Nobody Knows Hollywood

Director: Akira Kurosawa Year: 1957 The first thing to keep in mind when watching any movie from a previous decade, generation or, in this case, nearly 50 years in the past, is context. There are going to be elements, usually technical, that simply don’t match up with modern expectations. The same goes for cultural, artistic and language differences. A viewer has to open her mind up a bit in order to let the film past normal skeptical checkpoints of the mind and its fight for what it deems normal. An undisciplined viewer might allow these elements to distract him to the point of quitting the film. With Throne of Blood, that would be a tremendous mistake. The story, as it should be, is king – and what a grand king it is. Kurosawa is one of Japan’s masters in the art of film and his craftsmanship is on full display here. The script is based on Shakespeare’s MacBeth and the blood-rich theme of ambition is at its heart. The score screeches at us during the opening title...

Robert Duval shits himself in this movie. It’s a proper metaphor for the movie, not Duval's performance. But literally, you get to watch an actor of Duval’s stature and prominence, a man who has given us such towering performances as we’ve seen in The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, MASH (not to mention the lesser-known, but brilliant George Lucas film TXH 1138, which if you haven’t seen you should) shit himself on the screen and see it run down his leg and onto the floor. And that’s right after he’s vomited in the toilet because of his chemotherapy treatment. These actions are in-bounds contextually, but the images stick with me because of the movie as a whole. For good measure, Robert Downey Jr. and Dax Shepard also puke a few times during the film (just nerves). Downey Jr.'s character Hank Palmer also makes out with his niece. The film is in Indiana rather than Arkansas, but the cliché jokes might as well apply since the film is wrought with so many others from the court...