Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957)

Let’s do something really wacky this time. Let’s consider how Macbeth transcends the era in which Shakespeare wrote it – Jacobean England circa 1605 – and comments presciently on our own day and age. English teachers are always telling us that Shakespeare speaks to every age; it’s why we continue to find him in the modern classroom. Yeah? So what, really, does a guy who communes with witches, hears fatal prophecies, stabs a king to death, sees ghosts, falls for the idea that a child delivered by Caesarian section is “not of woman born,” and gets his head hacked off have to do with us?

First, let’s consider Macbeth’s relation to its own time. Although set in Medieval Scotland, the play’s Renaissance audience could see a direct parallel between the play’s situation and their own. Critic Terence Hawkes points out that “on 5 November 1605 a search by security forces, instituted at the personal behest of King James, discovered beneath the Houses of Parliament a secret cache containing enough gunpowder, fuses, and other implements to blow the king, his ministers, and the lawful government of the entire state sky-high” (Hawkes 2). This “Gunpowder Plot,” prepared by Guy Fawkes, a member of a group of English Catholics bent on assassinating King James, failed. Fawkes’ notoriety survived him though as the English celebrate the failure annually on Guy Fawkes Night.

This plot to kill a king, though, would have been foremost in the minds of Shakespeare’s audience. It would have seemed that Macbeth himself was, in part, a literary version of Guy Fawkes, although more successful. The play’s depiction of Lady Macbeth slipping into insanity, Macbeth receding into moral emptiness, and the natural world going crazy, all as a result of the regicide, confirms the Renaissance view of the king as rightfully placed and cosmically protected and explains the heavenly reason for Fawkes failure.

Now if Fawkes’s name rings a bell that’s because it has been in vogue lately. Ever since Alan Moore’s graphic novel, V for Vendetta, was made into a movie, people on this side of the Atlantic have been reintroduced to Fawkes, except the movie casts him as a hero, a vigilante who tears down a corrupt and oppressive government. (And if you want to see this transformation taken to an absurd extent, look at how the character and the slogan associated with him – “Remember, remember, the 5^th of November – have become affixed to libertarian Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.)

The V character wears a Fawkes mask, his anonymity making him more of a symbol against tyrannical governance than an outraged citizen. So where does this take our connection to Macbeth? In a world where the anti-government, proto-terrorist vigilante is celebrated because he succeeds in blowing up Parliament, succeeds in bringing down the “king,” where does that leave Macbeth? Is he not a sort of hero? Well, no.

There is nothing in Macbeth that indicates that Duncan is corrupt (although there is little to suggest that he is not, too). Macbeth’s own inclination prior to the murder is not to do the deed. He feels, as host to the King, responsible for him. And afterwards he suffers from intense guilt. Everything about the play says his action is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Still, our society is distrustful of political power at this moment. It would be easy to digress and consider Macbeth as a version of Moore’s V, a man not driven solely by ambition or by a shrewish wife or by his own fevered visions, but by the desire to cast aside the powers-that-be and take control of his own life. If that’s not what Ron Paul wants, it’s certainly what his supporters want. Forty-five years ago, we may have been able to make a similar comparison to Lee Harvey Oswald. The point is that Shakespeare gives us room to consider all his characters in a modern context. You just have to connect some dots.

“Hey, hey, hey,” you’re yelling. “Aren’t we watching an Akira Kurosawa film? A JAPANESE film? About a guy not even named Macbeth?” Well, yes. But it’s the same story, and we encourage you to consider just what might have compelled Mr. Kurosawa, in 1957, to make a Japanese version of an early 17^th-century English play. Perhaps because where, or when, it takes place does not matter. What matters is the universality of the human condition it depicts. Enjoy Throne of Blood.

R. Findlay
Film Club Adviser

Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954)

To understand where we are now, we must understand our past. Every month, Hollywood releases some large action film with big actors and fight scenes. But how did today’s action film begin? The answer lies not in America, but in Japan.

Akira Kurosawa’s three-and-a-half hour sweeping epic Seven Samurai remains the epitome, and the beginning, of today’s adventure and action films. It takes a simple story, combines it with compelling characters, throws in some heart pounding action scenes, and a pinch of romance. But unlike the action films of today, all these parts work as a whole, and were made for the glory, not the money.

The story follows seven samurai who decide to defend a helpless village from a group of bandits who are planning to raid their crops during the harvest. The samurai will be fed small bowls of rice and given little to no payment, with the chance of success at a minimum. Why bother then? Maybe it’s for the samurai code and honor. Maybe for the adventure. Each comes for his own reason.

At three-and-a-half hours, Seven Samurai IS a daunting task for many to watch. The original American release had fifty minutes cut. But there is a reason for its length: to build real characters. Each samurai is given his own story without feeling unnecessary. We see the relationship between the samurai and the villagers grow. We see the crops grow. So when we get to the big raid of the village, we actually care for the characters and can actually mourn their deaths. It’s an ambitious task to say the least.

Kurosawa seems to meander toward two main characters. Takashi Shimura, also greatly known for his role in Ikuru, plays Kashimi, the eldest and leader of the samurai. He is not the strongest or best swordsman, and spends much of his time shaking his head, planning out the attack, and mapping out the story for us. Shimura simply plays this straight, not trying to overact. He is a knowledge bowl of mystery, a quiet man with a great aura, and works perfectly as our guide throughout this adventure.

Our comic relief and slight underdog is Kikuchyo played by the phenomenal Toshiro Mifune. Kikuchyo is only posing as a samurai, while actually a farmer’s son. He is bold, impulsive, clumsy, and a showoff. He carries a sword longer than others, thinking that can prove his worth. But in a film that’s 207 minutes long that, we start seeing him less as comic relief but as a full-fledged character that we will cheer for.

As Kurosawa would influence generations of filmmakers, Seven Samurai has many influences. Marxist ideas and Russian literature flow through the story. The action scenes feel inspired from Americans DW Griffith and John Ford. The characters, as fleshed as they may be, can be attributed a lot of Western cinema. Japanese critics attacked Kurosawa for being too Western sometimes, but he was simply doing what he must do – breaking out of the norm. His Japanese auteur counterpart, Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), whose films were slow meditations on human nature, has no place in Kurosawa’s epics.

As much as Seven Samurai influenced today’s modern action films, it also created the remake. The Magnificent Seven, a western set in Mexico, is one of the first remakes ever made. Many of Kurosawa’s films would be slightly remade for American audiences, including Yojimbo as A Fistful of Dollars and The Hidden Fortress as Star Wars. Influences are simply not just in remakes but also in story arch, character types, and climaxes.

Seven Samurai is the king of action and adventure films. It’s brilliant in character, production design, and story. Although it is a daunting task to watch the entire film, the breadth of the film allows audience’s to appreciate its brilliance. To understand where we are going, we must know where we came from. One of the most influential films of all time, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is a true masterpiece.

Peter Labuza
Film Club