SHADOWS AND FOG, WITCHERY AND TRICKERY HAUNT JOEL COEN’S THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH By KEVIN H. MARTIN
Images courtesy of east side effects, Inc. TOP TO BOTTOM: Digital mimicry was used for more expansive views.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been a frequent subject for cinematic adaptation. Orson Welles labored under poverty-row conditions – shooting on sets left over from Roy Rogers westerns – to fashion the first sound version, released in 1948. Nearly a quarter century passed before Roman Polanski tackled the project, but after that, a bevy of versions appeared on television. In 2015, a lush new Macbeth feature was directed by Justin Kurzel. This exploited the natural beauty of expansive location work, enhanced by significant VFX background replacements by BlueBolt and augmented by Artem’s pyrotechnic floor effects and makeup prosthetics. Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, eschews the naturalism of that most recent adaptation. Finding an appropriate tone for the visual effects was principal among the challenges for east side effects, Inc., a New York-based VFX company with credits for directors ranging from Charlie Kaufman, Darren Aronofsky and Ang Lee to Rob Marshall and Peter Berg. Having created the bulk of effects on Coen’s previous film (his last to date with brother Ethan), The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Co-founders and Visual Effects Supervisors Alex Lemke and Michael Huber boarded the project very early in prep. “Visual effects people, by virtue of expectation and experience, almost automatically plan and execute with an eye toward photorealism,” says Huber. “But The Tragedy of Macbeth was not about that at all – not in the slightest. The work involved matching to live action, yes, but the live action had this thrilling and unique approach that straddled Shakespeare’s theatrical history on stage with the visual splendor of films like Murnau’s Sunrise and the innovations of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. So that was a bit of a rethink – a welcome one, certainly – to bring our thinking in line with Joel’s, and that was the most interesting part of it. We’d enhance what they had done, but also come up with our own creative contributions that blended with production’s work.” Given the film was being produced independently, budget was
72 • VFXVOICE.COM SPRING 2022
PG 72-76 MACBETH.indd 72
2/28/22 2:19 PM
