Comparison Of Macbeth And The Film Throne Of Blood

Literature vs. Cinema Williams Shakespeare’s timeless plays have exited the imaginations of people for more than four centuries. The Tragedy of Macbeth is one such play that has delighted audiences since it originated around the seventeenth century. The Scottish play has been performed, reenacted, and revisioned an inestimable amount of times. The film, Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1961 is one such adaptation. It is less of a direct reenactment and more of a translation of the play reimagined. The film transforms Mac Beth, taking him from the original 11th century Scotland setting, and altering him into samurai warrior Taketoki Washizu of 16th century medieval Japan. There are clear differences between the original stage …show more content…
In the second scene, messengers deliver the news of battle to King Duncan. It is not until the third scene that Macbeth is presented, the three witches pronounce that he will one day be king, and he is tempted with thoughts of regicide. Kurosawa treats these opening scenes in very interesting and distinct ways. The three witches connected to the three weird sisters of Greek mythology are combined into the one female mythical creature the Onibaba of Japanese folklore. The Onibaba, as seen in the filmic version, has the appearance of a shriveled old woman with wild-looking hair and is often portrayed living in a bamboo hut with a spinning wheel. The Onibaba is not apparent in the beginning sequencing but a sense of supernatural power is created by the ominous words of the unseen chorus, which reiterate an ill-omened chanting. The supernatural, like in Macbeth, mingles with essence of nature. It is conjured through the desolation of the landscape as the movie sequence opens on a bleak arrangement of mountains shrouded with fog. The camera pans through the entire region exhibiting its profound despair and creates a discomfort which becomes intensified with the chanting of the chorus. The fog adds a feeling of ambiguity and establishes an abysmal atmosphere where the awareness of the …show more content…
Macbeth exposes one of Shakespeare 's most menacing women. Lady Macbeth is an ambitious woman striving for power. She persuades Macbeth that only the murder of the king will lead to a fulfilment of the prophecy. Often by belittling his masculinity, Lady Macbeth ultimately inspires her husband to commit regicide and murder friends in order to gain power. In Kurosawa’s adaptation Lady Asaji also persuades Washizu to murder his Lord. Lady Asaji dose this in a much more manipulative way. She convinces Washizu that his desires to be lord as something that every man who picks up a weapon feels. She then convinces him that his childhood friend Miki is going present himself to the Lord, and in an attempt to find favor, will claim that Washizu is an usurper. She tells Washizu that there are only to paths he can take, be killed by the Lord or Kill the Lord and take over his castle. In the original we come to regard Lady Macbeth as an evil woman suffering from a remorseful conscience. The imaginary bloodstained hands that Lady Macbeth attempts to scrub symbolize her guilt. Her perceived suicide is often taken by the audience as a sign that she finder her own actions where horrendous cannot live with them. Kurosawa 's interpretation of the hand-washing scene is quite different: Lady Asaji appears to be possessed by her actions. The blood on her hands is seen as a consequence of her activities and not as a