suzuki throne of blood.pdf

8/13/2019 Suzuki Throne of Blood.pdf

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Lost in Translation:Reconsidering Shakespeare'sMacbeth and Kurosawa'sThrone of lood

When Throne of Blood appeared on American serins in 1961. the film's first reviewers werelargely critical and even dismissive of dit^ctor Akira Kurosawa's apparent appropriation ofShakesf)eare's Macbeth. Most viewed the film as a quaint, if somewhat flawed, version of theoriginal text, as ftlm critics from theN ewYorkTimes, NewYorker and Films in ReviewmeastiredKtirosawa'.s film against the Shakespearean original and found the result am using yet ultimatelylacking.' However, an enthusiastic review from the 1 Decem ber 1961 issue of Timemagazitwsounded a note that would be taken up by the later critics who would canonize the film as a masterpiece and the finest of Shakespeare m ov ies - ;Kurosawa's Shakespeare inevitablyand fortunatelyinvolves more Kurcsawa thanShakespeare. With bluni and vital irreverence the director has translated Shakespeare'swords into Japanese images. Shakespeare's lords into Japanese barons [...] the spectatorscarcely has time to realize, as the images deafen and the noises decorate his imagination,that he is experiencing effects of cinema seldom matched in their headlong masculinepower of imagination. (76)

This translation of Shakes jjeare's words into Japanese images is a theme that was taken upseveral years later by film critic Jerry Blumenlhai. who argues that Kurosawa's powerfulmanipulation of visual cues proved that hroneof Bloodw s nopale imitation of the Shakespeareantragedy but instead a serious, dynamic, and m ost of llan autonomous work ofart (123). WhraeShakespeare comes intothefthn atall.Blumenthal suggestshispresenceisonly that of a scenaristwhose vision is consonant with [Kum sawa 's] own (127) as the origitial's poetic language isreplaced by the rich visual imagery so central to the experience of cinema.While Blumenthal usesVirone ofBUxxias a case study for the successful transformation of aliterary text into filmed image, h is argument largely elides die specifically Japanese elem ents of theplay that struck the film's first Western viewers as txldly disconcerting. Often described in terrasof the exotic or the uncanny, these elementsthe whiteface makeup and ritualized gesture of theNoh theater, the static frame, and the queer. Irrelevant comm entary of abstruse instruments thatbip and pok and squitter on the sound track 'initially proved indigestible to a viewing public


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94/Shakespeare's Macbeth andKurosawa's Throne of Bloodvisual images: rather, it stages a historically specific negotiation between traditional Japanese andimported Western culture. Situated between the Japanese stage and the American screen, theJapanese image and the English drama. Throne of Blood allows Kurosawa to interrtigate bothJapanese and Western cultural traditions through his manipulation of Macbeth Japanese theater,and coiiteniporaty film conventions.In the context of Kurosawa's position as a Filmmaker in postwar, post-occupation Japan,Macbethwith its portrayal of a weakened society open to infection by die forces of chaos andchangehadadistinct resonance with the historical mom ent. While Kurosawa's useof acbethasa source forThrtmeof Bloodappears to stage a critique of Japan's militaristic past and Hirohito'simperial ambitions as so much sound and fur>'. by the time of the film 's release in 1957twelveyears after ihe warihis would have seemedacuriously dated concern. Ftirthermore. John ColHckpoints out that Kurosawa had already takenacritical stance toward Japanese militaristic nationalismit his earlierfilmRashomon(1952), andrelumingoold ground would seem a highly tincharacteristicmove for an artisi of Kurosawa's caliber.* What would be a fresh concern, however, was thegrowing d isillusionment not only withtheimm ediate political fallout from the American occupationand reconstruction, but also with the ideals underiying Western liberalism and democracy.Following its defeat in World War11.Japan was occupied by American forces from 1945-1952,and the Japanese, exhaastcd by many years of war and the strictures of the militaristic regime,initially welcomed the American forces led by General Douglas MacArthur. For many Japaneseintellectuals, the idea of Western culture had long been synonymous with the idea of radicalliberalism, and a way of breaking from the tradiuon-bound dictates of Japanese culture. Westernwritersincluding Shakespeare-were first introduced and populariiMd among the Japanese duringthe Meiji Era (1868-1912). During this period, known in Japanese history as a time of greatenhghtenment, there were two distinct yetrelatedapproaches toward the influx of Western culture:the first was one of both awe and acquisitivene.ss. in which the Japanese were eager to copy andadapt that knowledgetobecome a powerful and resp ected presence among W estern nations: whilethe second attitude found the Western penipective to be a usetiil tool for addressing domesticconcems, such as reforming feudal hierarchies and an out-of-date, corrupted government. AsIDennis Kennedy and J. Thoma.s Rimer have observed, the com mon thread uniting these schools ofthoughtwastherevolutionaryconcept ofthe individualself, yet inaculturesostrongly structuredaniund the importance of group affiliation and the Confucian tenetsregardingfili lpiety, duty, andsubmission to the emperor, it was difficult to decide how and w here to apply this new knowledge.As Japanese s(x:iety suddenly found iLself coming to tenns with these new ideas oftheself andthe nulical potential of individuahsm. the young intellectuals of tlie Meiji Era felt a particularaffinity with the eaily Renaissance writings of Shakespeare, which were written during and inresponse to an era faced with a similar conflict between a traditional past based upon hierarchalgroup identification iuid potentially dangerous new ideas about Ihe individual self that threatenedto destabilize and underminetheexisting social suoicttue. Early Japane.se stagings of Westem playsattempted to negotiate this ambiguous territory, particularly as the productions of Westem dramarequired som e adjustment to lit into Japanese theatrical conventions. The idea of dramatic realism,as opposed to the intentionally fonnal artifice of traditional Japanese theater, was from the firstclosely aligned with Uie idea of Westem art and the cutt of the ind ividual. While some productioasattempted to stage Shakespeare in a purely Western style, others attempted to accommodateconventions from both Japanese and Western traditions. An early production of Hamletby theTsuboichi group adapted elements from both Japanese and Westem theater: Brian Powell writesthai this performance was particularly noted for introducing a modicum of realism, not least byallowing actre.sses on the stage (39) yet otherwise maintained the stylized gestures typical of Nohand Kabuki drama.


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Shakespeare'sMacbeth and Kurosawa's Throne ofBhodJ95film censors became more and more arbitrary in their Judgment ofw hat was and was not fit forpublic consumption.' With the collapse of the wartime regim e and the installation of theUSArmyGeneral Headquarters as the temporary governing power in Japan, the censorship was lifted,though not entirely eradicated. John Dower notes that Supreme Command of the Allied Powers(SCAP) required that all films with seditious themes be strictly banned from the movie houses,specifically film s that were suspected to have communist leanings, as well as those that celebratedJapan 's feudal and militaristic past(426).Furthermore, until 1949, two copies of every screenplayhad to be subm ittedin ngUshin advance to SC AP 's 'advise rs,' and on numerous cx:casionsagreatdeal of give-and-take took place before a script emerged that was sati.sfactory to the Americans(426). Following the repressive restrictions of the imperial censors. SCAP's conditions wererelativ ely light; however, those conditions (particularly the strict ban of Communist materials) stillpointed to the fact that the fitedoms experienced under die aegis oftheGHQ were still ultimatelylimited to the extent that they complied with the political goals and am bitions oftheUnited States.During these postwar years, Kurosawa seemstohave quickly intuited the difference between therhetoric and practice ofdemtxrracy.In his autobiography, he adm its, tlie freedom and democracyof the post-war era were not things I had fought for and won; they were granted to me by powersbeyond my control (145). Kurosawa did not consider freedom and democracy natural humanrigh ts, but rather as a set of beliefs introduced to him from an outside source. In order to thrive inthis new era, he chose to approach the concept of Westem democracy not with a sense of naturalentitlement but instead with an earnest and humble desire Jo team (145 ). He eontra.sted thisattitude toward those who swallowed the concepts of freedom and democracy whole, wavingslogans around without really knowing what they meant (145): such people would inevitably facedisappointment. Indeed, the inevitable clash of cultures created hy ihe sudden infiux of Americanwealth into a defeated, impoverished society created a great deal of tension that, by the end of theoccupation, had created a thirty-eightli parallel running through the heart of the Japanesepeople (Dower553).This divided sentiment w as voiced m ost stridently by liberals and left-wingartists and intellectuals, who were unhappy with the way that the results of the Americanreconstruction left much oftheconservative old guardincontrol ofthebureaucracy and infrastructureof the govemment. Moreover, the abrupt introduction of a political democracy into Japanesesociety did little to change its hierarehical stx;ial structure. M any Japanese were d isappointed thatthe old power structures had not essentially changed, despite the rhetoric of demilitarization anddem ocratization (EXiwer 553) that the Am erican forces liad proposed to bring to the destroyednation.

In this context, Ktirosawa uses Macbeth to illustrate not only the Iruitlessness of worldlyambition, but m ore importantly, the limitations of free will. InThroneofBlood as inMacl>elh theprotagonist's tragic flaw is not his blind lust for power, but rather his error in imagining himself afree agentin aworld where his actionsareultimately cireumscribed. Shakespeare's play follows thetrajectory of Macbeth's downfall, tracking his degeneration from a thoughtftil poet-warrior into amerciless, power-hungry tyrant. Ironically, the more Macbeth becomes convinced of his ownpotency and ability to act, the less he is able to resist his migic fate. M acbeth's self-professed vaulting ambition (1.7.27) spurs him to take an active role in achieving the fortune predicted forhim by the witches, rather than waiting to see if chance alone will have me king (1.4.143); yet thehaste and precipitation ofhisactions only worktospeedon,rather than subvert,hisown helplessnessin the face of his destiny. Yet des tiny reveals itselfinMacbethas something that is less connectedto the mysterious woridngs of a supernatural power, and more concerned with the idea of re-establishing ordertohuman society. Karin S. Coddon suggests that by performing his initial act of


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96/Shakespeare's Macbeth and Kurosawa's Throne of lood

By relocatingMacbethto feudal Japan, Kiucisawa replaces Uie play's medieval Scottish settingwith incidents from the Japiuiese civil wiir period, thus appropriating tlic nairative of fate versusfree will from the context of tlie politics of die Jacobean Era ami applying it to the politics ofpostwar Japan. InThroneof Blmui ihere is less ofa sense that the Macbeth figure, Washizu, isactively transgressing through his treachery. Unlike Macbeth, Washizu is not a scapegoat whomust be killed in order to resto re the balance of society; rather, there is the sense tiiat through hiswillful act of treachery he is actually conform ing toillaprescripted role inasociety that ultimatelydoes not change for either better or worse. In the film, the m urder of the samurai Lord Tsuzuki iscontextiializedbyLiidy Asaji's observation that Tsuzuki himselJ'unliketheguileless King Duncan,whose virtues / Will plead like angels (1.7.18-19) un his behalfrose to his position byasimilaraci of ti-eachery. When Wii.shi/.u protests that Tsuzuki killed his lord in self-defen.sawa depicts this struggle agsunst and descent into an iilready tlieatrical universe by settingthe ritualized gesture of iraditional Japanese Noh [heiiter and the static framepopular in earlyJapanese cinemain tension with the reiilistic cinematic conventions popular in Westem film,


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Shakespeare'sMacbeth and Kurosawa's Throne of Blood/91Kurosawa sets up a metatheatrical staging ofaNoh performance at the banquet shortly before theappearance of Miki's (Banquo) ghost. In this scene, Washizu, Asaji, and their guests watch aperformance of a Noh drama, in whieh a performer moves in ceremonial manner and ehants aninvocation;

Oh terrible godsAttend our siory wellThe very same taleForetold in ancient legendThe warrior ChikataWhose devilish menServed his traitorous schemesYei when his demon henchmenMurder him in betrayal.Their debt of royal treacherySwiftly brings their own ruinAnd thus it came to pass .Like Claudius confronted with the Mousetrap play in Hamlet Washizu demands at this point thatthe performance be halted; however, he appears to act not out of a sense of guilt or fear of beingdiscovered but as if he no longer wants to watch his own fate played out before him. The play thatis being performed in front of himrecapitulateshe same script through which he has been destinedto play. This narrative invocation points simultaneously to both the future and the past; it is a storyof arecurringcycle, arelentlesslyrepeating play acted out by different characters through the ages .Just as it accurately represents what had happened to Tsuzuki at the hands of Washizu, so thestory condemns (and accurately predicts) Washizu's swift ruin, brought by his debt of royaltreachery, at the hands ofhisown men.Kurosaw a visually reinforces this sense of the inherently theatrical, pre-scripted nattire of bothfilm and the life that it attempts to representrealisticallyby employing several of the costumes andgestures of Noh theater in his film. Noh theater differs from most Westem theater in that its artisticpurpo.se is not to find new and novel ways ofrepresenting or recreating human experience, butrather to show how fully the players can beabsorbed by. or channel, their given role .' Thethree primary actors in the filmWashizu, theforest spirit, and Asajiare made up to resemblethe masks that would be given to their Nohcounterparts: Heida, the warrior; Yamanba. thedemon; and Shakumi, an aging beauty on the brink ^ ^ ^ ^ ^m^^^mrn iof m a d ne ss . A c on su m m a te a c tr es s. A saji is ^ ^ ^ ^ - ^ T ^ ^ ^ i a f ccompletely absorbed by her role; her expressiondoes not change at all until the final scene where,even w hen overcome by guilt, she simply replacesone masked expression withanother Donald Riehieargues thai Asaji 's strict adherence to Nohconvention.^ has made her the most limited, themost confined, the most driven (117) character inthefilm;however, argue that it is Washizu's initialreluctance to assume his mask and character ihat


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98/Shakespeare's Macbeth and Kurosawa's Throne of Blooda sense of entrapment (81). This m oment of tension is held as. btith husband and wife grab theweapon, yet as Washizu acqu iesces to take it, his reversal of the weapon, so that it is again paralleltothescreen plane [...|m arks his decision (81).The hesitation, confiici. and gmdging acquie.scenceexhibited by Washizu in this scene cinematically .stages the sense of Kierkegaardian tbead thatKing-Kok Cheung has identified as the primary atmospheric force of Macbeth:while Cheunginitially defines this dread as the psychological state which precedes the leap into evil (430). it isalso a profoundly alienpower {431.italics mine) that lays hold of an individual, and yet onecannot tear oneself away, nor has the will lo do so; for one fears, btit what one fears one desires{431). Kurosawa focuses attention to this alienating power of dread by emphasizing the way thatWashizu's desires, whatever they may be, are in thi.s scene subordinated to the overwhelmingdemands of the film and the script: he cannot hold this moment in tension forever, butiscompelledinto completing the frame, symbolically represen ted by his return of the pike to the horizontal attheconclusionofhisdecision. Washizu's fall into his prescHpted role is further emphasized when,following his return from ihe off-screen murder ofTsuzuki.he retums to ihe rcwm where his wifeis waiting and sinks down onto theflvwr Asaji wrests the pike from Washizu's hands and exits, but

the camera remains centered on Washizu silting absolutely still, his face frozen into the grimacingexpression of tlie warrior-mask, Heida. From this moment, Washizu has become jx)sse.ssed though not yet completelyby ihe spirit of his rt>le.The overdetermined plot of ihe play frames a paradox of motion and narrative development


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Shakespeare's Macbeth and Kurosawa's Throne of Blood/99Zeno's paradox ai ^ e s that narrow which appearsto bein motion is actually not moving lall.forits mass always occupies a space equal to its volume and, thensfore, is always at rest. But if thearrow is at rest at each point in the course of its are or travel, it then follows that the arrow neveractually moves. Bergson claimed that cinema reproduces this counterintuitive paradox, and faultedthe medium for attempting to reconstitute movement from static states or instants (123); whileEpstein (and later. Deleuze) argued that film technology actually defies the paradox, since what theaudience endsupseeingisneither pure movement nor series of .stills, but ratlier an inlennedia teimag e thai accomp hshes the transmutation of the discontinuous into the continuous (127). Inboth sets of argum ents, films eft'ectively reverse (or attempt to reverse) the paradox of movement.Rather than creating stillness out of motion,filjncreates motion out of stillness; yet even sthe filmis spooled from re eltoreel, diat tnotion is ultimately confined tothecireuiar, cyclical rotation of themovie camera or projector.

Jack Jorgens has observed that Ihe two spinning wheels of yam that the forest w itch inThroneof Bloodoperates as she chants her prophecies closely resem ble the two reels of a film projector ;

this image links the witch's supematural powers with the director's cinematic ones, as bothpossess the abilitytocreate and see through illusion. Furthermoj-e. tlie witch also becomes uneasilyallied with the film 's audience, as the content of her chant indicates that she exists outside the realmof the human struggles exhibited within the film. From this vantage point, she can watch eventsunfold with the pleasure of a voyeur: the witch finds the perverse and ultimately meaninglessstruggles of mankind lo be''omoskiroir a Japanese word that loosely translates to fascinating,interesting, or amu sing. It is through this perverse pleasure that both witch and audiencebecome implicated in the cycle of narrative repetition that is responsible for producing the film'sradically overdetermined plot; for even while the witch appears to be setfi eeonce she is releasedfrom the thin frame of her forest hut, she is nevertheless contained within theframeofthefilm andmust play a part ihat is Jusi as predetermined as W ashizu's ow n. Peter Donaldson observes that the


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lOO/Shakespeare's Macbethand Kurosawa's Throne of loodAdditionally. Donaldson argues that by destroying the witch's hut the two characters haveeliminated the metacinematic frame and thereby entered fully into her world (77). He goes on tointerpret the fiunous scene in which Washizu and Miki ride in and out of the mist, away from thecamera and back toward it again, as an example of the way thai both characters are still trapped andcontained within ihe story, even as they appear to be freed by the more unm ediaied, realist

conventions thai Kurosawa applies to this scene. Donaldson posits that ihe audience's awarenessof the riders' confusion serves to further connect the audience with tlie voyeuristic power of thespi rit wKo not only knows and sees more than the protagonists but partly controls their actions(78);however, the extreme lengtli and repetitio n (with minor differences) of this sequence in the

film, in addition to the obslruction of the mist, creates a kind of visual frustration that links tlieaudience's confusion to the confusion experienced by the riders them.selves. At the end of diesequence, neithertheaudience northeri ersknow how long tliey have heen lost and w andering. Inthis sense, Uie audience is placed not only in the position of an omnipotent observer to whom allniovement seems to be so overdetermined as to be almost completely static, but it also becomesaligned with the riders' frustrated desire to continue m oving even when movement itself appears tobe pointless.The entrance into a relative ly unm ediated filmed space illustrates the transition to a morerealist cinematic mode, one thatisaligned with Westem c inema, storytelling, and the idea of the freewill. The use of the long sh ot deep focus, panning and tracking shots emphasizes the realistic

style championed by Kurosawa's Westem contemptiraries. such as film critic Andre Bazin anddirector John H uston, while the use of tlie static fram e and hard-edge wipe comes from a more


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Shakespeare's Macbethand Kurosawa's Throne ofBlood lO\In the beginning of the film. Kurosawa separates the Japanese formalist and Westem t^ealiststyles into two different scenes. Following the choral prologue, the first scene oftlie filmwhichshows Tsuzuki sitting in state and rece iving the messages of waris shot in a typically Japanesestyle; it is presented in a series of drastic cuts between a series of still shots, and uses heuxl-edgewipes to illustrate the lapses in time. By con trast when W ashizu first appears in the next scene, his

movements are tracked in a style more consistent with realist cinema; the camera tracks hismovements and registers his expressions in close-up as his emotion warrants, in ihe beginning,then. Tsuzuki is aligned with stillness and ritual while Washizu is connected to movem ent and will.How ever, as the film continues, Kurosawa begins to blend these two styles, and the encroachmentof the still frameintothe rsalist camera-work parallels Washizu's fall intotherole formerly filled bythe samurai L ordT suzu ki.Sho rtlyaflerW ashizu leam s that the first part of the prophecy has cometrue,and has inherited the castle abandoned by the traitor Fujimaki (who has. ominously, lefr hisbloodstains on the walls),thecamera beginstoixhim into stillframe As Asaji beginstogoad himtoward the act of murder. Washizu stops, and the camera films him as he stands, framed by theinterior of the palace room and the sliding doors behindhim.Aldiough Asaji continues to speak, sherem ains off-screen; meanw hile, behind Washizu, just visible behind a partially-open screen door, ahorse runs wild in the courtyard outside. This contrast between fram ed stillness and unconstrainedmotion cinematically illustrates W ashizu's internal conflict, conflict that does not exactly conformto the concept of Westem psychological realism, but nevertheless represents a type of internalstruggle similar to the struggle that Macbeth experiences as he questions his own susceptibility to that suggestion / W hose horrid image doth unfix my hair / And m ake my seated heart knock at myribs / Against the use of nature (1.3.134-37). Like Macbeth, Washizu is aware of an outsideforcehere a suggestion rather than an altogether interior compulsionthat has the potential totrap him into course of action that will lead him out ofcontrol, unfixing his seated heart. Jtistas Macbeth intuits, to some extent the lengths of bloody rage that he must go to in order to tramm el up the conse quen ce (1.7.3) of his first murderous act, so does W ashizu's uneasyhesitation, still different from Asaji's uneardily steadiness,representa vague foreknowledge of andrebellionag ainst the ultimate end ofhisinitial act of free will.

Peter Donaldson suggests that the juxtaposition of Westem realist and Japanese formalisttechniques in Throne of Blood represent Kurosawa's temptation by. but ultimate disavowal of W estern modes of repre senta tion and Westem values (89); however, I would argue that ratherthan privileging one over the other, thefilmactually stages succes.sful synthesis of thetwo.W hilethe vision of liberal humanism that Kurosawa presents inThroneof Bloodis extraordinarily bleak,and quite possibly representative oftheperceived emptiness or limitations oftheradical potentialoffered by W estem politics, culture, and filming techniques ofthetime, he does not champion oradvocate a complete retum to the static traditionalism represented by the Noh figure s in the film.Noh plays were traditionally used to celebrate the feudal period as an idealised and mythical ageof bravery (Collick 168); however, by using acbethas a source in the place of u-aditional Nohcycle. Kurosawa's film presents the period as far more bloody, unjust and Machiavellian dianthose who cherished the myth of ancient chivalry and honor w ould care to believe. Instead, ratherthan simply juxtaposing one against the other, Japanese against Westem fon n. written text againstfilmed image, stillness against motion.Throneof Bloodunites them alt in a new form of movem entthat is not represented simply as the clash of two opposites, but rather as the transition or motionbetween the two states. Neither an attempt to represent transparent truths about the universalityof Shakespeare and the triumph of the will nor a tum away from the West to a celebration of theJapanese past, the nihilistic vision of Throne of Blood represents a particular stage of liberaldisillusionment in a Japan caught between the hard-learned lessons of its militaristic past and theunfulfilled promise ofa democratic future.


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102/Shakespeare's Macbeth and Kurosawa's Throne of Blood

NOTES' From the 23 Nov. 1961 issue of ihe New York Times. Film reviewer Bosley Crowther writes. "If youthink it would be amusing lo see Macbeth done in Japanese, then pop around to the Fifth AvenueCinema iuid see Akira Kurosawa's Throne ofBlood. Crowther goes on to describe the film as a "freeOriental iraiislation" ol' the tragedy, an "am using " conceit whose "odd ama lgamation of culturalcontrasLs hiis the (Xicidenial funnybone." In an equally jocular vein, ihe New Yorkernoics. "if Macbethis your cup of tea." one .should enjoy this "Japanese version of ihe original work by Maurice Evans"(whose more suictty Shakespearean interpretation of the play had won an Bmmy earlier that year).Carlos Clarens, writing for the Dec. 1961 issue of Films in Review, traccji out the direct purallelsbenveen the Shakespearean original ;ind Kmusawn's film, and Tmds ihe latter clearly wanting: "Dtinsinanebecom es the Castle of the Spider's Web. the lhane.s are warlords, and so forth [... hut) for US audiencesthe dark poetry of Shake.speare is gone (...] life has been refined out of it" (622).' Said of the fiUn by Peter Brook and Grigori Kozintsev, respectively. The qtiotes are taken fromJorgens 1S3,^ From a review in the I Dec. 1961 i.ssue of Time76.* See C ollick 175.' Kurosawa formed a lifetime grudge agaiast these wartime censors, mning in an autobiography writiendecades laler. 'I am doing my bc mright now to suppress ihe anger that makes my w riting about thembecome violent, but jusi tliinking about them and remembering it all makes me shudder with nige. Thatis how deep my haired for them remains" (Kurosawa 19).

'' This quote, and the quote following, are taken from the subtitles (trans. Linda Hoaglund) used in theCriterion Collection vcniion of Throne of Blood.


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Shakespeare's Macbeth and Kurosawa's Throne of Blood/103 Jorgens notes, the endless winding of thread from one spool to another by the forest spirit [...is ananalogue of the Greek Fate Clotho's spinning the thread of life, and of Kurosawa's act of creationfilm loo winds from spool to spool, and the director, like the spirit, bas god-like power and detachment156 .^ See Giannetti 181.

Works CitedBlumenthal, Jeny. ' Macbeth into Thr tm e of Blood.' Film and the Liberal Arts. Ed. T. J. Ross. NewYork: Holt, 1970.Cheung , King-Kok. Shakespeare and Kierkegaard: 'Drea d' in Macbeth. Shakespeare Quarterlv 35.4(1984); 430-39 .Coddoa, Karin. ' Unreal Mockery : Unreason and the Problem of Spectacle in Macbeth. ELH 56,3(1989) : 495-501 . tColUck. John. Shakespeare. Cinema and Society. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1989. - IDoane, Mary Ann. Tlie Emergence of inematicTime: M odernity, Contingency, the Archive.Candnidge:Harvard UP, 2002.Donaldson. Peter S. Shakespearean Films/Shakespearean Directors. Boston: Unwin. 1990.Dower, John W. Emb racing Defeat: Japan in the W ake of World War H. New York: Norton, 2000.Giannetti, Louis. Understanding Movies. lO * ed. New Jers ey: Pren tice Ha ll, 200 4.Jorgens, Jack J. Shakespeare on Film. Btoomington: Indiana UP, 1979.Kennedy, Dennis, and J. Thomas Rimer. Koreya Senda and political Shakespeare. Shakespeare andthe Japanese Stage. Ed. Takashi Sasayama et al. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,1999.Kurosawa, Akira.Something Like an Autobiography. Trans. Audie E. Bock. New York: Vintage. 1983.Manvell. Roger. Shakespeare and the Film. New York: Bames. 1979,Pow ell. Brian. One ma n's Hamlet in 1911 Japan: the Bungei Kyokai production in the Imperial

Theatre. Shakespeare and the Japanese Stage. Ed. Takashi Sasayama et ai. Cambridge:Cam bridge UP, 1999. ; ,Richie. Donald. The Films of Akira Kurosawa. Berkeley: U of Califomia P, 1965.Shakespeare. William. Macbeth. Ed. Stephen Orgel. New York: Penguin. 2000.Throne of Blood Dir, Akira Kurosawa, Toho Films. 1957. DVD Criterion Collection. 2003.


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