“Light thickens; and the crow/Makes wing to the rooky wood”: Birds and the blurring of boundaries between real and metaphorical nature in Joel Coen’s Macbeth

Abstract

This article discusses how the recent film adaptation of Macbeth directed by Joel Coen (2021) uses nature imagery – most prominently birds – to visualise ambiguities of literal and metaphorical meaning already inherent in the language of Shakespeare’s play, as well as Akira Kurosawa’s filmic adaptation Throne of Blood (1958). My arguments focus on the visual strategies used in Coen’s film to stylise the language of Shakespeare’s text for today’s cinematic audiences by drawing attention to the ways in which elements of nature are connected to specific characters, serving as harbingers of their emotional states and developments.