![]() The notable exceptions would be Takashi Shimura in Ikiru and several Mifune performances-especially Yojimbo. Kurosawa’s genius for visual rhythms, camera movement, composition, and editing often prevented a single character/actor from dominating a film. Rashomon made him a star, and before Yojimbo and its sequel, Sanjuro, he was Kurosawa’s muse in films as diverse as the masterful epic Seven Samurai, I Live in Fear, Throne of Blood, The Lower Depths, The Hidden Fortress, and The Bad Sleep Well. Perhaps James Cagney or Jean Gabin might be considered rivals, but at times, as in Yojimbo, he seems to be a species unto himself, perhaps from a less mundane world. Our upcoming exhibition The Aesthetics of Shadow, based on Daisuke Miyao’s recent book, is dedicated to Richie, who died in February.) For his Drunken Angel (1948), Kurosawa stumbled upon a barely experienced young actor named Toshiro Mifune (1920–1997), who was possessed, in the director’s words, of “remarkable sincerity and truth.” This doesn’t begin to describe the uniquely raw animal energy and magnetism Mifune brought to his roles. (Many of the early films of Kurosawa and other key Japanese directors were not available to us until Donald Richie curated a massive retrospective at MoMA 20 years after Rashomon. Kurosawa (1910–1998), who died 15 years ago last week, had been directing for nearly a decade before Rashomon, and a surprising number of his films to that point dealt with contemporary social issues (alcoholism, gangsters, syphilis), although the two parts of Sanshiro Sugata and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail provided a foretaste of the period/samurai films to come. (The title actually refers to the “castle gate” separating the two ancient capitals of Kyoto and Nara, but it is commonplace now to refer to a situation as “Rashomon-like” when various witnesses to an event have differing points of view on what actually transpired-highly cinematic, in effect.) ![]() I can’t think of a foreign-language film title that entered the English lexicon as pervasively as Rashomon has. In Kurosawa’s case, as we shall see, his debts to Hollywood were openly acknowledged. Both Mizoguchi and Ozu were avid followers of American movies and, especially in Ozu’s case, of broader American culture. (The Hollywood studio system, already in its death throes, was at that time contending with television and the European influx following World War II.) There were many important directors besides Kurosawa, of course, most notably Kenji Mizoguchi, perhaps film’s greatest visual stylist, and Yasujiro Ozu, creator of family dramas more poignant than anything Louis B. ![]() We suddenly became aware of one of the most productive, vital, and creative cinemas in existence. It would be hard to overstate the impact of the importation to the West, and particularly to America, of Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon, which opened up a whole new cinematic world to moviegoers. These notes accompany screenings of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo on September 11, 12, and 13 in Theater 2. What’s your favorite Leone or Kurosawa moment? Let us know in the comments below.Yojimbo. The men with no name in each film - Clint Eastwood and frequent Kurosawa star Toshiro Mifune - carry out the tasks they set out to in the first place, perhaps preserving a little justice along the way. In this intricate mashup, Alejandro Villarreal puts the two films side-by-side (to the tune of Ennio Morricone, naturally), and perhaps you can see why Toho, the Japanese production house, sued Leone before his film was released. In “Red Harvest” the protagonist - who comes to a small town trying to stop the corruption amongst local gangs and the law - has no name, thus inspiring the mysterious leads in both Kurosawa and Leone’s films. READ MORE: 13 Essential Female-Lead Westernsīy the same hand, Kurosawa adapted ideas from Dashiell Hammett’s brilliant novel “ Red Harvest,” though he claims he modeled the film after “ The Glass Key,” but historians - and myself as a reader of both books - beg to differ. In that case, then perhaps Sergio Leone was ahead of his time in 1964 when he made “ A Fistful of Dollars,” the first film in the spaghetti western ‘Dollars’ trilogy, which was in fact a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 samurai epic “ Yojimbo." From a postmodernist perspective, perhaps there is nothing left to art but the deconstruction of what’s already been created, piecing together the ideas of those you admire.
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