A documentary that covers the filming of the 1979 movie "Kagemusha." And also it looks back at director Akira Kurosawa's previous works. interviews Federico Fellini Martin Scorsese George Lucas Akira Kurosawa
Movies -- in their natural period of vibration -- are closer to music. But ordinary commercial movies are closer to theater, where there is so much dialogue. If a movie is made closer to its natural period of vibration, then we get more of the fabled "cinematic beauty" which we see in Rashomon and Seven Samurai. But the movie with the most cinematic beauty is Fantasia.
I remember not liking Kagemusha as much as I hoped I would when I first saw it. The scene, shown here at around 55:00, is one I thought was too stiff. Correct, one might say, but too stiff. Now that I see how it was directed I think I understand that the direction was too specific, and also he was too angry. As a result the actors seemed afraid and frustrated. Hence it was too stiff. I think they should have waited after receiving the direction before shooting in order to relax. Or perhaps they should have run through the scene many, many times with less specific direction. I don't know. Directing a film is tough.
True. As you wrote, he pissed off when things don't go his way, so the scenes often become stiff as a result. I think he was also aware of that. Previously Kurosawa had always worked with a screenwriter named Shinobu Hashimoto, but he has not worked with him since 1955. Hashimoto believed that "a script is like a blueprint for a movie, so a movie must be made exactly as written in the script." However, before the Nouvelle Vague began to appear in movies, there was already a tendency in Japanese movies to create movies with the expectation of "the unexpected that happens while the camera shutter is open." This tendency is particularly evident in Hiroshi Shimizu's works, especially his 1936 film "Mr. Thank You," which is probably the first road movie in film history. Kurosawa also tried to avoid making his films stiff, thinking that "Nothing could compete with the fun of Jidaigeki(samurai flicks) with cheesy lines." The result was "Yojimbo," but it seems like his bad temper never got better, and his subsequent films also have a "blueprint" like stiffness, especially when compared to his contemporaneous films. At this point, I am particularly comparing Daiei's Jidaigeki, especially "Zatoichi's Cane Sword" and "江戸へ百七十里" directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda and Issei Mori, but I think most of these have not been introduced overseas. That's why there are not a few anti-Kurosawa fans in Japan too who share the same sentiments as you. Thank you for sharing.
