100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #108: Throne of Blood (1957)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Starring Toshirō Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura

Fade from black. A howling wind chases billows of fog across a desolate landscape. Suddenly a mournful chorus begins, accompanied by a quiet, ominous drum. In this place, the subtitles tell us, once stood a great fortress where:

Lived a proud warrior

Murdered by ambition

His spirit walking still.

Vain pride, then as now, will

Lead ambition to the kill.

So begins Throne of Blood, Akira Kurosawa’s masterful adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The story is familiar: over the next 110 minutes, we follow the rise and fall of General Washizu, whose ambitions and fears are kindled by the prophecy of an evil spirit, and fanned to flame at the insistence of his wife, Lady Asaji. Step by step, Washizu's ambition leads him first to murder his sovereign, Lord Tsuzuki, and take the throne; then to murder his best friend, General Miki, to keep the throne; and finally, strengthened in his resolve by another encounter with the evil spirit, to die defending the throne.

Less familiar is the setting and presentation. The heaths of medieval Scotland have given way to the tangled forests and windswept hillsides of medieval Japan. Kurosawa’s trademark use of fog, mist, and rain builds up a gloomy atmosphere, as does his careful contrast between deep black and eerie white shades.

Just take a moment to enjoy the contrast and composition of this shot.

The film struck me with a sense of seamlessness and unity after the first viewing. Exactly how it produced that effect, however, left me mystified. I was sufficiently intrigued to spend a few evenings with the film in a video editor, cutting it apart in an effort to understand how Kurosawa had put it together.¹

The effort left me more mystified than enlightened. Certain artistic choices of Kurosawa seemed odd to me. After their encounter with the evil spirit, Generals Washizu and Miki spend several minutes of screen time galloping in and out of the fog looking lost, a long and repetitive sequence in an otherwise very efficient screenplay. Miki, a brave warrior, incongruously has a rabbit on his flag. More intriguing are the changes to the characters and storyline: the benevolent King Duncan has been replaced by a merciless usurper, Lord Tsuzuki. Macduff, Macbeth’s foil, has disappeared, and Washizu meets his end instead at the hands of his own archers.

It was not until much later that I found the interpretive key for the film. An interviewer approached Kurosawa during the production, and asked him what the film would mean. Kurosawa responded, “I keep saying the same thing over and over again. Why - I ask - is it that human beings cannot get along with each other, why can’t they live with each other with more good will?”

Throne of Blood is, in fact, a careful depiction of why we can’t live in peace with each other. Ambition, and fear of each other’s ambition, locks us inexorably into a cycle of repression, rebellion, and destruction. Repetition, being tricked by the fog into returning again and again to the same evil place we were before, is part and parcel of this world. The chorus warns us that vain pride will lead us to death, both in the past and present. King Duncan’s character had to be changed; there are no trustworthy kings in this world, only paranoid usurpers. MacDuff’s character had to be removed; Washizu must die, not at the hands of a just avenger, but from the arrows of his own men, who turn on him in the hope of receiving clemency from the besieging forces. The cold, iron logic is encapsulated in this brief conversation between Lady Asaji and Washizu:

ASAJI: If Miki were to tell His Lordship of what happened in the forest, then here there would be no peace. His Lordship would think of you as a traitor. At once he would have men besiege our castle here. You must choose between the two. Stay here and await your own destruction, or kill His Lordship and make Forest Castle yours.

WASHIZU: But that is high treason!

ASAJI: Do you forget that he murdered his own master to become what he is now?

WASHIZU: It was necessary - to save his own life. His Lordship trusts me. I would tear out my heart for him.

ASAJI: And does he know what lies in that heart?

WASHIZU: In my heart? There is nothing.

ASAJI: I know otherwise.

WASHIZU: I have no such ambitions.

ASAJI: This may be so, but would His Lordship believe it, after Miki had informed him of this interesting prophecy?

WASHIZU: Miki! Miki would never speak of it. He is my best friend.

ASAJI: He is ambitious. Children kill their parents for less. This is a wicked world. To save yourself you often first must kill.

WASHIZU: Asaji! We must have faith in friends.

Except, of course, he doesn’t. Miki, who despite his suspicions does have faith in his friend, quite literally pays for it with his head. He is appropriately flagged with a prey animal as his symbol. Washizu, who might be able to quell his own ambition, can’t quell an entirely reasonable fear of the ambition of others - and so feels forced to act on his ambition anyway.²

With only a few subtle changes, Kurosawa has deeply transformed his source material. Macbeth’s tragedy was that of a moth and a flame; despite many excellent reasons, he can’t keep himself from acting on his ambition. Washizu’s tragedy is more like a moth in a spider’s web: no matter which way he thinks of turning, the tangled paths around him inexorably draw him to the same dreadful, desolate conclusion.

Throne of Blood portrays the cold workings of a wicked world. Kurosawa does not allow any hope to creep into this bleak portrait. Reflecting on Washizu’s tragedy, however, a Catholic can’t help thinking that the only solution to his world would require a Heart that is not filled with ambition, but obedience; a Heart from whose love nothing can separate us; a Heart of Someone ready to pour himself out completely for his friends, even unto death on a cross.

1. Yes, I did think guiltily about how Gandalf said “He who breaks a thing to find out how it is made has left the path of wisdom,” thank you for asking.

2. It's speculative, but very plausible, to wonder whether Kurosawa was thinking about the state of living in a nuclear armed world. We may have no ambitions to nuke them... but will they believe that? Will they feel that they really ought to nuke us first, just to be on the safe side? If so, maybe it would be a better plan to nuke them first after all?