Kurosawa, the Emperor of Cinema
By Brian McAsey
In an era when people proclaim Steven Spielberg as a director of gravitas, Guy Ritchie as edgy, and Peter Jackson as a tireless innovator, we should be worried about the state of film art. With over a century of great film behind us and the privilege of hindsight, it is sad that so many would-be purveyors of film aesthetic engage in the absurd aim of trying to stay en vogue. It is far more instructional and fun to leave Burger King tie-in promotional fodder and gangster drivel to the faddist ilk of hobbit-cinema that is the hobgoblin of simple minds that crave to be consistently au courant.
This edition of Film Matters focuses on the director-genius Akira Kurosawa. In retrospect Kurosawa was simply the most important studio director of the 1950s. Being peerless in the age of Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Huston, and John Ford is no small feat and Kurosawa’s profile is still somewhat muted due to the fact he didn’t make films in the cinematic lingua franca of the last century. Although it is impossible to fully enumerate and laude his entire work corpus, an effective introduction is in order for those budding cinephiles who are unfamiliar, and a review is prescribed for those initiates that have not seen his entire work or recent film restorations.
For those who are unfamiliar with Kurosawa, rest assured that you have seen his films but may not realize they were his; Star Wars, The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars, A Bug’s Life, Last Man Standing, Courage Under Fire, and Hero are but a few of his films’ prodigious bastard progeny. Whether it is Tarantino’s wipes, Lucas’s entire Star Wars story, or even the ubiquitous dolly shot, Kurosawa is to be credited.
His oeuvre, besides screenplays, soundtracks, and production work, includes 32 films he wrote and directed. From nascent director, making propaganda film to film impresario and samurai culture revivalist and master of piquant social metonymy, Kurosawa’s resume is impressive. His samurai films like The Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, and Ran are simply transcendent and should be attended to first if missing from your film resume. In the creation of Kurosawa’s cinema, real arrows were shot within inches of actors, lakes were literally sucked dry to produce weather effects, entire budgets were dedicated to single props, and Kurosawa would push casts and crews beyond their physical limits.
But Kurosawa wasn’t only a demanding director of singular vision, he was also famed for being a dependable studio man and an employer who respected and rewarded his employees. Sumptuous catering, lavish parties, and libations always followed his slavish shoots. It was his studio crew that so revered him that they gave him the moniker Tenno (Emperor).
In post war Japan, the nickname Emperor had some connotations and not the least of which was defining what it is to be heroic in an age when imperial power had been all but obliterated and defeat compounded by occupation. Although Kurosawa’s films are universal they were always first and foremost films for a Japanese audience. Above all, he demonstrated the complex commitment to the creation of shakkaimono, or as critic Donald Richid defines it, “meaningful films about social issues seen in personal terms”.
Arguably, his greatest works were made in the era of black and white film in the rigid post-war Japanese studio system. The decade, starting with the year 1950, was witness to a dozen of the Emperor’s films and his best were among them. Many like Ikiru, I Live in Fear, and The Bad Sleep Well, were social commentaries on seemingly pedestrian subjects of bureaucrats, foundry workers, and factory officials. They are sensational. An equal number were samurai films utilizing elements of Noh theatre to complement western motifs, Japanese history, and Shakespearian adaptations—masterpieces!
Kurosawa revivals have been irregular and capricious with his domestic critics citing his adaptations of Shakespeare, his love of Ford westerns, and his iconoclasm as reasons why he is too Western. New Wave Japanese filmmakers of the 1970s rejected his work outright and soon after, Western audiences became unwitting apologists for an imagined case of cinematic jingoism. Castigating Kurosawa for cultural trespasses became a cruel pursuit of philistines putting on airs as cinema critics. Vitriolic essays framing the ridiculous and archaic questions of East/West Orientalism still persist. If you happen to meet some person at a party with such views make sure to pursue them with a cleaver to the nearest independent video store so that they may be rehabilitated.
A story that epitomizes the Emperor’s directional approach is his meeting with John Ford. After Akira Kurosawa met his idol, the two great directors soon found themselves in an awkward silence. Ford not knowing what to say finally said, “You really like rain”. Kurosawa responded, “You’ve really been paying attention to my films”. Indeed rain, triangular compositions, telephoto lenses flattening the images, pregnant silences, the samurai tradition, and a gang of staple actors headed by Toshiro Mifune, are all hallmarks of Kurosawa.
Kurosawa recommended prospective filmmakers to model themselves after Zeami Motokiyo. Zeami was a Japanese medieval playwright and theorist who established Noh theatre as a serious art form, and sought to “watch with a detached gaze”. This seemingly paradoxical entreaty is what epitomizes the film direction of Akira Kurosawa, and is the polar opposite of what you need to do to atone for your cinematic sins of omission if you are not conversant in the second member of the Film Matter’s pantheon. As Kurosawa himself said, "There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself".
Finally, lucky for you, in 2006 a Japanese court ruled that all films made in the country prior to 1953 were part of the public domain and were to be made available online for free. This means that almost half of Kurosawa’s work is now widely and legally available for your viewing pleasure, including Stray Dog, Drunken Angel, Rashomon, and Ikiru.
