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Home , Asakazu Nakai, Hideo Oguni, Ikiru, Kagemusha, Madadayo, Masaki Kobayashi

October 14, 2014 (Series 29:8) , (1965, 185 min)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa Written by Masato Ide, , Ryûzô Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa, and Shûgorô Yamamoto (novel “Akahige shinryô tan”) Produced by Ryûzô Kikushima and Music by Masaru Satô Cinematography by and Takao Saitô

Toshirô Mifune ... Dr. Kyojô Niide Yûzô Kayama ... Dr. Noboru Yasumoto ... Sahachi Reiko Dan ... Osugi Miyuki Kuwano ... Onaka Kyôko Kagawa ... Madwoman Tatsuyoshi Ehara ... Genzô Tsugawa Terumi Niki ... Otoyo Akemi Negishi ... Okuni, the mistress Lower Depths, 1957 , 1949 Nora inu, and 1949 Akira Kurosawa (director) (b. March 23, 1910 in , Haru no tawamure. —d. September 6, 1998 (age 88) in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan) wrote 71 films and television shows. He also directed 32 Shûgorô Yamamoto (writer—"Akahige shinryô tan") (b. films, which are 1993 , 1991 Rhapsody in August, Satomu Shimizu, June 22, 1903 in Yamanashi, Japan—d. June 1990 Dreams, 1985 Ran, 1980 , 1975 Dersu Uzala, 14, 1967 (age 63) in Yokohama, Japan) has 25 writing credits, 1970 Dodes'ka-den, 1965 Red Beard, 1963 High and Low, 1962 which are 2010 Momi no ki wa nokotta (TV Movie, novel), 2007 , 1961 , 1960 , 1958 The Tsubaki Sanjûrô (original novel), 2003 Hatsu tsubomi (TV Hidden Fortress, 1957 The Lower Depths, 1957 Throne of Blood, Movie, story), 2002 The Sea Is Watching (novels Nanno hana ka 1955 I Live in Fear: Record of a Living Being, 1954 Seven kaoru and Tsuyu no hinu ma), 2002 “Sabu” (TV Movie, novel), , 1952 , 1951 Hakuchi, 1950 , 1950 2001 Kah-chan (story), 2000 Dora-heita (novel Machi bugyô Shûbun, 1949 Nora inu, 1949 Shizukanaru kettô, 1948 Yoidore nikki), 1999 After the Rain (short story), 1993 Sono kido o tootte tenshi, 1947 One Wonderful Sunday, 1946 No Regrets for Our (story "Passing Through the Wooden Gate"), 1976 “Fûfu tabi Youth, 1946 Asu o tsukuru hitobito, 1945 Tora no o wo fumu nikki saraba ronin” (TV Series, novel), 1971 Inochi bô ni furô otokotachi, 1945 Zoku Sugata Sanshirô, 1944 Ichiban (novel Fukagawa Anrakutei), 1970 Dodes'ka-den (novel Kisetsu utsukushiku, 1943 Sanshiro Sugata, and 1941 Uma. He edited 17 no nai machi), 1968 Kill! (novel Torideyama no jûshichi nichi), films—1993 Madadayo, 1991 Rhapsody in August, 1985 Ran, 1967 Namida gawa (novel), 1966 “Shurushuru” (TV Movie, 1963 500,000, 1961 Yojimbo, 1960 The Bad Sleep Well, 1958 novel), 1965 Hiya-meshi to Osan to Chan (short stories), 1965 , 1957 The Lower Depths, 1955 Asunaro Red Beard (novel Akahige shinryô tan), 1965 The Scarlet monogatari, 1954 , 1951 Hakuchi, 1950 Camellia (novel Goben no tsubaki), 1964 Samurai from Nowhere Rashomon, 1947 Ginrei no hate, 1946 No Regrets for Our (story), 1962 Ao beka monogatari (novel), 1962 Carpenter and Youth, 1945 Zoku Sugata Sanshirô, 1943 Sanshiro Sugata, and Children (novel), 1962 Sanjuro (novel Nichinichi heian), 1946 1941 Uma—and produced 11: 1980 Kagemusha, 1970 Dodes'ka- Shûdôin no hanayome (story "Hana sakanu Lila"), 1937 Yoshida den, 1965 Sanshiro Sugata, 1963 High and Low, 1961 Yojimbo, Palace (story), and 1929 Haru wa mata oka e (story). 1960 The Bad Sleep Well, 1958 The Hidden Fortress, 1957 The

Kurosawa—RED BEARD—2

Asakazu Nakai (cinematographer) (b. August 29, 1901 in Attack Squadron!, 1962 47 Samurai, 1962 Sanjuro, 1961 Kobe, Japan—d. February 28, 1988 (age 86)) was the Yojimbo, 1961 Daredevil in the Castle, 1960 The Bad Sleep Well, cinematographer for 94 films, among them 1985 Ran, 1976 Love 1960 The Gambling Samurai, 1960 The Last Gunfight, 1958 The and Separation in Sri Lanka, 1975 Dersu Uzala, 1971 Hidden Fortress, 1958 Theater of Life, 1958 The Rickshaw Man, Saredowareraga bibi yori wakarenôta, 1970 Take Care, Red 1957 The Lower Depths, 1957 Throne of Blood, 1956 A Wife's Riding Hood, 1970 Bravo, Young Guy, 1968 The Night of the Heart, 1956 Bushido, 1955 I Live in Fear: Record of a Living Seagull, 1968 Kubi, 1966 The Daphne, 1965 Red Beard, 1963 Being, 1955 Duel at Ichijoji Temple, 1954 Seven Samurai, 1953 High and Low, 1962 My Daughter and I, 1961 The End of Sunflower Girl, 1953 Hoyo, 1950 Datsugoku, 1950 Rashomon, Summer, 1961 Girl of Dark, 1960 The Blue Beast, 1959 I Want and 1947 Shin baka jidadi: Zenpen. to Be a Shellfish, 1958 Rat Kid on Journey, 1957 Ujô, 1957 Throne of Blood, 1955 I Live in Fear: Record of a Living Being, Yûzô Kayama ... Dr. Noboru Yasumoto (b. April 11, 1937 in 1954 Seven Samurai, 1953 Mr. Pu, 1953 Husband and Wife, Kanagawa, Japan) appeared in 73 films and TV shows, including 1952 Ikiru, 1951 The Dancer, 1951 Clothes of Deception, 1947 2009 “Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari kôen mae hashutsujo” One Wonderful Sunday, 1947 Four Love Stories, 1946 No (TV Series), 1999 Messengers, 1995 Thunderbolt, 1970 The Regrets for Our Youth, 1945 Three Women of the North, 1944 Creature Called Man, 1970 Bravo, Young Guy, 1969 Bullet Battle Troop, 1943 The Song Lantern, 1942 Map for Mother, Wound, 1967 Go! Go! Wakadaishô, 1967 Two in the Shadow, 1942 Shiroi hekiga, 1939 The Imaginary Ghetto, 1938 Nippon no 1967 Japan's Longest Day, 1967 Judo Champion, 1967 Let's Go, tamashii, 1933 Harutsugedori, 1933 Shôwa jinsei an'nai, 1933 Young Guy!, 1966 , 1965 Campus A-Go-Go, Kiri no yo no hodô, and 1933 Qingdao kara kita onna. 1965 Sanshiro Sugata, 1965 Red Beard, 1964 Yearning, 1963 Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong, 1963 Attack Squadron!, 1962 Takao Saitô (cinematographer) (b. March 5, 1920 in , Born in Sin, 1962 47 Samurai, 1962 Pride of the Campus, 1962 Japan) has 29 cinematography credits, including 1993 Rainbow Sanjuro, 1961 Different Sons, 1961 Blood on the Sea, 1961 Sir Bridge, 1991 Rhapsody in August, 1990 Dreams, 1985 Ran, 1980 Galahad in Campus, 1961 Big Shots Die at Dawn, 1961 The Kagemusha, 1970 Dodes'ka-den, 1969 Red Lion, 1969 Bullet Man from the East, 1961 Happiness of Us Alone, 1961 Lovers of Wound, 1967 The Killing Bottle, 1965 Red Beard, 1963 The Lost Ginza, 1961 Blueprint of Murder, and 1960 Otoko tai otoko. World of Sinbad, 1963 500,000, 1963 High and Low, 1963 Attack Squadron!, 1962 Nippon musekinin jidai, and 1962 from World Film Directors Vol. I. Ed. John Wakeman. H.W. Sanjuro. Wilson Co. NY 1987. Entry by David Williams. Akira Kurosawa, Japanese director and screenwriter, Toshirô Mifune ... Dr. Kyojô Niide (b. Sanchuan Minlang, was born in the Omori district of Tokyo. His father, Yutaka April 1, 1920 in Tsingtao, China (now Qingdao, Shandong, Kurosawa, a native of Akita Prefecture and of samurai descent, China)—d. December 24, 1997 (age 77) in Mitaka city, Tokyo, was an army officer who became a teacher and administrator of Japan) appeared in physical education. A graduate of the Toyama Imperial Military 182 films and Academy, he earned a moderate income at the Ebara Middle television shows, School, famous for its spartan program. The director’s mother, among them 1995 whom he has described as a self-sacrificing realist—‘a typical Fukai kawa, 1994 woman of the Meiji era’—came from an Osaka merchant family. Picture Bride, 1992 Akira was the last of the couple’s children, following four sisters Shadow of the Wolf, and three brothers. The oldest sister had already left home and 1991 Journey of married by the time Kurosawa was born, and the oldest brother Honor, 1991 left while he was still a child. The second brother had died before Strawberry Road, Kurosawa was born, so that Akira grew up with three sisters and 1987 Princess from the one elder brother who was later to be a great influence in his the Moon, 1987 life. The youngest of the sisters, to whom Kurosawa was closest, Sicilian Connection, died at the age of sixteen while he was in the fourth grade. 1983 Jinsei gekijo, Kurosawa characterizes himself in childhood as at first 1982 The Challenge, backward at school and physically weak, to the disappointment 1981 The Bushido of his father. In spite of that weakness, he soon came to share his Blade, 1981 Inchon, father’s enthusiasm for physical challenge, developing a lifelong 1980 “Shogun” (TV interest in sports, especially baseball, and an attitude of “single- Movie), 1979 1941, minded devotion to a discipline.” As a child of ten he practiced 1979 Winter Kills, kendo, traditional Japanese swordsmanship, and “assumed all the 1978 Love and Faith, affectations of a boy fencer.” His father’s influence extended in 1978 The Shogun's another significant direction. In a time when films were Samurai, 1976 Midway, 1975 Paper Tiger, 1971 Red Sun, 1970 considered frivolous entertainment, Yutaka Kurosawa insisted on Meets Yojimbo, 1969 Red Lion, 1968 Hell in the Pacific, their educational value, and took his whole family regularly to 1968 The Sands of Kurobe, 1967 Japan's Longest Day, 1967 the movies as well as to traditional storytellers in the music-halls , 1966 Grand Prix, 1966 The Sword of Doom, around Kagurazaka. ... 1965 Sanshiro Sugata, 1965 Red Beard, 1965 , The great Kanto earthquake of 1923 occurred during 1963 The Lost World of Sinbad, 1963 High and Low, 1963 Kurosawa’s second year at the Keika Middle School. His brother Kurosawa—RED BEARD—3 took him on “an expedition to conquer fear,” forcing him to look when the company was only two years old, a vigorous, open- at scenes of horrifying destruction. ...He expressed the wish to minded organization that encouraged experiment and trained its become a painter. Despite the family’s declining fortunes, his assistant directors by giving them every job in the production father did not object, but insisted that he go to art school... process. After an uneasy start, Kurosawa joined the group led by Kurosawa found it hard to give his mind to his artistic director Yamamoto, in whom he discovered “the best teacher of career during the Depression. His family could not afford to buy my entire life.” the materials he needed, and the distractions of those disturbed ...Kurosawa now began to win prizes from the times were many. He explored literature, especially the works of Ministry of Education for his filmscripts...Kurosawa resigned Dostoevsky and Gorki; he went to the theatre; he listened to himself for a time to turning out formulaic scripts and drinking classical music; he became fascinated by movies. In this last he up the proceeds, usually in the company of his old friend Uekusa, was guided by his brother, who wrote program notes for movie who had come to Tokyo as an extra and stayed on to write scripts theatres and took part in shows himself as a benshi, a himself. The drinking led to a preulcerative stomach condition, professional commentator, specializing in foreign films. which Kurosawa attempted to treat by making strenuous trips Kurosawa was later to list nearly a hundred films that particularly into the mountains. One day he saw an advertisement for a new impressed him in the years up to 1929. The list is mainly novel, Sugata Sanshiro, by Tsuneo Tomita. Reading through the composed of films from Russia and the summary of the story, he knew West, and includes most of the great names instinctively that here was the subject for a from Caligari to Chaplin. In 1929 film that would not only be acceptable to Kurosawa joined the Proletarian Artists’ the censors but ideal for himself to direct... League, not so much from a commitment to Sanshiro Sugata (the Marxism as out of a fashionable interest in order for the name) is a Meiji period story all new movements...He left home at this about the origins of judo, tracing the rise of time, ostensibly to live with his brother, but one of its first practitioners. The film was actually moving between various rented made in accordance with national policy rooms and the homes of Communist friends. dictated by the Information Bureau. Since Increasingly disillusioned with the the film’s content was thus restricted, political movement and with his painting, Kurosawa took the opportunity to concern Kurosawa left the League in the spring of himself with its form. At a time when the 1932 and went to share the bohemian life of received idea was that a Japanese film his brother, who lived, to the disapproval of should be as simple as possible, “I the family, with a woman in the tenement disagreed and got away with disagreeing— district of Kagurazaka. The movie-going that much I could say.” Several critics continued, of course, but now came the first remark how many of the characteristic of the talkies that would mean the end of features of Kurosawa’s style are already Heigo’s career. The benshi was no longer apparent here. Richie points to the kind of required for sound films, and the strike story (a young man’s education), to the organized to persuade the studios to resist the change was tendency to “cyclic form,” to the interest in how things are done doomed to fail. Heigo found himself a leader of the strike, and it (in this case the method of judo itself), and to “the extraordinary was this painful role above all that led, in Kurosawa’s view, to economy of the way in which he shows his story.” Already his brother’s suicide attempt. Kurosawa tried to reconcile Heigo Kurosawa is making use of his favorite punctuation device, the to the family by arranging his marriage to the woman he lived wipe, between scenes.... with, but in 1933, at the age of twenty-seven, Heigo’s second Kurosawa’s next film, Ichiban utsukishiku (The Most suicide attempt succeeded. The effect on Kurosawa was Beautiful, 1943), belongs to a cycle of “national policy” projects profound, and he came to describe the brother, whom he saw as a designed to encourage increased industrial production. Unusually more pessimistic version of himself, “as a negative strip of film for him its subject is women...The style of , that led to my own development as a positive image.” according to Ritchie, was influenced by German and Russian Kurosawa had by this time lost faith in his talent as a documentary, but he notes also the beginnings of a number of painter. He felt himself too easily influenced by the vision of techniques not especially associated with documentary, that whatever artist he was studying. “In other words, I did not—and Kurosawa was to develop later as his own, such as the “short- still don’t—have a completely, personal, distinctive way of cut” for narrative transitions, and a “peculiarly personal use of looking at things....Kurosawa answered a newspaper the flashback.”... advertisement put out by the newly established PCL (Photo On February 15, 1945, the month Sanshiro Sugata Part Chemical Laboratory, later to become Motion Picture II was released, Kurosawa married the star of The Most Company)....Out of more than five hundred applicants, over one Beautiful, Yoko Taguchi (whose real name was Kato Kiyo), at hundred and thirty were selected on the basis of the essay, but the Meiji shrine in Tokyo, with Yamamoto and his wife as only seven passed the next test, which involved writing a matchmakers. They were at first very poor, his salary being less scenario from a newspaper story. Kurosawa was one of the five than a third of what his wife’s had been as an actress. Their son who came through the final interview, having already established Jisao was born in December of the same year; a daughter, a rapport with Kajiro Yamamoto, whom he impressed with his Kuzuko, was born in 1954. As Japan’s defeat in the war knowledge of the visual arts. Kurosawa joined PCL in 1936, approached, Kurosawa wrote a script for a film called Dokkoi Kurosawa—RED BEARD—4 kono yari (The Lifted Spear), but it was abandoned in the pre- his married son. He learns that he is suffering from cancer and production stage because of a shortage of horses. This led to the has only six months to live. ...The film is full of changes of tone hastily assembled production of Tora no o fumu otokotachi (They and mood, as well as of narrative and visual method. It begins Who Step on the Tiger’s Tail), during which Japan surrendered. with an x-ray picture of Watanabe’s stomach and the narrating Kurosawa clashed angrily over this film with the Japanese voice tells us about his cancer.... censors, who had remained at their post even after the Richie calls the theme existentialist, comparing government collapsed. They pronounced it an insult to Japanese Dostoevsky and quoting with approval Richard Brown: “It traditions. The American censors who succeeded them also consists of a restrained affirmation within the context of a giant banned the film, some say for its feudalism, but according to negation.” It is clearly possible in interpretation to emphasize one Kurosawa because the Japanese had failed to submit it for strand more than another in the structure of this very various approval....American soldiers were in the habit of visiting the set film. Burch, in considering it “Kurosawa’s first full-blown during production, among them on masterwork and the most perfect one occasion , who left a statement of his dramatic geometry,” message which Kurosawa never also finds it “somewhat marred by its received. He only learned of the visit complicity with the reformist ideology when the two met at last in London dominant in that period.” ...Kurosawa years later.... saw himself reaching “a certain Kurosawa’s Rashomon 1950, maturity” in this film, which he felt was a landmark, not only in his own was the culmination of the career but also in the history of “researches” he had carried out since Japanese cinema and its relation to the the war; nevertheless the film left him cinema of the West.... dissatisfied, and it contains blunders Kurosawa has acquired the that still embarrassed him when reputation among his collaborators of interviewed in 1966 by Cahiers du being, as his production chief Hiroshi Cinéma. Asked if he considered Nezu said, “the best editor in the world.” He sees editing as the himself a realist or a romantic, he replied, “I am a most important phase of production, giving life to the film, while sentimentalist.” pointing out that nothing can rescue a bad script. His method is Kurosawa collaborated on the script for Ikiru with two unusual. Instead of shooting scenes in random order of other writers, and Hideo Oguni. Since the convenience, he prefers to shoot chronologically, following the earliest films he had preferred not to write alone, because of the script, as far as possible, scene by scene. He then edits the rushes danger of one-sidedness in interpreting a character, for a when each day’s shooting is over, so that he can maintain the character is usually the starting point. The process of writing involvement of his crew in the film’s progress, and so that “I Kurosawa describes as “a real competition.” The team retires to a have only the fine cut to hotel or a house isolated from complete when the shooting is distractions. Then, sitting finished.”... around one table, each one Once Mizoguchi’s writes, then takes and rewrites new films began to appear, the others; work. “Then we talk from 1952 on, he and about it and decide what to Kurosawa became the opposite use.” Although he finds poles in critical debates among scriptwriting the hardest part of French New Wave critics, his work, he lays great emphasis generally to the detriment of on its importance. It is the first Kurosawa. But Rashomon’s influence was wide: Robbe-Grillet stage in an essentially collaborative process, of which the next is declared it had inspired L’Année dernière á Marienbad (1961) the careful rehearsal with the cast before any filming takes place. and Bergman called his own Virgin Spring (1959) “a pale The scripts are often written with particular actors in mind. “We imitation.’ The Japanese were equally confused by Rashomon’s don’t just rehearse the actors, but every part of every scene—the foreign success, suspecting uneasily that the film appealed in the camera movements, the lighting, everything.”... West because it was “exotic,” or alternatively because it was On January 29, 1959, Kurosawa gave his first press “Western.” At any rate, according to Kurosawa, Toho were still interview and announced the formation of his own company, reluctant to send his next film Ikiru, abroad, for fear of its not Kurosawa Productions. Toho was to put up one million yen in an being understood; this although it was an immediate popular agreement requiring three films over two years, with profits and and critical success at home, was placed first on the Kinema losses to be shared equally with Kurosawa. It was the first Jumpo list for 1952, given the Mainichi Film Concours award for independent company headed by a working director in the best picture and best screenplay, and awarded a Ministry of history of Japanese cinema.... Education prize. When the film was finally shown abroad, it was The story of Tengoku to jigoku (High and Low, 1963) is very well received, and at a 1961 Kurosawa retrospective in based on an Ed McBain detective story called King’s Ransom. Berlin, it was awarded the David O. Selznick Golden Laurel. The son of Gondo, production head of a shoe company (Toshiro Ikiru (Living) tells the story of Watanabe, a minor Mifune), has apparently been kidnapped and a ransom is official in the city administration, widowed and alienated from demanded. When it turns out that the son of Gondo’s chauffeur Kurosawa—RED BEARD—5 has been taken by mistake, Gondo must decide whether he will Kurosawa’s worst picture. Informed of this, Kurosawa wondered still pay the ransom—to do so would ruin him and allow his if they had not liked it because of the Americanness of Gondo’s rivals to take over the company. Agreeing to pay, he is instructed style of life—something he had to show, since it is a part of real to throw a briefcase containing the money from a high-speed Japanese society. train. we then learn the identity of the kidnapper; Takeuchi, a ...In the five years before his next production, [after poor medical student, provoked by the sight of Gondo’s Akahige/Red Beard], Kuosawa was involved in a number of ostentatious house on a hill overlooking the Yokohama slums unhappy projects. Japanese companies refused him support , so where he himself struggles to live. As the police close in, he sought financing in the United States. When bad weather Takeuchi (also a pusher of heroin) kills his accomplices. He is postponed shooting in Rochester, New York, of a script called finally captured, and Gondo visits him in prison. The first part of The Runaway Train, Fox invited Kurosawa to direct the Japanese the film (65 minutes of 143) takes place entirely in Gondo’s sequences of Tora! Tora! Tora After a few weeks shooting, bitter hilltop house, the action restricted to phone calls and disagreements with the studio ended with Fox claiming that conversations, filmed in long takes shot with several cameras. Kurosawa had resigned because of bad health (meaning mental Three identical sets were built to represent the scene at different health), and Kurosawa insisting that he had been misled (for times of day, according to Richie; cameras followed the actors instance, about the other director supposed tp work with him—he movements closely but were positioned outside the set itself. had been promised )and then dismissed against his “The effect is one of complete freedom within a very constricted will. area,” and the camerawork makes the Disillusioned, Kuroswa returned hour-long sequence seem much to Japan, where an independent company shorter. It also provides a context for was formed, called Yonki no Kai (The the explosive action that follows, the Four Musketeers), consisting of four-minute sequence on the speeding Kurosawa, Kinshita, Kon Ichiikawa, and train. The rest of the narrative is full of . It was an attempt to incidents, sights and sounds, reassert the power and independence of punctuated by the famous moment the director in what Kurosawa has when red smoke, in color on the black- referred to as the Dark Ages of Japanese and-white screen, appears from a cinema. Kurosawa’s first venture for the chimney to reveal the location of the company was Dodes’kaden (1970), his discarded briefcase, after which the first picture in color….Kurosawa next action accelerates for the final chase. made a television documentary, Uma no This bold two-part structure is seen by uta (The song of the Horse). Then, on Burch as another outstanding example December 22, 1971, a housemaid found of Kurosawa’s distinctive “dramatic geometry.” Richie sees it as him lying in his half-filled bath, wounded with twenty-two marking two areas of thematic interest, the first emotionally slashes on his neck, arms, and hands. He had attempted suicide. involving, the second intellectual. Joan Mellen considers it Joan Mellen has discussed this attempt in the context of Japanese fortunate that the “rather obvious moral dilemma” of the first part attitudes toward death and suicide; Kurosawa himself spoke of is replaced by the “much more interesting treatment of the neurosis, low spirits, and the realization (after an operation for a personality of the kidnapper.” The second part, after the train severe case of gallstones) that he had been in pain for years. His sequence, begins by deliberately destroying the pattern of eyesight too had begun to fail. “Letters and telegrams came from suspense, revealing the kidnapper in his miserable daily all over the world; there were offers from children to help existence. For Mellen, this part, with its descent into the slums finance my films. I realized I had committed a terrible error.” His and its satirical presentation of police and press, “comes close to spirits were fully restored by an offer in 1972 from the Soviet developing into one of the Union to direct a subject of his finest critiques of the choice. Kurosawa chose to write inequitable class structure of a script based on the writing of Japan ever offered in a Vladimir Aresniev, which he had Japanese film.” She answers read in the 1940s. Arseniev was Tadao Sat’s objection that a a Russian soldier who, while man destined to become a mapping the Russian- doctor would never have Manchurian border in the early risked his future as Takeuchi 1900s, formed a friendship with does, by reading it as a Dersu Uzsala, an old hunter who deliberate irony confirming served as a guide for him and his “the depth of Kurosawa’s social vision.” In the final party… confrontation, which Richie reads as Dostoevskian, the faces of Dersu Uzala took almost four years to complete, two of Gondo and the kidnapper begin to merge with each other’s which were spent filming in the Siberian winter. It was shot in reflections in the glass screen dividing them, indicating their 70-mm with six-track stereophonic sound….Dersu Uzala was underlying identity. High and Low placed second on the Kinema given the American Academy Award for best foreign picture, a Jumpo list and received the Mainichi Concours award for best Federation of International Film Critics Award, a Gold Medal at picture and screenplay. Some French critics, however, saw it as the Ninth Moscow Festival, and in Italy in 1977 the Donatello Kurosawa—RED BEARD—6

Prize. In 1976 Kurosawa was given by the Japanese government that I knew I would have to direct it myself. the highest-ranking cultural award of Order of the Sacred “The script is quite different from the novel. One of the Treasure, designating him a Person of Cultural Merits, the first major characters, the young girl, is not even found in the book. such in his profession; and in 1978 he received an award for While I was writing I kept remembering Dostoevsky and I tried “Humanistic Contribution to Society in Film Production” from to show the same thing that he showed in the character of Nelli in the European Film Academy. The Insulted and the Injured. Another five years went by before Kurosawa made his “I had something special in mind when I made this film next film. He worked on the script for Ran, his Japanese King because I wanted to make something that my audience would Lear, and on a project based on Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque want to see, something so magnificent that people would just of the Red Death,” With Masato Ide he wrote the script that was have to see it. To do this we all worked harder than ever, tried to to become Kagemusha…. In March 1986, Kurosawa visited overlook no detail, were willing to undergo any hardship. It was London to be made a Fellow of the British Film Institute. really hard work [and the film took longer before the cameras Throughout his career, from his earliest encounters with than any other Japanese film including Seven Samurai—almost Japanese censors, it has been suggested that Kurosawa is too two years] and I got sick twice. Mifune and Kayama each got “Western” to be a good Japanese director. In the West a kind of sick once . . .” purism began to prefer Ozu and Mizoguchi. But Kurosawa has The story: always insisted on his Japanese outlook. “I am a man who likes At the end of the Tokugawa period a young man, Noboru Sotatsu, Gyokudo, and Tessai in the same way as Van Gogh, Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama) returns to Edo after several years’ Lautrec and Rouault….I collect old Japanese laquerware as well study at the Dutch medical schools in Nagasaki. Told to make a as antique French and Dutch glassware. In short, the western and formal call at the Koishikawa Public Clinic and pay his respects the Japanese live side by side in my mind, naturally, without the to its head Kyojio Niide, commonly called Red Beard (Toshiro least sense of conflict.” Akira Iwasaki agrees, pointing out that, Mifune), he learns that he is to stay there and work as an intern. unlike Ozu and Naruse, “Kuosawa belongs to a more recent Since he had hoped to be attached to the court medical staff and generation which must look to the west for help defining Japan, had certainly never considered working in a public clinic, the which verifies and analyses the one by constant reference to the news is a great shock. He refuses, purposely breaks the hospital other.” rules, will not wear a uniform, and further trespasses by lounging ...He has always believed cinema should take advantage around a forbidden area, the small pavilion where a beautiful but of technical developments. Among his Japanese “teachers,” insane patient (Kyoko Kagawa) is kept. either literally or as models, Kurosawa names first “Yama-san” Like the hero of Sashiro Sugata, like the detective in (Kajiro Yamamoto), along with his great friend Sadao Yamanaka Stray Dog, and the shoe manufacturer in High and Low, the then Mizoguchi, Ozu, and Naruse. Of Western directors he young doctor learns: Red Beard too is the story of an education. speaks with the most reverence perhaps of John Ford and Jean Kayama learns that medical theory (illusion) is different from a Renoir. ... man dying (reality); that—as the film later reveals—what he had In 1961, Kurosawa said his aim as a filmmaker was “to always thought about himself (upright, honest, hard-working) give people strength to live and face life; to help them live more must now be reconciled with what he finds himself to also be powerfully and happily.” At the time of Kagemusha he said, “I (arrogant, selfish, insincere); and most importantly, that evil think it’s impossible in this day and age to be optimistic,” but itself is the most humanly common thing in this world; that good that, seeing the possibilities still in the medium of film, “I would is uncommon. like to be able to create hope somewhere.”... “When I die I prefer At the beginning his position is that of the hero of to just drop dead on the set….” Kurosawa’s High and Low. He did nothing to merit exile in a public clinic, he has done nothing “wrong.” And yet here he finds himself unable to escape, unable to see in what way he merits this punishment. Put in a way that Kurosawa would not care for, one might say that he is, like all of us, born into an estate concerning which we were not consulted and for which we did not ask. The production: To describe the look of Red Beard one should speak of something burnished and glowing, like the body of a fine cello. If a single adjective were used I should think it would be: “mellow.” This mellowness is contained within the look of the film itself. It has a patina, the way certain of Mizoguchi’s films have a patina. This is the result of strong concern for realistic detail. : “Red Beard” (Criterion Notes) Kurosawa’s efforts to achieve this are already legend in Japan. After finishing High and Low (1963), director Akira Kurosawa The main set was really an entire town with back alleys and side recalls, “I started looking around for something else to do and streets (some of which were never filmed) which was so large quite by accident picked up [the novel] Red Beard by Shugoro that shots of just the roofs fill the whole wide screen during the Yamamoto. At first I thought it would make a good script for credit titles. [fellow director] Horikawa but as I wrote I grew so interested All of the material used for the town was about as old as Kurosawa—RED BEARD—7 it is supposed to look. The tiled roofs were taken from buildings and "Madadayo" (1993) about an old professor beloved by his more than a century old; all of the lumber was from the oldest students. The title is a word meaning "not yet!" The professor available farmhouses; costumes and props were all “aged” for recites it at the birthday parties thrown by those he mentored. He months before their appearance; the bedding (made in was not dead -- not yet. Kurosawa, who perhaps saw some of Tokugawa-period patterns) was really slept in for up to half a himself in the professor, died in 1995. year before shooting. Making the main gate, which so figures in The man called Red Beard is the doctor in charge of a the film, occupied almost everyone. The wood was more than a century-old village clinic treating the poor and the penniless. He hundred years old and both staff and director kept adding touches is played by Toshiro Mifune, in the 16th and last time the two to make it look still older. (After the film was shot, the gate was would work together. After such films as "Rashomon," "The re-erected at the entrance of the theatre premiering the film and Seven Samurai," "Yojimbo," and "High and Low," what a long drew as great a crowd as the picture itself.) way they had come, and what a serene note to part on. Dr. Niide Kurosawa used this magnificent set (so grand that is not even seen in the opening scenes of the film, but his tourist bus companies ran special tours during the two years of presence pervades the clinic, a spartan but spic and span building filming in order to show visitors its splendors) in a very telling in a humble neighborhood (Kurosawa built a traditional village way. The main street is seen for just one minute and its to surround it). destruction was incorporated into the earthquake scenes; the The film is not really the story of Red Beard at all, but scenes with the bridges are likewise short; so are those in the of Noboru Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama), an ambitious young man elaborately constructed paddy. The director, if one wants to look who has graduated from a Dutch medical school in Japan and at it this way, completely wasted his million yen set. fancies himself on a fast track to join the shogun's household. He After Red Beard had opened, while it was still playing interns at the clinic resentfully, having heard tales of its to packed houses and was proving to be indeed just the kind of autocratic director and "smelly" clientele. He suspects family picture that people want to see, something “so magnificent that intrigues may have been behind his obscure posting. people would just have to see it,” I told Kurosawa that I sensed The clinic seems to permit a certain amount of that he had come to some sort of conclusion, some sort of resting democracy among the patients and the loud, energetic nursing place. He had pushed his style to what appeared to be its and kitchen staffs. They all have opinions on everything. Some ultimate. At the same time he continued and, it would seem, patients, like the saintly Sahachi (Tsutomu Yamazaki), are not completed the theme which had been his throughout his entire exactly dying but seem to have moved in permanently, and we career. It might even be called the summation of his work find that Red Beard's method is to indirectly treat soul along with because in Red Beard he had vindicated his humanism and his body. In some aspects the clinic is a settlement house. compassion. He had shown that only after the negative (evil) has The newcomer Yasumoto declines to cooperate. Surely been fully experienced can the positive, the good, joy itself, be he is in this backwater unfairly. He refuses even to wear his seen as the power it still remains; that this wisdom was offered in medical uniform. Kurosawa establishes an omniscient but a film filled with true sentiment, with the fact that in all of our invisible presence for Red Beard, and then finally introduces him glory, in all of our foolishness, we are—after all—human; seen from behind, abruptly turning to face the young intern after further, that evil itself is merely human, after all, and that the a delay. Here and later Mifune invests Red Beard with gruff good then lies in our realizing this and acting upon it. inscrutability; the doctor believes in teaching through object lessons and experience, not through lectures. His first assignment simply involves watching by an old man's side as he dies. Yasumoto finds he is barely equal to the task. It is too real, too painful. There is a method to Red Beard's lesson. Yasumoto thinks of medicine as a career path, not an interaction with the sick. He is warned away from the beautiful patient known as The Mantis (Kyôko Kagawa), who is notorious for killing her husbands and is held in isolation. But she is seductive, and he nearly loses his life in trying to help her. Watch here how Kurosawa uses his compositions of the two characters enclosed in a room to concentrate the danger. : “Red Beard” The saintly man draws close to death. He has spend his Told in the world of early 19th century Japan, Akira Kurosawa's days making products to sell on behalf of his fellow patients. A "Red Beard" is a passionate humanist statement, almost the last mudslide shakes the clinic, and a skeleton is unearthed. The old he would make about an exemplary human being. After man knows the skeleton belongs to his wife. No, he didn't kill completing its two years of filming in 1965, the master would her. It is more tragic than that. He tells his listeners the story in turn to flawed and damaged characters -- one of them, the hero of an evocative flashback which includes an earthquake, and notice "Ran" (1985) inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear. Dr. Kyojô how well Kurosawa photographs it through a cloud of dust, with Niide would be the closest he ever came to creating a man moral foreground action and a line of people fleeing at the top of the and good in every respect. In the film you can sense Kurosawa's frame. best nature shining. The second act begins with Red Beard and Yasumoto In the second act of his career he would allow visiting a brothel to treat for syphilis. There they find the discouragement and doubt to show through, ending with traumatized 12-year-old Otoyo (Terumi Niki), who obsessively "Rhapsody in August," (1991) about the devastation of Nagasaki scrubs the wooden floor. Her mother died outside the brothel, the Kurosawa—RED BEARD—8 crass madam "gave her a home," and she is essentially a sex his life. In telling the thief's story, Kurosawa has a magnificent slave. Red Beard announces that she has a fever and he will take composition where the screen is crossed by clotheslines of drying her away to live at the clinic. The madam refuses and summons sheets or kimonos. In foreground, Yasumoto and a nurse listen her guards. as, in top background, the thief relates his story. As I describe In a scene that stands amusingly outside the film's this, it must be difficult to imagine. How can top and bottom and mood, Red Beard expertly uses martial arts and his knowledge of foreground and background be composed in that way? Kurosawa bones to break the arms and legs of all the guards, leaving them does it with simple elegance. littered about the courtyard. Then he takes Otoyo away. As they For me, the most unforgettable scene in the film takes leave, he apologizes to Yasumoto for his use of violence. This is place after the little boy seems about to die. A dreadful mourning a theme through the film: Red sound comes from outside. Beard's criticism of his own What can it be? It is the sound faults. A doctor must never harm of the cooks, crying the thief's others, he informs his pupil, as name down into the well, his victims lie moaning. which is believed to penetrate The story of Otoyo to the center of the earth where supplies the emotional heart of souls go. They are calling him "Red Beard." I will not tell too back. Otoyo runs out and joins much. Experience it. But observe them. What seems to be a (after Red Beard orders single shot looks up at them Yasumoto to keep Otoyo in his calling into the well, and pans room for observation and down its walls to look down at treatment) that she awakens their reflections. How this was behind him in darkness and sits upright with a cry. She is in accomplished I have no idea. shadow, except for a pinpoint at light that picks out her eyes, Another example of the cinematography comes with the glowing fiercely like a tiger's. She turns away, and is a dark passage of the seasons. Rain and snow are both notoriously silhouette. Then lowers herself and her eyes shine again from the difficult to photograph. Both are done with great effect. We dark. The choreography for camera here must have been know Kurosawa awaited a real snowfall. Did he also wait for it meticulous. to really rain? I've never seen wetter rain in another movie. Red Beard's philosophy seems to be that the sick grow "Red Beard" is a long and deliberate film, as it must be, better by helping others. Two centuries ago, he has a wise and because the lessons of the great doctor cannot be ticked off in instinctive understanding of psychology: He doesn't lecture vignettes. Doctors need to watch awhile at deathbeds, and learn patients or help them "talk through" their problems. He places know the patients. We need to observe how a man who thinks of them in practical situations where they are able to take inventory himself as flawed can be wholly good. And how a man who has of themselves and focus on the troubles of others. That is the an unearned high opinion of himself can learn goodness through cure. It works for Otoyo and Yasumoto both. humility. I believe this film should be seen by every medical Otoyo, broken in mind and spirit, notices a little thief student. Like Kurosawa's masterpiece, "Ikiru" (1952), it half her age trying to steal gruel. Still almost catatonic, she fearlessly regards the meanings of life, and death. rouses herself to offer him some food, and becomes involved in

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2014 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS Oct 21 Nicolas Roeg, PERFORMANCE, 1970 Oct 28 Víctor Erice, THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, 1973 Nov 4 Roman Polanski, TESS, 1979 Nov 11 Sydney Pollack, TOOTSIE, 1982 Nov 18 Joel and Ethan Coen, FARGO, 1996 Nov 25 Erik Skjoldbjaerg, INSOMNIA, 1997 Dec 2 Mike Nichols, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR, 2007

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