Is it Shakespeare?

[deleted]

Indeed that was an interesting read. Of course "Throne of Blood" is very deeply rooted in Japanese tradition, as well as his "Ran". Nobody denies that. As put in this essay it swiftly joins it with Shakespearean motives. The fact that it leaves out some characters and themes or even changes some important details like Asaji's pregnancy is not important as far as classyfying it as a shakespearen movie goes. Most of novels' adaptations do not go word by word, like "Guns of the Navarone" for instance, but are still treated as the books' adaptations, nd rightly so. EVERY single adaptation changes something. Coming back to Shakepseare - Laurence Oliver cut almost 50% of the text from his "Hamlet" - no Rozenkranz, no Guildestern, no Fortimbras. You could ask, "wait a second, is this still "Hamlet"? Of course it is. The point of a goog movie adaptation lies in a way of interpretting it. Leaving out some points, adding different ones - showing some themes from a different perspective - simply enriching the original. And Kurosawa gives a brilliant interpretation of Macbeth.

I think that Kurosawa-san isn't interested in a LITERAL adaptation per se, but rather with examining the underlying themes of Shakespeare, as well as the characters and their motivations. The setting may be different, but the ideas that Shakespeare explored were universal.

Go to [email protected] and ask them to work on the Apu trilogy and Sholay.

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