Shakespeare a World Away Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Throne of Blood’ is the finest film rendering of any of Shakespeare’s plays By David Mermelstein
http://www.wsj.com/articles/shakespeare-a-world-away-1451062803
A new screen version of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard reminds us that cinematic refractions of the Bard’s most famous plays are never entirely out of fashion. Though Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh (two actor-directors especially associated with adapting Shakespeare to the big screen) never made movies of the “Scottish play,” other eminent filmmakers have. In 1948, Orson Welles gave us a brogue-heavy, noir-inflected version, with himself in the title role. And in 1971, Roman Polanski opted for a highly naturalistic, often graphically violent approach, emphasizing youthful ambition taken to extremes.
But the most nuanced and unsettling screen version of “Macbeth” strays far from Shakespeare’s text, though not its spirit. Directed by Akira Kurosawa— and performed in Japanese—“Throne of Blood” (1957) is frequently cited by cinéastes and scholars as the medium’s finest rendering of any Shakespeare play. Kurosawa has been described as the “least Japanese” of his country’s great film directors, and several of his movies draw on Western source material: Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky, even the American crime writer Ed McBain—in addition to Shakespeare, to whom he would return late in life when adapting “King Lear” as “Ran” (1985).
Filmed in austere black-and-white by Asakazu Nakai, who shot a dozen films for Kurosawa between 1946 and 1985, “Throne of Blood” (more accurately translated as “Spider’s Web Castle”) is set in feudal Japan, roughly contemporaneous with its English-language inspiration. Because keeping the names and titles Shakespeare assigned his characters made no sense in Japanese, Kurosawa and his co-writers opted for equivalents.
Macbeth became Washizu; Lady Macbeth, Asaji; and Banquo, Miki. And just as success in “Lear,” “Hamlet” and “Richard III” is impossible without extraordinary actors playing the all-important title roles, so Kurosawa selected two of Japan’s greatest stars, Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada, for his leads. He then upped the ante and had them use contrasting acting styles to convey their characters, a juxtaposition that enhanced both performances.
Mifune and Kurosawa were midway through their unrivaled 16-film partnership—which includes the classics “Rashomon” (1950) and “Seven Samurai” (1954)—when they filmed “Throne of Blood.” Though Mifune was reportedly a refined and cultured man in real life, his persona on screen was often coarse, making him an ideal choice for the ruthless and ambitious Washizu, whose conflicted feelings the actor conveys with raw, at times unmoored, power. In the film’s celebrated final scene, when Washizu’s own troops turn on him, and a spray of arrows transforms him into something of a Japanese St. Sebastian, the character’s fear is palpable—and so is ours, especially once we learn that real archers were shooting at Mifune, who wore wooden boards underneath his costume of medieval armor.
Yamada, a celebrated stage actress in Japan, made only three movies with Kurosawa (all within five years), but if anything, she haunts the memory even more than Mifune does. While “Throne of Blood” draws its primary narrative from Shakespeare, its mise-en-scène derives from Kurosawa’s lifelong interest in Noh drama—and Lady Asaji is the character most clearly linked to this tradition. Yamada’s severe makeup—her face resembles a Noh mask—and almost immobile manner lend her part a disturbing chill. When she does move, her minutely calibrated gestures and subtle inflections of language (apparent even to those who don’t speak Japanese) carry an insidious diabolical quality.
But more than superb acting holds our attention here. Kurosawa, always a stickler for detail, took enormous care to create an environment at once grittily real and supernatural. Spider’s Web Forest, for example, where Washizu and Miki meet the witch whose prophesies set the story in motion, possesses a luminous, alien quality, in marked contrast to the fog-enshrouded Spider’s Web Castle, the set of which Kurosawa ordered built on the foothills of Mount Fuji. And though seen only fleetingly, the advance of the forest toward the castle (read: till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane) is presented with breathtaking realism. All of this—along with the spare, claustrophobic interiors that evoke the Noh aesthetic—fell under the supervision of Yoshiro Muraki, the film’s production designer, who would work with Kurosawa on 19 films over 45 years. And Masaru Sato’s spartan score must also be praised, its shrill bamboo flute and martial percussion effects enriching an already atmospheric sound design.
Beyond these considerable merits, “Throne of Blood” lays another claim to greatness. It demonstrates conclusively that Shakespeare’s concerns and moral lessons are not just timeless but universal. For how better to confirm the eternal verities contained within “Macbeth” than to convey them through a different medium, grafted to a drama in another language whose action takes place a world away?
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