After my Macbeth-a-thon, James and I watched Akira Kurosawa's 1957 Macbeth adaptation Throne of Blood. I was really looking forward to this one after how much I enjoyed Yojimbo. It did not disappoint and I absolutely understand why it is so well regarded.
Background
Throne of Blood was directed by Akira Kurosawa and written by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Ryūzō Kikushima, and Hideo Oguni. (Kikushima also co-wrote Yojimbo.) All of the principle characters are analogs to characters in Macbeth, with Toshiro Mifune as Washizu (Macbeth), Isuzu Yamada as Asaji (Lady Macbeth), and Minoru Chiaki as Miki (Banquo). Several of the actors in this film showed up again in Yojimbo, most obviously Mifune who played the lead in both, but also Yamada who played the formidable matriarch Orin, as well as the minor players Takashi Shimura (Noriyasu / Macduff) and Yoichi Tachikawa (Kunimaru / Malcolm). (The latter two both gave me moments of "Wait, I know that guy!")
The story has been relocated to feudal Japan in and around Spider's Web Forest, but other than the change in names and setting, it is a very direct adaptation. The specifics of Washizu/Macbeth's death are different than the original but the rest of the plot is almost identical. After a battle against a rebellious commander, Washizu and Miki (Banquo) encounter a witch in Spider's Web Forest who greets Washizu with a title he does not yet have, and then prophesies that he will be Lord of Spider's Web Castle, as will Miki's descendants. (I say "witch" but it's referred to as an "evil spirit.")
Washizu's wife Asaji persuades him to murder Lord Tsuzuki when he visits their home and then pin the murder on his guards. Tsuzuki's son Kunimaru (Malcolm) flees Washizu's home with Noriyasu (Macduff). Washizu is crowned and then has Miki murdered, though his son Yoshiteru (Fleance) escapes.
Noriyasu, Yohsiteru, and Kunimaru raise a rebellion. Washizu returns to Spider's Web Forest to seek out the witch, who tells him that he will not be defeated until the trees of Spider's Web Forest march on the castle. He returns and tells his men the prophecy in order to assure them of his invincibility. Asaji desperately tries to wash the blood only she can see off of her hands and Washizu sees that the trees are marching on the castle, having been cut down by Noriyasu's men to hide themselves.
Washizu's men, seeing the jig is up, shoot him dead in a hail of arrows. The End.
As you can see the plot is very close to the play's with the biggest divergence being that the Macduff analog Noriyasu is extremely de-emphasized, getting no mention in the second prophecy and not being present for Washizu's death. He's barely in this, as is the Malcolm analog, Kunimaru.
A Side Quest about Translation
James and I watched the subtitled Criterion Collection version of this, which gives the option of subtitles by Donald Richie or Linda Hoagland. We chose the Richie version, mostly because that was the option that came up first. As usual when I do these deep dives, i look to see if I can find a transcript or script online so I can double check quotes etc. I found a transcript that I'm fairly positive is for the Richie translation, as I recognized some very specific and striking wording. I also found a script by Hisae Niki which, while obviously not the same as the Richie in the syntactical details, is pretty close conceptually.
I also saw that HBO Max had Throne of Blood available for streaming and out of curiosity I rewatched the first witch scene which sent me down an unexpected rabbit hole.
The HBO subtitles are really different, to the point where in some cases I'm not sure how it could just be a different interpretation of the same text, the way it obviously is with the Richie / Niki versions.
A side by side of the witch's song will be illustrative:
Richie: Strange is the world Why should men receive life in this world? Men's lives are as meaningless as the lives of insects The terrible folly of such suffering A man lives but as briefly as a flower Destined all too soon to decay into the stink of flesh Humanity strives all its days To sear its own flesh in the flames of base desire Exposing itself to Fate's Five Calamities Heaping karma upon karma All that awaits man at the end of his travails Is the stench of rotting flesh that will yet blossom into flower Its foul odor rendered Into sweet perfume Oh, fascinating, the life of Man, oh, fascinating | HBO: Men are vain and death is long And pride dies first within the grave For hair and nails are growing still When face and fame are gone Nothing in this world will save or measure up man's actions here Nor in the next for there is none This life must end in fear Only evil may maintain an afterlife for those who will Who love this world, who have no son, to whom ambition calls Even so this false fame falls Death will reign, man dies in vain |
One thing that immediately jumped out at me is that, in addition to the evocative imagery being removed, the HBO text makes specific reference to those "who love this world, who have no son, to whom ambition calls." This is a pretty direct statement about Washizu, but really isn't present in either the Richie or Niki text.
It also seems to me that the HBO text has stripped a lot of the more Buddhist sounding ideas from it, specifically the death / rebirth cycle and references to karma. "Buddhist" may not be quite right, here; my apologies as I am no religious scholar, but whatever the philosophical framework is the HBO text de-universalizes it quite a bit.
This seems to be a trend that I also noticed in the framing narration that happens over the funerary marker for Spider's Web Castle. These are the opening lines of the film, chanted by an unseen Noh chorus*:
Richie: Look upon the ruins of the castle of delusion Haunted only now by the spirits of those who perished A scene of carnage, born of consuming desire Never changing, now and throughout eternity | HBO: Behold within this place Now desolated, stood once a mighty fortress Lived a proud warrior murdered by ambition His spirit walking still Vain pride, then as now, will lead ambition to the kill |
(*A Noh chorus has a similar function to a Greek chorus in Greek Tragedy, extra diegetically commenting on what you're seeing.)
The HBO version takes this chant from a general statement about the spirits of slaughtered men and cycles of violence to something about Washizu in specific. Also, as a bonus weirdness the HBO version doesn't translate the text of the marker "Here stood Spider's Web Castle." Obviously it could be inferred, but I think it blunts a lot of the force of the image if you don't know that it's essentially a grave marker for the Castle itself.
There were other parts of the HBO translation that seemed weirdly literal and lost a lot of the poetry and wordplay of the Richie translation. I know that's a potentially pretty fraught statement as I don't speak Japanese and for all I know Richie just made all of that up. Maybe the original Japanese has the flexibility to support the Richie, Hoagland, Niki, and HBO translations, though, as I said above, Richie's translation is a lot closer to the Niki one than it is to the HBO one. If the HBO translator just went with a different angle that was in fact present in the original, he/she seems to be the outlier.
One small but pointed reason I'm very not inclined to give the HBO one the benefit of the doubt as to fidelity is because it consistently calls the castle "Forest Castle" rather than "Spider's Web Castle." In the scene I checked, between Washizu and Asaji you can very clearly hear them saying "Kumonosu" which per google literally means "Spider's Web." It's such a small thing, but so much of the imagery of the movie involves spider webs, both in the language and in the cinematography choices, that it's completely bonkers to me that someone would choose to just jettison the name for no reason. I really don't know what to make of this, especially since this isn't even a case of the translation being too literal for it's own good because "Spider's Web" is the literal f*cking translation of "Kumonosu."
It's also really strange and, bluntly, kind of shitty that I can't seem to find who did the translation of the HBO version. A translator has so much influence on a work that they're essentially another screenwriter, and regardless of whether the translation is "better" or "worse" it's crappy that no one seems to have bothered to even credit them here.
I have a working theory about why this translation is so different, but it's basically a wild guess. What if the HBO subtitles are just the transcription of some old brute force dub that I can't scare up? To look at it cynically, If films get dubbed primarily to introduce them to new markets while keeping them "palatable" to a casual viewer, that might explain the sanding off of less familiar (to English speaking audiences at least) philosophical concepts as well as the injection of a more direct connection in the framing device to Washizu himself. I don't want to say "dumbing it down" but, you know, "dumbing it down." The Criterion Collection is trying to preserve Kurosawa's vision in addition to just selling it, so it makes sense that they'd put more effort into it, in retaining both the poetry of the language and the imagery and making sure the translators actually get credited.
Or it's some bullshit AI thing, but i don't know if the timeline works out for that.
What's really crazy to me is that I can't seem to find anyone else online who has noticed this. I've hit a lot of dead ends trying to figure it out. Maybe it has to do with the fact that English speakers who care enough to do in depth discussions of Kurosawa's films are probably the people that buy the Criterion Collection.
All that to say, anything I quote in this piece will be from the Richie translation, and I really don't "trust" that the HBO translation is reflective of Kurosawa's vision. And fidelity aside, I found the HBO version far less compelling.
The Film, Finally
Setting
Throne of Blood, like Yojimbo is a jidaigeki film (i.e. Japanese period piece) shot in black and white. It's realistically shot though there is a sort of dreamlike veneer to some of it, particularly the parts in and around Spider's Web Forest. There is a lot of mist, fog, and wind. I would not be shocked to find out that the aesthetic of Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) is partially an homage to this. Like that film there's a lot of light and whiteness in the palette.
There are long stretches of silence in this movie and in general Kurosawa is not afraid to let scenes take their time unfolding. The pacing feels very purposeful and the film is never a slog. For reference, the run time is about 1 hour and 50 minutes.
There's almost a pall hanging over much of it, a sort of ominous and oppressive weight. An early standout example of this is when Washizu and Miki are lost in the mist in the forest trying to find their way to Spider's Web Castle. It was tense and unsettling and after they finally find their way and set down to rest, having the castle loom in the background while they talk felt menacing.
Spider's Web Forest
"The Spider's Web Forest is but a web of trails. Do not let the paths beguile you. Avoid the trails. Once inside the forest, ride straight through the trees, and press only forward."
Spider's Web Forest is intrinsically tied to the action and if there were one word I'd use to describe its function it would be "entanglement." It's a bewildering maze that surrounds the castle, it produces the prophecy that sets the tragedy in motion, and Washizu gets ensnared by it, both figuratively and literally. Its trees signal his defeat. This is kind of a cliche statement but the Spider's Web feels like a character in the drama, and a malevolent one at that.
When Wahsizu looks out from the castle at the end and sees the trees swirling in the mist it's haunting and hypnotic and I like that the motion is a little ambiguous. You can't see any people in the shot and the trees mostly look like they're being blown around in a high wind; their actual movement towards the castle is subtle. It's almost a scene of Lovecraftian madness as Washizu stares into the hostile forest and can't quite comprehend what he's seeing. He just knows the waving boughs mean his doom. It's a really striking visual.
There's a lot of shots that tie into the idea of entanglement, like the scenes of riders in the forest shot through vines or the embedded arrows that Washizu desperately claws through at the end which evoke the image of spiderwebs.
Overall this movie looks really good and was obviously blocked and composed with care. There's great practical tricks, like the witch's disappearing hovel, where the camera closely follows Washizu through the doorway and into the woods and then pulls back to reveal the entire structure is now gone, all in one shot with no cuts. This happens again later with Miki's ghost and it's a really cool effect.
There's some really nicely composed shots with multiple levels of action in varying depths of field, similar to the scene I mentioned in Yojimbo where "you can see Gonji hanging in the foreground and the Ushitoras in the mid-ground facing off against Sanjuro who is standing in the background."
Similar to what I said about Yojimbo, Kurosawa uses a lot of wipes as scene transitions. It's clearly part of his filmmaking vocabulary. I don't know if it was standard for Japanese cinema at the time, or cinema in general, but it's definitely kind of odd to a modern eye. It's not particularly distracting, though.
A Mood - Opening Credits and a Framing Device
Throne of Blood immediately establishes its mood. Like in-the-opening-credits-immediately. The kanji characters are jagged like slashed wounds and are set to an unsettling and angry score with strings, timpani and keening dissonant flutes.
The first shot of the movie is of the mist blasted and windswept hills where the aforementioned grave marker marks the spot where Spiderweb's Castle once stood. The castle is gone. The people are gone. The Noh chorus, in voiceover, chants:
Look upon the ruins of the castle of delusion
Haunted only now by the spirits of those who perished
A scene of carnage, born of consuming desire
Never changing, now and throughout eternity
It's a really downer opening that reminds me of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Ozymandias:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
After Washizu is killed, the film closes with this same scene again. (The text is the same in the Richie translation though, weirdly, the HBO version's translation here is a little different, adding the line "Murderous ambition will pursue beyond the grave to give its due." Not being a Japanese speaker it's hard to say for sure but the opening and closing chants sure sound the same to me so, again, don't really know what to make of that.)
No(h) Fear Shakespeare
This is a Shakespeare adaptation without the Shakespearean language. The script is fairly naturalistic so characters don't have asides revealing their thoughts. Their inner worlds are mostly revealed through the emotions playing across their faces.
Early standout moments of this are Washizu and Miki's confused (and frightened) reactions to the appearance of the witch and their stunned (and frightened) reactions to Washizu receiving his new title, which confirms that the witch did in fact tell them the future. They are extremely freaked out and both Mifune and Chiaki completely sell it.
There are times when the wordless acting almost has a silent film vibe, maybe being slightly exaggerated but somehow not feeling over the top and retaining a convincing naturalism. As I understand it, Kurosawa was trying to incorporate elements of Noh theater, a traditional form of Japanese drama, which uses exaggerated masks and stylized movements.
It's also really interesting how the absence of soliloquy affects the storytelling. In Macbeth, Banquo says out loud regarding Macbeth's crowning "I fear you have play'd most foully for it." In Throne of Blood, does Miki suspect Washizu? Miki does not open the castle doors for the fleeing Noriyasu and Kunimaru, nor does he open them for Washizu. We don't know where his head is at and neither does Washizu. It emphasizes our protagonist's growing paranoia by letting us share his uncertainty.
Miki/Banquo's Ghost
Another really cool example of the film using uncertainty to dramatic effect is how it handles Miki's ghost. We are not shown Washizu ordering Miki's murder nor do we hear him countenancing it. We see him seemingly at peace with naming Miki's son as his heir in return for Miki's backing his election as he has no children. Asaji then drops the bomb that she's pregnant but then the scene ends.
We don't even know Miki is dead until his ghost appears at Washizu's banquet. This itself is a neat re-contextualization. During the celebration, Washizu keeps looking at Miki's empty place setting with increasing anguish and you initially think it's anger at being snubbed and growing suspicion but after Miki's ghost appears it's clear that it was actually guilt and worry about whether the dead was done.
Miki's ghost is almost beatific and doesn't even look at Washizu which is an interesting change from the play where it stares accusingly at him. The accusation Washizu feels is purely from within.
Toshiru Mifune as Washizu
Toshiru Mifune gives a really fantastic performance. He's really expressive and easy to track emotionally even with limited dialog. He's also rather intimidating despite not being obviously physically imposing. He just carries himself as a guy you absolutely wouldn't want to mess with. Mifune and Fassbender are definitely the two scariest Macbeths of the five I've seen.
The scene where Washizu learns that his wife has had a stillbirth was really well acted. His pain was palpable and there were a lot of emotions going on simultaneously. He's grieving a son he never got to meet, he's anxious about his wife's still precarious health, and he now knows he's killed his childhood friend for no reason.
The Witch
Throne of Blood's witch is very unsettling in both of her appearances, albeit in different ways. When Washizu and Miki encounter her in the frightening Spider's Web Forest, they first hear her otherworldly singing. It's soft and would almost sound like a comforting lullaby but for the words she is saying and the low drone voice mixed in with it. Recall, she sings:
Strange is the world
Why should men receive life in this world?
Men's lives are as meaningless as the lives of insects
The terrible folly of such suffering
A man lives but as briefly as a flower
Destined all too soon to decay into the stink of flesh
Humanity strives all its days
To sear its own flesh in the flames of base desire
Exposing itself to Fate's Five Calamities
Heaping karma upon karma
All that awaits man at the end of his travails
Is the stench of rotting flesh that will yet blossom into flower
Its foul odor rendered Into sweet perfume
Oh, fascinating, the life of Man, oh, fascinating
When they do see her, she's a vivid contrast to Washizu and Miki, with a white cloak, a white face and white hair. She sits at a wheel and is constantly spinning thread, appropriate as she is a weaver of fate and her web is about to entangle them all. And of course the threads accumulating on the smaller wheel (spindle? bobbin?) look very much like a spider web.
The film really takes it's time with the song, too, which makes it even stranger and more eerie. The witch is in no hurry.
When she does speak to them after the song ends her voice sounds subtly modulated and unearthly. After she declares him the future lord, she says "Why should you show fury when my tidings are so joyous?" In Macbeth, the equivalent line is Banquo's "Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?" Shifting it to the witch makes it almost feel like she's mocking him.
She also says "Human beings are so strange. Terrified to look into the bottom of their own hearts" which definitely implies an inhuman status. Throughout all of this she doesn't seem to be looking directly at either of them; her eyes are fixed in the middle distance.
In her second appearance, when Washizu seeks her out in the forest, she goes from extremely unsettling to terrifying. Her voice is much deeper and more modulated, sounding like a demon in a possession movie. The wheel is gone and she's standing in blowing mist. And she's definitely looking at him now.
She laughs, changes form, and appears and disappears around him while exhorting him to, among other things, "build a mountain of corpses" while the ominous score gets louder. Washizu responds in kind and it's like a dam has broken in him. His vows are terrifying.
Apparition
If you choose the path of bloodshed, then climb to the very pinnacle of evil.
Washizu
Noriyasu, the prince and even Miki's son, I swear I shall kill them all.
Apparition
If you choose to build a mountain of corpses, build its summit as high as you dare.
Washizu
I'll lay a fresh mountain of corpses over these bleached bones.
Apparition
If you will make blood flow, let it be a river, no, an ocean of blood.
Washizu
A deluge of blood shall stain these woods crimson.
I do wonder though, did the witch signal that there's an off ramp for him? She says "If you" before each one of her exhortations. These are present in the Niki version too, so it may not be tic of the Richie translation.
Isuzu Yamada as Asaji
Asaji, both in her writing and Yamada's performance, was one of the most interesting characters in the film for me. She is very smart and commanding and it's really interesting to see a Lady Macbeth in this cultural context. If Lady Macbeth is an overt outlier in Macbeth's Scotland, an obviously forceful, literate, equal partner to her husband, Asaji is on the surface the dutiful and deferential wife.
In their early conversations she is very still and separate, speaking in very measured tones and demurely avoiding eye contact. She does not look directly at him until her line "Ambition makes the man" where she pointedly raises her eyes to his. It's a great moment.
She expertly disposes of all his hesitations about murdering his lord She very quickly reminds Wahsizu that if Miki tells Lord Tsuzuki the prophecy Tsuzuki will immediately move to eliminate Washizu. This appeal to self preservation also simultaneously plants seeds of distrust regarding Miki. When Washizu objects that it is not honorable to kill one's sovereign she immediately responds with "Did not the Great Lord secure his own position murdering his predecessor?"
Later when Tsuzuki promotes Washizu to vanguard commander and Washizu tells Asaji that the promotion proves his lord trusts him and will not move against him, she says with no hesitation that "This vanguard commander is vulnerable to arrows on every side. The Great Lord is a fox."
She dismantles every one of his objections with incredible ease. And at the end of the day...she might be right. The plausibility of her arguments make them compelling and understandably persuasive.
I also like that Macbeth's line about killing Duncan for Banquo's heirs has been shifted to Asaji: "I did not soil these hands with blood for the sake of Lord Miki's son." It's interesting that she's speaks as if she is the one who murdered Tsuzuki. It telegraphs the guilt that will overwhelm her later and is given a greater weight when she then reveals she's pregnant. It was a wrinkle I was not expecting but is a dramatically brilliant addition as it shifts Washizu's motivation to murder his old friend.
It's also interesting we don't see her during the nurse's reveal to Washizu that their son was stillborn.
Asaji's final scene, the analog of Lady Macbeth's "out damn'd spot" soliloquy, has a frantic energy to it that is such a contrast to her early stillness and control. That this comes after having lost a child also gives her guilt and grief an added dimension, similar to Marion Cotillard's speech in Macbeth (2015). We don't see her again after this, nor do we learn her fate. It's like she, so diminished by guilt and grief, just evaporates into the mists.
The Murder Scene
The scene where Washizu murders Lord Tsuzuki is worth some discussion, as it highlights a lot of the filmmaking choices I think are so intriguing. This was perhaps the first scene where i really picked up on the silent film vibe, not in the least because there's almost seven minutes where there is no dialog and long stretches with no score. There's two fairly brief strains of flute, and a burst of drums when Asaji runs to the spot where the traitor Fujimaki killed himself. Other than that it's just the swish of her robes and labored breathing as both of them try to stay in control during the deed.
I was surprised that during this whole scene the camera biased towards Asaji. It follows her as she looks over the passed out guards and after she hands Washizu one of the guard's spears she's alone onscreen for almost a minute and a half before he returns with the bloodied weapon. You don't see the murder and the camera never cuts to Washizu.
There's also no dialog after the murder, when she goes to plant the bloody spear. Washizu is intensely shaken by the murder, and though Asaji is less overtly expressive, it's clear from Yamada's heavy breathing and subtle facial acting that she's deeply rattled as well. The long silence is finally broken when Asaji throws open the gates and yells "Intruders!"
This is all shot handheld and a little wobbly which is filmically appropriate.
I like that this scene is set in the room where the last traitorous commander committed suicide. The look of the blood stained walls is striking and grotesque and I liked how both Washizu and Asaji's eyes are both continually drawn to them. The blood is a totem for their rising panic.
A Gallimaufry of Observations
Lord Tsuzuki seems maybe a little irresolute and his court just sits in ineffectual silence for a long time when he asks for their counsel. I also liked his line after the rebellion "We shall not talk of peace." It's just kind of funny and ironic since he didn't do or decide anything during the battle.
The flight of creepy birds bombarding the castle right before the end was really great. Presumably it's a call back to the earlier line from some disgruntled soldiers "Rats flee a house before it burns," as unbeknownst to anyone in the castle, the besiegers are chopping the forest down. Also, the way that Washizu interprets this chilling event as a good omen in opposition to everyone else reminds me of when Ahab did the same in Moby Dick (1956).
I like that his own men kill him at the end. With so many arrows. As I mentioned earlier in passing, the way the arrows are framed, hitting the wall between him and camera, and the way he paws at them makes him look like a man trying to sweep spider webs away from himself. Which he is. Also it's a nice touch that even when he's a mortally wounded pincushion his soldiers still shrink from him when he steps their way.
Also, per wikipedia: "Washizu's death scene, in which his own archers turn upon him and shoot him with arrows, was in fact performed with real arrows, shot by knowledgeable and skilled archers. During filming, Mifune waved his arms, which was how the actor indicated his intended bodily direction. This was for his own safety in order to prevent the archers from accidentally hitting him." !?!?!? WTF
There's a few parallels to this in Macbeth (1971) that I also assume are homages. Small things like the way Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches in the driving rain and the way their horses absolutely freak out before the men know what's happening There's basically zero chance Polanksi (and Coen) didn't see Throne of Blood so I don't think I'm tilting at windmills with this observation.
i found the ending really powerful, with Spiderweb's Castle being swallowed by mist and then fading first into barren hills and then into the grave marker while the chorus repeats the opening lines of the film. We don't see anyone crowned after Washizu's death and the film retains the troubling implication of the play, that his successor won't rule for long. All that remains are ghosts. The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Conclusion
This movie absolutely rules. It's a great film and a great adaptation. Go watch it. (But probably scare up the Criterion Collection version.)
-m
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