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Theme: Japanese films of the 1950's (#1)Released: 1950 (b&w)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Tagline: The husband, the wife...or the bandit?
Actors:
- Toshirô Mifune (Tajômaru)
- Machiko Kyô (Masako Kanazawa)
- Masayuki Mori (Takehiro Kanazawa)
- Takashi Shimura (Woodcutter)
- Minoru Chiaki (Priest)
- Kichijiro Ueda (Commoner)
Won Best Actress award in 1951 at the Mainichi Film Concours in Tokyo, Japan.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042876/
@ the Crow's Nest
Society members present: Chelsea, Chris, Devin, Jason Adams, Jenny, Big John, Zach
Notes: Jen swooned over Humphrey Bogart. There was low to average making fun of this movie.
Go to town with your comments kids!
Coming up Thursday the 18th, GODZILLA!
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9 comments:
That sword fight blew my balls off!
But seriously this movie is great. I'm more of a fan of Kurosawa's later work but you can definite tell that he was on to something with this movie.
I mentioned it during the film but the lighting is really 1930's blown out but had a dream like quality to it during the forest scenes. It made the visuals kind of foggy which went well with how you couldn't tell if the stories were lies or truths.
Not to get too deep on everyone. I also enjoyed the Tarantino-esc way the story was told. A man before his time.
Well again I enjoyed the movie and hanging out with everyone.
4/5 swords
Can we list major actors as labels, too? I for one hope to see more Mifune films (<3), and it seems like it'd be fun and helpful to be able to use the labels to view all movies that included certain actors/actresses. In other words, can we list Mifune on there too? What do you guys think?
Anyways, I thought the movie was lovely. I'm tempted to say that it felt a bit slow, but I only think that was because we talked a bit through certain parts. When I think back on it, the "slow" parts actually moved along with a certain grace-- Normally, I'd expect myself to get bored in a 1950's foreign drama. But I didn't! The pacing of the movie was very deliberate, and I appreciated it for what it added to the mood and the story.
I'd give it a 4/5 as well
I'm happy to see this thing finally happening. I spent most of the summer trying to organize movie nights in Reno, with little to no effect. So, it is absolutely wonderful to find a group of friends who are as excited about the idea as I am.
I completely agree with Devin's comments on the lighting, especially the forest scenes. Another thing I found interesting about the forest scenes, was the way he would often move the shot back and use the trees to frame the action, giving the scene a voyeuristic quality.
Everytime I watch this movie I come away with a different angle on it. The first time I saw it, I was convinced by the bandit's story, the second, the woodcutter's, but now I realize that it doesn't matter. I think Robert Altman was right (-shudder-) in asserting that the only thing to take away is that everyone is both telling the truth and lying.
I believe this is also a film that is a product of his time and place. The film opens with a shot of a destroyed temple, where men are discussing the horribleness of the world around them. The way the woman is dressed in white and cast in glowing light, suggesting innocence which is later defiled. Her husband as Samurai, the military might, unable to stop the rape, and is forced to watch. All of these echoing the death and destruction caused by WWII.
Kurosawa then leaves us with an even more ambiguous ending, offering both hope and fear. The child, representing a new chance at life, is stripped of its possessions by the stranger, who asserts a type of might makes right ideology, saying that if he doesn't do it someone else will. But in the end the woodcutter takes the orphan in and offers to protect him, leaving us with a small glimmer of hope for the world. The greatest part about this scene, in my mind, is that Kurosawa offers no easy answers. We're unsure whether the child will make it, just as he was unsure Japan would be able to carry-on following WWII.
This complexity of narrative and ideas, the beautiful cinematography, and the always wonderful Toshiro Mifune are just a few of the reason I keep watching this film time and again. Because I know that everytime I watch it I will be presented with a completely new story.
4/5 swords
Oh yeah! Big thanks to Chris for setting this blog up so quickly! :) I'm really excited about this, and I hope we can eventually get a lot of people participating and talking. Cheers everyone, congrats on a successful first showing!
I don't think the ending is as ambiguous as people say. Rather than 'truth' and 'lies' and stuff, I think the stories just reflect the characters' different perspectives on it all. SUBJECTIVE REALITY! You can tie together common elements from all the stories to get a basic idea of what definitely happened.
Well, the baby stuff still is different huh.
Oh, and hi guys.
Thanks Chelsea! So I've added the actors into the blog. There were a few more in the movie, but I didn't want to add so many that the list became the focus of the post. I considered adding things like screenwriters and photographers but decided against it since that is all available on imdb. If there's an interesting reason to mention another part of the film crew, I think it's more appropriate to put them in our comments.
Since photography and lighting and costume are particularly interesting to me that's what I'll probably bring to my comments the most. And I'm gonna throw out another crew member right now.
So. Kazuo Miyagawa was the cinematographer. Unique techniques that he brought to this film were the hand held camera (had been used before, but not often) following the characters as they were running though the woods and shooting directly into the sun. Also, since the woods were so dense, traditional foil reflectors didn't throw enough light onto some of the scenes. He was bright enough (haha, get it?) to just use a mirror. Obviously this echos Devin's previous comments on the dreamy quality of the film, which I thought was excellent.
He was also the cinematographer for Ugetsu Monogatari, another film that we will be watching in this theme. I expect to see some more of the same ingenuity and precise framing inspired by the balance found in sumi-e paintings that he was trained in as a young adult. Apparently, he was also influenced by the high contrast German films being done in the 40's and 50's as well, so perhaps we can keep that in mind if we screen one of those films.
Well it's been about a day since I watched the film, so I've had a bit of time to think about it.
Like everybody else I really enjoyed the aesthetics of the film. I didn't really appreciate it until today, but the dream like quality pervasive throughout the movie was done so deftly that I was aware of, but not distracted by it.
3.5 of 5
I think many directors would of laid it on thick (with the "dream" sequences), trying to slam home their point, I'm glad he didn't as it would of added to the "camp" factor. Instead, the film's visual style really helped illustrate the film's message without ramming it down our throats.
I do wish I had given more attention to the ending and the husband's story. At this point I feel those are the "weakest" parts of the film, but since those points were when I was paying least amount of attention I can't say that with as much certainty as I would like.
Oh... and since I can't edit my last comment I want to make it clear I meant my movie score to be at the bottom of my post, not in the middle of it.
Better late than never, I suppose.
I enjoyed the movie, but for some reason couldn't get into it as much I as I wanted to. The various perspectives were certainly interesting, and the sword fight was undeniably glorious in its primitive majesty, but the characters just didn't do it for me. I didn't feel much of an emotional connection to anything in the movie and didn't get much out of the themes as well.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Kurosawa bit off more than he could chew trying to make a Tarentino influenced homage.
Personal highlights: the cinematography, lighting, rain, and hysterically laughing bandit.
3/5
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