Found in Translation: Braving the Storm in King Lear, Act 2 and Kurosawa’s Ran

[Singing]
He that has and a little tiny wit–
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,–
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day.—Fool (Lear 2.2)

The relationship of the characters’ interior states to the stormy exterior space in which they inhabit contains, in the stage direction and dialogue in King Lear, act 2’s storm scene, the capacity for a stunning visual spectacle. Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 period tragedy/film adaptation of Lear into historical Japan, Ran, takes full advantage of the storm scene and spreads the play’s storm and eclipse imagery throughout the film to interesting visual effect. Ran depicts the plight of Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-period warlord, in a throwback to Japanese, rather than English, history, that exchanges Lear’s three daughters for three sons.

It is especially interesting to note, for instance, the times at which Shakespeare’s stage direction–”storm still”–occur throughout scene 2, and how they coincide with Kurosawa’s directorial choices. For instance, in Ran, clouds expanding in dramatic close-ups are a constant theme from act 1, scene 1, the wild boar scene and its aftermath, when Lear divides the kingdoms to–in this case–three (then two) sons. The Guardian in a 2010 article called it “a storming Japanese Lear, spiced with Lady Macbeth” (another interesting aspect of the adaptation to analyze). Further, as Saviour Catania notes in “Wailing Woodwind Wild: The Noh Transcription of Silent Sounds in Kurosawa’s Ran,” “Thematically hollowness is of the essence, for Ran echoes throughout with Shakespearean silent sounds. Thus, though the cloud formations darken into an eclipse in the Third Castle conflict, they typically thunder in discordant silence. The effect is more manacingly oneric than that of Goneril’s vision of England as a ‘noiseless land’ (4.2.57) … for it equally evokes Edmund’s England plagued by ominous ‘eclipses [that] portend … divisions’ (1.2.136-7)” (89).

Examining digital, searchable versions of both texts–Shakespeare’s Lear and Kurosawa’s screenplay and storyboard images–as well as film criticism as shown in the references listed below, students are able to note and analyze commonalities in Shakespeare and Kurosawa’s source-texts with digital tools for data mining.

In this lesson plan, the overall goal/objective/theme is that students will work in a class discussion board on the learning management system (LMS) to visually and textually depict and present close reading/analysis of key themes of King Lear, act 2 as depicted in Kurosawa’s Ran. This lesson incorporates multiple methodologies so that students can form creative connections/insights via multiple learning methods to include: cultural studies, close reading, production analysis, digital humanities.

Due to its incorporation of Instagram-inspired blogs and digital humanities as noted below, searchable-text aspects/features, this lesson plan is ideal for undergraduate students of Shakespeare, and due to the creative nature of this lesson plan, it will also work well for more advanced, graduate English literature/cultural studies and film students, because students can employ more advanced reading tactics/analysis at different levels. The multiple methodologies appeal to multiple skill levels and learning strategies for visual and audible learners.

References:

• Catania, Saviour. “Wailing Woodwind Wild: The Noh Transcription of Silent Sounds in Kurosawa’s Ran.” Literature/film Quarterly: 2006.
• Martin, Daniel. “Subtitles and Audiences: The Translation and Circulation of the films of Akira Kurosawa.” Journal of Film and Video: 2017.
• Zirpa, Zvika. “Blood Visibility/Invisibility in Ran.” Literature/film Quarterly: 2000.
• Ran Illustrations/Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, translated by Tadashi Shishido, Boston: 2011.
• Ran – Original Screenplay & Storyboard of the Academy Award-winning Film. Shambhala: 1986.