Kurosawa Akira Heroes and Heroism Kurosawa’s Films Kurosawa Akira (1910-1998) SIGNIFICANT BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS (early life) • His dream to be an artist; he went to art school after his secondary education. • Avid reader of classic literature: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, Shakespeare, Akutagawa Kurosawa’s Films • Entered PCL in 1936 at the age of 26 as an assistant director. He mainly worked for Yamamoto Kajiro. SIGNIFICANT FACTS • Wrote many scripts: before he became a director – Kurosawa wrote scripts for all his films. Strong, clear narrative line and sharp characterization. Kurosawa’s Films • • • • Sanshiro Sugata (1943) 姿三四郎 The Most Beautiful (1944) 一番美しく Sugata Sanshiro Part II (1945) 続姿三四郎 The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (1945) 虎の尾を踏む男たち • No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) わが青春に悔い なし • • • • One Beautiful Sunday (1946) 素晴らしき日曜日 Drunken Angel (1948) 酔いどれ天使 The Quiet Duel (1949) 静かなる決闘 Stray Dog (1949) 野良犬 Kurosawa’s Films • • • • • • • • • • Scandal (1950) 醜聞 Rashomon (1950) 羅生門 Idiot (1951) 白痴 Ikiru (1952) 生きる Seven Samurai (1954) 七人の侍 I Live in Fear (1955) 生きものの記録 Throne of Blood (1957) 蜘蛛の巣城 The Lower Depths (1957) どん底 The Hidden Fortress (1958) 隠し砦の三悪人 The Bad Sleeps Well (1960) 悪い奴ほどよく眠る Kurosawa’s Films • • • • • • • • • • • Yojinbo (1961) 用心棒 Sanjuro (1962) 椿三十郎 High and Low (1963) 天国と地獄 Red Beard (1965) あかひげ Dodesukaden (1970) どですかでん Dersu Uzala (1975) デルス・ウザーラ Kagemusha (1980) 影武者 Ran (1985) 乱 Dream (1990) 夢 Rhapsody in August (1991) 八月の狂詩曲 Madadayo (1993) まあだだよ Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes Creation of heroes and anti-heroes. • Male characters who are strong, courageous, resilient, morally correct and often reckless. • Sanshiro in Sugata Sanshiro - a traditional hero. • MATSUNAGA (Toshiro Mifune), a punk, and Dr. SANADA (Shimura Takashi), an alcoholic doctor in Drunken Angel - anti heroes Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • The minor civil servant WATANABE Kanji in Ikiru (1952) who discovers that he is terminally ill with cancer and starts desperately searching meaning for life [short remaining life]. The most unlikely person proves to be a great little hero. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • Heroic warriors in Seven Samurai - Kanbei, Katsushiro, Gorobei, Shichijiro, Kyuzo, Heihachi, and Kikuchiyo • Characterization based on the sharp observation of human types and differentiation in characters Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • SHIMADA Kanbei • Though a great samurai and cool strategist, he is not fortunate in battles fighting on the losing sides. Now, masterless, but he has every quality to be a great leader and fights against 70 bandits with his six men. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • KATAYAMA Gorobei • Experienced and masterful samurai, who is a great strategist supporting Kanbei as his righthand man, though he does not look like it. He is always calm and self-controlled. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • Shichiroji • He worked for Kanbei before he lost tenure. Extremely loyal to Kanbei and knows perfectly what his former master wants and behaves. A model of feudal man of honour and duty. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • HAYASHIDA Heihachi • Not a great swordsman but has a great sense of humour cheering other samurais and villagers. He has warm sensitivity. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • Kyuzo • Extremely self-disciplined and ascetic master swordsman on move. He believes he can trust in nobody but himself. He shows no emotion but is not nihilist. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • OKAMOTO Katsushiro • Young, novice samurai, who is from a good family and adores Kanbei. He is naïve and innocent to grow up under the tutelage of Kanbei. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • Kikuchiyo • A son of peasants and war orphan. Utterly unconventional and extremely emotional person, pretending he is a samurai. Fierce and reckless fighter in battles though he has no skills as a swordsman Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • ‘Seven samurai is about the relationship between the samurai and the villagers. And I wanted to show each samurai as an individual.’ Kurosawa Akira • Sympathy towards peasants - pretect Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • Throne of Blood retells Shakespeare’s Macbeth. • WASHIZU Takatoki (Mifune Toshiro) murders his master following partly the prophesies given by a medium and his wife’s cajolement. • Tragic Shakespearean hero Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • The masterless samurai, KUWABATAKE Sanjuro who by chance walks into a town dominated by two rival groups of gangsters and two influential merchants who rely on their protection. Sanjoro devices to destroy both parties. Yojinbo A great medieval anti-hero. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • A group of idealistic young men, determined to clean up the corruption in their town, are aided by a scruffy, cynical samurai (TSUBAKI Sanjuro)who does not at all fit their concept of a noble worrior. Sanjuro - a great medieval antihero. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • In Red Beard (1965) the doctor named NI’IDE looks after the poor and wretched who can barely pays medical bills and the young doctor YASUMOTO who learns under his tutelage that he can do more good for working in his clinic than becoming a court doctor. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • High and Low (1963) - The wealthy company executive, GONDO, mortgages everything he has to buy out his company. The son of his chauffeur is kidnapped being mistaken for his own child. He agrees to pay the ransom from the money that he has saved to take over the company. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • A Russian tribesman is an unlikely hero who guides a team of a Russian topographical expedition in a Siberian journey in the extreme climate. Derus Uzala Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • Humanist concerns - the revelation of deprived and oppressive conditions and the demonstration of the wish to improve them. • Humanism - all human beings are rational and can be enlightened. Thus, they have dignity and worth which are unique to themselves. Trust in human goodness. • The pursuit of humanitarian and humanistic ideals led to heroism and heroic actions in films. Kurosawa’s Auteuristic Motifs and Themes • Kurosawa’s heroes - willing to do greater and nobler things - sacrifice themselves for this purpose. • Kurosawa’s anti-heroes try to be honest to their individual demands - existentialist demands which are at the same time public demands. • An imperfect young man becomes a hero by encountering an older ‘tutor’and growing up; the wretched becomes a hero though his potential revealed by coincidental circumstances. Humanism and Heroism • SUGATA Sanshiro is at first a brash, selfconfident student of martial arts. However, he gradually masters the true spirit of Judo and attains enlightenment under a influential teacher: harming the opponent and winning a match is not the ultimate aim of Judo. Its true purpose lies in gaining total self-control and bettering oneself. Humanism and Heroism • In Ikiru, the terminally ill cancer patient, Watanabe Kanji, is determined to do what is generally considered impossible and unachievable, though he does not have many days to live. He gives everything he has to get a mosquito-infected bog drained and make it into a public park. • Heroism of a small man and petit bureaucrat • Humanism defeats bureaucracy Humanism and Heroism • In Seven Samurai the defense of the village against the bandits is an act of humanitarianism, humanism and heroism. • Helping those who suffer. ‘Again we have been defeated. The winners are those farmers, but not us.’ Kanbei Shimada Humanism and Heroism • Humanist theme is conveyed through the anti-hero, Kuwagatake Sanjuro. • He agrees to be a bodyguard to one faction and then the other just because it amuses him. He soon decides that it is better if all die. • Sanjuro helps out suffering townsfolk. Humanism and Heroism • Red Beard (1965) • Helping others, particularly the deprived and poor, is the quintessential moral obligation of ‘civil’ society. • Compassion and conscientiousness play the prominent role in Kurosawa’s films from the late 1940s and throughout the 1950 and 60s. Humanism and Heroism ‘I had something special in mind when I made this film … I wanted to make something that my audience would want to see, something so magnificent so that they would just have to see it.’ Akira Kurosawa • Magnificence in human compassion and conscientiousness. Growing-up and Entertainment • SUBTHEME • Relationships between younger and older men • Relationships between the innocent and the experienced • A younger man learns humanistic truths with the tutelage of an older man. • SUGATA Sanshiro and YANO Shogoro in Sugata Sanshiro • The young gangster, MATSUOKA and his alcoholic doctor, SANADA in Drunken Angel Growing-up and Entertainment • The young detective, MURAKAMI and the senior detective, SATO in Stray Dog. • WTANABE Kanbei, the experienced warrior and the young samurai, Katsushiro, who has yet to fight in a battlefield in Seven Samurai. • The compassionate doctor, NI’IDE and the young and ambitious doctor YASUMOTO in Red Beard. Kurosawa Akira - maker of men’s films Heroic men; male relationship and comradeship; Little space for women; few female characters who are as impressive as male counterparts.
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