Isuzu Yamada is divaliciously villainous in Akira Kurosawa classic based on MACBETH
THRONE OF BLOOD, AKA MACBETH (KUMONOSU JÔ) (Akira Kurosawa, 1957)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, April 17, and Monday, April 18, 1:00, 3:10, 5:20, 7:30, 9:40
Series continues through April 21
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
Akira Kurosawa’s marvelous reimagining of Macbeth is an intense psychological thriller that follows one man’s descent into madness. Following a stunning military victory led by Washizu (Toshirô Mifune) and Miki (Minoru Chiaki), the two men are rewarded with lofty new positions. As Washizu’s wife, Asaji (Isuzu Yamada, with spectacular eyebrows), fills her husband’s head with crazy paranoia, Washizu is haunted by predictions made by a ghostly evil spirit in the Cobweb Forest, leading to one of the all-time classic finales. Featuring exterior scenes bathed in mysterious fog, interior long shots of Washizu and Asaji in a large, sparse room carefully considering their next bold move, and composer Masaru Sato’s shrieking Japanese flutes, Throne of Blood is a chilling drama of corruptive power and blind ambition, one of the greatest adaptations of Shakespeare ever put on film. Throne of Blood is screening April 17-18 as part of Film Forum’s “5 Japanese Divas” series, featuring four weeks of films starring Yamada, Machiko Kyo, Kimuyo Tanaka, Setsuko Hara, and Hideko Takamine, who play strong, determined women in such classic works as Yasujiro Ozu’s Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953), Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966), Mikio Naruse’s Okaasan (1952) and Flowing (1956), Kurosawa’s The Idiot (1951) and Throne of Blood (1957), Keisuke Kinoshita’s Carmen Comes Home (1951) and Twenty-Four Eyes (1954), and Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953), Sansho the Bailiff (1954), and Street of Shame (1956), among others.