Shakespeare, Kurosawa and the Spider Webs of the Heart

A military leader and his friend withstand the invasion of a rival kingdom. Their king summons the heroes to his castle to reward them. En route, the warriors meet an ominous spirit who predicts their twofold fates: advancement and eventual kingship for both families. Shortly thereafter, each receives the first slice of his prophesied fruits, so the two begin to consider the promised second portions. If the spirit spoke truly, do I to wait for my fate to arrive or do I pursue it myself? With these thoughts, the leader returns to his wife, who pressures him to kill for the crown. His choices lead to blood and disaster.

This summary outlines the plot of Throne of Blood, by Akira Kurosawa, and if it sounds familiar, it's because the film depicts an adaptation of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. While the majority of adaptations flounder in relationship to their source, Throne of Blood prospers: the film maintains the spirit of Macbeth and at the same time achieves its own distinct form. Most of the changes to the play result necessarily, from the decision to transfer Shakespeare to a Japanese setting. Instead of eleventh century Scotland, the film occurs in medieval Japan of the late 1400s. Obviously, the names of people and places have to change; Washizu is the Macbeth figure and Asaji is his diabolic lady (who seems to move like an upright snake when she goes to retrieve a sleeping potion). Also, Kurosawa reduces the three witches to a single spirit. And instead of a specific country, the kingdom Washizu overtakes seems to be known as the Spider's Web.

One of the deliberate changes—which Stephen Prince points out in his helpful essay, "Shakespeare Transposed"—is the use of Noh Theater traditions. The Noh style originated in Japan, first appearing on its stages in the fourteenth century; three of its essential elements are music, masks, and stylized performances. About the last feature, its peculiar acting style, he says more: "Noh performance is a striking blend of stillness and agitation." This explains why characters in a Kurosawa film often behave wildly, exaggerating gestures and facial expressions. (Watch, for example, how the messenger knocks on the castle gate.) The style values physicality above language. Whereas Shakespeare reveals internal states through poetic language, Kurosawa conveys them through physical expression. Instead of realism, he aims at expressionism; instead of memorable individuals, he pursues universal types.

Aside from context, the lack of Shakespeare's language marks the greatest difference between Macbeth and Throne of Blood. Kurosawa replaces it with the poetry of his camera, and cinematic metaphor appears in the various representations of circles. Round shapes often hang on helmets: the great lord carries a nearly full circle, and Washizu wears a half moon—and these sizes seem consistent with rank. Another example occurs before Washizu and Miki engaged the spirit in the forest; it sits in a hovel and spins a wheel while it sings of the violence men circulate. Then before the final passage of the movie begins, guards outside the city gates exchange conversation in two circular rounds: each speaks in turn as the discussion rotates counter-clockwise, and each speaks again as their dialogue reverses into a full clockwise revolution.

The circles imply a cyclicality of rising and falling, a visual theme that compliments the content of Throne of Blood. Two odd-seeming scenes clarify its meaning. After Washizu receives his first promotion, peasant workers outside his new home remark, "Life can always be improved." A similar scene, and the same line, occurs in a lookout tower, after Washizu advances to the Spider's Web Castle. The line implies that even the lowest in society look for their opportunity to profit. Asaji tells her husband: "Did not the great lord secure his own position murdering his predecessor?" Washizu chooses to follow this example, to sustain the violent circle. Unlike Macbeth, Throne of Blood needs no hero to duel its villain, there is no Macduff to challenge the usurper and right his wrongs. Everyone has a death arrow to offer Washizu—every heart contains the capacity to murder. Perhaps the tragedy of Throne of Blood is that "humans are terrified to look into their own hearts." Watching Washizu choose the evil over the good of his heart discourages the audience from indulging its own.

A Quick Thought on Kurosawa's Ran

I saw Ran, recently, a film in which Kurosawa adapts Shakespeare's King Lear. The movie proved too immense to review after just one viewing, but one episode struck me particularly: the way Kurosawa startles us when one of the main characters is shot.

To accomplish this effect, Kurosawa places a castle in flames in the center of the shot, so that even though it occupies the background, we give our attention to the burning building. To the configuration he then adds two characters, each on a side of the frame, and positions them in the foreground. The frame presents a perfectly structured triangle. What amazes me is that all Kurosawa uses to pull off the effect is depth. By leading our eyes to the back of the shot, he surprises us in the front. No special effects, just masterful directing. This shot achieves the status of a composition—by that word I mean an arrangement of the frame that contributes meaning to the story—and nearly every sustained shot in Ran carries this kind of significant organization. Because his frames are this good consistently, I think you'll struggle to find a better composer of images in the movies.

A Man I'd Like You to Meet

Near the end of February, a friend asked me to borrow his Net-flicks account. Asked. I gave the request about two seconds of deliberation. How could I deny a favor to a friend?

Anyway, for the past six weeks, I have been using it to watch the films of Akira Kurosawa. I don't know how deep your awareness of movies goes, but critics count this Japanese director among the all-time greats. Many Kurosawa films influenced American ones. Yojimbo inspired A Fistful of Dollars, one of the movies that made Clint Eastwood famous. And you may not believe this but Hidden Fortress inspired Star Wars. These facts come from Roger Ebert, not myself, and can be found in his review of Seven Samurai in the first volume of The Great Movies.

Consequently, if ever a director was indebted to another, George Lucas owes Kurosawa. Consider the difference in quality between the earlier Star Wars films, the ones that borrowed from Kurosawa, and the newer films, the Star Wars prequels that Lucas wrote himself. The difference is not that Lucas dropped in quality; the difference is Kurosawa. (If any Star Wars die-hards are reading this, I'm probably moments from being blaster-shot, light-sabered, and Force-choked.)

To be fair to Lucas, Kurosawa also borrowed from the greats, especially Shakespeare. His Throne of Blood adapts Macbeth, and in Ran he uses the storyline of King Lear. (Both are the best adaptations of any Shakespeare Tragedies I have seen put to film.) And since I am getting most of this information from Ebert, I guess it is hypocritical of me to criticize Lucas. I just know the power of a Kurosawa film and want you to experience it.

Unfortunately, I think two factors deter the average movie fan from his films. First, all of his movies require subtitles. And second, most of them are about Samurais. Though the subtitles are unavoidable, the social practices, despite their unfamiliar eastern-ness, actually strengthen his movies. The culture of Japan and the code of the Samurai provide Kurosawa with a particular myth, by which I mean a shared set of ways a society establishes. (Unfortunately, our society has lost such a shared understanding about the most important things.)

Though his films most often occur in an eastern nation of the past, they view honor, social etiquette, the place of men and women, and religious ceremony specifically. This grounding in detail enables his films to achieve the universal. An American may know nothing about a Samurai, but seeing the specific way his society define integrity allows a Westerner to relate to such a figure, to recognize an honorable as well as a dishonorable Samurai.

If then these are issues keeping you from Kurosawa, I encourage you to overlook them. I don't have a Netflicks account to offer you, but I do have a recommendation. Try Ikiru, which to me seems to be based on The Death of Ivan Ilyich, a novella by Leo Tolstoy. It's about a middle-aged, city official who discovers that he has cancer in his stomach and only a few months to live. Mortality confronts him with the vanity of his life, and he responds with a search for something meaningful. What he discovers is real hope, a reward greatly worth the effort.