Full Transcript for Macbeth - Witches 4

04:40.748 --> 04:42.109 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a one for one. 04:42.629 --> 04:46.952 [SPEAKER_00]: Much in the way that Joel Cones 2021 film is an adaptation of McBeth. 04:48.701 --> 04:52.063 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a Shakespeare play that most people have to read in a high school. 04:52.603 --> 04:54.905 [SPEAKER_00]: I think our breaded is a senior, so 12th grade. 04:55.825 --> 04:59.307 [SPEAKER_00]: I think I taught it to seniors when I was teaching high school for a year. 05:00.168 --> 05:00.768 [SPEAKER_00]: It's short. 05:01.269 --> 05:02.089 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a tragedy. 05:02.469 --> 05:09.554 [SPEAKER_00]: Shakespeare's tragedies tend to get more play than his comedies or the histories or the romances or the problem plays when everyone would call them. 05:10.754 --> 05:17.278 [SPEAKER_00]: Second, I would guess, maybe second or third, with Romeo and Juliet in Hamlet being more culturally known 05:19.484 --> 05:40.084 [SPEAKER_00]: My breath is I really appropriate play not just for this series on witches, but I think for our podcast in general because of the ways in which that we are looking at how or can be an opportunity to speak truth to power, how or can be used to show us our worst. 05:41.005 --> 05:53.668 [SPEAKER_00]: are worst demons, like as better angels as the one phrase that we're demons, short, we'll go with the witches here in this film, aren't being used in the same way that the witches we've discussed so far on the series are. 05:53.748 --> 06:06.131 [SPEAKER_00]: We do see witches, and these witches, the weird sisters, and weird is from the old English word, weird, w-y-r-d, which means fate, or usually it's read as fate, but the weird 06:11.392 --> 06:13.514 [SPEAKER_00]: Greek and Roman mythology. 06:13.794 --> 06:19.077 [SPEAKER_00]: So these three sisters are going to tell our character McBeth what his future holds. 06:19.418 --> 06:25.462 [SPEAKER_00]: But one of the beautiful moments of this play and we'll get into the movie here in a second is 06:26.342 --> 06:43.404 [SPEAKER_00]: As in most plays, the literary device we have at work is dramatic irony, where we, as the audience know things, the characters on the stage do not, because we have found out that Duncan, King of Scotland, perform at Beth, you know, Mark some spoiler alert, you know, it's only 500 years old, you should know by now. 06:44.204 --> 06:45.385 [SPEAKER_00]: 400 years old, I can't do math. 06:45.425 --> 06:46.245 [SPEAKER_00]: That's why he can English. 06:46.825 --> 06:56.889 [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, Duncan has already told a messenger that he should agree to McBeth with the title of Thane of Codor. 06:56.949 --> 07:00.550 [SPEAKER_00]: Because the Thane of Codor was a, was a trader in this war that the play starts in. 07:01.010 --> 07:05.432 [SPEAKER_00]: He's been hanged or beheaded or something, taking care of executed and stripped of his titles. 07:05.932 --> 07:10.317 [SPEAKER_00]: So, we know is the audience that Duncan's already given McBeth this title. 07:10.457 --> 07:13.941 [SPEAKER_00]: McBeth doesn't know yet because he's going to find out when the messenger tells him. 07:14.341 --> 07:19.026 [SPEAKER_00]: So this is what plants the seed of prophecy and then the witches say came here after. 07:19.686 --> 07:23.791 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a couple articles that I was looking at in preparing for our discussions today. 07:23.811 --> 07:24.892 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to get into them yet. 07:25.392 --> 07:49.018 [SPEAKER_00]: But I do think that they offer some compelling arguments for the Cohen film especially uses prophecy and what it shows us about prophecy, whether it's something that is driven by a cosmic force, or whether it's maybe more determined by human actions and how human actions and determinism can lead us down this dark path, which is what happens in the play. 07:55.139 --> 07:58.162 [SPEAKER_00]: played by Francis McDormand to make that the play by Danza Washington. 07:58.202 --> 08:01.446 [SPEAKER_00]: This is just a Hollywood power couple in this film. 08:01.486 --> 08:04.069 [SPEAKER_00]: So watching it is glorious to see these two actors. 08:05.318 --> 08:19.867 [SPEAKER_00]: with very bare set, very like just it's all the shots are really close up and even if you watch our an Apple TV, the the ratio that it's shot in, it's more of like a square than like the long silver screen, you would see the movie theater. 08:19.907 --> 08:23.089 [SPEAKER_00]: So we're supposed to be intimate watching these characters, just these things happen. 08:23.470 --> 08:24.811 [SPEAKER_00]: The black and white setting helps too. 08:25.677 --> 08:33.319 [SPEAKER_00]: But Lady McBeth traditionally is read as the character who goes McBeth into seeking this power. 08:33.840 --> 08:35.800 [SPEAKER_00]: She's the one that pushes him to kill Duncan. 08:36.140 --> 08:38.841 [SPEAKER_00]: She's the one that makes him go through with the plot. 08:39.281 --> 08:45.263 [SPEAKER_00]: And then as McBeth ascends into power, Lady McBeth begins descending into madness. 08:45.303 --> 08:50.705 [SPEAKER_00]: There's some guilt from the killing of Duncan that just we see this as the film goes on. 08:50.725 --> 08:54.066 [SPEAKER_00]: Facebook drama characters just wondering about the halls of Inverness. 08:54.806 --> 09:06.454 [SPEAKER_00]: howling, talking to herself, always carrying a candle because she's afraid of the dark, so there's so many horror elements here, even beyond witches that are really going to be I think interesting to get into with the witches, though. 09:07.634 --> 09:11.537 [SPEAKER_00]: This version of the film does not have three actors playing the witches. 09:11.657 --> 09:20.944 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, we have one actress playing all three witches, voicing all of their parts, the celebrated British Thespian Catherine Hunter. 09:21.525 --> 09:27.449 [SPEAKER_00]: Listeners, if you've seen any globe adaptations of Shakespeare's play, so I really sometimes even British

movies. 09:27.529 --> 09:30.191 [SPEAKER_00]: You've probably seen Catherine Hunter at some point or other. 09:30.211 --> 09:32.954 [SPEAKER_00]: She plays, she's a character actor and a lot of these movies and whatnot. 09:33.784 --> 09:34.945 [SPEAKER_00]: just as a phenomenal job. 09:35.686 --> 09:39.069 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think there's something, you know, Brian, I might pitch this back to you here in a minute. 09:39.789 --> 09:42.612 [SPEAKER_00]: What do we get by collapsing three characters into one? 09:42.832 --> 09:43.592 [SPEAKER_00]: What does that do? 09:43.693 --> 09:48.677 [SPEAKER_00]: How does that actually emphasize the witchery, maybe? 09:49.538 --> 09:53.661 [SPEAKER_00]: But beyond that, I think there's an element here where the witches 09:54.802 --> 10:02.366 [SPEAKER_00]: rather than the scapegoat, the witches are the permission structure that allow McBeth to make these choices. 10:02.486 --> 10:15.993 [SPEAKER_00]: The witches are providing the framework for this madman really to seek power rather than being the focus of those empower. 10:16.533 --> 10:17.613 [SPEAKER_00]: So like it's it's turned. 10:17.633 --> 10:18.134 [SPEAKER_00]: It's on its head. 10:18.154 --> 10:18.854 [SPEAKER_00]: The entire series 10:23.156 --> 10:24.682 [SPEAKER_01]: The witch, back here, the witch. 10:25.185 --> 10:28.147 [SPEAKER_00]: We started with the witch, very puritan, right? 10:28.247 --> 10:33.851 [SPEAKER_00]: So the witch obviously is going the female, the witch in this film is going to be the target of the eye or the patriarchy. 10:34.152 --> 10:46.381 [SPEAKER_00]: The autopsy of Jane Doe, we are in the future the present of the film in the way 2016, looking back at Salem, I was saying, oh wow, this woman's body was just mutilated and put through all of this torture. 10:46.401 --> 10:47.662 [SPEAKER_00]: It just become a witch's result. 10:48.142 --> 10:53.146 [SPEAKER_00]: And then our most recent episode of Hokem is looking at a witch that is maybe more traditional 10:54.807 --> 11:08.550 [SPEAKER_00]: But also, on the margins, kind of hanging out in the basement, rather than driving things seems to be this supernatural punishment mechanism for people in the film who have acted poorly. 11:08.650 --> 11:13.451 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a way of perhaps seeking vengeance on men who have been behaving poorly. 11:13.971 --> 11:18.232 [SPEAKER_00]: This is not what we see with our witches in the Cohen Macbeth in 2021. 11:19.532 --> 11:26.179 [SPEAKER_00]: The witches are just tantalizingly giving the opportunity for power, and MacBeth decides he wants to seize it. 11:26.199 --> 11:30.343 [SPEAKER_00]: Listen, there's some assuming, again, you've perhaps seen other adaptations of MacBeth. 11:30.884 --> 11:39.113 [SPEAKER_00]: Not always done as horrifically as this one, I'm thinking of from I think 2001, maybe it's 2003, Scott and PA as a strange indie film. 11:39.713 --> 11:40.473 [SPEAKER_00]: It's so crazy. 11:40.493 --> 11:46.695 [SPEAKER_00]: Like Andy Dick is one of the witches, just a crazy wild ride of a movie, not at all what we have here. 11:47.015 --> 12:03.178 [SPEAKER_00]: So Brian, I think at this point before I just keep gushing about McBethin and going off into the tangents about this film and its adaptations, so the other adaptations of it, what do you think of our three in one by one get two free which situation we have going on here? 12:03.705 --> 12:09.648 [SPEAKER_01]: Number one, I think visually it's a really cool aesthetic that they offer with the three witches. 12:09.988 --> 12:13.810 [SPEAKER_01]: So the first time that we see them in the colon version, we see one witch. 12:14.390 --> 12:18.632 [SPEAKER_01]: And then we see them reflected in a puddle or a pool of water or something like that. 12:19.092 --> 12:20.293 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is really interesting, right? 12:20.313 --> 12:28.137 [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think there's a kind of an idea that the witches have inside or access to a different plane of reality than Macbeth. 12:28.597 --> 12:29.397 [SPEAKER_01]: and bank well do. 12:29.957 --> 12:46.981 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that showing that through this singular and powerful actress making this kind of play of witchery is really really aesthetically interesting, but it sets up the uncanny nature of the witch as well. 12:47.521 --> 12:48.762 [SPEAKER_01]: It's what am I seeing? 12:49.182 --> 12:51.982 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm either seeing one thing or I'm seeing three things. 12:52.683 --> 12:56.604 [SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that I'm confused about it is already making 12:58.885 --> 13:12.300 [SPEAKER_01]: There's also a point in which anytime you have three and one, I don't know, I'm thinking of the Trinity, is there something about the way that the fates, of course, pulling back from Greek mythology, this is not Christian theology. 13:13.580 --> 13:18.364 [SPEAKER_01]: are they in some way highlighting the trinitarian nature? 13:19.124 --> 13:23.468 [SPEAKER_01]: And when you start to think about the trinity gets really weird, like how do they talk to each other? 13:24.909 --> 13:29.993 [SPEAKER_01]: For example, and so here we get three witches who are played by the same actress talking to each other. 13:30.613 --> 13:35.497 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there's something really uncanny about the way that those scenes play out, and I absolutely love that. 13:36.264 --> 13:47.237 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk a little bit to you, and maybe ask you, I'll probably just be asking you a lot of questions because honestly, this is not the, you know, this is not resident evil where they're running through and being rained on by bodies. 13:47.277 --> 13:48.879 [SPEAKER_01]: This is like you have to pay attention. 13:48.919 --> 13:51.442 [SPEAKER_01]: You got to put on the closed captioning, at least for me. 13:51.482 --> 13:55.126 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like not having red or watched McBeth in a long time. 13:56.047 --> 13:59.409 [SPEAKER_01]: it

required a lot of attention just to keep up with what they're actually saying. 14:00.169 --> 14:11.296 [SPEAKER_01]: But there's this sense in which when you go back to our episode on the autopsy of Jane Doe, we talked a lot about how what the Bible was doing in that 14:12.093 --> 14:20.584 [SPEAKER_01]: little room, right, the room where they were dissecting the body, they pull it out, and there are these claims about if you find a witch you should kill them. 14:21.204 --> 14:26.651 [SPEAKER_01]: And then Jeff, you gave us a live translation of the Bible from 14:27.532 --> 14:31.975 [SPEAKER_01]: Latin, and we're talking about divination, and divination seems to be about telling the future. 14:32.035 --> 14:39.561 [SPEAKER_01]: It seems to be about seeing into a world or some kind of plane of existence that is not accessible to most people. 14:40.101 --> 14:43.784 [SPEAKER_01]: And so in some way, that's where I was thinking about how the witch is working this. 14:44.424 --> 14:48.027 [SPEAKER_01]: Like you're saying, I really like this idea that what they're really doing is they're just 14:49.663 --> 14:50.124 [SPEAKER_01]: a dude. 14:50.865 --> 14:54.129 [SPEAKER_01]: Alright, number one, I don't know what a thing is, so maybe you can tell us what that is. 14:54.529 --> 14:55.871 [SPEAKER_01]: What the fuck is a thing? 14:56.151 --> 14:59.055 [SPEAKER_01]: Can that be the title of our episode? 14:59.796 --> 15:02.179 [SPEAKER_01]: But to, you know, does he have some ambition? 15:02.259 --> 15:02.519 [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. 15:03.440 --> 15:06.104 [SPEAKER_01]: He's in power and a slightly empower maybe. 15:06.724 --> 15:14.110 [SPEAKER_01]: But he is given this idea that he either deserves or is faded to take over as King. 15:14.451 --> 15:17.313 [SPEAKER_01]: And like you're saying, this is the permission structure. 15:17.933 --> 15:24.639 [SPEAKER_01]: This is the Black Friday of power grabs Black Friday, you know, the deals are fine. 15:24.679 --> 15:25.299 [SPEAKER_01]: They're not great. 15:25.399 --> 15:28.362 [SPEAKER_01]: But we give ourselves permission to spend a lot of money on Black Friday. 15:29.403 --> 15:31.704 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Macbeth is fine, he's like, I'm fine. 15:31.764 --> 15:33.005 [SPEAKER_01]: I wish I could do a little bit more. 15:33.425 --> 15:38.307 [SPEAKER_01]: But then all of a sudden, the three witches are like, yo, we got a two-for-one deal. 15:38.627 --> 15:42.429 [SPEAKER_01]: If you get it by 6 a.m., doorbuster as it were, come on. 15:42.569 --> 15:44.630 [SPEAKER_01]: Take over Codor and take over the kingship. 15:44.750 --> 15:45.190 [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead. 15:45.730 --> 15:50.392 [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I think that there's this interesting play of how power works and the giving of power. 15:50.893 --> 15:53.554 [SPEAKER_01]: I do think that what's interesting here is that unlike 15:54.254 --> 16:06.687 [SPEAKER_01]: things that happen in the witch, and especially in autopsy of Jane Doe, less so maybe in Hokam, but we talked about trapping women in a box is already maybe a dog whistle for essay or sexual assault. 16:06.767 --> 16:10.271 [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't seem like that's really in play for the witches here. 16:10.952 --> 16:11.192 [SPEAKER_01]: They 16:12.608 --> 16:20.433 [SPEAKER_01]: don't necessarily have power and they're not really giving power, they're like existing on a completely different plane as everybody else. 16:20.893 --> 16:21.534 [SPEAKER_01]: Where do they live? 16:21.834 --> 16:22.194 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. 16:22.834 --> 16:23.815 [SPEAKER_01]: Do they need food? 16:24.135 --> 16:24.856 [SPEAKER_01]: Don't know that either. 16:25.316 --> 16:26.577 [SPEAKER_01]: Where do they get their potions? 16:26.937 --> 16:28.358 [SPEAKER_01]: Do they go to potions or us? 16:28.578 --> 16:29.258 [SPEAKER_01]: Have no idea. 16:29.739 --> 16:32.841 [SPEAKER_01]: But they exist on a completely different plane. 16:33.581 --> 16:36.243 [SPEAKER_01]: I absolutely love the visual aesthetic of this film. 16:36.844 --> 16:51.996 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I've already said, as a filistine, I do not have good grasp of Macbath and all of the iterations that have come about, but the use of architecture, the black and white filming, 16:52.616 --> 16:54.597 [SPEAKER_01]: It, it made it feel very gothic. 16:55.238 --> 16:57.379 [SPEAKER_01]: And it made it feel very horror. 16:57.819 --> 17:03.643 [SPEAKER_01]: There are these, I don't know, Croes or Ravens that continually pop up this felt very gothic to me. 17:04.043 --> 17:08.846 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, the play predates Poe, but here we get these castles or mansions. 17:09.206 --> 17:11.428 [SPEAKER_01]: We mentioned the castle of a Toronto and the Colopin. 17:12.028 --> 17:13.709 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is the beginning of the gothic. 17:14.149 --> 17:15.730 [SPEAKER_01]: It sometimes feels like you don't know 17:21.794 --> 17:27.340 [SPEAKER_01]: this castle or where they live, or you don't even know sometimes if you're inside or outside. 17:27.940 --> 17:31.424 [SPEAKER_01]: And so it plays with these distinctions and it's bleak. 17:31.804 --> 17:33.326 [SPEAKER_01]: Do we ever even see the sun? 17:33.946 --> 17:39.111 [SPEAKER_01]: So I want to ask you a little bit about the use of both the black and white aesthetic. 17:39.652 --> 17:48.622 [SPEAKER_01]: but also the architecture and how that plays into either the Gothic or how it highlights what is typically understood of what's going on in Macbeth. 17:49.082 --> 17:52.046 [SPEAKER_01]: So what's the deal with this architecture? 17:52.206 --> 17:54.368 [SPEAKER_01]: Is that typical for Macbeth productions? 17:54.949 --> 17:57.011 [SPEAKER_01]: Is it something new that the colon's added? 17:57.532 --> 17:59.294 [SPEAKER_01]: And if so, what does it add do you think? 17:59.683 --> 18:18.097 [SPEAKER_00]: I think this article I was reading, Naturalism, Determinism, and Fate in Jolkowns strategy at McBeth by Alan Gibbs and Gibbs talks about this

film being influenced by a 1979 version of the film that is a German adaptation of McBeth I'm pretty sure. 18:18.117 --> 18:21.919 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think we're getting some nods to that with the architecture, especially it feels 18:22.720 --> 18:23.661 [SPEAKER_00]: feels that way to me. 18:24.301 --> 18:30.205 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's also, I think it's part of the claustrophobic nature of the film that we're inside. 18:30.306 --> 18:31.526 [SPEAKER_00]: We're inside for most of the film. 18:31.627 --> 18:33.608 [SPEAKER_00]: Even the battle scenes, a lot of them are inside. 18:33.628 --> 18:43.095 [SPEAKER_00]: There's that awesome scene where when the prophecy comes true, that Burnham Wood has come to Duncinane, it blows the window open and leaves are coming into the castle where 18:50.380 --> 18:51.080 [SPEAKER_00]: an intimacy. 18:51.920 --> 18:58.382 [SPEAKER_00]: The architecture, like I said, it's claustrophobic, it is very gothic, so for a modern audience, it will read as gothic. 18:58.422 --> 19:00.163 [SPEAKER_00]: We called it brutalist in the cold open. 19:00.183 --> 19:01.003 [SPEAKER_00]: I would agree with that. 19:01.683 --> 19:03.464 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a part of us, the black and white. 19:03.484 --> 19:06.985 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't see a lot of the detail, but also it's just like the architecture itself. 19:08.045 --> 19:19.389 [SPEAKER_00]: It interestingly enough is a foil to the outside, where the witches are, too, because when the Beth sees the witches, they are outside, they are outdoors, they are not inside of a house. 19:20.069 --> 19:28.152 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not always clear where in the wilderness they are, but it's very clear that they are not, they're neither in a castle nor are they on a battlefield. 19:28.652 --> 19:33.054 [SPEAKER_00]: It's just some outside place where they are, and that's where the witch arrives, 19:37.475 --> 19:44.440 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the other things I think this architecture allows is in film analysis too, whereas life theater often does not. 19:46.342 --> 19:55.268 [SPEAKER_00]: The ways in which Denzel Washington especially delivers some of his lines as McBeth are so understated, they're almost quiet. 19:55.828 --> 20:05.235 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're not inside in a room, you would not hear them, particularly as you know, his final confrontation with McDuff, which is where McBeth is just again counting on two parts of the prophecy. 20:05.315 --> 20:05.576 [SPEAKER_00]: First, 20:06.336 --> 20:08.117 [SPEAKER_00]: Burnham would approaching Donsonane. 20:08.357 --> 20:20.766 [SPEAKER_00]: Second, he cannot be killed by one of women born, which is one of the most like interesting loopholes in all of literature for my money because McDeath, the line is, from my mother's womb, untimely ripped. 20:20.946 --> 20:23.828 [SPEAKER_00]: So essentially, McDeath was a sea section, a cesarean section. 20:24.148 --> 20:26.670 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is how he gets around the whole prophecy. 20:27.170 --> 20:33.995 [SPEAKER_00]: With that alone, we could make arguments and talk about why prophecies were probably not something we should be believing in because they could so easily be 20:34.655 --> 20:35.436 [SPEAKER_00]: manipulate it. 20:35.476 --> 20:37.957 [SPEAKER_00]: They can so easy be manipulative. 20:38.698 --> 20:52.106 [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, but with inside of the building, I think it allows these scenes where lady McBeth played by Francis or Gorman again really awesome, like going in and out of shadows, reading letters, different shots, different angles. 20:52.186 --> 20:57.089 [SPEAKER_00]: But I do think at the end of the day, the castle itself is meant to be this 20:58.510 --> 21:20.209 [SPEAKER_00]: This area where McBeth actually feels like he has power and he does have power because it is his castle versus the outside world where he's trying to control things and maybe this is another example of how we see which is serving as marginalized figures but in this case rather than being shoved to the outskirts where that's the only place they have power for this film. 21:21.210 --> 21:38.693 [SPEAKER_00]: They have power everywhere except for inside the castle and that is where McBeth and Lady McBeth plot and they deceive and they murdered Duncan and you know McBeth's carrying daggers around like you do the murder weapon Lady McBeth's what the hell are you doing why did you not leave them there. 21:39.313 --> 21:51.841 [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, you have to have these moments in this play to see the guilt, to see their regret, to watch the actors, that the characters really, but all the actors who play these characters. 21:51.902 --> 22:01.368 [SPEAKER_00]: So, whether it's Denzel Washington in this version or another actor in another version, I think in Michael Fassbender, there was a version with Michael Fassbender and Marion Coltiard a few years before this one. 22:02.658 --> 22:04.080 [SPEAKER_00]: the shock of what they've done. 22:04.300 --> 22:06.764 [SPEAKER_00]: The gravity of having murdered the king on them. 22:06.904 --> 22:10.089 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and to answer your question, Thane's just Scottish nobleman. 22:10.389 --> 22:12.712 [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like a Lord but in Scotland. 22:12.873 --> 22:13.694 [SPEAKER_00]: So Thane's. 22:14.575 --> 22:19.302 [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know if I'm really answering your question here about the architecture and what it's doing, but I do think that it is 22:21.277 --> 22:35.747 [SPEAKER_00]: It's maybe Cohen attempting to set up this dichotomy between what is human mate and what is natural, what is supernatural, like that exists in one place, what is human mate exists somewhere else. 22:36.388 --> 22:44.833 [SPEAKER_00]: I do at this point, if it's okay with you, want to come back to this article by Gibbs, because there's something he says here that I think 22:45.914 --> 22:48.575 [SPEAKER_00]: is useful for us to think about when we're talking about

witches. 22:49.375 --> 22:59.019 [SPEAKER_00]: So towards the end of the article Gibbs writes quote, the depiction of the witches is another area in which this adaptation mounts interesting tensions. 22:59.599 --> 23:10.903 [SPEAKER_00]: While Hunter explains the urge to ground that the witches socially, the ability to morph into crows or to coalesce into a single entity returns supernatural powers to the characters. 23:11.683 --> 23:25.879 [SPEAKER_00]: Most relevant for the present article and endowing the witches with supernatural powers and bearing in mind that adult productions do this, especially contemporary adaptations, Cohen underlines the extent to which McBeth and his wife are driven the acts they perpetrate. 23:26.500 --> 23:30.164 [SPEAKER_00]: Hunters witches and other words are powerful determinants in Cohen's film. 23:31.185 --> 23:57.448 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, this isn't, this is a, a typical reading of the play, where it's actually saying the witches are driving what McBeth and Lady McBeth do, because another article will come back to you later, well, this is our, are you exactly the opposite that it's just showing us that the, the, the, the, the lady McBeth and McBeth are the people who are doing this work, and it's the human actors in the play, and the human characters, especially in the co-inversion that are controlling things. 23:57.568 --> 23:57.749 [SPEAKER_00]: So, 23:58.887 --> 24:04.369 [SPEAKER_00]: with the witches, the supernatural power, with this idea that the witches are being portrayed differently. 24:05.529 --> 24:10.891 [SPEAKER_00]: One other review of this film, I wanna bring up it's by Em Tyler Sasser. 24:10.951 --> 24:15.513 [SPEAKER_00]: It's just a review of the Tragedy of McBeth that was in the Shakespeare newsletter in 2021. 24:16.933 --> 24:22.375 [SPEAKER_00]: Sasser points out convincingly the way in which Cohen changes the character of Ross. 24:22.695 --> 24:24.936 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll be honest listeners, I don't really pay attention to Ross. 24:24.956 --> 24:26.297 [SPEAKER_00]: He's a minor character in the play. 24:27.797 --> 24:30.698 [SPEAKER_00]: intrigued to read that Ross is doing something differently here. 24:31.258 --> 24:45.781 [SPEAKER_00]: And it is, in fact, Ross is portrayed according to a sasser argues in this review as being aligned with the witches rather than being aligned with McBeth and Lady McBeth. 24:46.221 --> 24:55.223 [SPEAKER_00]: So at that point, then I wonder Brian, if we see Ross here, if you can think of the character Ross or even if you just think about the way this 24:58.404 --> 25:00.024 [SPEAKER_00]: of this full version of the play is operating. 25:01.865 --> 25:10.747 [SPEAKER_00]: Is somehow Roth's like this possessed by the witch carrying out their bidding in a way that Cohen's pointing his towards. 25:11.347 --> 25:12.987 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not coming right out and saying it. 25:13.447 --> 25:18.168 [SPEAKER_00]: But if we're looking for talking about witches, that's the way witches work, right? 25:18.228 --> 25:20.789 [SPEAKER_00]: They possess people, they make them do things they're not supposed to do. 25:20.829 --> 25:21.929 [SPEAKER_00]: So perhaps Roth's, 25:22.629 --> 25:29.592 [SPEAKER_00]: is our version getting back to your question about the building, the castle coming inside the castle to do their bidding because they cannot. 25:30.193 --> 25:31.433 [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know what I just said there. 25:31.553 --> 25:44.679 [SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot maybe I was possessed by which Brian, but let's, you know, maybe think about how these witches are both natural supernatural versus the domestic political, whatever we have going on 25:46.817 --> 25:50.119 [SPEAKER_01]: I look where you're saying, there's lots of things that I think we could imagine thinking through. 25:50.139 --> 25:53.801 [SPEAKER_01]: I think in part, there's this question about what is the really real? 25:54.602 --> 26:04.768 [SPEAKER_01]: And here, if the political structure is what we take to be really real, then what lives outside of the political structure seems to be the weird sisters. 26:05.308 --> 26:11.972 [SPEAKER_01]: And so for reality is political, then the a reality is going to be in some way super natural already. 26:12.512 --> 26:13.393 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there 26:14.173 --> 26:21.198 [SPEAKER_01]: doing things that are enacting change outside of the common understanding of how the political structure works. 26:21.879 --> 26:29.505 [SPEAKER_01]: So going all the way back to something like CS Lewis, sorry folks to bring up CS Lewis, but CS Lewis writes this book called Miracles and really that's what he's saying. 26:29.565 --> 26:33.808 [SPEAKER_01]: It's any miracles that which happens outside of the standard understanding of how nature works. 26:34.308 --> 26:39.112 [SPEAKER_01]: And again, if we're taking the political nature as the baseline reality, then the weird 26:43.715 --> 26:58.602 [SPEAKER_01]: Kind of bringing about change seems to be a kind of supernatural element to again the the baseline reality of the movie version of the play I don't know if I've got much to say about Ross I think thinking about that character. 26:58.702 --> 27:01.283 [SPEAKER_01]: I kept thinking maybe he's not aligned with anybody. 27:01.703 --> 27:03.364 [SPEAKER_01]: He's just following the path 27:04.284 --> 27:12.167 [SPEAKER_01]: and is often surprised by things, and so his surprise makes me wonder if certainly he doesn't have the sight of the witches. 27:12.627 --> 27:16.048 [SPEAKER_01]: But does he have their insight at all about what is going to happen? 27:16.548 --> 27:21.890 [SPEAKER_01]: And if he doesn't have the insight, then how can he perpetuate the desires of the witches? 27:22.490 --> 27:27.171 [SPEAKER_01]: On the other hand, it seems in part like he's a little bit of a chaotic character, 27:29.940 --> 27:34.322 [SPEAKER_01]: King pongs around the room a little bit and you never

really know where his alliances lie. 27:35.022 --> 27:43.386 [SPEAKER_01]: And so again, if we're saying that the supernatural element here, and this is a lot of assumption that the baseline reality is the political reality. 27:43.746 --> 27:48.148 [SPEAKER_01]: Kings and things, and the alliances with Scotland and England, etc. 27:49.587 --> 27:55.188 [SPEAKER_01]: And the weird sisters are enacting some kind of change outside of that structure as supernatural. 27:56.009 --> 27:57.929 [SPEAKER_01]: And Ross is a kind of chaotic figure. 27:58.349 --> 28:04.390 [SPEAKER_01]: Then Ross too seems to be a kind of, maybe not supernatural, but outside of the realm of what should or should not happen. 28:05.011 --> 28:16.433 [SPEAKER_01]: And so maybe if he is acting outside of the nature of his character that also highlights the uncanniness of Ross as a character, but also the witches 28:21.174 --> 28:24.675 [SPEAKER_01]: I just pulled that out of my ass a little bit, maybe it makes sense, I don't know. 28:24.895 --> 28:44.519 [SPEAKER_01]: But I did think, right, watching Ross that character go throughout a never new, what he was really up to, and he always seemed aligned with himself, and I would be interested to go back and try to read through or watch it again and think of that idea that he's actually aligned with the witches. 28:45.360 --> 28:47.300 [SPEAKER_01]: The idea of being possessed and being 28:48.858 --> 28:53.900 [SPEAKER_01]: kind of pushed inside as the sleeper agent of the witches. 28:54.140 --> 28:55.160 [SPEAKER_01]: That seems really interesting. 28:55.680 --> 28:57.581 [SPEAKER_01]: I think the crows kind of also do that too. 28:57.641 --> 29:00.782 [SPEAKER_01]: Right, there's all these things that kind of intrude into the castle. 29:01.262 --> 29:02.002 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's Ross. 29:02.382 --> 29:03.183 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's the crows. 29:03.583 --> 29:04.583 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's the leaves. 29:05.143 --> 29:09.144 [SPEAKER_01]: You get all these ways that the outside is intruding on the inside. 29:09.565 --> 29:15.186 [SPEAKER_01]: And so we get this play of inside outside, et cetera, that I think those along with all kinds of binary structures. 29:15.206 --> 29:16.847 [SPEAKER_01]: So we can think through all the ways that this, 29:17.507 --> 29:17.807 [SPEAKER_01]: works. 29:17.947 --> 29:27.710 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so I think there's some really really interesting things to say about how the which is work, how Ross works as supernatural elements acting outside or even uncanny elements. 29:28.290 --> 29:39.873 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's part of me that wants to ask you questions about the weird sisters as living outside of the realm of society or even outside of the realm of rationality. 29:40.373 --> 29:45.275 [SPEAKER_01]: And I often characterize whatever's outside the realm of rationality as what we call madness. 29:46.255 --> 29:49.197 [SPEAKER_01]: And here, of course, we have the encroaching woods. 29:49.817 --> 29:51.498 [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember reading this in high school. 29:51.518 --> 29:59.642 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is the one thing that I really remember is that the woods are coming in and like Beth is confused by this, because it upends that prophecy. 29:59.982 --> 30:05.705 [SPEAKER_01]: And it upends his confidence in his kind of ability to continue living 30:06.525 --> 30:08.306 [SPEAKER_01]: even though there's some kind of attack going on. 30:08.346 --> 30:12.429 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, of course, at one point somebody comes in, he's like, are you born of a woman? 30:12.889 --> 30:15.051 [SPEAKER_01]: I've nothing to fear from you, basically, right? 30:15.611 --> 30:20.975 [SPEAKER_01]: This impossible thing of the forest, whatever the line is, you tell me, moving in. 30:21.475 --> 30:26.559 [SPEAKER_01]: But again, we're back to that wood, wood madness, kind of connection. 30:26.579 --> 30:28.420 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to ask you about that. 30:28.780 --> 30:31.982 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to take a little bit of a left turn here and see what you think about this, too. 30:32.923 --> 30:42.766 [SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking about how, because MacBeth hides behind the prophecy, hides behind this idea that he is faded to have power and be king. 30:43.627 --> 30:47.688 [SPEAKER_01]: This felt a little bit like the United States for me, right? 30:47.788 --> 30:52.910 [SPEAKER_01]: And here's, I think the left turn is, number one, we have this idea of manifest destiny. 30:53.490 --> 30:57.532 [SPEAKER_01]: This is something ingrained in the American spirit somehow. 30:57.652 --> 30:58.312 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how 31:01.713 --> 31:03.054 [SPEAKER_01]: But here's the crazy part. 31:03.814 --> 31:19.019 [SPEAKER_01]: At one point recently, so we're introducing generative AI into the military, Pete Hegseth calls AI, the new manifest destiny for the United States, right? 31:19.239 --> 31:20.680 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, why does this matter? 31:21.560 --> 31:26.502 [SPEAKER_01]: The imagined idea that we are faded to have control over this thing, 31:27.712 --> 31:33.054 [SPEAKER_01]: and the idea that what brings the downfall of McBeth is his ambition. 31:34.354 --> 31:38.075 [SPEAKER_01]: Is it the case that we are pursuing the same line of thought? 31:38.355 --> 31:41.336 [SPEAKER_01]: Our own ambition is bringing about the downfall. 31:41.696 --> 31:47.818 [SPEAKER_01]: And here AI as the monstrosity is undercutting everything that we know. 31:47.878 --> 31:52.219 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's outside of legal, we don't have laws about AI right now. 31:52.889 --> 31:54.310 [SPEAKER_01]: It's outside of boundaries and borders. 31:54.370 --> 32:01.476 [SPEAKER_01]: We don't understand how to navigate this across borders and governmental agencies. 32:02.116 --> 32:06.720 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's also just a terrible resource suck, right? 32:06.760 --> 32:13.886 [SPEAKER_01]: It just takes all the resources that we have water and fossil fuels

and all of that, and it destroys the earth. 32:14.566 --> 32:19.670 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so that mess, I'm gonna hand to you with those two big questions. 32:21.337 --> 32:28.539 [SPEAKER_01]: The weird sisters, the witch, as both conniving, I don't know if that's a, a majority of word, but also mad. 32:28.799 --> 32:30.339 [SPEAKER_01]: They're outside the realm of rationality. 32:30.399 --> 32:34.820 [SPEAKER_01]: And how does that work with the wood that comes in and kind of plays with that prophecy? 32:34.860 --> 32:48.603 [SPEAKER_01]: And too, are we just destroying ourselves with our own ambition in this current political moment, seeking out wars, pursuing the dominance of artificial intelligence and calling it manifest destiny, throw to you. 32:48.903 --> 32:50.266 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, actually I love this question. 32:50.286 --> 32:53.713 [SPEAKER_00]: So I was thinking about this myself while we were preparing for this episode. 32:53.773 --> 32:55.576 [SPEAKER_00]: Why is it better to relevant to us in 2026? 32:55.616 --> 32:55.877 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a 32:57.712 --> 33:10.121 [SPEAKER_00]: a question that touches on so much of the work that you and I have to do in our day jobs, which is defending the work that we do either in philosophy or literature or our colleagues in the arts and humanities. 33:10.641 --> 33:11.542 [SPEAKER_00]: Why do we still matter? 33:11.662 --> 33:18.346 [SPEAKER_00]: Because I mean, listen, let's be honest, you probably hopefully think these things matters, given the elicin of this podcast called 33:20.748 --> 33:25.692 [SPEAKER_00]: Most of the people that you encounter in your day-to-day life do not care about the arts or humanities. 33:25.832 --> 33:34.958 [SPEAKER_00]: They will make an AI swap poster to talk about their two glissis for a dollar rather than pay a graphic designer to do that work. 33:35.479 --> 33:45.446 [SPEAKER_00]: They will use Claude or ChatGPT to write an email or co-pilot or whatever rather than write an email themselves. 33:46.026 --> 33:46.166 [SPEAKER_00]: It's 33:47.047 --> 34:03.502 [SPEAKER_00]: It's unfortunate like we and and I'm not blaming people one of the issues that we have is that we are strapped for resources and one of those resources is time and as a result we are trying to find ways to do more with the little time that we have so I get it. 34:04.545 --> 34:14.709 [SPEAKER_00]: The question about the witches as madness is really interesting because like, okay, a most like American mythology in folklore, right, which is supposedly supposed to be in this bad. 34:14.929 --> 34:26.973 [SPEAKER_00]: That's like the Puritan framework that we have all been indoctrinated into, and that to give full 30% of this country is running mad as hatters on with their Christian nationalism. 34:27.053 --> 34:28.874 [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, yikes. 34:29.994 --> 34:31.536 [SPEAKER_00]: the which isn't the best scene neutral. 34:31.816 --> 34:37.743 [SPEAKER_00]: There's the scene with

the actual prophecies about Macbeth Shanopi killed by one of woman born. 34:37.763 --> 34:41.967 [SPEAKER_00]: Macbeth Shanopi defeated until Burnham wouldn't have purchased Dunson Aynor, whatever. 34:41.987 --> 34:51.477 [SPEAKER_00]: And there are these reflections, like this water, and then you get the prophecy for bank woe, where like his airs shall be kings, like all these things. 34:52.178 --> 34:57.602 [SPEAKER_00]: It's simply in the film McBeth, that's a Washington asking questions and the witch is like, no, you don't get to ask questions. 34:57.882 --> 34:58.642 [SPEAKER_00]: You get to listen. 34:59.463 --> 35:06.107 [SPEAKER_00]: So there's something about that that McBeth is gets to choose what he does with the information that he has. 35:06.987 --> 35:12.011 [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe to turn your AI question on its head a little bit, like AI, AI gives you an answer. 35:12.571 --> 35:14.992 [SPEAKER_00]: doesn't give you necessarily the correct answer. 35:15.232 --> 35:22.634 [SPEAKER_00]: It gives you an answer because the algorithm is rewarded with more clicks if it gives us an answer as opposed to saying it doesn't know. 35:23.534 --> 35:24.814 [SPEAKER_00]: AI is not a critical reader. 35:25.395 --> 35:27.715 [SPEAKER_00]: McBeth is also not a good critical reader. 35:27.855 --> 35:29.976 [SPEAKER_00]: McBeth wants power. 35:30.776 --> 35:37.138 [SPEAKER_00]: So he'll take the answer that he gets and use it as a justification to take the power that he wants. 35:38.098 --> 35:57.946 [SPEAKER_00]: Man, if there's not a clearer parallel than Christian nationalism in the United States right now, in misreading the Bible, in misreading all of these sacred texts as a way of saying that it's manifest destiny for the United States, I don't know what is some some inside baseball stuff for listeners here, not that you're asked for this, but if we were actually doing make Beth an of course, 35:58.646 --> 36:05.908 [SPEAKER_00]: some of the records that we have and some of the suppositions that we have about the actual performance of the play when Shakespeare was alive. 36:06.328 --> 36:08.629 [SPEAKER_00]: So James I was King of England at this point. 36:08.669 --> 36:10.029 [SPEAKER_00]: James has come from Scotland. 36:10.449 --> 36:20.432 [SPEAKER_00]: So the connection here is in the play legend has it that the actor doing the prophecy would carry forward a mirror that then 36:21.292 --> 36:32.524 [SPEAKER_00]: James would look into, so that James becomes part of the prophecy, part of the prophecy of the witches, then, is James' bank was air, like eventual air, who has become King of England. 36:33.525 --> 36:37.449 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a just like pandering, because Shakespeare's not stupid. 36:37.670 --> 36:40.152 [SPEAKER_00]: He knows that he relies on 36:41.033 --> 36:44.074 [SPEAKER_00]: the patronage of the court to continue doing his work. 36:44.695 --> 36:50.117 [SPEAKER_00]: He had a list of both for how many decades and now he

needs James to support the same work too. 36:50.597 --> 36:51.978 [SPEAKER_00]: You have no idea what James is going to do. 36:52.058 --> 36:52.978 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a new administration. 36:53.018 --> 36:53.758 [SPEAKER_00]: He's from Scotland. 36:53.778 --> 36:55.059 [SPEAKER_00]: He's an outsider entirely. 36:55.119 --> 36:59.321 [SPEAKER_00]: So to have him come in, who trying to make him fit into this line of kings. 37:00.381 --> 37:01.803 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, what is Donald Trump? 37:02.444 --> 37:13.718 [SPEAKER_00]: Other than an outsider, the political scene, who has now begun using all of the prophecy of, I mean, how he was just introduced to it a rally the other day, which is an aside. 37:14.608 --> 37:25.999 [SPEAKER_00]: how does the president of the United States have this much time for rallies shouldn't he be I don't know presidenting just saying I don't have that much time for rallies and my job is not nearly as important as is whatever. 37:26.700 --> 37:32.045 [SPEAKER_00]: So he has this speech or something where as part of one of his ads, the cycle that 37:32.605 --> 37:38.048 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1946 or whatever it is, Donald Trump was born and he's the person that God has brought to save the United States. 37:38.428 --> 37:54.535 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the same thing that like that we're seeing in McBeth, the same pandering, using something we're just going to read it in the way that fits our argument, irrespective of any logic or bigger picture that says that's clearly not what's happening here. 38:01.378 --> 38:04.260 [SPEAKER_00]: the spaces, like the indoor spaces, the Gothic feeling. 38:05.540 --> 38:14.045 [SPEAKER_00]: You have to be myopic in order to read the prophecy of Macbeth as a way that will lead you to do the things that you want to do. 38:15.507 --> 38:21.173 [SPEAKER_00]: We mentioned this in the code open, and I'm going to come back around the AI question to do something that's a really good question, then maybe I've talked about it a little bit. 38:21.213 --> 38:21.493 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know. 38:21.994 --> 38:25.898 [SPEAKER_00]: In the code open to how, in this version of Big Beth, Lady McBeth and Big Beth are older. 38:25.958 --> 38:26.799 [SPEAKER_00]: They're in their 60s. 38:27.379 --> 38:30.102 [SPEAKER_00]: They are not able to have children at this point. 38:30.322 --> 38:33.045 [SPEAKER_00]: So any power that they seize will die with them. 38:35.419 --> 38:42.344 [SPEAKER_00]: You didn't ask this question, but again, this parallels the ruling class of our politics right now. 38:42.825 --> 38:55.795 [SPEAKER_00]: These people are in their 80s, 70s, the best 80s mostly, some of them even in their 90s, and they are just gonna cling on to power until they die, and they have no one to turn it over to. 38:56.235 --> 39:03.921 [SPEAKER_00]: These billionaires, these tech billionaires, whether it's, I mean Elon Musk has a billion children, because he's artificially inseminating anything 39:05.482 --> 39:09.263 [SPEAKER_00]: Peter Teele, Mark Andreason, like these people are nihilists. 39:09.303 --> 39:10.424 [SPEAKER_00]: They don't believe in the future. 39:10.444 --> 39:13.825 [SPEAKER_00]: If they believe in a future where human kind is not in charge and it's AI. 39:13.905 --> 39:29.131 [SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, at least McBeth the play, the film has the decency to put it end to that sort of malicious thinking, that malignant narcissism, that McBeth and Lady McBeth so so gleefully just employ. 39:31.307 --> 39:45.014 [SPEAKER_00]: If the witches are our analogy to AI, then our answer is to learn from McBeth that you shouldn't take prophecies and read them literally because it's going to lead to your downfall. 39:45.115 --> 39:51.178 [SPEAKER_00]: It is going to and tragically ambition unchecked will lead to your downfall. 39:51.318 --> 39:53.379 [SPEAKER_00]: Ambition without reason will lead to your 39:55.760 --> 40:13.625 [SPEAKER_00]: other than just unchecked ambition or ambition without logic, ambition without any critical thinking surrounding it because we just, I mean, you know, it's the, it's the stupid line from Jurassic Park where they were so busy asking if they could, they didn't ask if they should unparasing it poorly, you know what I mean? 40:14.305 --> 40:20.347 [SPEAKER_00]: That is perhaps a really bad answer to the question that you asked Brian. 40:21.167 --> 40:25.913 [SPEAKER_00]: but it did strike me how much this play parallels are political climate. 40:26.233 --> 40:32.141 [SPEAKER_00]: How much our politicians are more like McBeth than perhaps a character you'd like them to be like? 40:33.753 --> 40:42.001 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, all those figures and chicks for strategies are as it turns out tragic, so I don't know that you want leaders to be like a fellow or hamlet or lear either. 40:43.202 --> 40:45.264 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'm Mark Antony from joyous Caesar. 40:46.506 --> 40:47.747 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, I don't know. 40:47.967 --> 40:48.808 [SPEAKER_00]: Brian, save me. 40:49.228 --> 40:50.009 [SPEAKER_00]: I went off the rails. 40:50.129 --> 40:52.592 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm somewhere out and like the edge of the castle with a porter. 40:54.160 --> 41:05.389 [SPEAKER_01]: I think there's something interesting here, even just reading the idea that, okay, if AI is without reason and if the witches are madness and they are also outside of reason. 41:05.429 --> 41:13.074 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's exactly what McBeth is dealing with is this idea that he's got a plan without any reason, it's it's not without 41:14.141 --> 41:18.947 [SPEAKER_01]: logic, but it's without or a negation of reason, which again is madness. 41:19.288 --> 41:32.544 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was thinking about like, if not only is it about ambition, but the AI question is also about turning that around, and so often it's the case that we imagine the AI is like an oracle, and so it's going to tell us. 41:33.485 --> 41:37.269 [SPEAKER_01]: Some idea

or give us some insight from basically nowhere. 41:37.390 --> 41:38.711 [SPEAKER_01]: Where does it get its information? 41:38.791 --> 41:39.432 [SPEAKER_01]: We don't really know. 41:39.452 --> 41:40.213 [SPEAKER_01]: We have no idea. 41:40.693 --> 41:47.901 [SPEAKER_01]: Macbeth goes to the witches, accepts their claims, without any other evidence, other than that they said it. 41:48.842 --> 41:58.287 [SPEAKER_01]: It aligns with this idea, so he doesn't know that he's going to be the Thane of Codor, and the Witches tell him that, and then oh, he actually gets the announcement, and maybe it lines up. 41:58.588 --> 42:02.370 [SPEAKER_01]: And so he says, oh, well, if that lined up, then of course I'm going to be king. 42:02.850 --> 42:06.532 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm prophesied to be king, and it's going to leave me down this path. 42:06.972 --> 42:16.578 [SPEAKER_01]: And so again, we've got the smallest sliver of evidence that what the witches are, what they say are is actually true or accurate, and he just runs with it. 42:17.419 --> 42:19.561 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, do we listen to the witches? 42:19.962 --> 42:22.564 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, in this case, it seems like a no. 42:22.604 --> 42:33.274 [SPEAKER_01]: And if we imagine that it's somehow kind of analogous to AI, we should also think about the way that we understand the Oracle of AI and what it's giving us, what evidence do we have for the claims that it's making. 42:33.795 --> 42:38.219 [SPEAKER_01]: Why do we actually accept that it's giving as any insider accurate information or knowledge? 42:39.717 --> 42:41.478 [SPEAKER_01]: And we kind of have to run from it, right? 42:41.558 --> 42:57.568 [SPEAKER_01]: I think that the witch, like you're saying in other instances in the witch, maybe autopsy of Jane Doe, maybe Hokem, all these other witches, there's this tension between disempowerment and empowerment. 42:58.128 --> 43:00.410 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's also here with the witches. 43:00.970 --> 43:05.353 [SPEAKER_01]: We have a clearly patriarchal system and we also have Lady MacBeth. 43:06.114 --> 43:12.519 [SPEAKER_01]: who's, you know, kind of manipulating things behind the scenes, driving some of the political ambitions of McBeth. 43:14.160 --> 43:16.522 [SPEAKER_01]: Are they working to disrupt the patriarchy? 43:16.922 --> 43:26.249 [SPEAKER_01]: Should we hold on to them as like a pillar of, like a part from this AI question, do we want to hold on to them as an empowerment of some other kind of logic? 43:26.629 --> 43:31.353 [SPEAKER_01]: So I want to throw it back to you quickly here to see if A, you want to say anything about that. 43:31.473 --> 43:35.316 [SPEAKER_01]: B, you have any final thoughts before we go and see if you want to get to joy. 43:35.780 --> 43:40.683 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so latent Beth is not the only female character in this play. 43:40.763 --> 43:42.403 [SPEAKER_00]: We get late in McDoff as well. 43:42.584 --> 43:43.244 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm much

younger. 43:43.404 --> 43:47.066 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, because McDoff is also portrayed as being much younger in this film. 43:47.586 --> 43:50.948 [SPEAKER_00]: Then McBeth, late in McDoff has children at home. 43:51.348 --> 43:53.109 [SPEAKER_00]: So she's talking to her young children. 43:53.709 --> 43:58.412 [SPEAKER_00]: It's, of course, a very tragic brutal scene where the villains are like these just like 43:59.622 --> 44:04.244 [SPEAKER_00]: henchmen, essentially, that McBeth hires to go and murder McDoff's entire household. 44:04.844 --> 44:08.605 [SPEAKER_00]: So, this, she's a very different figure from Lady McBeth, and we don't get that much of her. 44:08.625 --> 44:10.606 [SPEAKER_00]: So, it's maybe not fair even for the comparison. 44:11.066 --> 44:21.449 [SPEAKER_00]: There are some like, you know, minor characters, certain people who are a female as well in the play, but your primary female character is Lady McBeth, and Lady McBeth is notorious for asking that she'd be on sex. 44:21.949 --> 44:23.890 [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't want to be a woman. 44:24.130 --> 44:33.116 [SPEAKER_00]: Part of her initial gauding of McBeth is that she is insinuating that she is somehow more masculine and manly and has more ambition than McBeth does. 44:33.516 --> 44:39.580 [SPEAKER_00]: So she makes him, like she pushes him to become the man that she wished that she were. 44:40.301 --> 44:44.463 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's fair to blame late in McBeth for what happens in this play. 44:44.483 --> 44:46.785 [SPEAKER_00]: And I suppose the Witches do, their gendered female often. 44:47.305 --> 44:49.427 [SPEAKER_00]: You asked her earlier, like, you know, who gives the Witches power? 44:49.447 --> 44:51.188 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you get heck it in the one scene, 44:52.008 --> 44:54.112 [SPEAKER_00]: that's not super important. 44:54.673 --> 44:55.514 [SPEAKER_00]: Either way, shape, perform. 44:56.116 --> 45:02.687 [SPEAKER_00]: This would also fit with a malleys mouth or carum that there's some like evil wizard that's giving the witch's power to go way back to the start of the series. 45:03.428 --> 45:05.552 [SPEAKER_00]: But again, bearing a little bit off topic, 45:07.280 --> 45:12.723 [SPEAKER_00]: I guess I do think it's interesting, again, shining out the article by Gibbs. 45:13.064 --> 45:18.647 [SPEAKER_00]: Gibbs, like, looks at all of Cohen, the Cohen brothers, and then Joel Cohen's films with, like, naturalism and determinism. 45:18.707 --> 45:19.527 [SPEAKER_00]: That was super interesting. 45:19.547 --> 45:21.128 [SPEAKER_00]: So, like, that was the fun article to read. 45:21.989 --> 45:29.774 [SPEAKER_00]: I do like this way in which the witches are affiliated with nature and McBeth seems to be a force to disacting literally against nature. 45:30.634 --> 45:48.131 [SPEAKER_00]: and figuratively against nature, like what he's doing is unnatural in the sense of murder, but also all of the imagery in this film, Macbeth is placed against an

opposition to natural forces, whether it's leaves, or birds, or weather, or whatever, so that there is something there. 45:49.433 --> 45:51.354 [SPEAKER_00]: The scene with a porter, I just laughed up. 45:52.075 --> 45:56.857 [SPEAKER_00]: come to because that scene is so wild and that scene interrupts the previous scene. 45:56.917 --> 46:00.559 [SPEAKER_00]: This is one of those moments when you're teaching performance from your teaching drama. 46:00.739 --> 46:03.881 [SPEAKER_00]: You get to look at how ask students to imagine what something would look like. 46:04.021 --> 46:06.742 [SPEAKER_00]: So often in the English classroom, we're reading this stuff, which is 46:07.442 --> 46:13.185 [SPEAKER_00]: a huge disservice to dramatic text that we just read them because they are meant to be seen in their meant to be performed. 46:13.585 --> 46:21.048 [SPEAKER_00]: So like when the Beth and Lady of Beth are interrupted by the knocking sound in the prior scene, this is when McDough is arriving it in Brnass and you know the investigators. 46:21.088 --> 46:22.188 [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a who done it again. 46:22.368 --> 46:24.129 [SPEAKER_00]: This play in a weird way. 46:24.769 --> 46:30.332 [SPEAKER_00]: That just pounding echoes so loudly in the hallways of the castle in the film. 46:30.932 --> 46:32.393 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the reporter, the reporter, 46:33.275 --> 46:35.096 [SPEAKER_00]: Listeners is likely comic relief. 46:35.216 --> 46:48.205 [SPEAKER_00]: He seems to be this character that is breaking some of the tension that's happening, but also talking about the devil and hell, and all that is fitting appropriately for what's happening in and for us at this point in time. 46:48.225 --> 46:51.127 [SPEAKER_00]: I wanna shout out one more article that I read for this. 46:51.167 --> 46:59.032 [SPEAKER_00]: We start talking about some of the ideas in this article with Ross, especially Ross as maybe this third party, this neutral, 46:59.813 --> 47:05.617 [SPEAKER_00]: I guess he's selfish in a way, but he's like a party of one, Ross is the person who wants to control things. 47:06.257 --> 47:11.220 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's Alex, Mike is Ross and the politics of what is saying in BicBeth Shakespeare and Cone. 47:11.740 --> 47:17.144 [SPEAKER_00]: This is from 2026, so it's a relatively recent article in Shakespeare, the journals called Shakespeare. 47:17.224 --> 47:18.605 [SPEAKER_00]: When you're Shakespeare, you get that sort of thing. 47:18.665 --> 47:19.926 [SPEAKER_00]: You get a journal just called Shakespeare. 47:20.706 --> 47:27.671 [SPEAKER_00]: The idea that Ross is witnessing all this and maybe then that makes me wonder, you know, just as a food for thought for our listeners, something maybe we can come back around to it. 47:27.711 --> 47:32.594 [SPEAKER_00]: Another point in the future on another timeline, are we meant to be seeing things through Ross as well? 47:32.775 --> 47:33.875 [SPEAKER_00]: Are we Ross in this film? 47:33.915

--> 47:47.165 [SPEAKER_00]: And if that's the case, what does that say about us and what our powers are to do when it comes to empowering other people or choosing who gets to be king or president or burrow counsel president or garbage man or dog catcher? 47:47.685 --> 47:47.905 [SPEAKER_00]: Right. 47:48.306 --> 47:50.387 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm getting silly at this point. 47:50.407 --> 47:56.412 [SPEAKER_00]: I think this is where my brain is saying we should turn to joy and I'll take the first bite at the apple here. 47:57.372 --> 47:58.393 [SPEAKER_00]: You've said it a couple of times. 47:58.453 --> 48:00.194 [SPEAKER_00]: This film is beautifully shot. 48:00.395 --> 48:11.283 [SPEAKER_00]: I am not an apple, sick of fat and apple fanboy, but apple TV and apple productions make beautiful films and beautiful TV shows. 48:11.303 --> 48:12.984 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like that is one thing I will say for them. 48:13.004 --> 48:13.824 [SPEAKER_00]: They are gorgeous. 48:13.864 --> 48:16.707 [SPEAKER_00]: They're always aesthetically, really pleasing to the eye. 48:17.725 --> 48:20.628 [SPEAKER_00]: the acting, whether it stands out Washington playing with Beth. 48:20.668 --> 48:26.495 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, come on, as someone to grew up in the 90s and the 2000s, that's a Washington is just the man. 48:26.555 --> 48:29.338 [SPEAKER_00]: He is one of the greatest living American actors. 48:30.840 --> 48:32.961 [SPEAKER_00]: I remember him from training day, winning his Oscar. 48:33.361 --> 48:36.782 [SPEAKER_00]: I remember him from all of these movies growing up, get to see him play McBeth. 48:37.303 --> 48:38.163 [SPEAKER_00]: Come on, that's awesome. 48:38.263 --> 48:39.603 [SPEAKER_00]: Francis McGorman, same thing. 48:39.703 --> 48:41.704 [SPEAKER_00]: This is acting royalty, literally. 48:42.104 --> 48:46.666 [SPEAKER_00]: These people are some of the greatest living American actors seeing them in these roles with so much fun. 48:47.326 --> 48:50.788 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, Katherine and Hunter, that's the name of our actress playing. 48:51.548 --> 48:52.008 [SPEAKER_00]: the witches. 48:52.448 --> 48:59.131 [SPEAKER_00]: That's I think it's really phenomenal to have the concept of moving the witches three into one. 48:59.631 --> 49:07.494 [SPEAKER_00]: And I like what you're saying about the Trinity, the way that might be a foil to that, what you know, we didn't really get into that too much, but I really love that observation argument. 49:08.035 --> 49:11.396 [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I mean, I just, I thoroughly love this play. 49:11.516 --> 49:13.497 [SPEAKER_00]: I love watching at applications of this play. 49:14.077 --> 49:14.817 [SPEAKER_00]: I have no complaints. 49:14.857 --> 49:15.918 [SPEAKER_00]: 10 out of 10, no notes. 49:16.418 --> 49:17.798 [SPEAKER_00]: Brian, let's get to your joy. 49:17.899 --> 49:18.799 [SPEAKER_00]: Which way did you have here? 49:19.440 --> 49:23.884 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, number one if we're supposed to see the play as

Ross, then I think we should pivot. 49:24.164 --> 49:25.265 [SPEAKER_01]: Am I right, pivot? 49:25.826 --> 49:26.066 [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry. 49:27.527 --> 49:28.028 [SPEAKER_01]: Good Lord. 49:28.729 --> 49:30.130 [SPEAKER_01]: I have lots of joy actually. 49:30.150 --> 49:32.932 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's beautifully shot in 100% with you. 49:33.113 --> 49:34.574 [SPEAKER_01]: The cast is absolutely incredible. 49:34.614 --> 49:36.516 [SPEAKER_01]: Denzel, Washington, Francis McDormann. 49:37.036 --> 49:39.078 [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't know Catherine Hunter, but 49:40.259 --> 49:41.320 [SPEAKER_01]: just absolutely incredible. 49:41.720 --> 49:57.413 [SPEAKER_01]: I was also brought to I buy a couple of things other cast members Stephen Root who does by the porter I love Steve Root he's hilarious and everything is he was recently in widows bay he's been in a couple of other things yeah from widows bay to Brooklyn 99 till all kinds of stuff to to make Beth 49:57.933 --> 50:02.734 [SPEAKER_00]: And wanted Emmy for what is by might have you want an Emmy for that role. 50:02.855 --> 50:03.355 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there you go. 50:03.815 --> 50:04.435 [SPEAKER_01]: Want an Emmy. 50:04.455 --> 50:09.156 [SPEAKER_01]: He was as I just watched get out with my students and he's also in get out. 50:09.436 --> 50:10.737 [SPEAKER_01]: We're really incredible. 50:11.237 --> 50:15.598 [SPEAKER_01]: But there's other people like Brendan Gleason, who is Duncan, right? 50:15.718 --> 50:17.519 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely incredible actor. 50:18.099 --> 50:21.700 [SPEAKER_01]: Harry Melling plays Malcolm and I was like, who is that? 50:21.780 --> 50:22.640 [SPEAKER_01]: I know that person. 50:22.680 --> 50:23.981 [SPEAKER_01]: They're so familiar. 50:24.381 --> 50:31.783 [SPEAKER_01]: This is so silly to shout out Harry Potter movies, but he plays Dudley and the Harry Potter movies kind of a silly thing to say. 50:32.284 --> 50:36.485 [SPEAKER_01]: But Cory Hawkins is in this, I don't know if you know Cory Hawkins, but there's a couple of 50:37.205 --> 50:41.246 [SPEAKER_01]: Another piece of joy is the relationship that it has to lend men well Miranda. 50:41.766 --> 50:49.028 [SPEAKER_01]: So, in Hamilton, there's a couple of lines where Hamilton compares himself to Macbeth, or he says other people are comparing himself to Macbeth. 50:49.108 --> 50:51.068 [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, he doesn't use the word Macbeth. 50:51.668 --> 50:53.989 [SPEAKER_01]: He talks about another Scottish play or something like that. 50:54.489 --> 50:56.610 [SPEAKER_01]: But he's Macbeth and like, yeah, it doesn't matter. 50:57.130 --> 50:58.070 [SPEAKER_01]: There's something interesting there. 50:58.090 --> 51:00.951 [SPEAKER_01]: But Cory Hawkins also plays the character 51:07.152 --> 51:24.947 [SPEAKER_01]: in the heights, which, I don't know, my family is all in on both of these productions and my six-year-old loves to sing, all of them, and so seeing Cory Hawkins, and I think in the heights is made in 2021, same year that this was made, and so there's just weird, really cool thing that happens at that point. 51:25.267 --> 51:27.689 [SPEAKER_01]: I also want to shout out Banquos eyebrows. 51:28.209 --> 51:28.770 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I- 51:30.160 --> 51:33.943 [SPEAKER_01]: If you watch this movie, you should definitely look at bank woes eyebrows. 51:34.103 --> 51:44.791 [SPEAKER_01]: If there's any set of eyebrows that screams designer eyebrows, it's bank woes eyebrows in this movie, absolutely incredible. 51:44.811 --> 51:49.454 [SPEAKER_01]: I enjoyed watching this, for sure, all of the kind of Gothic elements of Macbeth. 51:50.367 --> 51:53.468 [SPEAKER_01]: Put on screen, it was enjoyable to watch. 51:53.508 --> 51:57.410 [SPEAKER_01]: It was nice to kind of have to think through what they're actually saying absolutely loved it. 51:57.450 --> 51:59.150 [SPEAKER_01]: So Jeff, those are my joys. 51:59.310 --> 52:00.531 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to throw it back to you for fun. 52:00.551 --> 52:01.491 [SPEAKER_01]: I thought it's in lead us out. 52:03.372 --> 52:04.792 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't think I have any final thoughts. 52:04.912 --> 52:07.673 [SPEAKER_00]: Other than that again, I'll just shout out while I'll shout out first at local business. 52:07.693 --> 52:10.514 [SPEAKER_00]: We shout it out Burro Coffee on our last episode. 52:10.934 --> 52:12.595 [SPEAKER_00]: I will give a shout out to Spring Day. 52:12.615 --> 52:14.556 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm brewing out here and brewing spring. 52:15.096 --> 52:16.256 [SPEAKER_00]: Mike and Anita are a good people. 52:16.316 --> 52:17.677 [SPEAKER_00]: They make good beer, support. 52:19.027 --> 52:22.130 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's my opinion, but it's backed by objective evidence. 52:22.310 --> 52:24.071 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the best brewery in Blair County. 52:24.552 --> 52:26.373 [SPEAKER_00]: So come out, see spring dim, brewing. 52:27.174 --> 52:28.235 [SPEAKER_00]: Anywho, listeners. 52:29.096 --> 52:34.100 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for enjoying us on our witchy adventures through Joel Cohen's 2021 McBeth. 52:34.260 --> 52:37.263 [SPEAKER_00]: And remember to seek joy, even in horror. 52:40.843 --> 52:42.324 [SPEAKER_01]: This has been an episode of Orjoy. 52:42.625 --> 52:44.767 [SPEAKER_01]: Produced in conjunction with Axis Mundi Media. 52:44.987 --> 52:46.408 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for joining us, we want to hear from you. 52:46.629 --> 52:51.253 [SPEAKER_01]: You can find us at OrjoyPod on Instagram or at HoorjoyPod on YouTube. 52:51.713 --> 52:58.119 [SPEAKER_01]: You can also email us at HoorjoyPod at gmail.com all one word and you can of course find us wherever you get your podcasts. 52:58.900 --> 53:00.922 [SPEAKER_01]: Give us a like, subscribe, leave a review. 53:01.823 --> 53:03.044 [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, remember,