Over the last week I have been watching one of my favorite films, Throne Of Blood, in bits and bites as my scheduled scarcely allows me to watch an entire film on any one night.

As you may or may not be aware of, Throne of Blood, is Macbeth set amongst feuding Samurai in medieval Japan. It is truly my first real experience with the play, and led to my experiencing the play in a number of other forms and productions. I even have a failed novel that was an attempt at placing Macbeth in an SF setting.

As I was watching Thursday night we got to the scene where Miki, the Banquo character, appears as a ghost after his has been murdered. It suddenly occurred to me, and I doubt that this is truly original after all people have had hundreds of years to consider various aspect of the play, that instead of the ghost being a hallucination from the guilt ridden and mad MacBeth, instead it was exactly as it appeared. Am angry ghost taking revenge upon the man responsible for its murder.

Macbeth is a play full of madness and hallucinations, but it is also a play full of magic and witchcraft, leading me to question just how much of the hallucinations are from insanity and how much may be from supernatural sources.

The play opens with the supernatural, the three witches meeting and agreeing to meet in the future with MacBeth. In addition to their prophesy about MacBeth, murder, and a Scott Game of Thrones, the witches also boast of the deeds that they have performed by way of the cruel magic. Clearly the audience is meant to accept that these are not deluded women pretending to be evil spell casters, but actual witches armed with potion and spell.

Before MacBeth has murdered Ducan, and so supposedly before there are strong stressors to drive him made, he sees a phantom dagger that prompts him onward towards his foul deed. What would he have such a hallucination? May it be possible that this an evil spell from the witches whom we already have learned revel in causing death and discord?

Of course we’re back at the ghost, and Shakespeare  was fond of using the undead spirits to advance a plot. So instead of looking upon Banquo’s shade as mere illusion of MacBeath’s mind, hit might very well be real.

If we accept these ideas, where does that leave our interpretation of the play? With evil spells at work, just how much of the tragedy is the result of MacBeth’s and Lady MacBeth’s  lust for power and position and how much can be laid at the supernatural powers playing the couple?