Throne of Blood (1957) - film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Duncan Fraser (University of Sussex)

Ed. by William M. Hamlin, Washington State University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Domains

Cinema/ Film/ TV

Dates

Date of occurrence 1606-1606

Places

England (Location)

Genres and Modes

Adaptation
Tragedy

Resources

Recommended Reading

Adapted from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Directed by Akira Kurosawa (1957). Starring Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada. Japanese with English subtitles. Black and white. 104 minutes.

Kumonosu-jô (Spider’s Web Castle, entitled Throne of Blood in English) received a muted reception in Japan when released in 1957; it was, however, widely acclaimed in Europe and the USA as a powerful cinematic reworking of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It is now acknowledged by many as the greatest film adaptation of Shakespeare ever made.

Akira Kurosawa sets the play firmly in a Japanese context, situating it in Japanese history by transposing the action to the Sengoku civil war …

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1117 words

Citation: Fraser, Duncan. "Throne of Blood (1957) - film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 May 2015 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19391, accessed 16 April 2024.]

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