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Akira kurasawa

Kurosawa #8 Throne of Blood (Japan 1957)Miki (KuboAkira) and Washizu (Mifune Toshiro) approach the witch (who wears a

noh mask).

Throne of Blood is one of the best-known films by Kurosawa Akira. It was

highly-praised in the West but not so warmly received in Japan. The

reasons given for this difference in reception are (1) it is an adaptation/

version/re-imagining of Shakespeares Macbeth (2) Kurosawa usedelements of noh theatre in ajidaigeki or period film, which in Japanese

Cinema would traditionally have been influenced by the more populist

kabuki theatre. The result is that the film as a film has been rather

obscured by the metatext about its status as Shakespeare and

Japaneseness. Thats a shame because it is a great Kurosawa movie with

a terrific performance by Mifune Toshiro and a wonderfully imaginativerepresentation of time and place forests, castles and windswept and

fog-bound heathland.

The following notes have been adapted from material given out on a

recent study day on Kurosawa:

Setting

This version of Macbeth is transplanted to the early part of the Sengoku

period of civil wars in

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Japanese history (1467-1573). This assertion is partly based on the

absence of firearms. These were important in the wars of the later 16th

century that eventually produced the settlement of the Tokugawa

Shogunate (otherwise known as the Edo Period Edo is the old name for

Tokyo). During the long period of civil wars, the Japanese Emperor was

confined to Kyoto and warlords vied for power in different provinces

across Japan.Although many Japanese filmmakers are associated withjidaigeki, these

tend to be based on traditional stories that had become kabuki plays

during the Edo period. Kurosawa was an innovator in staging much more

historically accurate (more realistically detailed) films from the Sengoku

period and the final warring period before the triumph of Tokugawa

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Ieyasu in 1603. Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress,Kagemusha and Ran are

the other Kurosawa films with this period setting.

The actions of the characters in Throne of Blood are consistent with those

of the period in Japanese history although as Stephen Prince

(2003/2010) points out, the wars were perhaps not as bloody as

Kurosawa makes them. But he was creating them from a 20th century

perspective informed by his own experiences of war and disaster.

Noh and kabuki

Japanese cinema developed roughly in parallel with cinema in the West

and filmmakers such as Kurosawa were influenced by the Western filmsthey saw in the 1920s. Japanese films were much more closely

associated with Japans three traditional theatrical forms, noh, kabuki and

bunraku (a form of puppet theatre) and the modern theatre associated

with the contact with the West from the 1860s onwards (shinpa/

shingeki).

Noh is the earliest of these forms, dating from the 14th century and is

associated with drama and dance performed for the aristocracy in a

refined and austere manner. Actors play heavily typed roles and

individuality is hidden behind masks. Movements are restrained and

sometimes paradoxical, so that a small movement can signal a major

dramatic act.

Kabuki is a later form developing in the 17th century during the Edo

period and designed more as popular entertainment. In many ways,kabuki is the opposite ofnoh with its appeal to a popular audience in

large theatres. Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro (2000) suggests that noh is a

classical form and kabuki is a baroque form. Kabukihas been seen as

similar to Elizabethan drama in its appeal to audiences and its dealings

in spectacle. (Noh is more concerned with words: actions are often off-

stage). Not surprisingly, perhaps, it was kabuki rather than noh that

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became the source of plots for Japanese period film dramas, especially

action films. The same companies who owned the early

cinemas and started to make films were also engaged in promoting

kabuki shows in their live theatres. Kabuki might be said to be the more

earthy Shintoist response to the Buddhist austerity of noh.

It is interesting therefore that Kurosawa chose noh rather than kabuki as a

prominent aesthetic influence upon Throne of Blood. The clearest

examples of this in the film are in the depictions of the witch in Cobweb

Forest and the central performance of Yamada Isuzu as the Lady Macbeth

character, Lady Asaji. Although Kurosawa didnt require his actors to wearnoh masks as such, he showed them appropriate masks and asked them

to study the facial expressions. They also wore make-up that shaped their

facial features to resemble masks. In the case of the witch, she first

appears as the old lady yaseonna and in later scenes as the mountain

witch, yamauba. Yamada was shown theshakumi mask the face of

beautiful middle-aged woman on the brink of madness. Mifune as

Washizu was also shown the heida mask of the warrior.

Contrasts and clashes: Mifune

The whole film is built on a rhythm of contrasting styles, moods and

tones. One of these can be seen in relation to the playing of Mifune

Toshiro. Mifune was Kurosawas leading man in most of his films between

1948 and 1965. Casting Mifune is one example of the ways in which

Kurosawa innovated. As an actor, Mifune stood out in two ways. First washis sheer physical vitality. He literally ate up the screen space. Kurosawa

claimed that Mifune could convey the same meaning in a third of the

time that it took all other Japanese actors. He seems the least likely actor

to be in a noh play far too coarse and brutal, always seemingly teetering

on the edge of breaking out into violent action. (But Kurosawa tells us he

was a sensitive man of refinement.)

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the contrasting scenes in Throne of Blood (or Cobweb Castle as he terms

it in a direct translation) as lyrical agitation on the one hand and tense

stasis on the other.

Burch also discusses Kurosawas debt to Eisenstein and the concept of the

shot-change. In simple terms this means a style that contrasts with the

invisible nature of Hollywoods continuity editing. The shot-change

celebrates the visible transition from one shot to another, possibly

through deliberate mismatching of eye-lines or as in Throne of Blood in

the use of Kurosawas favourite device of this period, the hard-edged fast

wipe which abruptly takes us from one scene to another in the mostvisible way possible (cf the gradual fade out/fade in or the unobtrusive

straight cut). This is one example of the way in which Kurosawa confirms

the artificiality of film, emphasising its constructedness. The use of noh

acting devices is another. See too the distortion of space in the sequence

of the funeral procession approaching the castle.

An example of Kurosawas dramatic mise en scne with its sparse decor

and low-key lighting and its overall resemblance to a scene from a noh

play.

What does it all mean?

If we understand all these facets of the film, what do we make of

Kurosawas approach to what is a familiar story? Stephen Prince offers usa particular reading:

The Noh masks point to a huge difference between this theatrical

tradition and Shakespeares, one that helps give the film many of its

unusual qualities. Noh is not psychologically oriented; characters are not

individualised. Its characters are types the old man, the woman, the

warrior, and so on and the plays are quite didactic, aiming to impart a

lesson. Kurosawa, therefore, strips all the psychology out of Macbethand

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gives us a film whose characters are Noh types and where emotions the

province of character in the drama of the West are located here as

absolute types. Emotion here isnt an attribute of character psychology,

but a formal embodiment in landscape and weather. The bleached skies,

the fog, the barren plains, and characters going adrift against and within

these spaces this is where the emotion of the film resides. It is

objectified within and through the world of things. As a result, the film

has a definite coldness; it keeps the viewer outside the world it depicts.

Kurosawa wants us to grasp the lesson, to see the folly of human

behaviour, rather than to identify or empathise with the characters.. . . If Kurosawa strips the psychology from Macbeth, he also strips out

Shakespeares political conservatism, refusing to give us the plays

reassuring conclusion (flattering to James I) in which a

just political authority triumphs. In Kurosawas film and worldview, the

cycle of human violence never ends. Thus the films many circular motifs

describe the real tragedy at the heart of the history that Throne of

Blooddramatises. Why do people kill each other so often and through so

many ages? Kurosawa had no answer to this question. But he showed us

here, through the films chorus, its circularity, and its Buddhist aesthetics,

that there may not finally be an answer within this world. The aesthetics

and philosophy of Throne of Blood take us well beyond Shakespeare, and

thats why this is

a great film. Its accomplishments are not beholden to another medium orartist. Kurosawa gives us his own vision, expressed with ruthless, chilling

power, and its the totality of that vision, its sweep and its

uncompromising nature, that move and terrify us and that we are so

seldom privileged to see in cinema. Conclusion

I confess that I dont care much for Shakespeare. Im sure that I am

missing out, but Im too old now

to start over. It does mean, however, that I can watch Throne of Blood

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Kurosawa #7Scandal(Sukyandaru, 1950)

The Japanese poster for the film showing the four principals. The

handsome Mifune Toshiro is the artist. Below are Shimura Takashi

as the lawyer, Yamaguchi Yoshiko as the singer and Katsuragi Yoko as the

sick girl.

For much of his career up to 1965 Kurosawa Akira was contracted to Toho

(in the latter part of this period through his own production company)but in the late 1940s, because of labour unrest at Toho, Kurosawa took his

projects to other studios. Scandal was produced by Shochiku, more

associated for cinephiles with the work of Ozu Yasujiro. Although often

regarded as one of Kurosawas minor works, Scandal has several

interesting features.

Plot outline (no spoilers)

Mifune Toshiro plays Aoye Ichir, an artist (Kurosawas profession before

he entered the film industry). Aoye is on holiday painting landscapes in

the mountains. One day a young woman with a suitcase walks up to his

painting spot. She appears to be heading for the hotel where Aoye is

staying so he gives her a lift on his motorbike. At the hotel, Aoye visits the

young womans room to see how she is settling in. Both are dressed

informally and when they peer over the balcony to admire a view theyhear a click the paparazzi (or at least their predecessors in the Japanese

yellow press) are at work. The young woman is a famous singer and

there is a market value in an image of her and the handsome artist. Aoye

then

sues the scandal magazine (ironically titled Amore) which runs the

photo. He chooses an unprepossessing lawyer to prosecute the case,

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just as the Mifune character in Drunken Angel (1948). The lawyer even

lives in an area with a stagnant pool as in the earlier film.

The media discourse which the film explores is well represented in the

films mise en scne. Kurosawa and his cinematographer Ubukata Toshio

have great fun with posters, microphones, flashbulbs, cine cameras and

arclights in a series of montages and set pieces, such as the court case

that comprises much of the last section of the film.

The problem with the film, I think, is in how Kurosawa has fashioned a

narrative around the idea of a true man and a man of imitation the

Mifune-Shimura axis again played in a way that sees the artist characterof Mifune puzzled by the new media environment and determined to

preserve his honour (and that of the singer) whereas Shimura (the

lawyer) is a much more feeble character who, although he does not

understand the new world is easily persuaded to abandon his honour.

This is a melodrama of redemption in which Shimura becomes the

centre. (There is also a true melodrama villain in the form of the

magazine owner.) The court case is linked back to the truth/imitation

thematic in several ways. In the lawyers

ramshackle office there is a photo of his daughter in school uniform. he

artist recognises that this is a true photo and it helps him to decide to hire

the father. The father knows this truth, so when he is about to do

something shameful, he turns the photo to face the wall.

The expected melodrama involving the singer doesnt happen, insteadthe focus switches to the lawyers daughter. The singer must be present

for the court case and the narrative demands the presence of another

woman almost as a chaperone. This is the artists model and his friend.

At one point, they discuss the conventions of Western painting and the

artist suggests that Japanese art cant deal with the nude. In this sense

the artist is aware of the westernisation of Japanese culture and when

he visits the lawyers family at Christmas he

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brings a tree on his motorbike.

I was struck by some of the American responses to the film (which has

now appeared on DVD in Criterions box sets of Kurosawa). A New York

Times reviewby Vincent Canby from 1980 suggests that the film is a satire

on the Americanisation of Japan during the Occupation and that in some

ways the film seems first like a pastiche of Hollywood romcoms and then

undercuts this with its change of direction. Another reviewer points us

towards Sam Fullers films about journalism. Yamaguchi Yoshiko (like

Mifune, born in Manchuria) who plays the singer later appeared in some

American films as Shirley Yamaguchi including Sam Fullers Japan-setthriller House of Bamboo (1955). The courtroom scenes are similar to

those in Hollywood films, although the presence of newsreel cameras

makes them look more like Senate hearings. There is a suggestion that

some of the courtroom procedures might be new perhaps as a result

of reforms by the Occupation forces?

This is certainly a film worth seeing, with some excellent set pieces and a

real sense of the vitality found in so many of Kurosawas films in this

period. Perhaps it has been overshadowed only because it was made in

the same year as Rashomon. One warning though if you dont like

melodrama acting, you may find Shimuras performance just a little too

much. I prefer him in Ikiru (1952).

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Kurosawa #6: The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku

nemuru, Japan 1960)

party arrives at the beginning of the film

The wedding

1960. Kurosawa Productions and Toho Studio. Screenplay: Shinobu

Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni, Ryuzo Kikushima, Eijiro Hisaiti and Akira

Kurosawa. Black and white CinemaScopephotography: Yazuru Aizawa.Music: Masaru Sato.

This was the first feature from Kurosawa own production unit. The

production team includes names familiar from his other films. And the

lead character is played by Toshiro Mifune: almost an alter ego for the

director. The films plot is reminiscent of William Shakespeares Hamlet,

though there is no reference to this in the credits. However, Shakespeare

[like the classic Russian novels] is a recurring source for Kurosawas films.What is interesting is that what appears to interest him are the revenge

tragedies: Macbeth, Hamlet and Lear.

Nishis (Toshiro Mifune) father was a victim of corporate corruption. Nishi

marries into the family of Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori) the Vice-President of

a Land Development Corporation and a senior figure in the network of

corruption. Obtaining the position as secretary to the Vice-President,

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Nishi proceeds to subvert the criminal network from inside. His

unexpected emotional feelings for his new wife Yoshiko (Kyko Kagawa)

engender similar vacillations to that of Hamlet in Shakespeares version.

This sets up a dark, downbeat and tragic finale.

The film opens at a high-class wedding ceremony attended by leading

businessmen and government officials. We are immediately plunged

into a formal Japanese occasion. However, the wedding party themselves

are plunged into anxiety as newspapermen and then police arrive on the

trail of a corporate corruption conspiracy. There is a sharp contrast

between the ritual formalism of the wedding reception and the publicevents being exposed. Kurosawas camera shows us the corporate bosses

struggling to maintain a facade over their repressed anxieties whilst the

newsmen act like a Greek chorus on the developing drama. This

repression is powerfully visualised in one moment of the sequence. The

young bride suffers from a disabled foot. This is partially hidden in the

drapery of the traditional costume of a Japanese bride. However, she

stumbles on entry, exposing her deformity. The visible shock that

accompanies this accident presages the more dramatic shocks and

exposures that follow later in the film.

Whilst the opening sequence raises a host of questions it also introduces

the main characters and the theme of corruption that dominates the film.

Kurosawa explained

At last I decided to do something about corruption, because it alwaysseemed to me that graft, bribery, etc., at the public level, is one of the

worst crimes that there is. These people hide

behind the facade of some great company or corporation and

consequently no one knows how dreadful they really are, what awful

things they do. (In Sight and Sound, Autumn 1964).

In the film Nishis motives are more personal than social. As the story

develops we come to find out about his history and to understand what it

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Nishis companion Itakura (Takeshi Kato) is a wartime friend and also a

business partner. They have swapped identities so that Nishi [once

Itakura] can penetrate the conspirators network unrecognised. In 1945

Nishi and Itakura were part of the defence at an armaments factory, now

a bombed and ruined wasteland. It is here that the film reaches its

conclusion. Here Nishi holds captive and interrogates Moriyama (Takashi

Shimura), one of the key conspirators.

However, Yoshiko mistakenly gives his secret away to her father and the

conspirators set out to eliminate Nishi and safeguard their positions.

Unlike the Shakespearean version there is no Fortinbras to bring in a newand accountable regime. All that Tatsuo can do is tend to his traumatised

sister. Itakura [once Nishi] loses his identity and is rendered a non-person

by the death of Nishi.

Whilst Shakespeare does not get an official credit Kurosawas version is

full of references to the famous play. Apart from the dead father and the

sons efforts for revenge we have the murderous stepfather, the faithful

friend and companion, the lovelorn heroine and her angry brother: we

even have a suborned widow, though much less developed than

Shakespeares Queen. Alongside these characters there is a ghost: a

dramatic recreation of a murder: graves and funerals: gunplay instead of

swordplay: and poisonings. What we seem to have is a Shakespearean

tale reconstructed in contemporary Japan.

I found the opening of the film riveting as we watch the surface formalityso typical of Japanese drama. But we also watch the hidden currents of

greed, fear and revenge. The sequence sets up a series of strands of both

personal and public conflict. The CinemaScope photography is exemplary

as we watch the various manoeuvres by the characters. Visually the films

conclusion provides a darker parallel, set in the disused arms factory, as

Nishi and Itakura desperately seek to complete their investigations, only

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half aware of the trap that is closing in on them. The shattered and dismal

landscape becomes a metaphor for the social chaos depicted in the film.

factory

The derelict

Unfortunately I find the drama that separates these two episodes less

convincing. There are impressive set pieces: a man contemplates suicide

on a smoking wasteland of stones and ash: three men walked through a

labyrinth of gleaming metal, and bright lights and shadows, typical of

the noir atmosphere in the film. There are secret meetings of the

conspirators and the clear evidence of a Mr Big, in the shadowy

background. However, the personal dramas do not achieve the same

dramatic edge.

Part of the problem seems to be the motivation of Nishi. It is his

suppressed emotions for his new wife that creates the vacillation that inShakespeare springs from the character of Hamlet. But the film does not

offer enough attention to the relationship to make this convincing. The

female characters are mostly underdeveloped. This is a reflection of the

contemporary world of business, government and the media. Thus when

the high-ranking guests arrive for the reception only the male member

signs the Reception Book.

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But it is also that female characters are not really developed in most

Kurosawa films. His films privilege male bonding rather than

heterosexual couples. Despite her importance in the plot and in the

relationships between the men Yoshiko is a fairly undeveloped character.

And Furuyas wife appears only to be duped in a similar fashion to

Yoshiko.

Even so the film remains a dramatic and compelling story. It is beautifully

composed with an evocative soundtrack. Kurosawa and his team offer

distinctive stylistic tropes: like the familiar recurring cut on a wipe. The

cast portrays the dark, seedy world of corruption with conviction.

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World War and the Bikini Incident. In 1954 the US forced the 166

inhabitants of Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands to leave their homes,

and then conducted a full-scale test of an atomic bomb, which was

thousand times as powerful as the explosion at Hiroshima. The Japanese

fishing boat Lucky Dragon strayed just beyond the demarcation zone

resulting in all crew members being killed or suffering radiation sickness.

The incident sparked a national petition (with 20 million signatures)

calling for a ban on nuclear weapons.

Nakajimas family takes him to court and tries to declare him mentally ill

in order to stop himfrom spending the family fortune on migration to Brazil. On the other

hand Nakajima believes that the nuclear threat is the madness and fails

to understand why everyone else should be so complacent. The opening

credit shows crowded Tokyo streets full of faceless commuters who seem

orderly yet lacking in direction. It can be interpreted as a statement on

the groups lack

of ability to challenge fate, which the old mans children are all ready to

accept. One of his sons tells him that there is no point worrying about the

atomic bomb as they cannot do anything about it anyway. Nakajima is

not only fighting the fears of nuclear destruction but the weight of the

crowd represented by his numerous relatives.

One of the most striking scenes is when Nakajima hears planes flying

low, and sees a flash of lightning in the sky; he rushes over to hisgrandson and wraps himself around the baby to protect him. His

daughter is horrified and grabs the child from Nakajima. The scene sums

up the old mans motivation and the reaction of his unsympathetic

family. The turning point comes when Nakajima burns down his factory to

force his family to migrate, with the opposite effect; they are more

convinced that he is demented. The ending is most regretful. Nakajima

has been put in an asylum. One of the magistrates goes to visit him;

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Kurosawa #4: High and Low (Japan 1963)

A static 'tableau' of the Gondo family with the police. Kingo Gondo

(Mifune) is sat at the left with his wife and son. Inspector Tokura is in the

dark suit. Note the chauffeur on the extreme right of the frame in a

supplicant's pose.

This is an excellent film by any criteria. It shows Kurosawa Akira at the

height of his powers during the phase when he could produce

entertainment pictures which also offered another dimension of artistic

achievement. High and Low is based on the crime fiction novel by Ed

McBain (Evan Hunter). McBain was well known for his police

procedurals (Hunter wrote non-genre novels, several of which became

Hollywood movies and also other genre novels under different

pseudonyms and screenplays under the Hunter name). Kings Ransom is

one of the famous 87th Precinct novels. It details the investigation of akidnapping case. Kurosawa adapted various Western literary sources

including Shakespeare, Gorky and Dostoyevsky, but I dont think he

adapted any other genre novels by Western writers (unless you count the

claims that Yojimbo is based on a Dashiell Hammett story).

Plot outline (some spoilers)

Kingo Gondo is a business executive someone who has worked his way

up to Production Manager in a Japanese shoe company. The narrative

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role in which he humanises Gondo the businessman. The second is the

decision to film most of the first section of the narrative in static tableaux

of the Gondo family and the police in Gondos house emphasised by

the brilliant use of the CinemaScope frame as in the composition above.

This is almost like a stage play with characters holding their positions and

sometimes looking or staring off-screen. This is then contrasted by the

much busier (and more realist) scenes of the investigation shot on

location in Yokohama and on the railway.

What I think that this stylistic difference achieves is to establish a kind of

distance from the events and to invite an analysis of the story inmetaphorical terms. This seems like a modernist device. (A conclusion

strengthened by the single use of colour in what is otherwise a black and

white film at a crucial point in the investigation.) It would seem that

Kurosawa certainly achieved his aim of stirring up a critical storm (if that

was his intention). Some critics have criticised the film as ideologically

conservative. It is certainly true that one of the platforms for the police

investigation is the presentation of their work as helping Gondos family

to protect the boy and pointedly helping the rich to stay safe. The

Inspector even says at one point that he would understand if Gondo

refused to pay because he would be risking all. The critics disquiet is

heightened by the fact that the kidnapper also faces the death penalty

when he kills his accomplices and that the narrative almost seems to

endorse his capture in order that he be executed (the police dont domuch to prevent a further murder). Can this be the liberal Kurosawa of

earlier films?

But its not as simple as that. Kurosawa undercuts the straightforward

support for the establishment message, mainly through Mifunes

performance as Gondo who first suffers a business setback and

then rebuilds his career. He is embarrassed by the begging that his

chauffeur performs pleading for help with his son and he is deceived by

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the aide he had trusted. If anything, Kurosawa critiques contemporary

capitalism as he did in the earlier The Bad Sleep Well (1960). At the end

of the film, Gondo meets the kidnapper twice. First he unknowingly

meets the man on the street and then finally is summoned to meet the

now condemned man in prison. But the kidnapper never explains his

motives. He is not contrite and Gondo is left puzzled. I think Kurosawa is

asking us to consider what the story is about. Who or what is to blame for

this kind of criminal action?

On the down side, Kurosawa makes little use of Mrs Gondo (Kagawa

Kyuko) apart from some lines of dialogue and the contrast offered by hercostume in the first section of the film (traditional Japanese) and in the

second (Western).

Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro offers a long and detailed analysis of the film which

I wont summarise here except to note that he refers to the discourse of

urban geography how the Japanese city looks in 1963, relating it to

looking as a general activity (several clues come from sketches of his

experiences made by the kidnapped boy and the police use photography

in interesting ways). The suggestion is that there is a metaphor for

changing national identity at work here in the new ways of looking at

society although Kurosawa doesnt seem convinced of a coherent new

identity being formed.

I watched the BFI Region 2 DVD of the film (which is only available on

16mm film in the UK). I hope we eventually get to see a 35mm print. Iunderstand that Martin Scorsese is executive producing a possible

Hollywood remake. This is the kind of film you suspect Scorsese would

admire. It is reported to be being written by Chris Rock sounds

interesting!

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was visualised as the pool. The doctor is fighting to convince his patients

(i.e. Japan) that there is a future for them if they

change their ways and this is what happens for at least one of them. In

Ikuru the Shimura character dies from the disease hanging over him

but not before he transforms the neighbourhood.

References:

Kurosawa Akira (1982) Something Like an Autobiography, Vintage

McDonald Keiko (2006) Reading a Japanese Film: Cinema in Context,

University of Hawaii Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro (2000) Kurosawa: Film Studies

and Japanese Cinema, Duke University

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In his autobiography, Kurosawa makes plain that he undertook making

the sequel only because he was ordered to do so by Toho and that he

needed the money. (He claims that he was paid around $3000 150

for the script and direction, but that he spent much of this on location.)

The fact that his heart wasnt in it perhaps explains why some of the

action sequences suffer badly in comparison with the earlier film which

had been praised for the innovative techniques used on what was

otherwise a conventional story. The other main problem with the film is

that it looks as though much of the original script never made it into the

final film perhaps simply because the budget was so low andproduction generally was difficult in Japan in 1944. Certainly the attempt

to carry on the relationship with the lover spurned in the first film seems

perfunctory at best. Yoshimoto lists the film at 82 minutes my DVD says

81 minutes, i.e. about 79 mins at film speed.

sequence when Sugata watches the audience at the first fight between

two Americans

However, there are moments in the film where Kurosawas ability to

utilise a range of filmic techniques becomes evident. Two of these are

used in sequences now taken to be propagandistic. The story of the

sequel repeats the original formula. Sugata is still struggling with his

temper and the challenges that a martial arts would-be master must face.

At the beginning of the film he rescues a rickshaw runner from beingbeaten by an American sailor and is later inveigled into watching and

then participating in a contest with an American boxing champion.

During these fights the baying crowd of Europeans at the American

embassy is shown in a distinctively Eisensteinian montage of close-ups of

European faces as a Japanese is defeated. What is puzzling here is how

Toho found so many Europeans as extras in 1944. An IMDB posting

suggests that they were neutrals (Turkish, Swedish?). Certainly these

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before the death of 100 million expected to take place if Japan

surrendered.

. . . while the

Genzaburo with wig and make-up is in the rear.

Thesakejug sequence is matched by another scene in which the

transformation of a student is shown through a sequence of lap-

dissolves working as a time-lapse image, a technique used at least twice

more in the film. But such scenes only show up other desultory scenes

shot in MLS/LS against painted backdrops. However one feature of the

storys other main narrative strand deserves mention. This involves the

appearance of the two younger brothers of the man (Higaki) who wasdefeated by Sugata in the first film. The younger of the two brothers is

depicted as mentally unbalanced and Kurosawa decided to utilise aspects

of noh theatre in his portrayal. The actor was made up with a white face

and dark (red) lips and given a long-haired wig and a branch of bamboo

grass to carry (another symbol). He moves in repeated quick runs and

lurches and the overall effect is at once comical and disturbing. This use

of noh devices recurs in several later films. (In a Criterion essay, Stephen

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knowledge of film styles and aesthetics, both Japanese and Western.

Well attempt to range across Kurosawas whole output.

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AKIRA KUROSAWA

Being an artist means not having to avert ones eyes.

I like unformed characters. This may be because, no matter how old I get,

I am still unformed

myself.

The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of the

lives theyve been given. I believe you must live honestly and developyour abilities to the full. People who do this are the real heroes.

Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be

understood if it depicts these properly.

For me, filmmaking combines everything. Thats the reason Ive made

cinema my lifes work. In films, painting and literature, theatre and music

come together. But a film is still a film.

There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.

There is something that might be called cinematic beauty. It can only be

expressed in a film, and it must be present for that film to be a movingwork. When it is very well expressed, one experiences a particularly deep

emotion while watching that film. I believe that it is this quality that

draws people to come and see a film, and that it is the hope of attaining

this quality that inspires the filmmaker to make his film in the first place.

With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the

same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad

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I suppose all of my films have a common theme. If I think about it,

though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why cant

people be happier together?

It is the power of memory that gives rise to the power of imagination.

Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very

greedy and they can never be satisfied. Thats why they keep on working.

Ive been able to work for so long because I think, Next time, Ill make

something good.'

A truly good movie is enjoyable too. Theres nothing complicated about

it.

What is Cinema? The answer to this question is no easy matter. Long ago

the Japanese novelist Shiga Naoya presented an essay written by his

grandchild as one of the most remarkable prose pieces of his time. He

had it published in a literary magazine. It was entitled My Dog, and ran

as follows: My dog resembles a bear; he also resembles a badger; he

also resembles a fox. . . . It proceeded to enumerate the dogs special

characteristics, comparing each one to yet another animal, developing

into a full list of the animal kingdom. However, the essay closed with,

But since hes a dog, he most resembles a dog. I remember bursting outlaughing when I read this essay, but it makes a serious point. Cinema

resembles so many other arts. If cinema has very literary characteristics, it

also has theatrical qualities, a philosophical side, attributes of painting

and sculpture and musical elements. But cinema is, in the final analysis,

cinema.

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A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony, with its three

or four movements and differing tempos. Or one can use the Nob play

with its three-part structure: jo (introduction), ha (destruction) and kya

(haste). If you devote yourself fully to Noh and gain something good

from this, it will emerge naturally in your films. The Noh is a truly unique

art form that exists nowhere else in the world. I think the Kabuki, which

imitates it, is a sterile flower. But in a screenplay, I think the symphonic

structure is the easiest for people of today to understand.

I began writing scripts with two other people around 1940. Up untilthen I wrote alone, and found that I had no difficulties. But in writing

alone there is a danger that your interpretation of another human being

will suffer from one-sidedness. If you write with two other people about

that human being, you get at least three different viewpoints on him, and

you can discuss the points on which you disagree. Also, the director has a

natural tendency to nudge the hero and the plot along into a pattern that

is the easiest one for him to direct. By writing with about two other

people, you can avoid this danger also.

Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that the

best scripts have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation to

the descriptive passages of a screenplay is the most dangerous trap you

can fall into. Its easy to explain the psychological state of a character at aparticular moment, but its very difficult to describe it through the

delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not impossible. A great

deal about this can be learned from the study of the great plays, and I

believe the hard-boiled detective novels can also be very instructive.

During the shooting of a scene the directors eye has to catch even the

minutest detail. But this does not mean glaring concentratedly at the set.

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nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes

the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing.

The films an audience really enjoys are the ones that were enjoyable in

the making. Yet pleasure in the work cant be achieved unless you know

you have put all of your strength into it and have done your best to make

it come alive. A film made in this spirit reveals the hearts of the crew.

Japan does not understand very well that one of its proudest cultural

achievements is in film.

I dont really like talking about my films. Everything I want to say is in

the film itself; for me to say anything more is, as the proverb goes, like

drawing legs on a picture of a snake. But from time to time an idea I

thought I had conveyed in the film does not seem to have been generally

understood. On these occasions I do feel an urge to talk about my work.

Nevertheless, I try not to. If what I have said in my film is true, someone

will understand.

When I begin to consider a film project, I always have in mind a number

of ideas that feel as if they would be the sort of thing Id like to film. From

among these one will suddenly germinate and begin to sprout; this will

be the one I grasp and develop. I have never taken on a project offered tome by a producer or a production company. My films emerge from my

own desire to say a particular thing at a particular time. The root of any

film project for me is this inner need to express something. What

nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes

the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing.

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