WATCH OUT FOR SPOILERS!
“Spider Web Forest”
- Throne of Blood -
In Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant Japanse adaptation of Macbeth, Taketori Washizu (Toshirô Mifune) is looking out of his castle window. He sees the Spider Web Forest moving towards his castle. It was foretold that this would happen, and that it would mean Washizu’s end. He panics. His men outside don’t listen to his commands anymore. They start shooting arrows at him, hundreds at a time. Washizu gets hit many times, but keeps running around screaming. One beautiful shot follows after another. Then a fatal arrow goes through his neck. He faces his men one more time and drops down dead. Kurosawa later explained how he had achieved the wonderful visuals in this scene. ‘We decided that the main castle set had to be built on the slope of Mount Fuji, not because I wanted to show this mountain but because it has precisely the stunted landscape that I wanted. And it is usually foggy. I had decided that I wanted lots of fog for this film...’
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In Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant Japanse adaptation of Macbeth, Taketori Washizu (Toshirô Mifune) is looking out of his castle window. He sees the Spider Web Forest moving towards his castle. It was foretold that this would happen, and that it would mean Washizu’s end. He panics. His men outside don’t listen to his commands anymore. They start shooting arrows at him, hundreds at a time. Washizu gets hit many times, but keeps running around screaming. One beautiful shot follows after another. Then a fatal arrow goes through his neck. He faces his men one more time and drops down dead. Kurosawa later explained how he had achieved the wonderful visuals in this scene. ‘We decided that the main castle set had to be built on the slope of Mount Fuji, not because I wanted to show this mountain but because it has precisely the stunted landscape that I wanted. And it is usually foggy. I had decided that I wanted lots of fog for this film...’
