Macbeth

"The Scottish Play" and its hold on my imagination ...
... in a paste-up poster from design school (top)
... in a painting on canvas (middle), where the Lady is in the swirling stamps
... in a wee write-up on the Kurosawa version (below) (note: the image is from the dvd cover, and is not my design)


Throne of Blood

Shakespeare + Kurosawa = x

x + Noh Theatre + Sengoku Jidai = Throne of Blood

Which I watched this weekend. It was all fog and haunted landscapes and faces frozen in terror or rage. Everything is unmoored. This includes the removal of all Shakespeare's language, replaced by something more spartan and starkly theatrical. And while Kurosawa messes with the plot, holding his story to its own internal logic, all the main ambitions remain desperately the same: war, envy, treachery, madness, downfall. The character of Asaji (Lady Macbeth) is uniquely memorable for the creepy low orbit of her own high-minded damnation.