Kurosawa Akira Film Style Perfectionist

Kurosawa Akira

• Film Style

Perfectionist

• “Movie directors, or should I say people who create things,

• are very greedy and they can never be satisfied. That‘s

• why they can keep on working. I‘ve been able to work for

• so long because I think next time I‘ll make something

• good."

Perfectionist

• Total control over his film -

• auteur

• ‘I am my film … nothing

• more and nothing less.’

• Kurosawa Akira

• Screenwriter, director and editor

• He expected the same enthusiasm and dedication from his staff and co-workers.

Perfectionist Anecdotes

• Nickname Emperor

• The director who made something impossible possible.

• 20 tons of water was used for the opening scene of Rashomon and the local area ran out of water.

• The water was coloured with calligraphy ink.

• He demanded all furniture had to be antique and they had to be filled with antique clothes and materials.

Perfectionist

• Kurosawa got the roof of a house removed to film a short scene from a train in High and Low.

• Kurosawa demanded to change the direction of river flow for better visual effects.

• Kurosawa asked actors call each other by the names of the characters that they played and wore their costumes before, during and after rehearsals.

Perfectionist

• Kurosawa used real arrows for the concluding scenes of Throne of Blood. Master archers aimed at the targets only inches away from Washizu’s body.

Realism

• Thorough historical research

• Gritty (exaggerated - hyper) realism - costume designs, set designs, befitting the living conditions of characters

Realism

• Even samurai look extremely shabby and hopelessly poor, when their fortune declines or become masterless ronin.

• More realistic rendition of the Medieval time in Japan than in other conventional genre films.

Realism

• Kurosawa’s gendai geki (contemporary drama) are (dramatized) records of the immediate post-war period Japan - poverty, desolation and recovery

• Lives of ordinary people and people desperate for survival.

Realism

• (Hyper-) real fighting rather than theatrical display of chanbara (sword play)

• Performance to show a fight for life rather than showy swordsmanship

Heightened-realism

• Are Kurosawa’s films realist? - No.

• The ‘reality’ in his films is modified and exaggerated - heightened reality

• The representation of reality is backed by heightened aestheticism and stylisticism

Heightened Stylism

• Film style to appeal to the emotion rather than intellect of the spectator

• Psychological rather than mimetic realism

• (Mimesis = mimicry and copying of reality)

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• The emotional effects are enhanced by dynamic visual images and sound effects being brought together.

• Heightened psychological and exaggerated ‘realism’ - expressive mise-en-scène (acting, lighting, camera work, and composition).

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Dynamism of movement enhanced by swish pan, graphically matched and quick editing.

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Sudden movement of samurai in response to a false alarm in Seven Samurai

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Visual dynamism and kineticism - epic scale movement of the subjects on the screen shot by multiple camera and edited in frantic paces.

• The final battle sequence of Seven Samurai shot with 8 cameras and edited in a frantic pace.

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Cinematic sound is that which does not simply

• add to, but multiplies, two or three times, the

• effect of the image.

• Kurosawa Akira

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Sound effects of beating rain, running horses, their cries, splashing water, men’s yelling which are mixed together to create dynamic sound track in Seven Samurai.

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Emotional appeal and heightened realism achieved by lighting and camera work.

• Rashomon - shot by Miyagawa Kazuo, the photographer of Mizoguchi Kenji. The use of reflecting mirrors.

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Geometrical and painterly compositions enhance psychological effects on the audience - two police detectives pursuing the murderer who has killed people using the gun that he stole from them - vertical shadows of grills create create psychological suspense (photo, Stray Dog)

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• The bed of flowers on which the young couple lie or sit - creating lyrical effects in No Regrets for Our Youth and Seven Samurai

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Paisley patters of the futon hang to dry in Red Beard was shot with a telephoto lens. Depth disappeared and two dimensional quality emphasized the patterns.

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Natural phenomenon visually and aurally emphasizes the emotional atmosphere of the scene.

• Howling wind and fierce rain

• Strong wind churning up sand - bleak townscape Yojinbo

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• The opening scene of Rashomon, a ruined gate in a great storm.

• Natural phenomenon reveals the smallness and weakness of the human being and its rational power and moral strength.

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Snow in the park which Watanabe greatly contributed to get built and where he dies. Ikiru

• Loneliness and ephemerality

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Intense heat in Stray Dog and High and Low

• Heat is metaphor for corruption, social impoverishment, and criminality

Hyper-stylistic Filmmaking

• Dense fog and mist - hinting the existence of super-natural being and super-human power.

• Throne of Blood, Ran and Dreams