This video is brought to you by MUBI, an online cinema streaming handpicked exceptional films from around the globe. Get one month free at MUBI.com/likestoriesofold Akira Kurosawa is undoubtably among the most important and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Though probably best known for his Samurai stories,
his work spans a variety of settings and genres, taking inspiration not only from
the history of his native country Japan, but from all over the world. He has adapted Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and
was a great fan of Hollywood director John Ford. Over the course of more than 50 years of filmmaking, one signature trademark that came to define Kurosawa’s style was the way in which he used movement in his storytelling. As the channel Every Frame A Painting already
covered in their video; Kurosawa often included and emphasized the movement of nature,
the movement of characters, whose performances tend to be very physical and exaggerated, the movement of groups, objects, scenery,
and movement of the camera. The channel Cinema Cartography also adds how Kurosawa often used long lenses that enhance the sensation of movement, and how he combined moments of intensity with slow-motion to keep you on edge without becoming overwhelmed, and to emphasize the drama and emotional weight of the action. All of these elements together resulted in
what director Sidney Lumet called a Beethoven-like fullness. For me, Kurosawa is the Beethoven of movie directors. It is that recognizable full sound that Beethoven had that is so unmistakable. It is no surprise then that, over the years,
Kurosawa’s work has inspired countless films, either directly or indirectly. He even has a video game that is pretty much
dedicated to his name. But the real reason his films have resonated
with so many people across the world, and across time, is not just because of the exciting
action and well-crafted, spectacular images. As film critic Roger Ebert pointed out;
he was a visual stylist, but he was also a thoughtful humanist. “His films had a daring, exhilarating visual freedom,”
– he wrote – “and a heart of deep human understanding.” Today, let’s explore what exactly this entails,
uncover the deeper meanings of Kurosawa’s work, and create a more thematic understanding
of this master of cinema. To begin connecting the many films Kurosawa
has made, it is probably easiest to turn to the director himself,
who once said: “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 can’t people be happier together?” “Why can’t people be happier together?” if this is the central question that Kurosawa engages in his films,
then how exactly does he do so? First, there is the matter of presenting context. What is the world, the universe, that Kurosawa’s
characters live in? Well, here again we can begin with the most immediately observable,
the most visually striking aspect of his films: movement. As mentioned before, Kurosawa often emphasizes
the movement of the elements, rain, snow, wind and dust, fire and water. It paints an image of a world much greater
than ourselves. It is a world of eternal movement, one that
is constantly changing, constantly in motion. In this world, nothing stands still, nothing
lasts forever, including us. It invokes a sense of vulnerability, a sense of fear
in the face of this almost natural state of uncertainty, uncertainty about the world around us, and therefore;
uncertainty about our own survival within it. Many of Kurosawa’s characters find their
main conflict in this confrontation with their own mortality. If they are not directly battling the forces of nature, they are likely facing some kind of illness, a predatory enemy, an imminent defeat in battle, or some other threat to their physical being. But, as Kurosawa also shows, this is not solely a matter of physical mortality and the resulting struggle for individual survival, it is also about the collective level, about cultures, histories, about shared symbols and meanings that are just as much subjected to movement and change. Take for example how Kurosawa’s samurai films, unlike the samurai films of other Japanese filmmakers at the time, are typically set in the feudal periods of the 16th and 17th century,
an era of chaos and civil war, and tend to feature the less noble ronin, samurai who no longer have a master and wander the land, often finding work as mercenaries. In addition to facing their own mortality, these ronin also embody the memory of something larger that has been lost, they remind us of a time of order and stability, a time that has now passed. This temporal movement, mostly experienced through this underlying feeling of a changing world, a passing age, is present in many of Kurosawa’s stories. Dersu Uzala shows a wilderness slowly being
swallowed up by civilization, Rhapsody in August explores the lingering, yet fading impact of World War II as life moves on for the newer generations in Nagasaki, And out of all of Shakespeare’s works, Kurosawa directly adapted Macbeth and King Lear, both
stories of rulers coming to the end of their reign. Though not as visual as heavy rainfall or fiery destruction, time is just as powerful a force in Kurosawa’s films that leaves
his characters struggling for something to hold on to, struggling to find something solid
within this world defined by fluidity. Here, we can begin to see Kurosawa’s main
theme emerging. For if we are but vulnerable beings too small
to make sense of it all, where can place our trust? Doesn’t the truth become unreachable? In Rashomon, a heinous crime is recounted by some of the people involved,
leading to widely different stories. Along the way, we are presented with arguments
as to why the other testimonies could be false, and in the end, it becomes obvious that every character had their own reason to lie,
or at least, to bend the truth a little. But surely there has to be one true way the
story went down? There has to be one factual reality behind
all these conflicting perspectives? We never find out. Kurosawa deliberately leaves us wondering, thereby emphasizing our fundamental lack of access to what goes on inside another human being. As such, the inability to ascertain what is true
becomes a serious obstacle when it comes to trusting someone, which leaves us understandably suspicious
and wary of each other. Lies and deception often play a major role
in the interpersonal conflicts of Kurosawa’s films. The Bad Sleep Well, in which we follow a man
who marries into a wealthy family, while secretly scheming for revenge against the father of
his bride, whose corrupted business practices led to his own father’s suicide, is probably
the most obvious example of this. In what is arguably among Kurosawa’s bleakest films, the destructive consequences of getting lost in a web of lies with nothing certain or definitive to rely on are clearly demonstrated. Even if there are no deliberate deceptions going on,
the issue of trust still plays an important role in many of his stories. Take for example how the young doctor in Red Beard is asked to put his faith in that his new, somewhat unconventional master is not taking advantage of his higher education. Or how many of the victories and defeats that
the young samurai experience in Sanjuro is directly related to their trust in the older,
more experienced ronin that agreed to help them. But what is the biggest conflict for Kurosawa’s characters,
and the main reason they can’t be happier together, as he would put it, is not just that they lie to each other, but more so,
that they lie to themselves. “Human beings are unable to be honest with
themselves about themselves.” – Kurosawa wrote in his memoir – “They
cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.” And so, in the end, many of the obstacles and challenges
these characters face are internal ones. Kurosawa’s worlds of eternal movement do not only pose a threat to the safety of his characters, to their possessions or their physical wellbeing, they are a threat to the very essence of their identities, to that
self-image by which they define themselves. The farmer struggling with the competing testimonies in Rashomon
really is struggling with his own self-image as an honest man, an image that is challenged as the many lies around him confront him with his own. The gangster struggling with tuberculosis in Drunken Angel
really is struggling with his own self-image as a tough guy, as someone who doesn’t let himself be knocked down by anything. And the young doctor struggling with his placement
in Red Beard’s clinic for the poor really is struggling with his own self-image as someone
who is meant to be more important. All of Kurosawa’s characters, in some way or another, cling to certain beliefs that ultimately conflict with the world and the people around them; beliefs that they are so desperate to hold on to that they often
rather perish than face the mirror. And this, perhaps, is their real tragedy. They cannot be happier together because they
cannot be happier with themselves. They are trapped by their own rigid ideas
of who they are, who they should be. They cannot accept their own realities. As a result, they become detached,
they lose their connection to some deeper essence within, to that which gives us energy, vitality,
that which drives our passions. In Ikiru, we follow an aging government worker
whose diagnosis with terminal cancer propels him into an existential crisis as he realizes
he hasn’t done anything meaningful with his life. As the narrator states, the passions he once had have been completely worn down by the minutia of the bureaucratic machine and the meaningless business it breeds, leaving him but an empty shell of a human being. To quote a character from another Kurosawa film; In other words, if Kurosawa’s characters exist
in a world of eternal movement, their tragedy arises from resisting that movement. They become stagnated when they should be
in motion. Madadayo beautifully visualizes this with
a professor who refuses to leave his house after it has been destroyed by air raids in
the Second World War. Essentially, they have detached themselves from the way of nature,
and have grown unhappy because of it. They lost themselves in a world of their own abstractions, an artificial construction that was meant to provide comfort,
yet ended up imprisoning them. We see this disconnection from the natural
world in the literal sense in Dersu Uzala, in which a Russian explorer befriends a local
hunter who is ultimately taken back to civilization where he is unable to find comfort. And we see it in Dreams, which has multiple
references to our growing environmental issues. But Kurosawa also does not refrain from pointing out
the many other societal illnesses that keep us stuck in our place, that prevent us from connecting to our better nature. Such as warfare and nationalism. Social injustices; And regressive notions of masculinity; But what all this is meant to tell us, is that this unhappiness
is not our natural state of being. This world is not the world as it is,
it is the world as we have created it. And this also means that it is not how we
are inevitably doomed to end up. We may become disconnected, but we are never fully detached,
Kurosawa seems to say here. We can always turn things around,
or at least: we can make the effort, like the government worker does in Ikiru as he uses his last bit
of time to realize a playground for the children. In fact, in Stray Dog, in which a detective loses his gun and grows increasingly desperate about the harm that can done with it, Kurosawa even seems to argue that it is inevitable. That ultimately, our conscience is more powerful in keeping us connected,
than our ego is in keeping us detached. And as he subsequently shows us, it is by acknowledging that,
by looking past our own attachments, that we see the world opening up behind it, and find that there indeed different paths,
that we can change our ways. Early in Seven Samurai, we see how the veteran Samurai shaves his head
and poses as a monk to resolve a hostage situation. According the Samurai code, this probably
wasn’t a honorable act. And yet, there is an important lesson here as he demonstrates how there are higher principles of justice more important than rigid codes of conduct. Many of Kurosawa’s films feature these mentor-like
figures who remind us of who we can be. Who work towards the happiness and wellbeing
of all people. These mentors often help break our frustrated
protagonists out of their own bubbles, guide them to a more fulfilling, a more meaningful life. And show them that they can be happier together. This, I think, is what Kurosawa ultimately
seeks to communicate. He reminds us that despite being faced with a harsh world,
we can find more harmony instead of conflict if we face it together. He shows that despite being subjected to eternal movement,
we can find something meaningful to work towards, something that fulfills us,
no matter how small it is in the grand scheme of things. And lastly, despite Kurosawa showing us how
difficult it can be for us to trust each other, in doing so, he also shows us how beautiful it can be
when we do. Kurosawa once said; “take myself, subtract
movies, and the remainder is zero,” which just goes to show how deeply passionate he
was about filmmaking. And even though he is no longer with us, that passion remains
in the continued creation of beautiful cinema. And if you’re looking for a great platform that provides a home for such films,
I highly recommend MUBI. MUBI is a curated streaming service showing
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Kurosawa's amazing. One of my favorite directors for sure.
This YouTube channel on the whole is amazing. Recommend the other videos as well!
This is the best thing I've come across on the maestro's birthday. Thank you so much!