Part of Akira Kurosawa: A Retrospective
A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, THRONE OF BLOOD sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. As a hardened warrior who rises savagely to power, Toshiro Mifune gives a remarkable, animalistic performance, as does Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife. THRONE OF BLOOD fuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.
Programmers’ Note: On Sat, Aug 16, you can catch Kurosawa’s Shakespeare adaptations with back-to-back screenings of RAN (1:10pm, 6:40pm) and THRONE OF BLOOD (4:20pm) in our 1966 Hall. Tickets sold separately.
“An adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth that turned 'the Scottish play' into a ravishingly visual exploration of the warrior traditions of Japanese myth…. THRONE OF BLOOD defeats categorisation. It remains a landmark of visual strength, permeated by a particularly Japanese sensibility, and is possibly the finest Shakespearean adaptation ever committed to the screen.” —Derek Malcolm, Guardian (UK) “Akira Kurosawa’s remarkable 1957 restaging of Macbeth in samurai and expressionist terms is unquestionably one of his finest works — charged with energy, imagination, and, in keeping with the subject, sheer horror. Incidentally, this was reputed to have been T.S. Eliot’s favorite film.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader “No stage production could match Kurosawa’s Birnam Wood, and, in his final framing of the hero — a human hedgehog, stuck with arrows — he conjures a tragedy not laden with grandeur but pierced, like a dream, by the absurd.” —Anthony Lane, New Yorker
