SHAKESPEARE

When I saw Peter Greenaway’s film Prospero’s Books, my first thought was "here is the most correct way for a modern to interpret his own classic". Only later realizing I was in conflict with myself: Modern and Classic were universal categories in my opinion. I think, this blunder was due, on the one hand, to the traces of "idée reçue"s still persisting in my mind - how long and what a persistent effort it takes to forget the wrongs fed to a young brain! On the other hand, the occasional and unexpected examples that spring from the Orient-Occident dilemma bred and nourished the blunder: Had Kurosawa’s interpretation of Shakespeare not had me writhing for years?

In fact, the adaptation of a classical work to modern times opens up a different world. We do not see this kind of relationship in Greenaway or Kurosawa : Neither director is making an effort to mold Shakespeare into the present, to an age which belongs to us. In Greenaway’s interpretation of The Tempest, Shakespeare’s context is dislodged but the setting remains : the play unravels at the same time, in the same setting, with the same characters. Where does the triumph of Prospero’s Books come from then? Greenaway uses the 24 books under Prospero’s hand as an upper scene mounted onto the main scene on the screen, thereby providing a two-dimensional spectacle for his interpretation. Shakespeare’s world is on the horizontal axis, and on the vertical axis, Greenaway’s tampering with this world -while remaining "inside" it- takes place. We watch Greenaway’s divertissements simultaneously as 24 side-scenes open onto the same main scene. This is only natural: every idiosyncratic adaptation requires a betrayal of the original work in direct proportion to its deviations. This is the only way of remaining loyal.

Kurosawa’s position deviates from this mainstream by virtue of a number of fundamental reasons. First, he moves Shakespeare, if not to the present, then to a different period: a period of his own preference. Second, he moves the main setting to a different place: it is dislodged from the other-setting and nestles into its own-setting every time. So much so that, a question creeps into our minds: Can it really be that Shakespeare is in fact Japanese? This uncertainty can be sustained in many experimental situations, placing the two works into the respective scales of the same balance. I will be content with reminding a single experimental situation : Aren’t the twins in Kagemusha named Willy and Akira?

Of course so many deviations of form should not mislead us: Kurosawa’s interpretation of Shakespeare is, in a way, on a par with Goethe’s confrontation with Hafiz of Shiraz. I have always wondered: Had Kurosawa realized, traversing a path that started with surprise and ended in awe, that the world Shakespeare created was in fact very much a Japanese world? We can no longer say whether it was Shakespeare’s work or Kurosawa’s which nudged this suspicion/pain in us. Perhaps, this much can be said: Kurosawa’s films have "shown" that a Shakespeare who should have existed in the Japanese culture but never did, should truly have been in there.

Yes, Kurosawa incessantly transfers the time and setting to Japan, from one island to the other, but he faithfully replicates symbolic instances and scenes.

In contrast to Greenaway’s computer-supported designs and their quick rhythm which exceeds the rate of cinematographic presentation and even that of reading, Kurosawa creates a foreground with his pictures as a pro-designer for himself: His cinema first draws upon the Japanese print tradition. I think, the picturesque quality of the slow motions of Ran as much as his pictures of his dreams or his way of "animating" and "freezing" Van Gogh verify my observations.

All the same, his cinema is not limited to a juxtaposition of time fragments: it is more a transition from one living picture to another impregnated with motions: Kurosawa "writes" his motion pictures. Consequently, he connects with Shakespeare from whom he deviates with regard to time and setting, in every screen set-up .

In short, what is it that makes Shakespeare contemporary -not modern- in Kurosawa?

Perhaps, a special paradox: Kurosawa is the only director who is a contemporary of Shakespeare.

Enis Batur is a poet and an essayist