Abstract:

Cinema is one of the most powerful methods of storytelling. Literature has been one of the most important story sources since the early days when cinema tried to prove its existence as an art form. Adaptations from literature to cinema make it necessary to compare the expression possibilities of both art forms. First and foremost, writers have an advantage over filmmakers in displaying inner worlds of characters. As for filmmakers have the power to tell by showing. Studies on the difficulties associated with adapting literary works to cinema constitute a large literature. This study is based on an argument Hitchcock made about adaptations in a famous interview with Alfred Hitchcock by François Truffaut (1987). According to Hitchcock, producing first class films from first class literary works is almost impossible; because these works are primarily the success of their authors. The aim of this study is to show that first class literary works can be adapted from first class literary works by opposing Hitchcock’s controversial argument. In this context, Macbeth adaptation of Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) called Castle of the Spider’s Web (Kumonosu-jô) was chosen as the purposive sampling. Macbeth is one of the most powerful plays of William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Macbeth adaptation of Akira Kurosawa, the great master of Japanese cinema, was analyzed thematically through document analysis. The brilliance of a filmmaker who knows how to tell stories with images reveals that a powerful literary work can be adapted to cinema with a competence that can match the original.

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