Throne of Blood
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| Throne of Blood | |
|---|---|
| Image:Throne of Blood poster.jpg Original Japanese poster | |
| Directed by | Akira Kurosawa |
| Produced by | Sojiro Motoki Akira Kurosawa |
| Written by | Shinobu Hashimoto Ryuzo Kikushima Akira Kurosawa Hideo Oguni William Shakespeare (play) |
| Starring | Toshirō Mifune Isuzu Yamada Takashi Shimura |
| Music by | Masaru Sato |
| Distributed by | Toho |
| Release date(s) | January 15 1957 |
| Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Throne of Blood (蜘蛛巣城 Kumonosu-jō?, literally "Spider Web Castle") is a black and white 1957 film directed by Akira Kurosawa, which transposes the plot of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth to medieval Japan. It is regarded as one of Kurosawa's best films, and by many critics as one of the best film adaptations of Macbeth, despite having almost none of the play's script.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Kurosawa follows the events of Macbeth fairly closely, although Kurosawa’s Washizu Taketori (played by Toshirō Mifune) is arguably less evil than Macbeth, while his wife Asaji (played by Isuzu Yamada) is even nastier than Lady Macbeth. As with the play, the main character's comrade (General Miki, played by Minoru Chiaki) is killed when he's perceived as a threat to the throne, only to return as a ghost.
There is no Macduff character in this picture; hence Washizu does not meet his end in a duel. Instead, in a spectacular scene he is shot by his own archers and stumbles forward like a porcupine before being shot in the neck. He slowly descends the stairs and dies, collapsing dramatically on the fog-soaked ground.
The film creates a phantasmal world of haunted forests, desolate landscapes and eerie encounters with a malevolent ghost that foretells Washizu's fate--a prophecy that leads him into a web of treachery and deceit, which results in his demise...
[edit] Production
Kurosawa was an admirer of Noh drama, and acknowledged the stylistic influence it had on Throne of Blood. This influence can be seen in many aspects of the film, from the staging, to the characterizations, to the editing and direction.
Washizu's famous death scene, in which his own archers turn upon him and fill his body with arrows, was in fact performed with real arrows, a choice made to help Mifune produce realistic facial expressions of fear. The arrows seen to impact the wooden walls were not superimposed or faked by special effects (this is disputed, however, as cables are visible several times during the sequence), but instead shot by choreographed archers. During filming, Mifune waved his arms, ostensibly because his character was trying to brush away the arrows embedded in the planks; this indicated to the archers the direction in which Mifune wanted to move.
[edit] Reception
The American literary critic Harold Bloom judged it "the most successful film version of Macbeth, though it departs very far from the specifics of the play."[1]
[edit] References
- ^ Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: 1999. ISBN 1-57322-751-X, p.519
[edit] External links
- "Shakespeare Transposed" essay by Stephen Price
- Program note from the 1957 San Francisco International Film Festival
- Throne of Blood at the Internet Movie Database
- Throne of Blood (Japanese) at the Japanese Movie Database
Films directed by Akira Kurosawa | |
|---|---|
| 1940s | |
| 1950s | Scandal · Rashomon · The Idiot · Ikiru · Seven Samurai · I Live in Fear · Throne of Blood · The Lower Depths · The Hidden Fortress |
| 1960s | |
| 1970s | |
| 1980s | |
| 1990s | |
es:Trono de sangre fr:Le Château de l'araignée id:Throne of Blood it:Il trono di sangue ka:ტახტი სისხლში ja:蜘蛛巣城 pl:Tron we krwi ru:Трон в крови (фильм)
