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Kurosawa
s
Reflect
A
Abstract: In Akira Kurosawas Yume
(Dreams), the segment Crows depicts the filmmaker as a young artist
on a mythic quest, attempting to obtain the key to genius. He enters one of
Vincent van Goghs paintings and
meets the artist. After Van Gogh reveals his secret, the young man returns
through other Van Gogh paintings, ultimately finding his own way.
Key words: dreams; genius; hero; journey; Kurosawa, Akira; van Gogh, Vincent; Yume
Man is a genius when he is dreaming.
Akira Kurosawa
AK enters the scene of The Langlois Bridge in search of Vincent van Gogh.
194
In Crows, the
youthful AK is not
seeking the
youthful Van Gogh
but Van Gogh at the
end of his life when
his creativity had
reached its apogee.
with Japonaiserie in his painting. The
Langlois Bridge is an interesting
choice precisely because, although it
was a real bridge near Arles, Van Gogh
saw that it had a Japanese aura. In the
words of art historian J. Patrice
Marandel,
The shape of the bridge happened to fit
his search for a weightless world, a
world of pure sensations and colors that
he associated with Japan. The composition of the picture still owes much to
Van Goghs idea of Japonism: the
bridge itself has the light and fragile
quality of the wooden constructions one
sees in Japanese prints. The contempt
for traditional perspective increases the
oriental feeling of the picture. (30)
195
196
Vincent goes off, leaving AK standing alone in the wheatfield with his hat
still in his hand. AK looks up at a
blinding, burning sun reminiscent of
suns in several of Van Goghs paintings. He is stunned by Vincents pronouncements and dazed by the sun.
But he comes to himself and looks
around. Vincent has gone. AK starts to
run in the direction Vincent has taken,
out of the wheatfield and into a stark
gray painted landscape with a painted
sun ahead of him, leading him on.
Thus, as their brief conversation ends,
the symbolism of the sun is laid on as
thick as Van Goghs paint.
This conjuncture of sunsthe natural one and the painted onerefracts a
passage in Kurosawas autobiography:
After looking at a monograph of
Cezanne, I would step outside and the
house, streets and treeseverything
looked like a Cezanne painting. The
same thing would happen when I looked
at a book of Van Goghs paintings. . . .
They changed the way the real world
looked to me. It seemed completely different from the world I usually saw with
my own eyes. (88)
AK has learned
important things
from Vincent, in their
conversation and,
perhaps, also in his
walk through
Vincents paintings.
ed version of the same, Van Goghs
last painting Wheatfield with Crows. A
loud train whistle is heard as if a train
were leaving a station.
Then, suddenly, the camera retreats
to show AK in the museum again,
looking at that painting hanging on the
wall. He takes off his hat once more.
The train whistle is heard again, more
faintly, as if much farther away. Vincent is gone, out of reach, and the
episode ends.
The final scene of the dream, in
which AK stands in the unharvested
wheatfield watching as Vincent hikes
over the hill out of sight, holds many
possibilities. AK has learned important things from Vincent, in their conversation and, perhaps, also in his
walk through Vincents paintings. But
now he can follow Vincent no farther.
The crows, the train whistle, and Vincent hiking over the crest of the hill
with his back to AK all say that Vin-
197
198
199
WORKS CITED
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Bollingen, 1949.
De la Faille, J.-B. The Works of Vincent van
Gogh: His Paintings and Drawings.
New York: Reynal (William Morrow),
1970.
Goodwin, James, ed. Perspectives on Akira
Kurosawa. New York: G. K. Hall
(Macmillan), 1994.
Kurosawa, Akira. Something Like an Autobiography. Trans. Audie Bock. New
York: Knopf, 1982.
Marandel, J. Patrice. Great Masterpieces
by Vincent van Gogh. New York: Crown,
1966.
Palmer, Willard A. Chopin, Preludes for
the Piano. New York: Alfred, 1992.
Pletsch, Carl. Young Nietzsche, Becoming
a Genius. New York: Free Press, 1991.
Prince, Stephen. The Warriors Camera:
The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa. 1991.
Rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP,
1999.
Richie, Donald. The Films of Akira Kurosawa. 3rd ed. Berkeley: U of California
P, 1996.
Serper, Zvika. Kurosawas Dreams: A
Cinematic Reflection of a Traditional
Japanese Context. Cinema Journal
40.4 (2001): 81103.
NOTES
1. Of course, this detail hardly fits the
description of rational dialogue, but the
severed ear is probably the most clichd
thing about Van Goghs image in popular
culture. Does Kurosawa want to dismiss it
as unimportant? Does he use this comical
remark to deflect the whole theme of genius and insanity? Perhaps he intends to reinforce Vincents dramatization of the urgent, obsessional character of genius.
2. The use of the masculine pronouns,
here as there, is intended to reflect the ideology of genius that, until recently, assumed that geniuses must be men.