‘When shall we three meet again?’ Joel Coen’s visually arresting adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth opens, perhaps ironically, on sound and text in an otherwise black void. After the fleeting appearance of the single word, ‘WHEN’, audiences are encompassed in darkness, cut through by Kathryn Hunter’s smoke-shattered delivery of the witches’ famous line.

Audiences are drawn from this blackness into a noirish tale of blood and betrayal. Reinvented by Coen’s sharp vision, the terrifying Macbeth (Denzel Washington) and his formidable wife (Frances McDormand) are caught in a claustrophobic nightmare that is literalized by the frames that confine them to their fate: shot in the squarish ‘Academy ratio’, the Macbeths are cornered by a destiny that at turns thrills and horrifies them.

In his first solo venture away from his brother Ethan (with whom he brought us such celebrated works as Fargo and No Country for Old Men), Joel Coen draws on Shakespeare’s verbal artistry and his predecessors’ masterful film interpretations to deliver a raw-boned and redefined version of this great tragedy, one that feels both familiar and strange.

Join John Allemand and Julie Sutherland in a 2-week study of Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). As with previous Art of Film studies (Thelma & Louse, The Graduate), Julie and John will show select clips for discussion during the study, as well as leading a conversation about the film more generally. This study is for cineastes and Shakespeare lovers alike. No previous knowledge of the play is necessary, but participants are requested to watch the film in advance of the study.

As a separate but complementary series, Julie Sutherland is offering a 7-week study of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, beginning shortly after the film study closes (Wednesdays, 13 August-24 September). Participants in the Art of Film’s The Tragedy of Macbeth may be interested in joining this related event.

Questions to consider:

• Does Coen’s visual ingenuity complement, challenge, or compromise Shakespeare’s verbal mastery?   
• Coen’s Macbeth was written and released during the height of COVID-19. (The play itself was potentially written during an outbreak of the plague.) How evident is the concept of pandemic in Coen’s adaptation?
• In Coen’s adaptation, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are in their sixties. What is the effect of presenting an unusually ageing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth?

JOINING DETAILS:

• A five-hour LitSalon ‘Art of Film’ study over two sessions
• Friday 1 August and 8 August 2025, 4.00-6.30pm (UK/BST) on Zoom
• Discussion led by Julie Sutherland and John Allemand
• Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth is available on Apple TV as well as on some Amazon Prime subscriptions. Films can be rented on Apple TV without a subscription.
• £125 for a two-session, five-hour study, including background notes and resources (N.B. participants in this study will be limited to a maximum of 12).
• Please use this link to share details of the study.

Join Julie Sutherland in a gripping journey through one of Shakespeare’s most terrifying and psychologically rich tragedies: Macbeth. Over the course of seven weeks, we shall linger in the play’s dusky shadows, engaging in a close reading that draws not only from the text but also from the dark corners of our own time. Macbeth is a study of ambition and conscience. It is a story of political power gained and held through violence. It is a tale of the terrible cost of prophecy and paranoia.

As we follow the tyrannical Macbeth and his cunning wife, Lady Macbeth, through their spiral into butchery and madness, we’ll explore how Shakespeare creates a world where moral boundaries dissolve and natural law gives way to supernatural terror.

Though drenched in the blood and fog of medieval Scotland, Macbeth speaks with unsettling clarity to the 21st-century landscape—where political rhetoric often veils ruthless pursuit, where public figures are shadowed by private demons, and where fear, spectacle and manipulation shape the fate of nations. In Macbeth’s world, as in our own, power is both intoxicating and deadly.

As we tread this blood-soaked ground together, perhaps we’ll see that Macbeth’s dagger, though imagined, still casts a long and chilling shadow.

** As a separate but complementary series, Julie Sutherland and John Allemand are offering a 2-week study of Joel Coen’s film adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth, beginning just before the play study begins. Participants in the Shakespeare play study may be interested in joining this corresponding event (Fridays, 1 & 8 August).

JOINING DETAILS:

• Recommended edition: Macbeth: The Arden Shakespeare; 3rd edition (26 Feb. 2015, editors Clark & Mason) ISBN-10: 1904271413
• Seven week study led by Julie Sutherland
• Wednesdays, 5.00-7.00 pm UK time
• 13 August – 24 September 2025
• £210 for seven meetings, including pre-session notes and supplementary resources.
• To share details of this study please use this link.