Seven Samurai is considered one of the great movies of all time. As an action film, it was widely imitated -- in the US, remade into The Magnificent Seven -- ironic because Akira Kurosawa, the director, was himself influenced by westerns, especially those directed by John Ford. There are no great open landscapes, no Grand Canyon to marvel at in the background. This is a farmer's village at the bottom of a valley, placed between the mountains and the forest. The villagers are victims of roving bandits who terrorize the countryside as they seek food, drink, and women, while battling similar groups. It's 1587, a chaotic time in Japan. The farmers are mad as hell, and aren't going to take it any more, and several go into town to seek samurai willing to take up their cause. Not an easy thing, since even though times are tough, it is still a class issue, and no self righteous samurai is going to stoop so low as to risk his life for farmers. However, they luck out when they meet Kambei, a masterless samurai, or ronin, who is shown to be a soldier of heart and great intellect, as he is first seen rescuing a hostage child from a madman. He in turn recruits some others, until there are 7, the most that the villagers can afford, as they can only pay in food and shelter. Mifune plays Kikuchiyo, his famous role, an ex farmer turned rogue who fights for their cause. All of this takes place in the first hour, and for the next 2 1/2 hours we see Kambei and his men win the confidence of the villagers, prepares them for the inevitable battle which comes into the third hour of the film, and a great cinematic battle it is! Yes, this is a 3 1/2 hour film, but it never loses momentum. Kurosawa keeps everything tight, so even when there are side events going on -- one being Katsushiro, the young man of the samurai, who has an affair with one of the village women, Shino, a daughter of a man who lost his wife to the bandits in an earlier encounter. They symbolize both sides, as well as how unlikely it is for them to ever mix, even though they are fighting the same battle. For the farmers it is for their survival, for the samurai, it is for the nobility and honor of defending the downtrodden. One brief sequence I don't see mentioned at all is Shino's father, going with a couple of the samurai on a scouting mission, find the bandits in a farmhouse in the mountain. There was a night of orgy, and everyone is asleep. The samurai decide to burn the place down, and as they are setting it, they see through the window a woman, awake, in total disgrace. She turns out to be Shino's mother, and amid the burning flames, runs into her husband, who is shocked and relieved to find her alive. Ashamed of being at the mercy to the bandits, she kills herself by running back into the far, burned alive. What is interesting about this sequence is that her look of utter despair is repeated in a much later Kurosawa film, Ran, where the Emperor, played by Tetsuya Nadakai, is in his burning castle, awaiting his doom as his sons' armies converge to kill him and his men. In Seven Samurai, the scene is brief but powerful. In Ran, it is played out not only for dramatic effect but to show the utter chaos of that world. There is no sense of despair here. Just a countdown of the bodies of the enemy as they are foiled in every attempt to enter the village. Criterion has just released a 3 dvd version, and you might as well sell your old copies because this is the definitive edition. The print looks fantastic, much better than before; everything looks sharp and clean, the blacks and whites are defined, not muddied like you would see from a later generation source. The subtitles are completely redone, to better reflect the dialogue, the crudeness of Mifune's talk, for example. Sounds great as well, solid mono, with everything clear and up front. The movie is spread out over two discs, so to maintian the high digital quality, with commentaries, documentaries, and a two hour interview between Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima, another well known director and writer. Thick booklet with essays that generally praise the heck out of this movie; a little too self serving, in my opinion. So what are you waiting for, BUY this movie! An all time classic.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
THE Masterpiece - Kurosawa's Seven Samurai
Seven Samurai is considered one of the great movies of all time. As an action film, it was widely imitated -- in the US, remade into The Magnificent Seven -- ironic because Akira Kurosawa, the director, was himself influenced by westerns, especially those directed by John Ford. There are no great open landscapes, no Grand Canyon to marvel at in the background. This is a farmer's village at the bottom of a valley, placed between the mountains and the forest. The villagers are victims of roving bandits who terrorize the countryside as they seek food, drink, and women, while battling similar groups. It's 1587, a chaotic time in Japan. The farmers are mad as hell, and aren't going to take it any more, and several go into town to seek samurai willing to take up their cause. Not an easy thing, since even though times are tough, it is still a class issue, and no self righteous samurai is going to stoop so low as to risk his life for farmers. However, they luck out when they meet Kambei, a masterless samurai, or ronin, who is shown to be a soldier of heart and great intellect, as he is first seen rescuing a hostage child from a madman. He in turn recruits some others, until there are 7, the most that the villagers can afford, as they can only pay in food and shelter. Mifune plays Kikuchiyo, his famous role, an ex farmer turned rogue who fights for their cause. All of this takes place in the first hour, and for the next 2 1/2 hours we see Kambei and his men win the confidence of the villagers, prepares them for the inevitable battle which comes into the third hour of the film, and a great cinematic battle it is! Yes, this is a 3 1/2 hour film, but it never loses momentum. Kurosawa keeps everything tight, so even when there are side events going on -- one being Katsushiro, the young man of the samurai, who has an affair with one of the village women, Shino, a daughter of a man who lost his wife to the bandits in an earlier encounter. They symbolize both sides, as well as how unlikely it is for them to ever mix, even though they are fighting the same battle. For the farmers it is for their survival, for the samurai, it is for the nobility and honor of defending the downtrodden. One brief sequence I don't see mentioned at all is Shino's father, going with a couple of the samurai on a scouting mission, find the bandits in a farmhouse in the mountain. There was a night of orgy, and everyone is asleep. The samurai decide to burn the place down, and as they are setting it, they see through the window a woman, awake, in total disgrace. She turns out to be Shino's mother, and amid the burning flames, runs into her husband, who is shocked and relieved to find her alive. Ashamed of being at the mercy to the bandits, she kills herself by running back into the far, burned alive. What is interesting about this sequence is that her look of utter despair is repeated in a much later Kurosawa film, Ran, where the Emperor, played by Tetsuya Nadakai, is in his burning castle, awaiting his doom as his sons' armies converge to kill him and his men. In Seven Samurai, the scene is brief but powerful. In Ran, it is played out not only for dramatic effect but to show the utter chaos of that world. There is no sense of despair here. Just a countdown of the bodies of the enemy as they are foiled in every attempt to enter the village. Criterion has just released a 3 dvd version, and you might as well sell your old copies because this is the definitive edition. The print looks fantastic, much better than before; everything looks sharp and clean, the blacks and whites are defined, not muddied like you would see from a later generation source. The subtitles are completely redone, to better reflect the dialogue, the crudeness of Mifune's talk, for example. Sounds great as well, solid mono, with everything clear and up front. The movie is spread out over two discs, so to maintian the high digital quality, with commentaries, documentaries, and a two hour interview between Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima, another well known director and writer. Thick booklet with essays that generally praise the heck out of this movie; a little too self serving, in my opinion. So what are you waiting for, BUY this movie! An all time classic.
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1 comment:
It is indeed an all-time classic and clearly Kurosawa's masterpiece (though I count Ran as my personal fave) ... it's a tribute to Kurosawa that The Magnificent Seven, which should have been just another empty Western attempt to copycat Asian works, turned out so great .. the story is just that timeless, no matter how you frame it
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