Amanda Middleton
Shakespeare & Film
358:203
December 11, 2017
Macbeth: Tormented By Time
Shakespeare’s Macbeth attempts to convey the tragic notion that life is meaningless because time is an unforgiving, repetitious cycle of life and death. Throughout the play there are observations about the passage of time, fate, and how the past can control/destroy the future. However, the director Akira Kurosawa does a better job of representing the theme of time because the medium of film, rather than theater, allows him to manipulate time with visuals and audio. Shakespeare highlights the personal struggles of his main character Macbeth, a man constantly battling his conscience, after he murders King Duncan in order to become king himself. Kurosawa’s adaptation embeds emotional struggle into landscapes and sets, and stillness. Film is a better medium to portray the passage of time than a play is. Kurosawa’s film is more successful in conveying the theme of time and its role in the story of Macbeth than Shakespeare’s play.
Shakespeare’s ability to convey time is constricted by the formal elements of a play. The show begins with three witches who are obsessed with time. It can be inferred that they can see the future, and that they know the past, due to their knowledge of who Macbeth and Banquo are. Shakespeare uses his characters to neatly insinuate the theme of time, and how it controls every aspect of the story. However he has to rely solely on dialogue to do so. He cannot truly change the location of each scene because it takes place on a stage and he cannot do much with sound design or lighting. It’s obvious in almost every line they speak from the beginning that time rules over everyone. Right away, there is a line alluding to the storm of trouble they’re about to cause, “When shall we three meet again?/In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”, (1.1.1-2). The second line mentions “thunder”, “lightning”, and “rain” and although these can simply be a reference to the weather, it can be implied that something bad is going to happen. After the storm, the next event to take place is a disturbance, or “hurly-burly” prophesied from the line “When the hurly-burly’s done,” (1.1.3). Shakespeare is indirectly suggesting the murders that will occur. Lastly, the witches mention, “When the battle’s lost and won,” (1.1.4) implying the final battle between Macbeth and Macduff. The scene ends with “Fair is foul, and foul is fair; Hover through the fog and filthy air,” (1.1.12-13). Although they are communicators of fate, the witches’ ability to see linear time is foggy and somewhat unclear. They are all-knowing but not all-seeing beings. Shakespeare is attempting to convey the theme of time in these two lines. His use of the word “hover” implies uncertainty. He also suggests how messy and unforgiving “filthy” knowledge of the past and predictions of the future can be, which comes to light in Macbeth’s demise after learning of his own future. However, Shakespeare is limited in the ways he can play with the theme of time in this story, having to rely solely on the dialogue.
Akira Kurosawa’s version of an opening scene does a better job at imparting the theme of time and all of the ideas contained in this theme. Time is a constant reminder that life ends in death. This is a constant influence in Kurosawa’s visuals as well as in the motivations of his characters. Washizu’s past haunts him and his possible future controls his every action. In Kurosawa’s opening scene, from 2:35- 4:20, the visuals are of hillsides covered in slow-moving fog, and then what appears to be Washizu’s grave. Kurosawa strips down Shakespeare’s scene to a simplistic visual representation. The witches are nowhere to be seen but off-screen voices chant about what has taken place/will unfold for those watching. Fog slowly rolling over hills as this goes on is a clear reference to Shakespeare’s line “Fair is foul, and foul is fair; Hover through the fog and filthy air.” Kurosawa is conveying emotion through this landscape. It can feel like time is dragging on and on, coupled with the bleakness of the dialogue that can be heard. Film critic Stephen Prince notes in his essay, Throne of Blood: Shakespeare Transposed, “The bleached skies, the fog, the barren plains, and characters going adrift against and within these spaces—this is where the emotion of the film resides. It is objectified within and through the world of things.” (Prince). Through a short, simple and straightforward scene Kurosawa is able to convey time and the emotional struggle that comes from it. He is able to do so without the artful language and archetypal characters constantly used by Shakespeare because the medium of film has less limitations.
Film is able to create a space in which time exists at a constantly changing pace. In place of the three witches, Kurosawa’s version of Macbeth contains a forest spirit spinning thread. A spirit, ghostly white and bright, harshly contrasting the soft fog and forest surrounding it, is sitting, hunched with its knees pushing into its chest, and spinning thread. Time stands still at the first observance of this character. Then, slowly, it starts moving again with the dialogue. The spirit, almost singing, has its own monologue, a speech about the unimportance of men’s lives. It states, “Men’s lives are as meaningless as the lives of insects,”(13:18). The spirit is speaking about how men live, die, rot, and live again. As the spirit observes the cyclical repetition of life, it’s spinning thread. It sings, “..all that awaits man at the end of his travails is the stench of rotting flesh that will yet blossom into flower,” (14:48-15:18). The audience is reminded through these words and the spinning wheel of the circle of life, and a repetitious sense of time is created. The bright lighting around the spirit conveys it’s otherworldliness as well as its role in the tone Kurosawa sets towards time. Time is harsh, unforgiving, and futile. There is no music playing, no harsh winds, just quiet ambient sound and the melodic crooning of the spirit. Time’s passage can be felt in this sound space, in how long the spirit talks before Washizu and Miki interrupt, and how it feels almost as if time has paused while the spirit contemplates out loud. Kurosawa is playing with time’s pacing utilizing dialogue, visuals, lighting, and sound design.
Shakespeare attempts to experiment with time by jumping from before a murder to right after it, but does not push the abstraction much farther. At the end of Act 2 Scene 1, Macbeth has the famous dagger soliloquy in which he hallucinates a dagger leading him towards Duncan’s room. He pulls out his own dagger to fight the imaginary one, and to fulfill his compulsion to make his dreams real. In his madness he notes, “A dagger of the mind, a false creation / Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain? / I see thee yet, in form as palpable / As this which now I draw,” (2.1.50-53). Then, Macbeth says, “I go, and it is done,” (2.1.75). The infamous murder takes place off-stage. King Duncan’s death is never shown. This can be argued as an attempt to keep the audience’s view of Macbeth as more sympathetic (Lady Macbeth talked him into it, his fate was already decided, he himself does not kill anyone else in the play, but rather has other people do it for him) but it also adds an element of suspense before he tells Lady Macbeth “I have done the deed,” (2.2.19). Otherwise, Shakespeare has left the emotion and amount of time leading up to/afterwards up to interpretation.
Kurosawa’s version of the events leading up to and right after the murder of the Great Lord communicates every facet of the emotional and philosophical notion that relates to the theme of time. From 40:00-43:15, Lady Asaji starts to talk Washizu into murdering the Great Lord. The lighting seems to be flickering candle light. The sound design is mainly ambient sound, but every now and then a bird caws, and it sounds like a scream. Washizu jumps slightly at it. Lady Asaji rises and says “What do you hear in that bird’s cry? ‘Will you risk the world?’ So it sounds to me,” (40:20-41:21). Right after this a flute plays and there is a loud tap, that tie into their sudden movements, Lady Asaji swiftly guides Washizu towards a mat. She says, “Ambition makes the man…the cry is from heaven,” (41:31-46) and slowly kneels back down as if regarding him as her new lord. Throughout all of this, the camera movement is subtle and smooth, as if it’s just as much of a bystander/observer as the audience. Slow pans to follow movement cause time to feel natural and real. It is in moments of complete stillness, where the camera doesn’t move, Washizu and Lady Asaji don’t move, that time feels elongated and unnatural. This parallels the twisted plan of murder they are laying out. Then, Lady Asaji exits into complete darkness to get the poisoned sake, which is Kurosawa’s statement that her character is one of manipulation and greed. A future of darkness awaits her. At 44:11,Washizu kneels, looking around the room. Smoke from a candle floats steadily up towards the ceiling. At 44:18, a realization seems to cross his face, as if he is now aware of the clock ticking. Washizu has to go and commit the crime, because he only has a short window to do so. After this brief moment, his movements are jerky, and he is easily startled. He regards Lady Asaji as she enters with apprehension, but also with understanding. His facial expression is now steady, focused, and somewhat resigned to sealing his fate. Washizu grabs the spear from her and breathes out, and then Kurosawa cuts to a crescent moon and another disturbing bird’s cry. It cuts back to Washizu, and Kurosawa uses one of his rare close-ups in this film to further convey Washizu’s apprehensive resignation. He is playing with time here as well, dragging out the actions up to the deed as much as possible. In this medium, Kurosawa is able to express Macbeth’s emotional journey in a succession of shots, movements, and sound design. Washizu exits, and a zoom in on Lady Asaji finalizes the “before” scene. After this there is no turning back for Washizu. He is trapped in the spider’s web and will never escape. Lady Asaji is left on screen, to fill in the time Shakespeare leaves out in the play. She goes over to the splattered blood of the traitor Fujimaki, silently communicating her fear that this crime will give Washizu the same fate. A cacophony of flutes plays during this scene as well, to further enforce her sudden anguish. At 46:46 Washizu returns, blood all over his hands and the spear. Kurosawa’s ability to build up tension, convey complex emotion, and represent Macbeth’s fate as inescapable once he decides to murder the king are all evidence that film is a better medium than a play for the theme of time.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth follow the tragic story of a man controlled by fate. Through murder and manipulation, Macbeth never finds happiness or peace and is killed in the end, continuing the never-ending cycle of life and death that this story encapsulates. Kurosawa, in his film adaptation of Macbeth, is able to portray the theme of time and how it plays a role in this story in a much stronger way that Shakespeare’s play does. The stage is restricted in terms of setting, and relies almost entirely on dialogue. Shakespeare attempts to play with time by having characters mention it’s passing and cutting out an important scene in the story. Kurosawa expands upon Macbeth’s connection to time by making visual elements, sound design, and acting choices that convey time slowing, time speeding up, and time controlling fate. The spirit in the woods brings time to a stop because of it’s unnatural presence in the universe Washizu exists in. The scene leading up to the Great Lord’s murder is a practice in building tension, slowing time down, and displaying how the possible future and memories of the past dictate Washizu’s character and end in his demise. Conclusively, film is a more successful medium in the portrayal of the theme of time, and Akira Kurosawa does in Throne of Blood what Shakespeare cannot in Macbeth.
Works Cited
Kurosawa, Akira, director. Kumonosu-Jo = Throne of Blood. Toho, 1957.
Prince, Stephen. “Throne of Blood: Shakespeare Transposed.” The Criterion Collection, 27 May
2003, www.criterion.com/current/posts/270-throne-of-blood-shakespeare-transposed.
Shakespeare, William, et al. The Tragedy of Macbeth. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2013.