THRONE OF BLOOD

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I have a question.

Having read in the CRIMSON the excellent review of Kurasawa's "Throne of Blood," the Japanese Macbeth, I went last evening to see it. At the end "Macbeth" is murdered by his own men, in what the CRIMSON justly described as perhaps the most terrible such scene ever to be filmed; so terrible as to achieve a quality of tragic beauty and catharsis.

As this scene developed, the audience began to laugh--not everyone, of course, but enough persons so that the entire scene played itself out to continuous laughter.

What was that about? Who was laughing, and why? That is my question.

Please understand that I write this, not to object; not because I am unable to improve explanations; but because I am deeply interested in what may be said in reply to my question. There was a situation in the film that I was ready for; suddenly the audience mixed with this another, for me unforseen situation, that raises problems more immediate and perhaps more meaningful than the play.

Perhaps I should add that on an impulse I had taken my little boy, thinking--as proved true--that for him the violence and bloodshed would be absorbed easily into that other universe, that shadowy world of myth that already includes Snow White, the Frog King and Little Red Riding Hood. That's how it went. My little boy was deeply interested, thought the movie "wonderful", was not horrified. But how tell him why grownups were laughing? Fortunately he didn't ask. George Wald