In
the first moments of Throne of Blood,
Akira Kurosawa’s self-assured reimagination of Shakespeare’s Macbeth as a
samurai epic, we see the Japanese landscapes that provide the backdrop for the
action as they are enveloped in a thick mist. In the final moments of the film,
after the people’s plans have been thwarted and the mighty have fallen, we see
the mist roll in to reclaim the land. By framing this tragic tale of human
ambition this way, Kurosawa seems to be underscoring the futility of any such
determination. Unlike Shakespeare, he doesn’t even pause to show us the
successor to the throne. At the end of this game, nature, not any man, is the
true ruler of the land. Everything about Throne
of Blood is similarly focused on an earthy insistence that these ambitions
are entirely unnatural. Instead of chastising her husband’s masculinity as
Lady Macbeth did when Macbeth balks before killing the king, Lady Washizu prods
her husband (Toshiro Mifune) onward by reminding him that the king himself
killed his predecessor to ascend to the throne. This radical shift in the text
slides the blame from Washizu specifically onto the culture at large. He’s not
transgressing the rules of his society so much as living up to its skewed
standards.
Kurosawa’s
dim view of humanity in the face of nature in Throne of Blood is reflected everywhere visually. The forest spirit
that prophesizes Washizu’s fate (and recalls the medium from Kurosawa’s Rashomon)
is only the most overtly eerie benchmark of the consistently disturbing imagery
that the film offers up. The shots of her spinning her silk as she sings a
mysterious dirge of doom are scarier than any Western witch ever was. Nearly
every visual that the film throws at us similarly seems as if it’s been
calculated to stir up unrest in the audience though. Kurosawa creates here a
world with a real sense of scale, but then uses filters of rainfall, sunlight,
and dust to create a moody atmosphere that you can’t quite shake. When the
forest begins to encroach upon Cobweb Castle at the end of the film, and birds
begin to assault Washizu, Kurosawa’s imagery creates the same sense of dread
in the audience as in Washizu since it’s so disturbingly unreal. He masks the
soldiers that are carrying the bushes in a thick shroud of fog so that it seems
as if nature itself is approaching the castle, ready to attack.
Kurosawa’s
tone is a little slower than usual here, but when compared to most Shakespeare
adaptations, it’s downright zippy. His focus on the battle scenes makes sense
since they were the turning points of Shakespeare’s narrative. Huge chunks of
narrative fat have been sliced away, and the bits that are remain are often
conveyed nearly exclusively in visual terms (most notably the silent night
during which Washizu murders his liege). Mifune’s acting has always been a bit
theatrical, so his slight exaggerations here only add to the impact of what’s
such a strongly illustrated film. His reaction when his guilt causes him to see
the ghost of his former king is only surpassed by the stunning finale in which
he seems to be shot by a seemingly infinite rain of arrows. As imposing a
caricature he is, Isuzu Yamada’s Lady Washizu stands up to him as an equal.
Her flat affect and emotionless demeanor make her sinister plots all the more
unsettling. She’s not the most sympathetic actress to have played Lady Macbeth,
but she’s one of the most frightening. It’s only in the few moments where he
pauses to show us the reactions of the peasants that Kurosawa’s film stumbles.
Although Kurosawa always likes to stratify the society that his films take place
in, here the inclusion of the peasants’ voices seems a more serious misstep
than usual. Throne of Blood is a story
of a man who attempts to challenge nature itself. To stop to listen to what the
peanut gallery has to say seems utterly beside the point. Still, the film is
hardly affected by what amounts to about three minutes of footage since it
otherwise spins such a darkly compelling worldview.
