Macbeth vs. Throne of Bloode
The film Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1961, is based on Shakespeare's play Macbeth. The film is set in medieval Japan, while the play Macbeth is set in medieval Scotland. The location is not the only difference between the two productions. The portrayal of the characters is also very different; this is evident in Act 5, Scene 1. In this pivotal scene Lady Macbeth and Lady Asaji are seen cleansing their hands. While the two scenes share similarities, Shakespeare's depiction and Kurosawa's interpretation of the hand-washing scene are quite different: Lady Asaji appears to be without remorse while Lady Macbeth is filled with regret. As Lady Macbeth attempts to wash the blood from her hands she bellows: "Out, damned spot! Out, I say" (5.1.28)! There are a few ways that we can view this. We may regard Lady Macbeth as an evil person suffering from a guilty conscience. Lady Macbeth's prior encouragement of her husband to kill and betray in order to gain power has come back to haunt her. The bloodstained hands that Lady Macbeth attempts to scrub are not stained with blood at all. The blood she thinks she sees is all in her head, and could very well symbolize guilt. Living with her guil
At one point Lady Macbeth and Lady Asaji feel that "A little water clears us of this deed" (2. Another way to see Lady Macbeth is as a sadly ruined person deserving sympathy. It is at this point that Lady Asaji is beyond the stage of regret and is simply insane. The play Macbeth and the film Throne of Blood are centered around the same story, but the differences are apparent. "Now, touching the menstruals: they are defined to be a monthly flux of excrementitious and unprofitable blood" (Sadler 357). Another feature that separates Lady Macbeth and Lady Asaji is the portrayal of their aggressiveness. As Lady Macbeth tries washing her hands she addresses the notion that the stain will not come out and then moves on to other topics in her brain. Carroll describes this notion in a section of his book Macbeth, called Discourses of the Feminine: "For seeing we are not masters of our own affections, we are like battered cities without walls, or ships tossed in the sea, exposed to all manner of assaults and dangers, even to the overthrow of our own bodies" (Carroll 350). Both Lady Macbeth and Lady Asaji have a fear of the blood on their hands; a possible explanation for this could be that during that time, blood was looked upon as a vital entity. She needs to have her soul cleansed, memories removed, and be forgiven, a job that only God can perform. Lady Macbeth shows much remorse and guilt for her actions, while Lady Asaji is emotionless throughout the entire hand-washing scene.
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