Martin (John Amplas), a young man who looks around 20-years-old, boards a train in Indianapolis, Indiana for New York. At night, he breaks into a sleeping car and sedates a woman with a syringe full of narcotics. She struggles, but he tells her not to struggle or be upset because she wont feel pain. After a few minutes, the woman falls asleep, and Martin has sex with the unconscious woman. Afterwards, he slices her wrists with a razor blade so he can drink her blood. The woman bleeds to death in her sleep.
In the morning, the train stops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Martin disembarks. He is met by Tata Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) an elderly and hostile old man who claims to be his cousin from the Old World. Together, they travel by another train to the town of Braddock, a dying industrial suburb. They walk to Cuda's large house where he shows Martin his living quarters. Cuda then accuses Martin of being an 84-year-old vampire from his old country. He has taken in Martin because he is family, but tells him, "First I will save your soul. Then I shall destroy you." Martin denies being a vampire and implies that Cuda is merely his uncle rather than his cousin. Cuda then puts up strings of garlic on the doors to his and his granddaughter's room, and then holds up a small cross when Martin approaches him. Martin takes away the cross, and even takes a bite of the garlic mocking these attempts by saying bitterly, "There's no real magic... ever". Cuda tells Martin that he can come and go as he pleases. But he also warns Martin that he will kill him if he kills anyone in Braddock. He also tells Martin to stay away from his granddaughter Christine (Christine Forrest), whom arrives home from her job that evening.
Cuda introduces Christine to Martin, but also warns her to stay away from him. But Christine instead strikes up a friendship with Martin who confides in her about his vampire heritage. When Cuda later confirms Martin's claims to be a vampire, Christine, not surprisingly, refuses to believe either one. She thinks that Cuda and the other members of her family have driven Martin to insanity by making him think that he is a vampire. It is never revealed if Martin really is a vampire, or just a shy and lonely youth with troubled issues. Christine is the only person that Martin gets the courage to talk to. When Christine's boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini) arrives at the house for dinner, Martin stops talking and backs away despite Arthur's attempt at a conversation. Christine later confides in Martin that she hopes to leave Braddock someday with Arthur, even though Martin points out that Arthur treats her badly and is both verbally and physically abusive towards her.
When Christine sees that Martin won't talk to anyone else, she buys him a phone which he installs in his room. Martin begins to repeatingly call a radio talk show where he describes what it's like to be a vampire. He becomes known on the radio as "the Count" to all the listeners. But the patronizing host (Michael Gornick) thinks he's just crazy.
Martin gets a job at Cuda's grocery store of stocking shelves, hauling boxes around, and even gets to be a delivery boy for some of the customers. One of his customers is a certain Abby Santini (Elyane Nadeau), who becomes taken in with Martin. She is a very friendly young woman who is depressed when she tells Martin that her husband is unfaithful. But Martin still does not have the nerve to talk with her, so she is happy to have someone to confide in with her life problems. Martin phones the radio show host to describe his infatuation with the housewife and senses that she wants to have sex with him. When the radio show host asks Martin if it is a sexual problem that he has involving women criticizing him during sex, Martin replies that he has never had sex with a woman who was awake.
One day, Martin travels by train to outside Braddock to look for victims. At a supermarket, he follows a young woman (Sarah Venable) home to her posh suburban house. He sees the woman's husband (Richard Rubenstein) leave for a long business trip, and Martin decides this would be the right time for more feeding. Martin returns to the house after dark and breaks in through the garage door. But it is Martin who gets the surprise when he bursts into her bedroom to find her in bed with her adulterous lover Lewis (Al Levitsky). After a vicious struggle, Martin jabs both of them with hyprodermic needles with narcotics, and waits for the drugs to take affect. He drags the unconscious body of Lewis from the house to a clump of trees across the street where he kills him by shoving a broken tree branch into his neck and drinks his blood. Martin returns to the house where he has sex with the unconscious woman. But out of compassion and pity, he decides to let her live.
Martin begins to have romantic monochrome visions of his vampire past (real or imagined), where he drained blood from a young woman and was chased through the streets of a nameless European town by a torch-lit mob.
During one Sunday at church, Cuda brings home Father Howard (George A. Romero) who asks him about the possibility of exorcism and demon possession. Father Howard calls upon the elderly Father Zulemans (Clifford Forrest, Jr.) over at Cuda's request. Together, Cuda and Zulemans confront Martin his bedroom and attempt to perform an exorcism on him. At this point, Martin remembers (another real or imaginary flashback), in the Old Country of people trying to perform an exorcism on him, and he flees them. Martin then flees from Cuda and Zuelmas as well. A little later that night, Martin terrorizes Cuda in a children's playground when he puts on a Dracula cape and puts false fangs into his mouth to pretend that he really is a vampire.
One day, Martin finally musters the courage to talk with Mrs. Santini during a routine delivery to her house where he tells her that he's aware of her attempts to seduce him and wants now to have sex with her. After having sex for the first time, Mrs. Santini becomes more depressed for she tells Martin that her husband just left her because she discovered that she cannot bear children, and that her desires towards him are based on sex and nothing else. But Martin wants to stay with her and help her move on with her life. Martin tells the radio show host about his affair with the housewife and that he no longer has the urge to attack other women.
Meanwhile, Arthur meets with Cuda and tells him that he wants Christine to leave town with him so they can get married and start a family. But Christine becomes angry at Cuda when he tells Arthur that insanity runs in their family and he shouldn't consider having children with her. Shortly afterwards, Christine packs up and leaves Braddock for New York with Arthur despite Martin telling her that Arthur is abusive towards her. But her mind is made up. Before leaving, Christine tells Martin that she really has no ill feelings towards him and just wants to make a fresh start with her life. She says goodbye to him and promises to write. But Martin knows that with an abusive and possessive man in Christine's life, she probably won't.
Depressed over losing his one true friend, Martin phones the radio show host and tells him that he's getting "shaky" and wants to go out looking for more victims. That night, Martin travels to a rough crime-ridden area of Pittsburgh and attacks two derelicts in a alley, injecting them with narcotics. He kills one of them by silting the bum's wrist and drinking his blood. Martin is about to kill the second one when a police car shows up and gives chase. Martin narrowly escapes during a long chase on foot which leads from the garbage strew streets and through a local store. Martin runs into an old warehouse where a drug deal is going down. A shootout between the two cops and the three thugs begins where all of them are killed, leaving Martin as the sole survivor who casually walks away from the carnage.
One day, Martin finds Mrs. Santini dead in her bathtub, after she had slit her writs with a razor blade. Martin anonymously calls the police to report the body and leaves. He phones the radio show host one final time to say that he really doesn't need friends or people to talk to for he is his own person. But when Cuda learns about Mrs. Santini's suicide, is mistakenly thinks Martin killed her and made it look like a suicide as he's done before. Cuda walks into Martin's room while he is asleep and kills him by hammering a wooden stake through Martin's heart.
Cuda buries Martin's body in his back garden, while over the closing credits various voices from people are heard talking to the radio show host asking the whereabouts of "the Count".
颇具野心但效果不佳的改编。女巫的表演最惊艳。
科恩兄弟掰了之后老大个人的第一部，德国表现主义的视觉构成仍然承载着黑色电影的内核。取景之逼仄，近身肉搏的高超调度，给人近在眼前的舞台感。女巫太强大，技压群芳，过目不忘。反倒是饰演麦克白夫妇的两个老戏骨自信得过了头，与沉溺于疯狂偏执之中的角色略微不合。乔尔牛逼！
My voice is in my sword.受不太了这个美学
强劲的心理暗示，让预言被说出的一刻已经必然引发完整的现实，也让付之行动的即刻就已注定其后所有的代价。视觉艺术加上场景精简的科恩版麦克白，并没有焕发出特别的光彩，甚至都能说缺乏新意和趣味，这可能是本片最让人意想不到的部分了。麦克白和其夫人的塑造并没展示出更新鲜的角度和相对深入的挖掘，主题的呈现也难说充分，除了美则美矣的光影，只有Kathryn Hunter的三女巫带来了一点惊喜。三星半
建筑设计很有意思，新古典主义美学在光影中被推向极致。行善只需要跟随内心的声音即可，而作恶却需要很强大。
科恩哥哥独立打造吗，他是有点想表达的东西啊。极具风格化的一部电影，从画幅到布景，再到表演到台词，完完全全莎翁年代味了，文绉绉的话语搭配在华盛顿身上，显得非常反串和搞笑，但是进入麦克白的世界以后，一切就都醇厚正宗了。古代人死于预言，这回是移动的树林能杀人
才看过一部<绿衣骑士>，我就熟悉了A24的影像风格，果然这味道纯正独特。黑白影像确实会增强演员的演技，我从没看过Denzel Washington有过这种水准的表演，即使是<训练日>里的表演，也不及这部。原先把麦克白搞成麦克黑让我还有些些不爽，但事实证明，老丹还是罩得住的。McDormand演得也很好，加上莎士比亚的全金句台词，还有什么可挑剔的？虽然熟的不能再熟，可是每次看到这些金句从演员嘴里吐出来，还是会疑惑：这世上怎么会有用比喻修辞用得这么好的人？
还挺希望乔尔大胆改一下的。可惜本质上是旧剧场的。转场的手段有意无意地强化了段落感，人物的出现和退场也都被严密安排。调度执拗（僵硬）到甚至像能读到剧本一般：“地点，城堡。麦克白上。与大臣争吵。下。”所以只能看到场景，而难以形成情境。几乎是一个步调，没有强弱，缺乏变奏。视觉是好看的，像不断翻新的舞台布景。但极致形式的背面，是情感的虚无。于是注定会缺乏宿命感：过分冷漠从来不是悲剧的根源，过分的渴望才是。
话剧式的电影，黑白配色会让质感更有张力。观众能比较容易get中心含义。很safe和扎实的作品。
第一次看麦克白，确实是精彩的戏剧，不愧是莎翁。翻译应该很幸苦吧，全是古英语而且辞藻华丽不说人话
还挺希望乔尔大胆改一下的。可惜本质上是旧剧场的。转场的手段有意无意地强化了段落感，人物的出现和退场也都被严密安排。调度执拗（僵硬）到甚至像能读到剧本一般：“地点，城堡。麦克白上。与大臣争吵。下。”所以只能看到场景，而难以形成情境。几乎是一个步调，没有强弱，缺乏变奏。视觉是好看的，像不断翻新的舞台布景。但极致形式的背面，是情感的虚无。于是注定会缺乏宿命感：过分冷漠从来不是悲剧的根源，过分的渴望才是。
科恩采用表现主义，却又把古典表现得过于古典，反而少了一些新意
众所周知，科恩是黑泽明粉丝，黑泽明是莎翁粉丝。所以这部电影是不是透过的布层有点多了，反而费劲。
丹泽尔华盛顿演得确实是不太行……灯光真漂亮，女巫那几场戏非常好。
相比15版麦克白逊色不少，戏剧般的形式感和黑白并没有加分，最重要的内心情感戏也是一带而过，不知道在拍些什么……
I have no words it’s so well made in every single aspect. I loved the witches, the birds, the leaves, the girl in the water, the monologue. Frances McDormand and Denzel Washington are THE actors of their generation. Will need a rewatch with subtitles in the future.
一眼看去立即会想到劳伦斯奥利弗的几部莎剧改编电影，同时外景是塔可夫斯基式的，城堡是德莱叶式的，建筑内光影有点费里尼味…唯独没看出来哪里像科恩。莎剧原词卡在“日常腔调”和“舞台腔调”之间魅力略微流失，演员话剧式表演被放在特写镜头里所有小动作和控制不到位的表情都被无限放大，科恩正反打则完全失去了曾经的魅力。这版改编看似风格化（然而kitsh）但并未给出什么值得深探的视角，我唯一能试着尝出的新味道大概是“用衰老来解释对权势的痴念贪执”。总之较为失望吧
场景和服装上配合黑白色的冷峻 画面与剧情一样有着强烈的反差和跌宕 但并没有想象的那么科恩 反而比较中规中矩的戏剧翻牌 把舞台剧拍的不舞台并不容易 但本片对舞台剧的走位和构造都有着极为考究的运镜 但就内核而言 黑色幽默并不适合这个古朴的经典
视听效果极佳的电影戏剧。恍惚中我看到了两个心灵备受自身罪恶折磨的拉斯科尔尼科夫！不过尽管两位主演都是我非常喜欢的，电影没有期待中的那么精彩。
纽约电影节看的首映。完全舞台化的打光和表演，转场很惊艳。
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