EA 190 Class Outline Week 4

QUERY ABOUT EAST ASIAN MA PROGRAM: Forum

I. Bibliography assignment (look at prompt again)

For your next due date, you need to give me a longer, more specific description of what you want to do, and also demonstrate to me that you have found at least a couple of sources so I know that you can do it. If you are comparing actual performances/films etc, need to know that you have access to the primary materials.

II. Comparative Assignment 1 for class in two weeks.

3/4/5/6 are filled.

Let me know if you are presenting individually or in groups. Sign up sheet

Upload by dropbox by day of the presentation -- let me know if there are special media requirements.

III. Requirements

IV. Comparison of Macbeth and Throne of Blood

A. Act 1 Scene 2

1. Duncan: TSUZUKI Kuniharu

2. Malcolm/Donalbain: Tsuzuki KUNIMARU

3. Scottish Nobles: Ross/Lennox/Macduff: ODAGURA Noriyasu

4. Macdonwald/Thane of Cawdor: FUJIMAKI (4th Garrison)

5. King of Norway (also a bit of King Edward): INUI

B. Act 1 Scene 3

1. Macbeth: WASHIZU Taketoki

2. Banquo: MIKI Yoshiaki

3. Weird Sisters: Forest Hag/Crone

C. Act 1 Scene 5

1. Lady Macbeth: Washizu ASAJI

D. Act 2 Scene 1

1. Fleance (Banquo's son): Miki YOSHITERU

E. What characters are left out of the story? Why do you think they were left out?

IV. Comparison of Macbeth and Throne of Blood: plot

A. Chart comparing scenes

1. What plot elements are left out? Why do you think they were left out?

2. How do the changes in the plot between the two versions change our understanding of the motivations of the characters?

a. Duncan versus Tsuzuki Kuniharu

b. Banquo versus Miki

c. Lady Macbeth versus Asaji

3. How do plot changes affect our feelings about the characters? Are you more or less sympathetic?

V Introduction to Buddhism

A. Basic Premises

1. Perception of this world as SAMSARA (constant flow, movement, change)

2. Belief in reincarnation

3. Belief in karma (the law of causality, that our actions, good and bad, cause effects)

IMAGE: cartoon about Karma and reincarnation

 

B. Goal of Buddhism

1. To break cycle of death and rebirth (achieve Nirvana)

C. Why isn't reincarnation/rebirth seen as good?

1. Multiple lives, including in hell or as a cockroach:

Heavens
Human realm
Animal realm
Hungry Ghosts
Ashura (Warrior)Hell
Hells

D. Problem of Passionate Attachments

1. They cause karma and therefore rebirth

2. You can end up as a hungry ghost or in hell

3. In Noh plays, ghosts return to this world because of lingering attachments to traumatic events that occured in the past. Warrior ghosts are trapped in a specific hell for those prone to violence, the Ashura Hell, where they have to fight their battles to the death, over and over and over again.

Ashura Hell

These warrior ghosts hope to get help from Buddhist priests. The priests pray to Buddhist deities (Amida, Jizo, Kannon) who have vowed to help human beings to gain release from their passionate attachments and gain release from their passionate attachments so they can be reincarnated in one of the Buddhist heavens where it is easier to attain enlightenment.

E. Question of free will in Buddhism

1. Dependence on self (jiriki) versus dependence on deities (tariki). Usually involves both.

2. To free yourself from passionate attachments that hold you in thrall and attain enlightenment you must make a choice (the first step on the eight-fold path).

Sword Tree Hell

VI. Buddhism and Theme in Throne of Blood

A. What is the main theme of Throne of Blood? How is this influenced by Buddhism?

1. Three main points:

a.

b.

c.

B. Where does Kurosawa get this basically Buddhist theme of the cycle of karma from in Macbeth?

1.7.1-28 [69]

If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence and catch
With his surcease success, that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught,return
To plague the inventor. This even handed justice commends
the ingredience of our poisoned chalice to our own lips."

III.4. 151 [100]

"It will have blood they say, blood will have blood."

C. What is missing in terms of Buddhism?

1. Does anyone pray in this film?

2. See the opening and closing chants (my translation)

Video: 2:00,

2. Pessimism of the Ashura Hell without any help from Buddhist Deities

a. if you truly believed in hell, would this be a viable religious position?

2. Without benign influence of Buddhas and Boddhisattvas the world is a very cruel place

a. influence of existentialism:

Wikipedia: "In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world."[6]

Also:

Sartre himself, in a lecture delivered in 1945, described existentialism as "the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism."[16]

b. influence of nihilism:

Wikipedia:

Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.[1] Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived....The term is sometimes used in association with anomie to explain the general mood of despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence that one may develop upon realising there are no necessary norms, rules, or laws.[2]

3. Can you escape the cycle of violence?

B. Buddhism always assumes that you have a choice (free will), that allows you to choose detachment and the path of enlightenment rather than obsessive attachment and the cycle of reincarnation.

1. If Kurosawa understood this, what does it mean for whether Washizu has free will or is fated to make the decisions he does?

VII. Influence of Noh in Throne of Blood

Video clips from Throne of Blood:

opening and closing chanting: 2:00-4:30

Opening scene with hag: starts 9:00; Washizu shoots arrow at 11:10; find hag at 12:00 to 19:30, then lost in fog

Scenes with Asaji: 27:50 (initial discussion), 42:20 (setting up and following through on plan)

Scene at Banquet hall: 1:08:20

Second scene with hag: 1: 24:16

Asaji mad scene: 11:38:20

Noh intro: clip from Kurozuka/Adachigahara

A. Formal look of Noh

1. masks to indicate character types

Masks: The-Noh.com, Japanese Theater page

Asaji: Shakumi, Fukai 1, Fukai 2, Masugami/Masukami 1, Masugami 2, Hashihime

Hag: Rojo Komachi, Yamamba

Miki's Ghost: Chujo 1, Chujo 2

Washizu: Heida/Heita 1, Yorimasa

2. Movement style: sliding step (but note this is also used in Kabuki)

3. Noh stage used as model for interiors

Stage: images

B. Pacing

1. Jo-ha-kyu (slow opening, intermediate development, fast finish)

a. both the structure of the film as a whole, and the movement of particular characters (especially Asaji)

C. Thematics: modified Buddhist theme from Warrior Noh plays

1. As noted above, incorporates a Buddhist view of violence, passion, and karma that is similar to that presented in Noh (particularly Warrior Noh plays). These views are presented in poetic passages that are chanted in the Noh style, framing the opening and closing, as well as being used at key points in the film narrative.

D. Incorporates a short section from a Noh play

Video:1:08:20

1. During the Banquet scene, a warrior performs a section from the Noh play Tamura.

Photo story of Tamura.

a. Similar to Hamlet staging a play to "catch the conscience of the king."

シテ詞「いかに鬼神もたしかに聞け。 

昔もさるためしあり。 

千方といひし逆臣に仕へし鬼も。 

E. Representation of Character

1. Hag taken from Noh plays Kurozukaand Yamamba

Opening scene

a. How is the presentation of the hag in Throne of Blood similar to the Noh play Kurozuka?

b. How do we read the spinning wheel in the Noh play versus the film?

c. Is there any attempt to exorcise the demonic spirit?

Kurozuka versus Throne of Blood

Later in Kurozuka:

Second Scene of Washizu visiting the Hag

1. Hag character appears to shift to Yamamba (the Mountain Crone) making her mountain rounds, and to ghosts of male warriors.

Photo story of Yamamba

Yamamba images

a. Yamamba in the Noh play is supernaturally powerful, but not demonic (man-eating) like the hag of Kurozuka, and demonstrates a profound understanding of Buddhism. Is this reflected in the image of the forest hag in Throne of Blood?

2. Warrior figures from Warrior Noh: Yashima

Forum question to think about this week:

Compare the Forest Hag in Throne of Blood to the Weird Sisters in Macbeth. Is the Hag/Forest Crone in Throne of Blood unambiguously evil in the same way as the Weird Sisters? Why or why not? Do you think she has more responsibility or less responsibility for Washizu's actions compared to the Weird Sisters and Macbeth? Cite scenes and pg. #s to support your points.

Next week:

Will think about comparison of characters, especially Macbeth/Washizu, Lady Macbeth/Asaji, Weird Sisters/Hag.

Will also spend time on Neo-Confucianism and development of Bushido, and how these ideas, intersecting with the historical context of early post-war Japan, are represented in Throne of Blood.