Mid-Term Essay

Throne of Blood depicts two soldiers in Medieval Japan who are in the middle of a battle and get lost in a forest and stubble upon a evil spirit who that the two men (Washizu Taketori and Miki Yoshiteru) will become lord and commander. This may sound a little familiar to Shakespeare's Macbeth. These are similar in pretext but Akira Kurosawa changes many things to create his own story while still respecting Shakespeare's classic work. Throne of Blood also contains elements of Noh theatre, which Kurosawa was a fan of. He shaped Noh theatre, Macbeth, and his own visions for throne of Blood to create his masterpiece.

The cinematographer (Asaichi Nakai) made to film enjoyable to watch because he was able to create a similarity between every set and keep the audiences attention throughout the film. Whenever the evil spirit is on the screen i find it difficult to take my eyes off of her, because the way the cinematographer lights her lit her she screams for attention. The evil spirit could be used as an example of stylized elements because she is almost completely consumed in white creating a big mess of white which the cinematographer uses to make the viewer focus on her. The effects achieved is a trance that looking at this women creates. Realistic elements used in the film are everything from the visible detailed texture of the military personnels armor and weapons, to arrows. The realistic effects achieved is a feeling of realism that most directors and cinematographer never consider. That feeling is the touch factor whenever a viewer sees something and wonders what makes a certain texture look like it would feel very different from what they are used to.

Choreography in Throne of Blood is looks very simple but happens to be very complex. On several occasions Washizu is walking towards a large group of his military and as he walks towards them they all move to the side in sequence. This choreography seems like it would be very easy to do but having 100 people all walk backwards all at the same time could prove to be quite difficult. Then having the men all move back into the exact positions they were in before after Washizu walks by could also go wrong. But knowing Kurosawa he most likely made the extras redo those scenes over and over again until they got it done perfectly up to his standards. I would consider this example of choreography to be stylism because moving a gigantic mass of people like that creates a big movement on screen moving something so big so fast.

There are many elements of Noh Theatre that are used in this film. The shite (primary actor/protagonist) in Throne of Blood would be Washizu and his tsure (the shite's companion)would be Miki. The waki (antagonist)in Throne of Blood would be the evil spirit and her wakizure (companion of waki)could possibly be Asaji because she is always trying to make Washizu make sure the evil spirits predictions come true. Although not seen it is possible that the men singing at the beginning and end of the film are jiutai (chorus). Also like Noh theatre there are only about 4 character types in the film. The mood of Throne of Blood if you are looking at it from the Noh point of view would be Mugen Noh meaning the it deals with ghost. With all these elements of Noh Theatre it is obvious that Kurosawa enjoyed Noh very much and wanted to use it to its full ability in his films.

The Macbeth elements in Throne of Blood can be seen in the main parts of the film. The general story is Macbeth. A spirit comes and predicts that two men with gain great power and one becomes consumed by it and eventually both lose there lives because of it.

The two main influences of this film came together to create a masterpiece that remains well respected. The creation of this film in the mind of Akira Kurosawa keeps it from be place in the same boat as Macbeth and basically creates it own complete story making the viewer completely forget about Macbeth and only making Throne of Blood.