Akira Kurosawa’s films were both aesthetically satisfying as well as emotionally stimulating, a deadly combination. His movies were often marked by scenes of extreme violence. Vikaramdeep Johal pays tribute to the master craftsman who died recently.

Kurosawa: The oriental magician

IT was Burt Lancaster, the Hollywood star of yesteryear, who had once remarked that direction was the best job in the film business "because when you’re a director, you’re God." Indeed most filmmakers do think of themselves as gods. Very few, however, are really worthy of being accorded divine status. The pantheon includes, among others, men like Sergei Eisenstein, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Satyajit Ray — all masters of the art of cinema. One such superhuman being, Japan’s Akira Kurosawa, departed to occupy his rightful place in the heavens early this September, leaving behind his films as gifts for all humanity.

Such was Kurosawa’s passion for cinema that the two of them seemed inseparable. His deep understanding of the techno-artistic aspects of the medium along with his probing study of human nature was reflected in unforgettable creations like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Ran and Throne of Blood. An explorer and an innovator throughout his film career, he kept on reinventing himself and, in the process, immensely enriched cinematic art.

Awe-inspiring, forceful, lyrical, insightful — these are the adjectives that easily come to mind when one talks of Kurosawa’s films. His cinema was both aesthetically satisfying as well as emotionally stimulating, a deadly combination. Not the kind of director to shy away from the harshness of reality, his movies were often marked by scenes of extreme violence. It is impossible to forget the finale of Throne of Blood where the samurai leader Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) receives a flurry of arrows from his own men; the blood-spilling, blood-curdling sword-fights of Yojimbo; the grand and graphic battle scenes of Seven Samurai and Ran. Indelible images!

Many of his films were set in feudal Japan and featured the samurai, a caste famous for its fighting spirit. His fascination for the samurai probably stemmed from the fact that his own family descended from a northern samurai clan. Born in Tokyo in 1910, Kurosawa the child surprisingly lacked the aggressiveness that he came to be identified with later on. Interested in drawing, he received encouragement from one of his school teachers who was largely responsible for instilling self-confidence in him. His plans to enter an art school, however, ended in failure and so he turned his attention towards cinema. Starting his career as an assistant director around 1936, he directed his first film, Sanshiro Sugata, in 1943.

Kurosawa is aptly credited with putting Japanese, nay, Asian cinema on the world map. His Rashomon, which won the first prize at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, was a revelation for the western viewers. Thanks to this film about the relativity of truth, as critic Richard Corliss put it, "the West ‘discovered’ that Japan was more than a humbled, xenophobic foe; it had a vigorous movie tradition and complex, multisided view of the world." Over the years Rashomon has not lost its place as an all-time classic and is widely regarded Kurosawa’s best work.

His samurai pictures were actually inspired by the American Westerns, particularly those made by John Ford. Kurosawa was candid enough to admit that he had learnt a lot from the grammer of the Western. It goes to his credit, however, that he mastered the genre to such an extent that his "Easterns" in turn influenced Western directors. Rashomon was remade as The Outrage; Seven Samurai as the Magnificent Seven, Yojimbo as A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing; His Hidden Fortress inspired George Lucas’ Star War trilogy. His breath-taking camera movement, engrossing storytelling techniques and marvellously choreographed action sequences were often imitated, but never really matched.

Some of his best works — Ikuru, Rashomon, Throne of Blood and Seven Samurai — were produced in the 1950s, regarded as the golden age of Japanese cinema. Those were the days when he ruled the roost, repeatedly worrying the studio bosses and forcing them to comply with his wishes. As Toshiru Mifune, arguably Kurosawa’s favourite actor, put it: "He is such a perfectionist that he will reshoot an entire scene if a single chop stick is out of place." Once, during the filming of Throne of Blood, a specially built facade of a medieval castle was dismantled on his orders and replaced by a much more realistic three-dimensional structure. Such was the authority this imperious film-maker commanded.

The 1960s, however, changed things to a great extent. The arrival of television proved to be a major setback for the Japanese film industry. To bring back audiences into cinema halls, the studios started giving precedence to mart over art. Production of poor films became the order of the day. Also, with the deaths of Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizouchi, two highly creative directors, Kurosawa was left alone to counter the onslaught of mediocrity. In keeping with his stubborn attitude, he refused to become a part of the decadent scenario and stuck to his artistic ideals. From then on, just like his characters, he had to fight against heavy odds in order to survive.

In 1970 appeared his first colour film, Dodes-Kaden, about the lives of a group of Tokyo slum-dwellers. it was received very poorly and demoralised Kurosawa so much that he even attempted suicide. Subsequently, he failed to get financial help from his industry and had to rely on foreign money for most of his later films. Derzu Uzala (1975) was made in Siberia with Soviet support. Noted Hollywood directors, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Speilberg were gracious enough to back his Kagemusha (1980) and Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990), respectively. Sadly and ironically, Japan’s foremost contemporary cultural icon received in his twilight years little encouragement from his own people.

An expert story-teller whose films appealed both to the critics and the masses, Kurosawa was ambitious enough to adapt masterpieces of literature and lend his personal touch to them. Both Macbeth and King Lear were successfully transported to 16th century Japan as Throne of Blood and Ran, respectively. The poetry of Shakespeare was no doubt pushed aside, but the spirit was retained, which was conveyed with awesome visual power. Also, Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Gorky’s The Lower Depths were converted into significant films.

"All my films are dreams", this passionate artist had once said. Striving throughout his life to realise his artistic dreams, Kurosawa created a memorable world for us, rich in imagery as well as in human emotions, be it fear, wrath, lust, compassion or love. His samurai films were reflective of his own bellicose attitude towards life. He sincerely believed that human beings were capable of drawing the strength needed to overcome their spiritual weaknesses. Writing about himself, he revealed:"I am not especially strong; I am not especially gifted. I simply do not like to show my weakness, and I hate to lose, so I am a person who tries hard. That’s all there is to me".

Indeed, he tried very hard and was much feted for his efforts. Simply putting it, Kurosawa was cinema, inspite of this remark of his that "in all my films, there’s three or maybe four minutes of real cinema", a sense of dissatisfaction and under achievement quite characteristic of a great artist.