornel Wilde, and Franz Liszt strongly resembles Dirk Bogarde. The Hollywood biopic tradition of assigning an outrageously glamorous face to the largely faceless profession of composer is a sound one. It aligns the artist with the art. And in a world of image, mythmaking, and marketing, it's a distinct branding advantage when an artist "looks" like the art they create (e.g., Hemingway, Warhol, Halston). So who can blame the movies for their insistence that the composers of romantic music also possess romantic looks?   

Which brings me to composer, arranger, songwriter, producer, pianist, and all-around legend, Burt Bacharach. 

As lyricist Sammy Cahn once famously remarked, Bacharach's atypically high professional visibility was owed to his being "the first composer who didn't look like a dentist" (the most visible pop composer I can remember as a kid was Henry Mancini, so, point made). Bacharach, who started his career in the '50s looking like a thick-necked college jock who'd accidentally stumbled into the music department on his way to the athletic field, looked nothing like his peers. But then his music didn't sound anything like theirs, either. 

Whether lushly romantic or go-go groovy, Bacharach's fiercely inventive musical style was all about where the world was headed, not where it had been. Bacharach's appearance, natural charisma, and virtuoso talent as a pianist (his thin, uniquely inflective voice sealed the deal) led him to an unexpected performing career. By the '70s—via concerts, albums, TV specials, and a seemingly unbroken chain of hits sung by Dionne Warwick—Burt had become a global household name and distinguished himself as the marketable face of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David songwriting team. 

Wed to glamorous movie star Angie Dickinson in 1965 (the illusion of their marriage immortalized in those iconic Martini & Rossi ads), Burt, as the tan, blow-dried, turtlenecked embodiment of California hip, came to look exactly like his music sounded: laid-back, sophisticated, sexy, and smooth.

Ken's Top 10
Casino Royale
Are You There With Another Girl?
Close To You
Walk On By
Anyone Who Had a Heart
Promises, Promises
Alfie
Reflections
Something Big
Message To Michael

Though I'd grown up hearing Burt Bacharach's songs on the radio for years without knowing it, my first real awareness of him was when I was ten years old and fell in love with his score for the chaotic James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967). In all these years, it has never been surpassed as my favorite movie soundtrack album of all time. 

I've been a devoted (some might say obsessive) Burt Bacharach fan ever since. Given the many years and blissful hours I've spent surrounded by his fabulous library of songs--dancing to them, dreaming to them, crying to them;  it's not an overstatement to say the music of Bacharach/David has been the soundtrack of my youth.

Billboard Magazine -April 19, 1967

So, in keeping with the soundtrack emphasis…

Since there's already so much out there about Bacharach's radio and album hits, my cinephile tribute to the late-great Burt Bacharach--3-time Oscar-winner, six-time Grammy-winner, 1972 inductee to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2008 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and #32 in Rolling Stone's 2015 Top 100 Greatest Composers of All Time list—is to comprehensively highlight all the music and songs he wrote specifically for the movie screen.

COMPLETE FILM SCORES  - 12

What's New, Pussycat? -  1965 - Bacharach/David

Bacharach's first film score (thanks to Angie Dickinson) brought him his first Best Song Oscar nomination. Tom Jones sings "What's New, Pussycat"  to a fare-thee-well over the opening credits, but the song lost to "The Shadow of Your Smile" from The Sandpiper. I love the loony, loopy tone of this album, which bursts with musical variety. My favorite cuts are the title song, the propulsive "My Little Red Book," and the perfectly lovely romantic ballad"Here I Am." 

After The Fox - 1966 - Bacharach/David

The fox followed the pussycat with Bacharach's 2nd film score. I've always loved the deliciously silly call-response title song that has UK rock band The Hollies (when Graham Nash was still a member) interrogating Peter Sellers (in character as bumbling criminal mastermind, The Fox).

Casino Royale - 1967 - Bacharach/David

The sultry "The Look of Love" was nominated for Best Song but lost to "Talk to the Animals" from Doctor Dolittle. (WTF?) The score was Grammy nominated for Best Score, Best Instrumental Arrangement, and Best Instrumental Theme. I love EVERYTHING about this very '60s-sounding album, but my top faves are Herb Alpert's flawless rendition of the title tune,  and "Home James, Don't Spare the Horses."

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid  -  1969 - Bacharach/David

Burt and Hal David won their first Best Song Oscar for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head," sung by B. J. Thomas over that iconic bicycle riding scene. Burt alone won a second Oscar that night for Best Original Score. Burt's score also won the Grammy that year, and "Raindrops" was nominated (but lost) in the Best Contemporary Song & Song of the Year categories. I don't much care for this movie, but the score is a knockout, and B. J. Thomas' distinctive vocals really make "Raindrops" an unforgettable classic for me. 

Lost Horizon - 1973 - Bacharach/David

The movie responsible for busting up (temporarily, anyway) longtime collaborators Burt Bacharach and Hal David. You can read my thoughts on this famous flop favorite of mine here: Lost Horizon.

Together? (Amo Non Amo) - 1979 - Bacharach/Anka

When this Italian film was known as  Amo non Amo, it had a score by the progressive rock band Goblin. When it hit these shores with the new title Together? it acquired a new score from Bacharach and Paul Anka. Bacharach's first non-Hal David score is full of pretty melodies assigned banal, sound-alike lyrics sung by Jackie DeShannon, Libby Titus, and the ever-muffled Michael McDonald. The soundtrack album was a staple in remainder bins for years, but I don't remember the film's release at all, only seeing it for the first time while researching this tribute. Directed by a woman (Armenia Balducci), this intimate relationship drama gave Jacqueline Bisset one of her better roles. 

Arthur - 1981 - Bacharach/Sager/Cross/Allen

Bacharach won his third Academy Award for "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)," a song written by four people, and sung by Christopher Cross over the closing credits. If this Best Song Oscar-winner and Song of the Year Grammy nominee appears elsewhere in the film, I'll never know, because when it comes to watching Arthur, one is my limit.  And perhaps it proves I'm not a full-tilt Bacharach maniac when I say this song has never done a thing for me. Its popularity baffled me even in 1981. Bacharach composed the film's instrumental score (by himself, I should add), which features a few songs co-written with Carol Bayer Sager...Bacharach wife number three (of four). 

Night Shift - 1982 - Bacharach/Sager/Ross

I'm not trying to be perverse or contrary when I say that I like everything about Bacharach's score to this negligible comedy except the song that went on to great fame as a 1985 Song of the Year Grammy nominee and the anthem of AmFAR (American Federation of AIDS research). I speak of "That's What Friends Are For," which was first heard croaked by Rod Stewart over this film's end credits. 

Arthur 2: On the Rocks - 1988 - Bacharach/Sager/De Burgh

Love Hurts  -  1990 - Bacharach

I never heard of this movie before (it was released overseas but went the straight-to-video route in the U.S.). Bacharach contributed no songs to the score, but I understand his instrumental tracks are sprinkled sparsely throughout the film.   

Isn't She Great - 2000 - Bacharach/David

A Boy Called Po - 2017 - Bacharach

His first complete film score in 17 years, Bacharach dedicated this movie about autism to his daughter Nikki, who struggled all her life with issues related to her undiagnosed autism and committed suicide in 2007 at age 41. An obvious labor of love, Bacharach donated his talents to the project, played the piano himself on the score, and even secured the licensing rights to "Close To You" for director Joseph Bauer for just $400. Bacharach also composed a song with Billy Mann, "Dancing With Your Shadow," that can be heard sung by Sheryl Crow over the closing credits.

TITLE AND THEME SONGS - 37

DON'T KNOCK THE ROCK (1956) - "I Cry More" - Alan Dale
                 LIZZIE (1957) - "Warm and Tender" - Johnny Mathis

THE SAD SACK (1957) - "Sad Sack" - Jerry Lewis     
COUNTRY MUSIC HOLIDAY (1958) - "Country Music Holiday" - Bernie Nee 

THE BLOB (1958)  - "The Blob" - The Five Blobs (Bernie Knee)
JUKE BOX RHYTHM (1959) - "Make Room for the Joy" - Jack Jones

For years I watched the Steve McQueen, Helen Krump (Aneta Corsaut) sci-fi horror flick The Blob without knowing its comically ill-matched, uptempo mambo theme song was composed by Bacharach/David. An entertainingly amusing tune that perhaps takes itself no more seriously than the film it introduces.  

LOVE IN A GOLDFISH BOWL (1961) - "Love in a Goldfish Bowl" - Tommy Sands     
RING-A-DING RHYTHM (1962) - "Another Tear Falls" - Gene Daniels

FOREVER MY LOVE (1962) - "Forever My Love" - Jane Morgan
WONDERFUL TO BE YOUNG (1962) - "It's Wonderful to Be Young" - Cliff Richard

A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME (1964) - "A House is Not a Home" - Brooke Benton
SEND ME NO FLOWERS (1964) - "Send Me No Flowers" - Doris Day

Bacharach's gift for haunting melodies and talent for having his songs take delightfully unexpected turns is exemplified by these two title songs, which are huge favorites of mine. If the jaunty Doris Day tune is an ideal fit for a feather-light romantic comedy, the plaintively beautiful song Burt composed for a movie about a whorehouse is an overly-charitable grace note with a capital "G."

ALFIE (1966) - "Alfie" - Cilla Black / Cher 

Bacharach didn't write the film's score, but the Bacharach/David composition "Alfie" (sung by Cilla Black in the UK version/Cher in US releases) was nominated for Best Song... losing to the lamentable "Born Free." Bacharach always cites this as his favorite of all his songs. It's undoubtedly one of mine.

MADE IN PARIS (1966) - "Made in Paris" - Trini Lopez  
PROMISE HER ANYTHING (1966) - "Promise Her Anything" - Tom Jones

A welcome change from all those romantic ballads are these two frug-friendly title songs that fairly burst with '60s à go-go élan. It's delectable, dance-tempo ear candy from Mr. Groovy himself.  

THE APRIL FOOLS (1969) - "April Fools" - Dionne Warwick           
LONG AGO, TOMORROW (1971) - "Long Ago, Tomorrow" - B.J. Thomas

I've always loved the lilting quality of the beautiful song, "April Fools" (which plays during a montage sequence and again under the closing credits). It's one of Bacharach/David's most lushly romantic compositions. Though the score for The April Fools was composed by Marvin Hamlish, another Bacharach song- "I Say a Little Prayer for You," pops up during a party scene. 

SOMETHING BIG (1971) - "something big" - Mark Lindsay          
MIDDLE AGE CRAZY (1980) - "Where Did The Time Go" - The Pointer Sisters

Because I have no memory of ever hearing the song "something big" on the radio in 1971 (although I do recall The Goldddigers [of all people] performing it on The Dean Martin Show) I don't think it was much of a hit. But it remains one of my favorite underappreciated Bacharach compositions. It's so quintessentially Bacharach--quirky, jazzy, laid-back, and catchy as hell. 

MAKING LOVE (1982) - "Making Love" - Roberta Flack         
ROMANTIC COMEDY (1983) - "Maybe" - Roberta Flack & Peabo Bryson

TOUGH GUYS (1986) - "They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To" - Kenny Rogers    
BABY BOOM (1987) - "Ever Changing Times" - Siedah Garrett

GRACE OF MY HEART (1996) - "God Give Me Strength" -  Kristen Vigard       
STUART LITTLE (1999) - "Walking Tall" - Lyle Lovett

Bacharach's collaborations with Elvis Costello produced some of his best music in years. The impassioned "God Give Me Strength" deserved a little Oscar notice. Bacharach teamed with longtime Andrew Llyod Webber lyricist Tim  Rice (Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita) for one of my favorite late-career Bacharach melodies, a jazz-lilt theme about a little white mouse. 

ACADEMY AWARD TALLY     6 nominations /  3 Wins

What's New Pussycat (1965)     Best Song nominee 

            Alfie (1966 )                     Best Song nominee   

Casino Royale  (1967)                 Best Song nominee   

               Butch Cassidy  (1969)      WON Best Song & Best Original Score 

       Arthur (1981)                 WON    Best Song         

EXPLOITATION SONGS - 12

A song written to publicize a movie on the radio but is not in the film   

The Desperate Hours - 1955  -  Bacharach/ Wilson Stone

Song: The Desperate Hours   Sung by:  Eileen Rodgers

Hot Spell - 1958  -  Bacharach/Mack David

Song: Hot Spell       Sung by:  Margaret Whiting 

Sophia: "There’s a hurricane a-comin’!”

Dorothy: “ ‘A-comin’?” 

Sophia: “That’s right. People only use the 'a' when a really bad storm is a-comin' or a-brewin.’”

The above exchange from The Golden Girls partially explains why Miss Whiting reverts to dialect --"All that's a-comin' is a hot spell!"   -- during the refrain of this enjoyable, western-trot anthem to lustful longing. 

The Hangman - 1959  -  Bacharach/David

Song: The Hangman        Sung by:  John Ashley 

The Man in the Net - 1959 - Bacharach/David

Song:  The Net       Sung by:  John Ashley

Actor John Ashley has long been a familiar face to me from those Annette & Frankie Beach Party movies. I had no idea he had a career as a pop singer and introduced TWO (not particularly distinguished) Bacharach/David songs.

That Kind of Woman - 1959 - Bacharach/David

Song:  That Kind of Woman                Sung by: Joe Williams

Suddenly, Last Summer - 1959 - Bacharach/David

Song:  Long Ago, Last Summer      Sung by: Diane Trask

Who's Got the Action? - 1962 - Bacharach/Bob Hilliard

Song: Who's Got The Action?   Sung by: Phil Colbert

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - 1962  - Bacharach/David

Song:  The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance   Sung by: Gene Pitney

Okay, is this catchy, Western-pop narrative tune not THE best exploitation song ever? It sparked my interest enough to get me to sit through this gunslinger soap. I was very disappointed that the song never turned up in the movie.

Wives & Lovers  - 1963 - Bacharach/David

Song:  Wives and Lovers   Sung by: Jack Jones

Bacharach's music is so good on this song that it almost makes you forget the cringingly sexist lyrics. Putting the words in a woman's mouth (as with Warwick's sublime version) softens the eye-rolling a bit, but Bacharach's full instrumental version is primo Bacharach. 

Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? - 1963 - Bacharach/David

Song: Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?     Sung by: Linda Scott

The Fool Killer - 1965 - Bacharach/David

Song: Fool Killer       Sung by: Gene Pitney 

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial  - 1982 - Bacharach/Neil Diamond/ Carol Bayer Sager

Song: Heartlight     Sung by: Neil Diamond 

As this was written more than a month after the Steven Spielberg film was released, it's more a tribute song than an exploitation one. But that's not how Universal Studios saw it. They sued the trio for $25,000. Something Bacharach in his 2013 memoir Anyone Who Had a Heart claimed to still irk him many years later. 

FILM APPEARANCES

The Austin Powers trilogy of spy spoofs introduced Burt Bacharach and his music to a new generation. (Casino Royale's "Look of Love" inspired its creator Mike Myers). Bacharach made cameo appearances in each film.

AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY (1997)
Singing the 1965 song "What the World Needs Now Is Love" 

AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME (1999)
Elvis Costello sings 1969's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" 

AUSTIN POWERS in GOLDMEMBER (2002)
Singing 1965's "What the World Needs Now Is Love"

HONORABLE MENTION

"Nikki" - 1966 - Bacharach/David

Neither an exploitation song nor a melody written exclusively for a motion picture, but as a Boomer, I'd be remiss if I failed to include this seminal '70s anthem in this comprehensive record of Bacharach's film legacy. Composed in 1966 in honor of the birth of daughter [with 2nd wife Angie Dickinson] Lea Nikki Bacharach (1966 - 2007), "Nikki" was repurposed and immortalized in 1969 when this gentle melody was given a robust orchestral arrangement and became the theme for The ABC Movie of the Week for the next five years. (A rare, off-his-game Hal David contributed some forgettable lyrics that have happily remained so.)

BONUS MATERIAL

For all the individual achievement reflected by Burt Bacharach's fitting dominance in this tribute, I must make clear that as far as I'm concerned, there IS no Burt Bacharach without lyricist Hal David (May 25, 1921 – Sept. 1, 2012). And (in my life, at least) there would be NO Bacharach/David without Dionne Warwick. Having the opportunity to see her perform last year and hear her singing songs born of this genius trio's longtime collaboration was one of the premier experiences of my life. 

This tribute to Burt Bacharach's contribution to cinema wouldn't be possible without Serene Dominic's invaluable reference - "Burt Bacharach: Song By Song." Published in 2003, I highly recommend this informative and entertaining book to any Bacharach fans.

The Composer as Pop Star

Photographer Jim McCrary (who shot the iconic cover of Carol King's Tapestry album)

took this photo for Burt's 1971 self-titled LP for A&M Records. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2023

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH 2021

 "The art of film can only really exist through a highly organized betrayal of reality." 

François Truffaut  

For reasons obvious, the years 2020 and 2021 are largely a blur to me. The pandemic and subsequent lockdown of 2020 turned time into a literal ontological abstraction; with yesterdays feeling as remote and irretrievable as dreams, tomorrows never actually seeming to arrive at all. Only the tail-end of 2021 stands out in my mind. And that's chiefly because I associate it with those snail-pace early days of life in Los Angeles stumbling towards a return to something resembling "normalcy." And not a minute too soon. 

For the close of 2021 is also burned into my mind as the days when the American populace—vacillating between being independently suicidal or societally homicidal over having to endure even one second more of inconvenience—seemed hell-bent on making real the allegorical nightmares of Goldman's Lord of the Flies (1963) and Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel (1962). 

I was so hyped to see this movie; every time I saw a billboard or poster I, practically gasped

Happily, I also associate the waning days of 2021 with the off-the-charts excitement I felt about the movies slated for holiday release (Nov/Dec). A roster of titles that featured four -count 'em, FOUR!- movies I anticipated with the eagerness of a kid on Christmas Eve. A rarity of sensation that had me remembering how, when I was young, it felt like every month yielded at least a minimum of two or three movies I convinced myself I couldn't live without. Now, in advanced adulthood and during this, Hollywood's Theme Park Ride era of moviemaking (thank you, Mr. Scorsese), I feel fortunate if a calendar year yields even one movie I can get worked up about. 

To look forward to something is to foresee a tomorrow. So, at the time, with a new year on the horizon and the world emerging from beneath a devastatingly dark cloud, it was all too easy to take my enthusiasm for this uncommonly rich cinema bounty as a glimmer of post-election hope and reminder that the arts endure. 

Cinematherapy
The Big Four: The Power of the Dog, Nightmare Alley, West Side Story, & The Tragedy of Macbeth. 
Like many, I leaned heavily on the magic of movies to get me through the darkest days of the pandemic and the death throes of a certain political hellscape. At the close of 2021, the impassioned artistry of these four films lifted my spirits in ways you can't imagine. Each in their individual brilliance buoyed my certainty that art always has and always will surmount chaos and ignorance.   

As badly as I wanted to see these films, only West Side Story had me seriously considering leapfrogging over the recent spikes in COVID outbreaks and seeing it in a theater. Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed (one, actually, my partner's) and I kept my ass at home. But thanks to the swift turnaround from theatrical release to streaming, postponing my cinema gratification to early 2022 proved hardly the hardship I'd imagined it would be. 

Indeed, the decision to wait only served to feed my already keen excitement. Plus, streaming these films from the comfort of home brought with it the bonus of being able to savor each of these outstanding movies multiple times at my leisure. A perk I'm afraid I indulged to a fault. Particularly as pertaining to The Tragedy of Macbeth, which I rapturously watched five times.  

Denzel Washington as Macbeth

Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth

Brendan Gleeson as King Duncan

When it comes to the works of William Shakespeare, I'm hardly an aficionado and more the type to be seen bolting for the exit the minute someone uses "Shakespearean" as an adjective (calling to mind as it does images of capes, tights, and over-orating hams). But of all the Shakespeare plays I've read, tragedies and comedies alike, Macbeth has always been my favorite. An opinion underscored by measure of the sheer number and variety of film, television, and stage adaptions of "The Scottish Play" I've enjoyed over the years.

Bertie Carvel as Banquo

Corey Hawkins as Macduff

Alex Hassell as Ross

Macbeth, Shakespeare's blood-soaked tragedy of a nobleman brought low by ambition and a waning conscience has captivated me since it was required reading in my high school English class. As poetically engrossing on the printed page as it is emotionally absorbing when given visual dimension on the screen, I've always loved Macbeth’s heady potion of history, the supernatural, melodrama, prose, fatalism, swordplay, guilt, ambition, free will, madness, and psychology. It’s got everything! And at the center, two incredibly dynamic, complex, and grievously-flawed characters. 

But it's never been a mystery to me why Macbeth stands out from the pack. Classical in structure and (to my way of thinking) often needlessly formal in presentation, Macbeth, as the stuff of movies, is right up my alley in being precisely the kind of dagger-sharp evisceration of the dark side of humanity that characterize a great many of my favorite films. It's a theme I tend to gravitate to and for which (as this blog has revealed to me) I clearly have a decided preference.

Indeed, for me, one of the most mesmerizing things about this, director Joel Coen’s "Dreamscape meets Theater-of-the-Mind" conceptualization of The Tragedy of Macbeth is the degree to which it evokes the very essence of what my sweetheart might label as "Typical Ken Movies":

Even the Macbeths wouldn't mess with this duo

I'm crazy about Martin Scorsese. Particularly the operatic scope he brings to movies full of psychological and criminal intrigues like Raging Bull (1980), Casino (1995), and The Irishman (2019). Like The Tragedy of Macbeth, many of Scorsese's films are about violent people with Goliath-sized dreams who meet tragic ends due to their inability to get out of the way of their own inherently Lilliputian natures. 

Sly Vince Edwards (and his eyelashes) & scheming Marie Windsor in The Killing

A favorite subgenre of mine is the thriller where a meticulously planned "foolproof" crime goes stupendously off the rails due to weak wills and flaws of character. Lord and Lady Macbeth's grandiose plans are felled by picayune things like jealousy, greed, guilt, and fear. Collapse-points echoed in best-laid-plans favorites like Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), A Simple Plan (1998), Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956). 

"I say 'we,' Mr. McCabe because you think small." - McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Movies of the '70s challenged cinema's masculinity myth (and its unwaveringly sure heroes) by giving us dimensional, vulnerable males who experienced self-doubt and were not always dispositionally up to the tasks they set for themselves. A characteristic the vacillating murderer Macbeth shares with the antiheroes of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) and Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971).  

"When you durst do it, then you were a man!" - The Tragedy of Macbeth

Where my partner and I truly part ways in our taste in films is my weakness for movies in which a certain emotional brutalism is used to train a spotlight on aspects of the human condition polite society usually prefers to keep relegated to the shadows. For me, Mike Nichols is a master of this: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Carnal Knowledge (1971), and Closer (2004). Where Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth won me over is that it feels wholly uninterested in the violence of swordplay and battle, but, via the extraordinary performances given by the entire cast, goes in really hard when it comes to the emotional and psychological violence the characters inflict upon one another.   

Macbeth 1971:  For Those Who Think Young
"All youth are reckless beyond words." - Hesiod
Jon Finch (28) & Francesca Annis (25) in Roman Polanski's Macbeth 

For the longest time, Roman Polanski's sprawling and horrifically naturalistic film held solitary sway as my preferred screen adaptation of Macbeth. But Joel Coen's extravagantly stylized The Tragedy of Macbeth (an interpretation so utterly different in every aspect, no rational comparison between the two can be made) has joined it in an equal-esteem partnership. Two entirely different experiences. Two magnificently realized artistic visions. 

Macbeth 2021:  No Country for Old Men 
Frances McDormand (63) & Denzel Washington (66)

In 1971, Polanski's Macbeth collaborator Kenneth Tynan famously remarked that the idea of a Lord and Lady Macbeth in their 60s was "nonsense" because "It's too late for them to be ambitious."  What an absurd statement! As anyone familiar with American politics will tell you, folks over 60 are dangerous as fuck.  

Kathryn Hunter as The Three Witches & The Old Man

I'm not going to embarrass myself and tell you how many times I watched The Tragedy of Macbeth without realizing the phenomenal Kathryn Hunter played that fourth role!

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

As a film fan enamored of the emotive movie experience, Shakespeare – associating it as I do with Mr. Koller's English class – tends to present a challenge, as my knee-jerk impulse is to approach it academically. 

When I watch a screen adaptation of a Shakespeare play, particularly if I'm unfamiliar with it, my mind feels like it splinters off into three channels. One part focuses on the performances, eager to latch onto something I can psychologically or emotionally identify with in these long-ago-created characters. Another gets absorbed in the period detail and recreation of another time and place (Castles! Crowns! Courts! Capes!). And the third part has me wanting to connect to the language, trying to follow the plot while keeping an appreciative ear open to the rhythms of the words (Blank verse? Prose? Iambic pentameter?). Yet, for all these attempts to engage with the material, in the end, I usually wind up just being overly aware of how effortful it's all been.

I enjoy dissecting and analyzing movies, but AFTER I've seen the film, not WHILE I'm watching it.

To Kiss - To Kill
Mirrored framing captures the opposite ends of passion's spectrum

Because I always overthink everything, my cinema ideal has always been the movie that encourages me to turn off my mind and surrender to the sensory, visceral experience. (That I'm free to pick apart to my heart's content later.) The Tragedy of Macbeth—an aesthetically astonishing interpretation that envisions Macbeth as a noirish, metaphysical thriller —gave me just such an experience.  

Joel Coen (in his first solo effort after making 18 films with his brother, Ethan) is staggeringly successful in realizing his expressed desire to make a film of Macbeth that doesn't "hide the play." And indeed, The Tragedy of Macbeth's melding of hyper-cinematic mise-en-scène to an aggressively stylized theatricality creates a world dynamically "untethered to reality." As a more cohesively realized example of what Francis Ford Coppola strove for in One From the Heart, The Tragedy of Macbeth achieves what Truffaut called "the betrayal of reality"… film's canny ability to make use of artifice to reveal truth.

Moses Ingram as Lady Macduff

THE STUFF OF DREAMS     

As an adaptation of Macbeth that I feel prioritizes the internal and interpersonal struggles of the characters, the lack of ornamentation in The Tragedy of Macbeth's stark visual style extends to its performances. Words are spoken rather than orated, and as there is none of that "In the Grand Shakespearean Tradition" kind of acting on display (except, provocatively, as a signifier of Macbeth losing his mind), it felt like I was given greater access to the pitiable humanity behind Lord and Lady Macbeth’s desperate ambition.

The use of close-ups in The Tragedy of Macbeth forces
a sometimes discomfiting intimacy with the characters.  

Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel's camera seems to exalt (as I did) in letting light and shadow play across the cast's intelligent eyes and expressive, lived-in faces. To watch a contemporary American film is to be bombarded by so much botox, fillers, and tightly-pulled flesh, discerning the display of emotion becomes a game. The facial wrinkles and furrows on glorious display in The Tragedy of Macbeth have poetry.

The Kid Who Would Be King
Banquo and his son Fleance (Lucas Barker)

There's an exchange in the neo-noir thriller Black Widow (1987) where investigator Debra Winger asks serial widow Theresa Russell why marrying even one wealthy man wasn't enough to make her rich. Russell responds: "Rich is hard. You never really figure you're quite there."

Swap "power" for rich, and you've got Macbeth in a nutshell. 

The Tragedy of Macbeth taps into a characteristic I've observed in very ambitious people: the joy of attaining an objective always seems so short-lived because there’s no distinction between greed and growth. There's never any arrival point for satisfaction because "having a lot" still doesn't mean "having the most," so there is always more to get. Inevitably, ambition, when unmoored to the spiritual overseers of morality and ethics, creates an internal void. A void that comes to be bridged by that ruinous, self-serving philosophy of the power-hungry…" the end justifies the means."  

" 'Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil."   /   "Yet, here's a spot."

Lady Macbeth, scoffing at the aftermath of violence, is later haunted by its phantom. The mirroring of shots in The Tragedy of Macbeth infers that despite the exercising of free will, events follow a predetermined pattern. 

Ignoble Denzel Washington is my favorite Denzel Washington.
His riveting performance as Macbeth totally overwhelmed me. It's a thing of beauty

PERFORMANCES   

Casting Shakespeare with two top-tier American Oscar winners known for their straightforward, naturalistic acting styles sparked all kinds of "Consider the possibilities!" excitement in me. My curiosity about what qualities Denzel Washington (with his unassailable gravitas) and Frances McDormand (she of the stripped-down emotional bluntness) would bring to The Tragedy of Macbeth was rewarded tenfold.  

It plays no small part in my adoration of The Tragedy of Macbeth that Washington and McDormand's riveting, poignant performances single-handedly elevate the emotional stakes of this tale like no other I've seen. This is the first adaptation of Macbeth to give me waterworks. 

There's no end to the accolades I heap upon every member of this assured, accomplished cast. Standouts are Bertie Cavell's Banquo, with his sad eyes and heroic eyebrows. Moses Ingram's regal Lady Macduff. And then there's that flawless changeling, Kathryn Hunter. But a particular favorite is Alex Hassell as the sly Ross, whose role is amplified here and is costumed in a way that fittingly and amusingly has him resembling a male Morticia Addams. 

THE STUFF OF FANTASY  

A parting shot of appreciation for the absolutely breathtaking beauty of The Tragedy of Macbeth. Exquisite Expressionism in a barren, storybook nightmare. 

Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnell -  Production design: Stefan Dechant

Sparse brevity is not only a visual characteristic of The Tragedy of Macbeth. In a Coen Brothers interview about their process adapting Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel No Country for Old Men for their 2007 film, they remarked that they don't edit so much as compress. 

I'd say that perfectly describes how Joel Coen delivers a traditionally 2 ½ hour Shakespeare work (Polanski's Macbeth runs 2 hours 20 minutes) in a bare-bones 105 minutes.

The paring down of the original text is so judicious I never felt I missed a thing. Indeed, I had to re-read Shakespeare's Macbeth with a copy of Coen's screenplay at my side to even know what was excised. 

January 2021: In a world emerging from darkness, The Tragedy of Macbeth made an indelible, enlivening impression on me, for it's sometimes too easy to forget the transcendent power of art. I think it's a genuinely masterful film of astonishing beauty that made real for me, the catharsis of tragedy.  

BONUS MATERIAL

A clip from The Tragedy of Macbeth 

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