Title Seven Samurai and Silverado
Seven Samurai and Silverado -Kurosawa’s Title Influence on Lawrence Kasdan’s Revival Western- Author(s) DAVIES Brett,J Citation 明治大学国際日本学研究, 9(1): 111-119 URL http://hdl.handle.net/10291/20645 Rights Issue Date 2017-03-31 Text version publisher Type Departmental Bulletin Paper DOI https://m-repo.lib.meiji.ac.jp/ Meiji University 111 【Research Note】 Seven Samurai and Silverado: Kurosawa’s Influence on Lawrence Kasdan’s Revival Western DAVIES, Brett J. Abstract Lawrence Kasdan was one of the most successful American filmmakers of the 1980s. His third work as director, Silverado (1985), has been credited with reviving the Western pic- ture after a decade of dormancy, eschewing 1970s revisionism for a more classic approach to the genre. However, this paper will argue that Kasdan may have been influenced more by Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai than by any Hollywood cowboy film. It will first ex- amine Kasdan’s style and concerns pre-Silverado, before outlining some of the similarities that samurai and Western films historically share. Finally, this paper will highlight some of the specific ways in which Kasdan’s Silverado paid homage to Kurosawa’s Seven Samu- rai, through plot, character and theme. Keywords: Lawrence Kasdan, Akira Kurosawa, Silverado, Seven Samurai, Western film, genre The Early Career of Lawrence Kasdan In the early-1980s, Lawrence Kasdan was one of the most successful screenwriters work- ing in Hollywood. His first produced screenplay was The Empire Strikes Back (1980), widely regarded as the most interesting instalment in George Lucas’s Star Wars series. This was fol- lowed by further work with Lucas, along with director Steven Spielberg, on Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a screenplay voted one of the “101 Greatest Screenplays” of all-time by the Writers Guild of America (2005).
[Show full text]