Throne of Blood

Infobox Film
name = Throne of Blood

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image_size =
caption = Original Japanese poster
director = Akira Kurosawa
producer = Sojiro Motoki
Akira Kurosawa
writer = Shinobu Hashimoto
Ryuzo Kikushima
Akira Kurosawa
Hideo Oguni
William Shakespeare (play)
narrator =
starring = Toshirō Mifune
Isuzu Yamada
Takashi Shimura
music = Masaru Sato
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = Toho
released = January 15, 1957
runtime = 105 minutes
country = Japan
language = Japanese
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:49796
imdb_id = 0050613nihongo|"Throne of Blood"|蜘蛛巣城|"Kumonosu-jō"|literally "Spider Web Castle" is a 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.

Plot

Kurosawa follows the events of "Macbeth", although Kurosawa’s Washizu Taketori (played by Toshirō Mifune) is arguably less evil than 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.

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 and reverse motion photography was probably used), 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.

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." [Harold Bloom, "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human". New York: 1999. ISBN 1-57322-751-X, p.519]

References

External links

* [http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=190&eid=295&section=essay "Shakespeare Transposed"] essay by Stephen Price
* [http://history.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=5074&search_by=3&searchfield=1957 Program note] from the 1957 San Francisco International Film Festival
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* " [http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/1957/cg000350.htm Throne of Blood] " ja icon at the Japanese Movie Database