Sara Batkie
William Shakespeare might be the most adapted author to the cinematic medium since it began. At last count, spanning everything from loose reimaginings to word-for-word recreations, there have been roughly four hundred and ten films made from his work. The legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa is responsible for three, starting with Throne of Blood, his takeoff of Macbeth in 1957. The last, 1985’s Ran, an epic inspired by King Lear, turns forty this month and stands as one of his greatest achievements.
Like much of Kurosawa’s late period work, Ran went through a protracted production stage. He first began conceiving it in the mid-70’s after reading about a prominent Japanese feudal lord named Mōri Motonari, who was famous for having three loyal sons. Kurosawa sensed more dramatic potential in a story of betrayal, however, and thus the gender-swapped retelling of Lear was born. Still, he would direct two other films – 1975’s Dersu Uzala and 1980’s Kagemusha – before securing the backing to make it. With a budget of $12 million, Ran was not only the most expensive film of Kurosawa’s career but the most expensive Japanese film in history at the time.
The popular English translation of the title is Chaos, though it can also mean “tumult.” Both words feel fitting for what’s realized onscreen. Tatsuya Nakadai, who was only fifty-three years old and is rendered near unrecognizable by bushy white hair and exaggerated makeup, stars as the doomed Lord Hidetora Ichimonji. After decades of ravaging the countryside and taking land by force, he has grown tired and announces his intent to divide his kingdom among his three sons. Though Hidetora will retain his title, his eldest Taro will become the leader of the clan and take over the First Castle. The other two receive the Second and Third Castles along with the attendant holdings. Taro and second son Jiro offer their father obsequies praise but third son Saburo condemns the ill-conceived plan and is exiled for his trouble. The stage is set for inevitable tragedy.
Kurosawa’s filmmaking has a scope to match the ambitions of its source material. In these early sequences, the sprawling cast is often arranged in a theatrical manner, with the actors seated and facing forward in long takes as they deliver their grandiose decrees. Kurosawa shot much of the exteriors in the mountains and plains of Mount Aso, which happens to be Japan’s largest active volcano, and it provides a striking effect. The lush greenery of the opening act eventually gives way to an ashen, insensate land as brother turns against brother and the great lord succumbs to madness. The clouds passing overhead descend into smoke and fire; at times it seems as if Kurosawa has as much control of the elements as his camera.
Though Kurosawa shot films in color before, the use of it in Ran is notable. The three brothers are distinguished by the primary color they wear: Taro in yellow, Jiro in red, and Saburo in blue. This becomes helpful during the teeming warfare scenes, allowing the audience to distinguish what soldiers are on what side as they clash on the battlefield. These were massive undertakings for Kurosawa and his crew; an astonishing 1400 uniforms and armor were used for the extras, as well as two hundred horses. Entire sets were built just to be burned to the ground. Nakadai had to film the scene where Hidetoro, stricken as a ghost haunting his own life, emerges from the charred ruins of the third castle in one take.
“In a mad world, only the mad are sane,” says Kyoami, the fool character who stays by Hidetoro’s side as he spends the second half of the film wandering the wasteland. While Shakespeare’s Lear is apt to rant and rave at his misfortune, Hidetoro seems shell-shocked by the destruction of his kingdom, his voice rarely rising above a strained whisper except when in the throes of a wild vision. His insanity may shield him from the knowledge of his responsibility for what’s happened, but Kurosawa gives an uncommon amount of attention to the victims of the cruel campaigns of his youth, chief among them Lady Kaede, Taro’s wife who has her own vengeful agenda, and Lady Sue and her brother Tsurumaru, whom Hidetoro blinded and left destitute. It should be no great spoiler to say most of these characters meet bad ends, but the ones who survive don’t seem much better off.
Kurosawa made three more films before his passing in 1998, but none of them impart the same sense of a grand definitive statement as Ran. It’s also the rare Shakespeare adaptation that expands beyond the confines of the text to say something about the wider world. Though set in medieval Japan and mined from an Elizabethan play, it’s also clearly the work of a man who witnessed cataclysmic events in his lifetime and perhaps saw little reason to hope that the current political leaders would overcome their differences. “The gods weep for us,” Hidetoro’s loyal subject Tango proclaims in one of the film’s final scenes. “Men prefer sorrow over joy, suffering over peace.” In other words, these are ancient cycles, and we may be helpless to pull ourselves free of them.
“Ran” is streaming on the Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and Tubi.
