Kurosawa Akira - The Case For Global Film PDF

Tagged: Kurosawa Akira
16 DECEMBER 2010
Kurosawa #8 Throne of Blood (Japan1957)

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(https://itpworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/throne1.png)
Miki (Kubo Akira) and Washizu (Mifune Toshiro) approach the witch (who wears a noh mask).
Throne of Blood is one of the best-known films by Kurosawa Akira. It was highly-praised in
the West but not so warmly received in Japan. The reasons given for this difference in
reception are (1) it is an adaptation/version/re-imagining of Shakespeares Macbeth (2)
Kurosawa used elements of noh theatre in a jidaigeki or period film, which in Japanese
Cinema would traditionally have been influenced by the more populist kabuki theatre. The
result is that the film as a film has been rather obscured by the metatext about its status as
Shakespeare and Japaneseness. Thats a shame because it is a great Kurosawa movie with
a terrific performance by Mifune Toshiro and a wonderfully imaginative representation of time
and place forests, castles and windswept and fog-bound heathland.
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The following notes have been adapted from material given out on a recent study day on
Kurosawa:
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This version of Macbeth is transplanted to the

early part of the Sengoku period of civil wars in
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Japanese history (1467-1573). This assertion
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These were important in the wars of the later
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settlement of the Tokugawa Shogunate (otherwise known as the Edo Period Edo is the old
name for Tokyo). During the long period of civil
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Kyoto and warlords vied for power in different provinces across Japan.
Although many Japanese filmmakers are associated Sign
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jidaigeki,
these tend to be based on
up
traditional stories that had become kabuki plays during the Edo period. Kurosawa was an
innovator in staging much more historically accurate
(more realistically detailed) films from the
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the triumph of Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603.
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Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress, Kagemusha and Ran are the other Kurosawa films with this
period setting.
The actions of the characters in Throne of Blood are consistent with those of the period in
Japanese history although as Stephen Prince (2003/2010) points out, the wars were
perhaps not as bloody as Kurosawa makes them. But he was creating them from a 20th
century perspective informed by his own experiences of war and disaster.
Noh and kabuki
Japanese cinema developed roughly in parallel with cinema in the West and filmmakers such
as Kurosawa were influenced by the Western films they saw in the 1920s. Japanese films
were much more closely associated with Japans three traditional theatrical forms, noh, kabuki
and bunraku (a form of puppet theatre) and the modern theatre associated with the contact
with the West from the 1860s onwards (shinpa/shingeki).
Noh is the earliest of these forms, dating from the 14th century and is associated with drama
and dance performed for the aristocracy in a refined and austere manner. Actors play heavily
typed roles and individuality is hidden behind masks. Movements are restrained and
sometimes paradoxical, so that a small movement can signal a major dramatic act.
Kabuki is a later form developing in the 17th century during the Edo period and designed
more as popular entertainment. In many ways, kabuki is the opposite of noh with its appeal
to a popular audience in large theatres. Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro (2000) suggests that noh is a
classical form and kabuki is a baroque form. Kabuki has been seen as similar to Elizabethan
drama in its appeal to audiences and its dealings in spectacle. (Noh is more concerned with
words: actions are often off-stage). Not surprisingly, perhaps, it was kabuki rather than noh
that became the source of plots for Japanese period film dramas, especially action films. The
same companies who owned the early cinemas and started to make films were also engaged
in promoting kabuki shows in their live theatres. Kabuki might be said to be the more earthy
Shintoist response to the Buddhist austerity of noh.
It is interesting therefore that Kurosawa chose noh rather than kabuki as a prominent
aesthetic influence upon Throne of Blood. The clearest examples of this in the film are in the
aesthetic influence upon Throne of Blood. The clearest examples of this in the film are in the
depictions of the witch in Cobweb Forest and the central performance of Yamada Isuzu as
the Lady Macbeth character, Lady Asaji. Although Kurosawa didnt require his actors to wear
noh masks as such, he showed them appropriate masks and asked them to study the facial
expressions. They also wore make-up that shaped their facial features to resemble masks. In
the case of the witch, she first appears as the old lady yaseonna and in later scenes as the
mountain witch, yamauba. Yamada was shown the shakumi mask the face of beautiful
middle-aged woman on the brink of madness. Mifune as Washizu was also shown the heida
mask of the warrior.
Contrasts and clashes: Mifune
The whole film is built on a rhythm of contrasting styles, moods and tones. One of these can
be seen in relation to the playing of Mifune Toshiro. Mifune was Kurosawas leading man in
most of his films between 1948 and 1965. Casting Mifune is one example of the ways in
which Kurosawa innovated. As an actor, Mifune stood out in two ways. First was his sheer
physical vitality. He literally ate up the screen space. Kurosawa claimed that Mifune could
convey the same meaning in a third of the time that it took all other Japanese actors. He
seems the least likely actor to be in a noh play far too coarse and brutal, always seemingly
teetering on the edge of breaking out into violent action. (But Kurosawa tells us he was a
sensitive man of refinement.)
(https://itpworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/throne2.jpg)
Mifune dominates the screen with his physical presence here presented in the context of the fog and stylised forest.
The second point was that Mifunes accent was Manchurian and because he spoke as he
acted often violently he offered a complete change to actors coached in kabuki theatre
who enunciated clearly. One interesting aspect of the film is therefore the contrast between
the acting styles of Yamada and Mifune in the internal scenes.
Japanese visual art: the pen and ink school
Japanese visual art: the pen and ink school

The history of Eastern painting is quite different to that of the West and up to the late 19th
century, different forms of Japanese art were very popular in the domestic market. Kurosawa
himself was interested in both Western painting styles and traditional Japanese modes.
Stephen Prince (2010) describes this aspect of Throne of Blood:
The striking emptiness of the spaces in the film the skies, the dense roiling fog
that obscures mountains and plains is a cinematic rendition of sumi-e
composition. This style of pen-and-ink drawing leaves large portions of the picture
unfilled, making this emptiness a positive compositional (and spiritual) value.
Kurosawa believed that this style of picture making resonated deeply with the
Japanese, and he was eager to infuse the film with this aesthetic. (Production
designer Yoshiro Murakis castle set was black and was built on the dark, volcanic
soil of Mt. Fuji in order to heighten the sumi-e effect, the contrast of dark and light.
Although based on historical sketches, the castle is not of any single period.) As a
positive value, this pictorial and spiritual emptiness is set against the human world
of vanity, ambition, and violence, which Kurosawa suggests is all illusion. The
Buddhist arts of Noh and sumi-e enabled him to visualise this disjunction between
the hell of life as we poor creatures know it, subject to our strivings, our desires,
and our will, and the cosmic order that negates them.
Contrasts and clashes 2: Camerawork and editing

Kurosawa has been highly praised by critics for several reasons not least his command of
the full panoply of the filmmakerss art camerawork, mise en scne, editing (which he did
himself on this film) and sound design. Across his 30 films he demonstrates many different
and styles and the ways in which he has absorbed and transmogrified styles from a variety of
film movements.
In Throne of Blood, the film is predicated on the structure of static sequences, almost in
tableau, broken up by scenes of dramatic action with a change of composition, shot size and
camera movement. The great proponent of studying the formal characteristics of Japanese
Cinema is Nol Burch whose controversial book on Japanese Cinema was published in 1979.
(The book was controversial because of the use he put his scholarship to in terms of the
politics of film studies in the 1980s.) Burch refers to the contrasting scenes in Throne of
Blood (or Cobweb Castle as he terms it in a direct translation) as lyrical agitation on the
one hand and tense stasis on the other.
Burch also discusses Kurosawas debt to Eisenstein and the concept of the shot-change. In
simple terms this means a style that contrasts with the invisible nature of Hollywoods
continuity editing. The shot-change celebrates the visible transition from one shot to another,
possibly through deliberate mismatching of eye-lines or as in Throne of Blood in the use of
Kurosawas favourite device of this period, the hard-edged fast wipe which abruptly takes us
from one scene to another in the most visible way possible (cf the gradual fade out/fade in or
from one scene to another in the most visible way possible (cf the gradual fade out/fade in or
the unobtrusive straight cut). This is one example of the way in which Kurosawa confirms the
artificiality of film, emphasising its constructedness. The use of noh acting devices is
another. See too the distortion of space in the sequence of the funeral procession
approaching the castle.
(https://itpworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/throne3.png)
An example of Kurosawas dramatic mise en scne with its sparse decor and low-key lighting and its overall
resemblance to a scene from a noh play.
What does it all mean?

If we understand all these facets of the film, what do we make of Kurosawas approach to
what is a familiar story? Stephen Prince offers us a particular reading:
The Noh masks point to a huge difference between this theatrical tradition and
Shakespeares, one that helps give the film many of its unusual qualities. Noh is
not psychologically oriented; characters are not individualised. Its characters are
types the old man, the woman, the warrior, and so on and the plays are quite
didactic, aiming to impart a lesson. Kurosawa, therefore, strips all the psychology
out of Macbeth and gives us a film whose characters are Noh types and where
emotions the province of character in the drama of the West are located here
as absolute types. Emotion here isnt an attribute of character psychology, but a
formal embodiment in landscape and weather. The bleached skies, the fog, the
barren plains, and characters going adrift against and within these spaces this is
where the emotion of the film resides. It is objectified within and through the world
of things. As a result, the film has a definite coldness; it keeps the viewer outside
the world it depicts. Kurosawa wants us to grasp the lesson, to see the folly of
human behaviour, rather than to identify or empathise with the characters.

. . . If Kurosawa strips the psychology from Macbeth, he also strips out
Shakespeares political conservatism, refusing to give us the plays reassuring
conclusion (flattering to James I) in which a just political authority triumphs. In
Kurosawas film and worldview, the cycle of human violence never ends. Thus the
films many circular motifs describe the real tragedy at the heart of the history that
Throne of Blood dramatises. Why do people kill each other so often and through
so many ages? Kurosawa had no answer to this question. But he showed us here,
through the films chorus, its circularity, and its Buddhist aesthetics, that there may
not finally be an answer within this world. The aesthetics and philosophy of Throne
of Blood take us well beyond Shakespeare, and thats why this is a great film. Its
accomplishments are not beholden to another medium or artist. Kurosawa gives us
his own vision, expressed with ruthless, chilling power, and its the totality of that
vision, its sweep and its uncompromising nature, that move and terrify us and that
we are so seldom privileged to see in cinema.
Conclusion
I confess that I dont care much for Shakespeare. Im sure that I am missing out, but Im too
old now to start over. It does mean, however, that I can watch Throne of Blood objectively,
not worried about fidelity to an existing text. At the same time, because Ive seen other film
versions, I know the basic story so I can focus on how the events are presented. It seems to
me that Burch and Prince make persuasive arguments. Throne of Blood is certainly one of
Kurosawas major achievements and a film to which he would return with varying success
in the later works, Kagemusha and Ran. Its strengths are in the careful structuring of the
narrative, the strong and coherent visual style, the location and settings and the direction of a
group of highly-skilled actors led by Mifune on top form.
In a lengthy essay on Throne of Blood, Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro (2000) explores the questions
about both the Shakespeare adaptation and the supposed Japaneseness of the film in some
detail, marshalling a range of theoretical ideas. I dont have space to explore these here but
Id like to quote Yoshimotos conclusion which ties in nicely with some of the discussion
above:
Despite its use of noh and other types of traditional Japanese art, Throne of Blood
has little to do with the affirmation of Japaneseness. Nor is it an attempt to create
a new national film style. Instead, Kurosawa simultaneously tries to expand the
possibility of film form and re-examine the specific history and genre conventions of
Japanese Cinema. Throne of Blood is a unique film made by a true innovator of
cinema. (Yoshimoto, 2000:269)
References
References
Noel Burch (1979) To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema,
Berkeley: University of California Press (this book is now available as a pdf on free download
from the University of Michigan
(http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/publications/cjsfaculty/filmburch.html)
Stephen Prince (2003/2010)
(http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/270&section=essay)Throne of Blood
(http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/270&section=essay): Shakespeare Transposed
(http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/270&section=essay)
Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro (2000) Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, Durham NC: Duke
University Press
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Cinema (https://itpworld.wordpress.com/category/japanese-cinema/) Tagged with Kurosawa Akira
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15 DECEMBER 2010
Kurosawa #7 Scandal (Sukyandaru, Japan1950)

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(https://itpworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/scandalposter.jpg)
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The Japanese poster for the film showing the four principals. The handsome Mifune Toshiro is the
artist. Below are Shimura Takashi as the lawyer, Yamaguchi Yoshiko as the singer and Katsuragi
Yoko as the sick girl.
For much of his career up to 1965 Kurosawa Akira was contracted to Toho (in the latter part
of this period through his own production company) but in the late 1940s, because of labour
unrest at Toho, Kurosawa took his projects to other studios. Scandal was produced by
Shochiku, more associated for cinephiles with the work of Ozu Yasujiro. Although often
regarded as one of Kurosawas minor works, Scandal has several interesting features.
Plot outline (no spoilers)
Mifune Toshiro plays Aoye Ichir, an artist (Kurosawas profession before he entered the film
industry). Aoye is on holiday painting landscapes in the mountains. One day a young woman
with a suitcase walks up to his painting spot. She appears to be heading for the hotel where
Aoye is staying so he gives her a lift on his motorbike. At the hotel, Aoye visits the young
womans room to see how she is settling in. Both are dressed informally and when they peer
over the balcony to admire a view they hear a click the paparazzi (or at least their
predecessors in the Japanese yellow press) are at work. The young woman is a famous
singer and there is a market value in an image of her and the handsome artist. Aoye then
sues the scandal magazine (ironically titled Amore) which runs the photo. He chooses an
unprepossessing lawyer to prosecute the case, seemingly won over by the lawyers sick
daughter who is bed-ridden with TB. And this is where the problems begin . . .
Commentary
Some critics see this film as failing because it moves into melodrama. Several of us on this
site are melodrama fans, so that isnt necessarily a bad thing. It must be said, however, that
Scandal offers a rather unusual combination of elements. Kurosawa sets up an interesting
proposition in the first few scenes. The artist paints a picture which is not a faithful
reproduction of a landscape but it conveys a truth (which the artist eventually finds through
hard work). The photograph at the centre of the scandal is just the opposite an accurate
rendering of a moment, but ultimately untruthful about what is happening. This mismatch
between imitation of reality and the truth behind an image is carried through to Aoyes
relationship with the lawyer played by Shimura Takashi and with the lawyers sick daughter.
These relationships become the focus of the melodrama (rather than the expected relationship
with the singer).
Scandal is ostensibly a social protest film about the yellow press (what is now usually
called the tabloid press). Because information and comment had been so severely repressed
in the Japanese media during the long wartime period, there was an explosion of sensational
journalism in the immediate post-war period. This was clearly a social issue. Exposure of
corruption was, of course, a social good, but it was accompanied by exploitation of personal
problems. Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro in his book on Kurosawa and Japanese Cinema (2000)
observes that Kurosawa was early in critiquing this kind of journalism and it was not followed
up in Japanese Cinema until Masumura Yasuzos Giants and Toys in 1958 (and again by
Kurosawa in The Bad Sleep Well, 1960). But Scandal also has another reference to
contemporary social problems. The lawyer is poor and his daughter is seriously ill with TB
contemporary social problems. The lawyer is poor and his daughter is seriously ill with TB
just as the Mifune character in Drunken Angel (1948). The lawyer even lives in an area with a
stagnant pool as in the earlier film.
The media discourse which the film explores is well represented in the films mise en scne.
Kurosawa and his cinematographer Ubukata Toshio have great fun with posters,
microphones, flashbulbs, cine cameras and arclights in a series of montages and set pieces,
such as the court case that comprises much of the last section of the film.
The problem with the film, I think, is in how Kurosawa has fashioned a narrative around the
idea of a true man and a man of imitation the Mifune-Shimura axis again played in a way
that sees the artist character of Mifune puzzled by the new media environment and
determined to preserve his honour (and that of the singer) whereas Shimura (the lawyer) is a
much more feeble character who, although he does not understand the new world is easily
persuaded to abandon his honour. This is a melodrama of redemption in which Shimura
becomes the centre. (There is also a true melodrama villain in the form of the magazine
owner.) The court case is linked back to the truth/imitation thematic in several ways. In the
lawyers ramshackle office there is a photo of his daughter in school uniform. he artist
recognises that this is a true photo and it helps him to decide to hire the father. The father
knows this truth, so when he is about to do something shameful, he turns the photo to face
the wall.
The expected melodrama involving the singer doesnt happen, instead the focus switches to
the lawyers daughter. The singer must be present for the court case and the narrative
demands the presence of another woman almost as a chaperone. This is the artists model
and his friend. At one point, they discuss the conventions of Western painting and the artist
suggests that Japanese art cant deal with the nude. In this sense the artist is aware of the
westernisation of Japanese culture and when he visits the lawyers family at Christmas he
brings a tree on his motorbike.
I was struck by some of the American responses to the film (which has now appeared on
DVD in Criterions box sets of Kurosawa). A New York Times
(http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D07E6D71238F935A1575BC0A966948260)
review (http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?
res=9D07E6D71238F935A1575BC0A966948260) by Vincent Canby from 1980 suggests that
the film is a satire on the Americanisation of Japan during the Occupation and that in some
ways the film seems first like a pastiche of Hollywood romcoms and then undercuts this with
its change of direction. Another reviewer points us towards Sam Fullers films about
journalism. Yamaguchi Yoshiko (like Mifune, born in Manchuria) who plays the singer later
appeared in some American films as Shirley Yamaguchi including Sam Fullers Japan-set
thriller House of Bamboo (1955). The courtroom scenes are similar to those in Hollywood
films, although the presence of newsreel cameras makes them look more like Senate
hearings. There is a suggestion that some of the courtroom procedures might be new
perhaps as a result of reforms by the Occupation forces?
This is certainly a film worth seeing, with some excellent set pieces and a real sense of the
vitality found in so many of Kurosawas films in this period. Perhaps it has been
vitality found in so many of Kurosawas films in this period. Perhaps it has been
overshadowed only because it was made in the same year as Rashomon. One warning
though if you dont like melodrama acting, you may find Shimuras performance just a little
too much. I prefer him in Ikiru (1952).
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Cinema (https://itpworld.wordpress.com/category/japanese-cinema/), Melodrama
(https://itpworld.wordpress.com/category/melodrama/) Tagged with Kurosawa Akira
16 OCTOBER 2010
Kurosawa #6: The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku
nemuru, Japan1960)
(https://itpworld.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/the-bad-sleep-well-
warui-yatsu-hodo-yoku-nemuru/)
(https://itpworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/wedding2.jpg)
The wedding party arrives at the beginning of the film
1960. Kurosawa Productions and Toho Studio. Screenplay: Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni, Ryuzo Kikushima, Eijiro
Hisaiti and Akira Kurosawa. Black and white CinemaScope photography: Yazuru Aizawa. Music: Masaru Sato.
This was the first feature from Kurosawa own production unit. The production team includes
names familiar from his other films. And the lead character is played by Toshiro Mifune:
almost an alter ego for the director. The films plot is reminiscent of William
Shakespeares Hamlet, though there is no reference to this in the credits. However,
Shakespeare [like the classic Russian novels] is a recurring source for Kurosawas films. What
is interesting is that what appears to interest him are the revenge tragedies: Macbeth, Hamlet
and Lear.
Nishis (Toshiro Mifune) father was a victim of corporate corruption. Nishi marries into the
family of Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori) the Vice-President of a Land Development Corporation and
a senior figure in the network of corruption. Obtaining the position as secretary to the VicePresident, Nishi proceeds to subvert the criminal network from inside. His unexpected
emotional feelings for his new wife Yoshiko (Kyko Kagawa) engender similar vacillations to
that of Hamlet in Shakespeares version. This sets up a dark, downbeat and tragic finale.
The film opens at a high-class wedding ceremony attended by leading businessmen and
government officials. We are immediately plunged into a formal Japanese occasion. However,
the wedding party themselves are plunged into anxiety as newspapermen and then police
arrive on the trail of a corporate corruption conspiracy. There is a sharp contrast between the
ritual formalism of the wedding reception and the public events being exposed. Kurosawas
camera shows us the corporate bosses struggling to maintain a facade over their repressed
anxieties whilst the newsmen act like a Greek chorus on the developing drama. This
repression is powerfully visualised in one moment of the sequence. The young bride suffers
from a disabled foot. This is partially hidden in the drapery of the traditional costume of a
Japanese bride. However, she stumbles on entry, exposing her deformity. The visible shock
that accompanies this accident presages the more dramatic shocks and exposures that follow
later in the film.
Whilst the opening sequence raises a host of questions it also introduces the main characters
and the theme of corruption that dominates the film. Kurosawa explained
At last I decided to do something about corruption, because it always seemed to

me that graft, bribery, etc., at the public level, is one of the worst crimes that there
is. These people hide behind the facade of some great company or corporation
and consequently no one knows how dreadful they really are, what awful things
they do. (In Sight and Sound, Autumn 1964).
In the film Nishis motives are more personal than social. As the story develops we come to
find out about his history and to understand what it is that motivate his actions. We also start
to realise the complicating emotions that he begins to experience. When Yoshiko stumbles at
the wedding reception it is her brother Tatsuo (Tatsuya Mihashi) rather than Nishi who rushes
to assist her. Later in the film when the young wife stumbles and falls at home it is Nishi
himself who rushes forward to catch and carry her to her room. Tatsuo also develops
conflicting emotions. He harbours guilt over the childhood accident that resulted in his sister
becoming lame. He hates his father, but suspects that Nishi is not a good husband. But he
finally takes the side of Nishi.
Parallel to these personal complications are those of Nishis investigation and manipulation,
which aim to expose the corruption and the perpetrators. He does this partly by suborning
and blackmailing lower member of the conspiracy. But he also sets up dramatic occasions
when he can pressurise and observe the conspiracys leaders. The first of these occurs at the
wedding. When the ritual cake arrives it is followed by a second: an unsuspecting waiter
wheels in a large reconstruction of a corporate building It is in fact a copy of a block from
which one of the network, Furuya [Nishis father] jumped or was pushed to his death. The
ambiguity over the death springs from the loyalty embedded in the system: underlings
sacrifice themselves because they cannot bring themselves to expose their superiors.
Parallel examples appear later in the film. Wada (Kamatari Fujiwara), a corrupt accountant, is
believed to have committed suicide. In fact he is hidden by Nishi. Wada watches his own
funeral with Nishi. Dramatically the scene is accompanied by a secret recording made by
Nishi of the conspirators discussing the convenient demise of Wada. A later scene in the
building in which Furuya died has Shirai, (Akira Nishimura), the corrupt Contract Officer, driven
mad by his competing fears of death and betrayal.
Nishis companion Itakura (Takeshi Kato) is a wartime friend and also a business partner.
They have swapped identities so that Nishi [once Itakura] can penetrate the conspirators
network unrecognised. In 1945 Nishi and Itakura were part of the defence at an armaments
factory, now a bombed and ruined wasteland. It is here that the film reaches its conclusion.
Here Nishi holds captive and interrogates Moriyama (Takashi Shimura), one of the key
conspirators. However, Yoshiko mistakenly gives his secret away to her father and the
conspirators set out to eliminate Nishi and safeguard their positions. Unlike the
Shakespearean version there is no Fortinbras to bring in a new and accountable regime. All
that Tatsuo can do is tend to his traumatised sister. Itakura [once Nishi] loses his identity and
that Tatsuo can do is tend to his traumatised sister. Itakura [once Nishi] loses his identity and
is rendered a non-person by the death of Nishi.
Whilst Shakespeare does not get an official credit Kurosawas version is full of references to
the famous play. Apart from the dead father and the sons efforts for revenge we have the
murderous stepfather, the faithful friend and companion, the lovelorn heroine and her angry
brother: we even have a suborned widow, though much less developed than Shakespeares
Queen. Alongside these characters there is a ghost: a dramatic recreation of a murder:
graves and funerals: gunplay instead of swordplay: and poisonings. What we seem to have is
a Shakespearean tale reconstructed in contemporary Japan.
I found the opening of the film riveting as we watch the surface formality so typical of
Japanese drama. But we also watch the hidden currents of greed, fear and revenge. The
sequence sets up a series of strands of both personal and public conflict. The CinemaScope
photography is exemplary as we watch the various manoeuvres by the characters. Visually
the films conclusion provides a darker parallel, set in the disused arms factory, as Nishi and
Itakura desperately seek to complete their investigations, only half aware of the trap that is
closing in on them. The shattered and dismal landscape becomes a metaphor for the social
chaos depicted in the film.
(https://itpworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/factory2.jpg)
(https://itpworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/factory2.jpg)
The derelict factory
Unfortunately I find the drama that separates these two episodes less convincing. There are
impressive set pieces: a man contemplates suicide on a smoking wasteland of stones and
ash: three men walked through a labyrinth of gleaming metal, and bright lights and shadows,
typical of the noir atmosphere in the film. There are secret meetings of the conspirators and
the clear evidence of a Mr Big, in the shadowy background. However, the personal dramas
do not achieve the same dramatic edge.
Part of the problem seems to be the motivation of Nishi. It is his suppressed emotions for his
new wife that creates the vacillation that in Shakespeare springs from the character of
Hamlet. But the film does not offer enough attention to the relationship to make this
convincing. The female characters are mostly underdeveloped. This is a reflection of the
contemporary world of business, government and the media. Thus when the high-ranking
contemporary world of business, government and the media. Thus when the high-ranking
guests arrive for the reception only the male member signs the Reception Book.
But it is also that female characters are not really developed in most Kurosawa films. His films
privilege male bonding rather than heterosexual couples. Despite her importance in the plot
and in the relationships between the men Yoshiko is a fairly undeveloped character. And
Furuyas wife appears only to be duped in a similar fashion to Yoshiko.
Even so the film remains a dramatic and compelling story. It is beautifully composed with an
evocative soundtrack. Kurosawa and his team offer distinctive stylistic tropes: like the familiar
recurring cut on a wipe. The cast portrays the dark, seedy world of corruption with
conviction.
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Japanese Cinema (https://itpworld.wordpress.com/category/japanese-cinema/) Tagged with Kurosawa Akira
18 SEPTEMBER 2010
Kurosawa #5: I Live in Fear (Record of a Living Being Japan1955)

(https://itpworld.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/kurosawa-5-i-live-in-fearrecord-of-a-living-beingjapan-1955/)
(https://itpworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/liveinfear.jpg)
Nakajima (Mifune Toshiro, centre) uses his fan vigorously in the heat of the adjudicator's office. Shimura Takashi (an
adjudicator) can just be seen on the left edge of the frame. Nakajima is standing between his daughter and son.
(This post was sent to us by Leung Wing-Fai )

I Live in Fear, also known as Record of a Living Being, centres on Kurosawa Akiras humanist
concerns. The contemporary drama is one of the lesser-known films of the acclaimed auteur.
It tells the story of a 60-year old industrialist Nakajima (played by Mifune Toshiro who was
only 35 at the time) who decides to take his entire family to Brazil after the Second World
War and the Bikini Incident. In 1954 the US forced the 166 inhabitants of Bikini Atoll in the
Marshall Islands to leave their homes, and then conducted a full-scale test of an atomic
bomb, which was thousand times as powerful as the explosion at Hiroshima. The Japanese
fishing boat Lucky Dragon strayed just beyond the demarcation zone resulting in all crew
members being killed or suffering radiation sickness. The incident sparked a national petition
(with 20 million signatures) calling for a ban on nuclear weapons.
Nakajimas family takes him to court and tries to declare him mentally ill in order to stop him
from spending the family fortune on migration to Brazil. On the other hand Nakajima believes
that the nuclear threat is the madness and fails to understand why everyone else should be
so complacent. The opening credit shows crowded Tokyo streets full of faceless commuters
who seem orderly yet lacking in direction. It can be interpreted as a statement on the groups
lack of ability to challenge fate, which the old mans children are all ready to accept. One of
his sons tells him that there is no point worrying about the atomic bomb as they cannot do
anything about it anyway. Nakajima is not only fighting the fears of nuclear destruction but the
weight of the crowd represented by his numerous relatives.
One of the most striking scenes is when Nakajima hears planes flying low, and sees a flash of
lightning in the sky; he rushes over to his grandson and wraps himself around the baby to
protect him. His daughter is horrified and grabs the child from Nakajima. The scene sums up
the old mans motivation and the reaction of his unsympathetic family. The turning point
comes when Nakajima burns down his factory to force his family to migrate, with the
opposite effect; they are more convinced that he is demented. The ending is most
regretful. Nakajima has been put in an asylum. One of the magistrates goes to visit him; when
Nakajima sees the setting sun, he thinks that it is a nuclear explosion and shouts, Its
burning! The earth is on fire. The film was supposedly inspired by the death of Kurosawas
long term colleague, the composer Hayasaka Fumio who once told the director, The world
has come to such a state that we dont really know what is in store for us tomorrow . . .
Every day there are fewer and fewer places that are safe. Soon there will be no place at all.
Hayasaka died during the filming of I Live in Fear, which explains the dark world-view.
Unsurprisingly the film was too topical and dark to be successful among the Japanese public,
but even now it reminds us that perhaps fear heightens the sense of being, as the two
titles respectively suggest.
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Kurosawa #5: I Live in Fear (Record of a Living Being Japan1955)

(This post was sent to us by Leung Wing-Fai )

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