#63 - Throne of Blood (1957, Akira Kurosawa)


I saw this at the AFI the same night as Sansho the Bailiff, this one being part of the "Shakespeare in Washington" festival. This is of course, Kurosawa's adaptation of Macbeth, set in feudal Japan. While mostly faithful to Shakespeare's original, Throne of Blood goes Macduff-less and features a ghost of an old man rather than the witches.

Kurosawa's foggy forest settings complement the ghost story, which evidently is inspired by Noh theater. Stephen Prince argues that the film is Kurosawa's attempt to portray Shakespeare in the kind of Japanese theater popular in Shakespeare's day. I dug it, but there's Kurosawas I like more.

new #100: Black God, White Devil