Macbeth and Throne of Blood

Semiotics is a difficult branch of linguistic, not only because of the terms but because of the signification a word has according to the cultural, historical and social context. The semiotic analysis can be apply to many different things and not only in the word or group of words. It can also be use in photographs, propaganda, videos, films, ect... For example in an announcement you can analyze the connotative meaning of the words and images used, and how this changes according to the culture or geographical place. The semiotics help understand the meaning and the cultural context of any work. You need to have a different perspective of the things to understand them completely. So the semiotic analysis is not as difficult as it seems to seem, if you understand the basses it can be very useful to comprehend the whole context of one work.

In the movie of Kurosawa, The Throne of Blood, has many aspects of the Japanese culture and the elements used to create the ambiance are very good. One of the things that are seen in the film are the ideologies of the Japanese culture like the honor, loyalty and the military aspects. At the beginning and through the story, it can be seen the wahoo used at an ancient time by the Japanese soldiers, like the arch and samurai sword. The costumes of the samurais and in the daily life were shown in the film and whichever were the elements to identified the ranks.

The film also teaches something's that are not discuss in William Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. For example one thing that is learn from the movie is the importance of Lady Macbeth. Probably if she cannot convince her husband to kill Duncan in order to have the complete control, there wouldn't be a story. Kurosawa also explains the inevitable thirst of ambition of the human being, something that in the play of Macbeth is not mention so deeply. He explains this behavior of the human being by making Lady.... tell to her husband so he betray his lord by killing him. Another thing explain in the movie is the importance of the witch. In the Japanese it is clearly seen the evilness of some spirits and how the people in general are afraid of them or have a rancor with them. In the film there is only one witch that is that tell the prophecy, through the story it is seen how the witches is consider an evil spirit that only looks for the human destruction, and that is probably the reason why Shakespeare decided to put a witch as the teller of the destruction of Macbeth and also why the dialog between the three witches and Hacate to destroy Macbeth life and have fun with him.

In conclusion the author explain many of the meaning and cultural aspects seen in Macbeth through the images, character's dialog and their emotions.