Monday night a local art house theater showed the classic Japanese film Throne of Blood, Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 reimagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth into feudal Japan. I had planned on going to the screening as Throne of Blood is one of my all-time favorite films but by the evening I was in a foul mood, my back hurt, and I was quite tired, so I stayed home but I want to discuss the masterpiece just the same. As I have it on Blu-Ray disc I will likely watch it this week anyway.

This was one of the first, if not the first my memory is a little hazy, Kurosawa movies I ever watched and surprisingly it was also the first time I had been fully exposed to the story of Macbeth, which has become mu favorite play of the Bard’s. If you know Macbeth you know the story, an ambitious warrior noble, here played with fierce masculinity by Toshiro Mifune, after receiving a supernatural prophesy betrays and murders his lord assuming his title and position. Naturally this does not go well and the warrior noble comes to a justifiably bad end.

Macbeth translates exceptionally well to feudal Japan with only minor changes required to adapt the story to a different culture. Under Kurosawa’s masterful hand the desolate landscapes, the foreboding forests and the unearthly spirits have both a stark realism and a simultaneous dreamlike quality. Isuzu Yamada creates my second favorite Lady Macbeth performance, passed only my Jeanette Nolan in Orson Welles’ 1948 film production. (If you can find the Korean import DVD for the Welles’ film you’ll get the original dialogue soundtrack with the actors performing in their Scott accents.) While Yamada lacks the seductive sensuality of Nolan’s performance her moves and performs with a stylized, and I think Noh inspired manner, that carries a subtext of threat and concealed power in every scene. Kurosawa’s interpretation of Birnam Wood is one of the most haunting images in the history of cinema and plays both realistically and in supernatural slow motion.

I despondent that I was not feeling well enough or in a good enough mood to see this film again on the silvered screen but it remains one of the best motion pictures I have ever watched.