Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

The Tragedy of Macbeth 

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A film written and directed by Joel Coen

Reviewed by James Shapiro
NYR

Those who have long followed the Coen brothers and their cinematic universe of criminals, nihilists, and overreachers may see in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) a long-deferred reckoning with Shakespeare, who has been there before them. We don’t typically think of Shakespeare as a writer interested in crime stories, but he surely was, from the earliest play in which he likely had a hand, Arden of Faversham — a true crime story in which a wife conspires with her lover to kill her husband — through Hamlet and Macbeth. There are moments in The Tragedy of Macbeth when Shakespeare and the Coens feel in perfect alignment, such as the scene in which Macbeth suborns two nameless murderers to kill Banquo. The hapless pair see the pointlessness and peril of saying no to him, and in their anxious glances and resignation seem to have walked onto the set directly from an earlier Coen brothers film. [Read more…]

Bacurau

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CINEMA DISORDINAIRE

Reviewed by Manohla Dargis

The town in the shocker Bacurau (2019) is fictional, a bit magical, at once ordinary and otherworldly. It’s filled with faces that have life etched in them, which helps deepen the realism. And while the story is set in the near future, it looks like the present: the charming landscapes, laughing children, crowing roosters, the grinning balladeer with a guitar. Then, the guns come out, history rushes in and a ghost pops by. (It smiles.) [Read more…]

Director Nathaniel Khan Talks About The Price Of Everything

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by Cynthia Biret

Few ever dream of owning a masterpiece; even fewer know the intrinsic value of an art piece in today’s hyper inflated art market. Brilliantly directed by Nathaniel Khan, The Price of Everything is a fascinating journey into the personalities at the forefront of this phenomenon, from high-end investors to auctioneers, historians, art critics, collectors and artists. [Read more…]

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

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CINEMA DISORDINAIRE

Reviewed by A. O. Scott

In Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999),  Jim Jarmusch tries to do to the samurai epic and the gangster movie what he did to the western in Dead Man (1997), his dreamy, elegiac deconstruction of cowboys-and-Indians mythology. Like a postmodern magpie, Mr. Jarmusch likes to scavenge shiny bits of pop-culture flotsam — mobsters in their sharkskin suits, gaudy cartoon animals, sleek imported luxury cars, iridescent CD’s — and weave them into quirky, ramshackle habitations. [Read more…]