“Throne of Blood” (1957)
With its emphasis on honor, its shifting dynamics of power, and a culture of violent ruthlessness, feudal Japan perfectly matched the original play in Akira Kurosawa’s immortal remix. The master filmmaker had admitted to modeling his samurai after the cowboys of Westerns in previous films, but here they provide an analog for the military royals of yore. Toshiro Mifune takes on one of his greatest roles as General Washizu, conveying supreme power but still enough willing blindness to fall into his manipulative wife’s (Isuzu Yamada) machinations. Kurosawa drew on the illustrious history of Japanese noh theatre to style his film, accenting the dramatics of Macbeth’s madness with the heft and grandeur of high opera. Kurosawa was the first filmmaker to turn Western audiences on to the fascinating developments taking place in Asian cinema, and no film encapsulates the satisfying international exchange better than “Throne of Blood”. Telling an English story through distinctly Japanese means, Kurosawa demonstrates the power of the film form as a facilitator of cross-cultural unity; audiences on both sides of the globe marveled at the hailstorm of arrows that punished Washizu for his hubris. Regional specifics aside, anybody with eyes can bask in the warming glow of Kurosawa’s genius.
“Macbeth” (1971)
Eight months pregnant with their first child, Roman Polanski’s muse and wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered in the summer of ’69 by the Manson Family cult. After two years of wallowing in chronic depression and survivor’s guilt, Polanski dragged himself back into the world of film with this dark, paranoid riff on “Macbeth.” In his review at the time, Roger Ebert notably declared that the film was “an original film by an original film artist, and not an interpretation” and it’s still pretty hard to argue that point. Polanski repurposes the skeleton of the story to fit his own stylistic and thematic ends, focusing his efforts on elements of self-destruction and psychological instability present in Shakespeare’s original. Shifting the spotlight away from the performances and onto the overall mood of the piece, he summons fear and anxiety from silences and discomfiting absence like those witches worked that cauldron. In his previous film, 1968’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” Polanski successfully left the haunting impression that everyone therein was out to get our heroine. The year after, his personal suspicions would be confirmed in a horrifyingly real fashion. “Macbeth” starts at that point of total paranoia and descends deeper, as our ostensible hero tries to get the jump on everyone gunning for his crown.
“Macbeth” (1978)
When critics describe a film as a “taped play,” they usually intend a pejorative, more or less a diss on a perceived lack of visual innovation that typically takes advantage of the unique properties of cinema as a medium. But in the case of this little-seen project, that’s a simple statement of fact; the Phillip Casson-directed “Macbeth” lived on the stage and was videotaped in full for broadcast on the BBC. No concessions were made to gussy up the production for the screen, keeping the theater-in-the-round format (resulting in constant, sometimes disorienting revolving camera movements) and paring down costumes to the bare minimum while nearly eschewing scenery entirely. Then what, pray tell, does that leave as the saving grace validating this project’s existence? Inhabiting the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are none other than Ian McKellen and Judi Dench, arguably the two most talented British thespians walking the boards in the year 1978. The duo delivers a pair of titanic performances, amply supplying the grandeur and —duh— theatricality that has elevated these characters into the pantheon of great dramatic roles. At the time, both actors were regarded as respectable fixtures of the stage, neither having become bigtime stars. But with “Macbeth,” their twin destinies as living treasures of the screen were instantly clarified.