Opening Scene:

A long wide establishing shot of mist and silhouette (shadow) of “Spider Web Castle” is scene in the background. The opening shots of the castle, mist, and the addition of the film’s sung score, perhaps highlights the equivocal theme of Shakespeare’s original play. Akira Kurosawa has created footage that is at times difficult to see. IN this sense, the mist may be a visual metaphor for uncertainty and ambiguity. Translated dialogue such as, “the castle of delusion” also reinforce the equivocal nature of the play.

As the scenes develop subtitles such as, “A scene of carnage” reveal both Kurosawa’s personal, social and cultural contexts, as the film can also be viewed as a reflection of the disastrous outcome of World War 2 for Japan: a decimated (thoroughly torn apart) nation that suffered greatly as a result of two atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In much the same way as William Shakespeare, Kurosawa has used history to make a comment about his contemporary context. Kurosawa has used his own cultural context that of Japan’s medieval period where “the Age of the Country at War” was occurring (1392-1568). This was a treacherous time when: “violations of the Samurai code were a concern, a time when traitors and renegade samurai were common figures.” Similarly to Shakespeare’s original Macbeth, it can be argued that ambition, avarice (greed) and a ruthless desire for power were motivating forces for war and tyranny in medieval Japan.

A long shot of a monolith (a monument consisting of a single standing stone) in addition to the subtitles “Never changing” reveal that the director has started the film by showing the need, to highlight the consequences of what will occur in the story, “Here stood Spider Web Castle.” this idea also demonstrates the spiritual, karmic context of the film and its cyclical nature. Kurosawa appears to highlight that greed, desire, vanity and tyranny are eternal, and that Taketori Washizu is an example of negative human traits, as opposed to an individual who behaves badly, as seen in the original play. In this sense Kurosawa is not overly concerned with the characters as individuals, but what they represent about the human condition (what it means to be human in all aspects).

Kurosawa’s way of introducing the supernatural world in the film is through a high angle shot of a misty forest and trees, and his use of non-diagetic sound (sound you cannot see in the shot) of the witches’ eerie laughter.