Mary Scott
Professor Philippian
Shakespeare on Film
December 14, 2004

Sound and Fury: Interpreting Macbeth through Noh-drama

There is no question that Shakespeare’s plays have provided British and American directors with material for centuries. Though some may question why particular Shakespeare plays, it is easy to see why a director would gravitate towards scripts of such force and plots wrought with meaning in western society. However, when Shakespeare’s plays show up outside of western society, losing the language along with the western values, the question of why a director would choose a certain play may become more involved.

Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood is just such an adaptation. While the language (Japanese) and cultural setting (Japan under the rule of the Samurai) are completely different from any in western culture, Kurosawa creates a masterful representation of Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters. The success of this film rests largely on the fact that it engages the most dramatic aspects of Kurosawa’s culture and life, thus it not only plays well to Japanese culture, but also to aspects of the play text that are not often highlighted in western representations. Macbeth provides a venue for Kurosawa to utilize Noh-drama, thus allowing him to create an eastern perspective on a play that has for centuries been interpreted by western culture.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth facilitates Noh-drama naturally, as we see the plot presented in the Noh-style even from the very beginning. The first scene of Throne of Blood is a solitary memorial erect on a bare plain with chanting voices providing the audience with an introduction to the story of the downfall of Spider Web Castle. Noh-drama commonly uses this minimalist set design, and Kurosawa is especially fond of the man-made structure starkly set against a natural background. This set design is seen again in the third scene. As Washizu and Miki, equivalents of Macbeth and Banquo, are riding through the forest, they come upon a stick hut. The traditional stick hut is part of the common minimalist and traditional style of Noh-drama stage design. Already the audience has been introduced, in many ways, to the Noh-style that the film will follow.

It is in this third scene that it becomes clear that the Noh style fits well with the plot of Macbeth. Within the hut, an evil spirit in the form of an androgynous human in whiteface sits directly in the center, chanting to himself. This chanting, similar to that of the introduction, is another feature of Noh-drama and also concurs with the plot of Shakespeare’s play text. When the witches of Macbeth appear, they are usually saying a kind of chant, such as,

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble (IV, I, 20-21).

Unlike Kirosawa’s evil spirit, Shakespeare’s witches avoid philosophical commentary in their chanting, but their spiritual nature and power to control Macbeth’s life through mere suggestion begs the question of how much humans are indeed controlled by spiritual forces. The evil spirit of Throne of Blood holds the same role, stating, in his chant, that humans are subject to the cycles of life and powers outside of their control. The power this spirit has over Washizu and Miki is kept as the central struggle of the film. In this way, the Noh-style does not change the nature of the spiritual force, but emphasizes the helplessness of Washizu and Miki to avoid the fate he prophesies.

Noh-drama style appears next when Asaji, Washizu’s wife, crouches white-faced on an empty floor, speaking with little visible facial movement to her husband. Whiteface is usually used in Noh-drama to give a character an unnatural and evil or other-worldly appearance. This is reminiscent of the evil spirit in the forest, who sat perfectly still with his white face staring directly ahead. This visual parallel uses the Noh-style to point to Asaji as another tool of fate to bring about Washizu’s final end. She and the spirit hold a common bond in this role.

The visual elements that make this point in Throne of Blood easily agree with the verbal indications of the same parallel in the play text. When Lady Macbeth decides to act on her ambition by killing the king, she says,

Come you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty. . . .
Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall (I, v, 42-45, 49-50).

This rejection of everything indicative of her sex gives Lady Macbeth the ambiguous nature that we see in the weird sisters, the witches that lead Macbeth astray. They too “should be women,” and yet have beards (I, iii, 45). This ambiguity suggests that Lady Macbeth, like the weird sisters, is something other than human and removed from what would be considered moral humanity. Though this parallel is found in the play text, it is emphasized through the Noh-style of Throne of Blood.

Noh-drama also uses stylized movement to represent themes in a play. This takes the form of short and abrupt dance-like movement, or actual dances. When Washizu discusses his thoughts with Asaji for the first time, Asaji crouches motionlessly on the ground. He argues with her, considering many possible reasons not to follow through with her suggestions of murdering the king to usurp the throne. His movements are abrupt and sporadic, as he moves in different directions as if to indicate an undecided mind. Later, however, when Washizu leaves to murder the king, Asaji does a short, frantic, and stylized dance, representing the beginning of her own doubts. Shortly after, she washes her hands of the murder victim’s blood in a stylistically Noh manner and repeats this action later. This first washing is done with ceremonious solemnity, while the later washing shows a frantic and desperate Asaji, tremulously following the hand-washing procedure to no avail. These scenes “are wholly stylized within the Noh convention” (Davies, 160), indicating through motion the character’s psychological state.

These indicative movements are most evident in the banquet scene, as Washizu sits with the other lords with the noticeable absence of the murdered Miki. After Washizu’s interruption of the Noh-style dance, “the stillness and mathematically precise positioning of the guests within the room and within the frame is shattered by Washizu’s frenzied response on seeing Miki’s ghost” (160). This geometric scene being interrupted by Washizu’s frantic dance with his flailing sword visibly demonstrates the psychological state that Macbeth expresses through words. Macbeth challenges the ghost to a duel, then shouts,

Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence (III, iv, 106-107)!

This combative language suggests that Macbeth was demonstrating the same desperate attempt to take control of the situation that Washizu also expresses in his actions.
The banquet scene also facilitates Noh-drama concepts in its inclusion of a spirit that carries on the ambitions its character had in life. “By linking character with spirit, therefore, Noh refuses to consider death an interruption of dramatic issues, and the system of placing events in past, present or future breaks down” (Davies, 166), just as it has when Miki appears to Washizu to signal the end of his ambition and the success of Miki’s line. The audience knows that Miki also has ambition, as we see in his conversation with his son who advises him to ignore the evil spirit. Instead, he chooses to encourage his son to accept the title of heir to Washizu’s throne. Now that his plans are being thwarted, Miki’s power reaches from beyond the boundaries of the grave.

This does not differ from Banquo’s reappearance (III, iv). Banquo appears to Macbeth sending him into psychological duress, thus showing his power over Macbeth even after death. Noh would interpret Banquo’s appearance as an act of his spirit bent on fulfilling its unfinished work. This interpretation does not change Shakespeare, but emphasizes a perspective that may be overlooked in western culture: Banquo also had ambition and deliberately sought its fulfillment after death.
The use of visual Noh-drama interprets the play text in a nonverbal and revealing way. In a world where language is seen as a boundary and a stumbling block for cultural communication,

“Kurosawa is one of the few filmmakers to adapt Shakespeare, whose screen images have the density and power of Shakespeare’s poetic images, who understands his task is translation both into a new culture and into a new medium” (Jorgens, 167).

Philosophically, Noh-drama also has an effect on the play’s overall interpretation. “The ethical roots of the Noh drama are traditionally Buddhist” (Davies, 166), so with such a prevalence of Noh style, Buddhist overtones will also be prevalent. The first references to Buddhism are found in the chant of the evil spirit, as he claims that “men’s lives are as meaningless as the lives of insects. The terrible folly of such suffering: A man lives but as briefly as a flower destined all too soon to decay into the stink of flesh.” His view that, “humanity strives all its days to sear its own flesh in the flames of base desire exposing itself to fate’s five calamities,” reveals the cyclic view of Buddhism that man was meant to suffer, and the only hope he has in life is to try to lessen his suffering. The spirit refers to karma, that force that rewards or punishes the actions of man, ultimately controlling destiny (FWBO).

The spirit states all of this while spinning a wheel. This symbolizes his cyclic train of thought and the cycle of men’s lives. Man has no choice but to follow that cycle. Shakespeare’s Macbeth lends itself to a Buddhist interpretation in at least two monologues. Lady Macduff expresses her feeling that the world is amoral in nature, as she says,

I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly (IV. ii. 73-75).

As she discovers Macbeth’s murderous plot, Lady Macduff sees that the only objective good seems to be self-preservation, just as the philosophy of Buddhism would say.
Macbeth also comes to the conclusion of Kurosawa’s spirit as he gives his monologue after Lady Macbeth’s death. Just as the evil spirit says, “A man lives but as briefly as a flower destined all too soon to decay into the stink of flesh,” Macbeth says,

Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more (V.v. 24-26)

.
These parallels greatly reflect the Buddhist concept of suffering in life which ends, all too soon, in death, “so that the life of a man is seen to be ‘a turbulent period, ruled by passions and endured by death’” (Davies, 166). These basic concepts of the Buddhist mindset, found in the original play text, easily facilitate the Buddhist overtones in the Noh-drama used by Kurosawa.

The Buddhist idea of cyclic life can even be seen in the way in which the film was shot. In the first scene, the audience is introduced to the plot by means of the memorial pillar and background chant. As the fog passes through, the film begins. In the end, the fog again passes through the scene, and the pillar reappears with the same background chant. This cycle connects the play as the expression of the meaninglessness of ambition in a world where all are doomed to suffer death in the end.

Just as Buddhism claims that humanity is in a universal cycle which is inescapable but through death, the use of Noh-drama accentuates that fact in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “The incorporation of the pervasive Noh devices in characterization and in the film’s cyclic structure give the action an amoral universality” (166), setting the most astonishing scenes to a ritualistic pace, just like the structure of the film. The ritualistic and cyclic actions give the audience the sense that these things have been done before and will be done again. Thus, through stylistic acting, filming, chanting, and set-design, we find amoral and fatalistic overtones hailing from the Buddhist mindset. Again, this helps the audience to grasp the plot in the light of another culture, breaking down the historical norms that come from placing Shakespearean concepts in the light of a Christian era or western values. Instead, Noh-drama highlights the amoral and fatalistic side of Macbeth.

Though cultural differences are brought into harmony in this film, there are some differences that are difficult to reconcile. Comparing the two protagonists, one finds that, “where Macbeth has choice, Washizu has only destiny, and this distinction between Shakespeare’s play and Kurosawa’s drama is forcibly announced at the beginning and the end of the film, by the chanting chorus which rings out the inevitable fate of ambitious men and proclaims it to be a truth which transcends particular circumstances of history” (155). Washizu does appear to have less choice, as his conversation with Asaji reveals his fear that the king and Miki do suspect him of insubordination. His crimes seem to be as much from a spirit of fear as a spirit of ambition. Washizu is trying to choose from the lesser of two evils brought on by hearing the prophecy. He seems to have encountered a fate that, try as he might to avoid it, will come to him eventually.

Macbeth, on the other hand, is typically seen as choosing ambition instead of ignoring the prophecy of the weird sisters. However, in the play text, we see little indication that Macbeth had a choice. Though he argues with his wife (I. vii), Washizu also struggles with Asaji’s suggestions. Macbeth’s conflict may not be clearly born of fear like Washizu’s, but the text does leave room for interpreting Macbeth’s actions as inevitable. In reflection, Macbeth admits that life,

Is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing (V. v. 26-28).

Life, to Macbeth, has meant nothing, just as Kurosawa’s chanters end the film by describing the final scene as, “A scene of carnage born of consuming desire, never changing, now and throughout eternity.” Due to his Buddhist background, Kurosawa may have chosen to emphasize the fact that, regardless of Washizu’s independent actions, he could not escape fate. However, the idea of inescapable fate is found in Shakespeare’s Macbeth as well. The reach is not as far as some would say.

Thus Macbeth lends itself to Noh-drama in its language which is easily interpreted through action, its chants, its spiritual references, its cyclic nature and references to the futility of life, and the conclusion of its characters that fate cannot be fought. Not only does Macbeth present the perfect fodder for a Noh-style drama, but Noh-drama brings out in Macbeth that which is often taken for granted or left unheeded. Seeing such a play translated into a different culture through culturally artistic means can be enriching to those who are accustomed to seeing the same aspects of the play brought to light repeatedly. In Macbeth, Kurosawa found the opportunity to present the same truths in a way that reminds the audience that the human condition expressed in this play is universal.




Works Cited

Davies, Anthony. “Filming Shakespeare’s plays: The Adaptations of Laurence Olivier,

Orson Welles, Peter Brook, Akira Kurosawa.” Cambridge UP, 1990. 143-166.

FWBO.org. “What is Buddhism?” Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. Accessed Dec.

15, 2004. www.fwbo.org/buddhism.html.

Jorgens, Jack J. “Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood: Washizu and Miki Meet the Forest

Spirit.” Literature and Film Quarterly. The American University, 1983. 167-173.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York: Bantam, 1993.

Throne of Blood. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Perf. Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi

Shimaru. 1957. DVD. Criterion Collection, 1961.