Selected Films of Akira Kurosawa:
Rashomon, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai
I can't believe it took me this long to set aside some time for Emperor Kurosawa, and soak in the Japanese cinematic masterpieces he bestowed upon the film-going public during his lifetime. I decided since his catalog was so vast that I would focus on his samurai films instead of a broader sampling of the whole gamut. The three films I chose were Rashomon (1950), Throne of Blood (1957) and Seven Samurai (1954), and they turned out to be a perfect variety.
Rashomon was one of Kurosawa's earlier films, and was much more raw production-wise than either Seven Samurai or Throne of Blood, but still had incredible cinematography and a dark, engrossing story, mixing quirky characters, the supernatural and a multi-level, twisted narrative structure that would have given current-day director Chris Nolan a run for his money had he and Kurosawa been contemporaries.
Throne of Blood is a complete adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The characters are as intense, bloodthirsty, greedy and tragic as the players in the original story, but set in feudal Japan, on the slope of Mt. Fuji. It has been called the most successful adaptation of Macbeth ever made, and rightfully so. It is a near-perfect film.
Seven Samurai stands on its own, and defines the word "epic". The famous American Western "The Magnificent Seven" is direct remake of Seven Samurai, and the film was largely the inspiration for the now run-of-the-mill plot device where a motley crew of experts is gathered to accomplish a seemingly insurmountable task.
In the film a farming village is threatened by bandits who annually invade and steal a large portion of their crop. Many of the farmers go to the village elder to ask his advice of what to do and he recommends hiring samurai to defend the village (you can see this awesome line in my Favorite Quotes of 2011 section). Regardless of their inability to pay for their defense with anything but rice they grow, they slowly build up a crew of seven samurai, the perfect number according to their leader, Kambei Shimada. Toshiro Mifune (the go-to frontman of many of Kurosawa's films) stands out as the zany Kikuchiyo, who in the beginning isn't a trained samurai or even invited to join the group, but by the end of the film proves himself as one of the most fierce of them all. It's great to go back to this moody, fun and exhilarating piece of cinema to see where it all started.
One of the things I find most interesting about Kurosawa films is the resonance they have found with American audiences. In fact they've affected US directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg so deeply that, when Kurosawa's films fell out of favor in his home country of Japan, both directors (at different times in the 1970s and 80s) stepped in to bankroll his films. They couldn't stand the thought of their all-time cinematic hero as lacking the resources to commit his visions to film.
You can now consider me a hardcore Akira Kurosawa fan. This year I plan to continue my consumption of the Kurosawa catalog, with Kagemusha, Yojimbo, Hidden Fortress and as many others that I can get my hands on.
An incredibly touching documentary about the original Horse Whisperer. This guy is the real deal, able to tame seemingly wild animals and in the process revolutionize our understanding of the deep connections between us and our fellow mammals. What was most surprising to me was how closely his method unknowingly follows the principles of Tai Chi, which Sadie and I have been studying for a two and half years now. So many times in the film we looked at one another in disbelief at the uncanny similarities between the two.
While I'm not a huge fan of movies trending towards out-and-out nostalgia, this one hit a soft spot with me. Set in the early 1980s, Super 8 tries to bring back the magic of the films like ET, Cocoon, The Goonies and Stand By Me, and does a pretty dang good job of it. It was also one of the extremely rare films that I've worked on, where I have a screen credit and I actually liked the film, so it gets a thumbs up simply for that reason.
Another masterpiece by Terence Malick that shifts between intense visuals of natural phenomena and a gradual narrative that chronicles the pains of a young boy growing up in 1950s Texas. Some viewers (including my wife) felt as though some of the more "eye-candy" visual sequences in the film dragged on too long but I found them stunning, poetic and meditative. Not a film for everyone to be sure, but definitely a repeat-watcher for me, maybe even qualifying an extremely rare household blu ray purchase (we stream or rent the majority of the films we see these days).
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
You knew I was going to give this one the nod- another Fincher/Reznor collaboration? Come on. But seriously, this one could have gone wrong in so many ways and it just didn't. Stieg Larsson's twisted murder mystery set in the snowy Swedish winterscape, featuring one of the most compelling female lead characters of all time- the hot-tempered, punk rock, kick ass genius computer hacker known as Lisbeth Salander (played impeccably by Rooney Mara) finds a perfect partner with the dark cinematic vision of David Fincher. The film is brutally violent, at some points beyond distasteful, but the story is electrifying as are all of the performances from its bulletproof cast. See it if you dare.
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