Throne of Blood: Kurosawa's Macbeth
1974; Salisbury University; Volume: 2; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)Philippine History and Culture
ResumoAkira Kurosawa, called the most of Japanese film directors, draws from Western tradition, adapting Dostoevsky and Shakespeare to the screen, or finding parallels in the Japanese samurai for the exploits of the American cowboy. However, the occidental character of his films is always recast in oriental form. One of the most striking examples is Throne of Blood,' Kurosawa's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth which evolves not in the traditions of Elizabethan theatre but in a purely Japanese context. Historically Japan has a tradition of isolationism having deliberately cut itself off from commerce with the West from the late sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Its literature, initially influenced by China, became primarily insular after the eighth century, developing its own customs. History and legend came to be freely adapted to conform to Japanese literary mores. Foreign literature underwent the same changes. When Shakespeare was first introduced to Japan in the nineteenth century, Tsubouchi Shoyo, the translator, felt free to later recast the characters of Lady Macbeth and Ophelia into their Japanese counterparts Lady Yodogimi and Kagero in his play Kiri Hitoha. Kurosawa is following this tradition, allowing himself freedom to render Shakespeare not in western terms, but rather in the style of Japanese battle literature and art of the Middle Ages. Covering the period from 1185 to 1600 A.D., the Middle Ages were centuries of political turmoil. The Heian or classical era which had preceded had been one ot strong centralized court rule and had fomented the development of art and literature, producing such masterpieces as Lady Murasaki's epic novel Genji Monogatari (1010 A.D.). As the court lost touch with the people, feudal barons arose defying and finally destroying the court's ruling families, the Taira or Heike clan. The wars between the Heike and the opposing Genji clans became the basis of epic Japanese literature. Until the late sixteenth century Japan was frequently without a dominant centralized government that could unify the nation, and it is in this feudal era of Japan's history, with its tumult and rivalry between warlords struggling for power, that Kurosawa sets his film, borrowing the literature and art of the period to form its background and style. Before becoming a director, Kurosawa's early training was in painting. In Throne of Blood his film style with its emphasis on luminous and opaque contrasts in lighting, on linear structure, and textures of costumes and sets appears to be deliberately patterned after the picture scrolls of the Kakamura period (1 185-1333) when the themes of epic battle and the samurai code of honor were at their height. Kurosawa studied the picture scrolls closely, even asking Kohei Esaki, whose contemporary work is in this genre, to be the film's art consultant. Art and literature have always been closely allied in Japan. As early as the picture scrolls of Genji Monogatari, narrative and illustration have supplemented one another, neither assuming dominance over the other. The ideal of poetry is to achieve the effect of verbal painting, just as painting has always aspired to be visual poetry. The picture scrolls of the Middle Ages foreshadowed a film-like style. Just as cameras today can eliminate boundaries of time and space, carrying the viewer past walls to show events happening inside a home, or in different areas simultaneously, so, too, it was an accepted convention used by the picture scrolls to present houses without rooftops to allow the reader to see what was happening inside, or to depict an almost aerial view of independent actions taking place at the same time. For example, in the thirteenth century scroll Ippen Shonin Eden we see villagers gathering for devotional service in a town; some are already rudely jostling for position inside a building while the more devout listen to the priest's sermon, and still others belong to the busy caravan of merchants outside the city walls going about their daily activities. …
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