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Cinema Directors Exam Essay #2 Redding Midura 4/15/2013 Cinema Directors Exam 2 If John Ford defines himself firmly by stating, “My name is John Ford. I am a director of Westerns,” Akira Kurosawa may be just as certain he is the Japanese samurai movie-directing equivalent. Presented with several definitive motion pictures by each director, certain stylistic features stand out in their films both cinematically and thematically when compared and contrasted, contributing to these two directors legacy and importance. Without a doubt, Kurosawa hugely admired Ford and looked to him as a creative idol to live up to thanks to the collection of masterpieces left in Ford’s portfolio. Stylistically, John Ford and Akira Kurosawa’s cinematic style differed from their colleagues and from each other. While Ford was busy rejecting close up shots working from his favorite set, Monument Valley, Kurosawa was dramatizing 16th century Japan using a series of axial cuts that became a signature of his work. Ford was a master at working within the frame preferring to tell the story then to have it told through cuts. His shots consisted primarily of master shots, his preferred framework for which this was possible. In Stagecoach, Ford films several indoor scenes using master shots of the entire room with all the characters present in the foreground or the background. It is important to note the presence of a roof on most sets, another trait of Ford’s cinematography. This allowed Ford to shoot looking up at characters giving him more freedom with his camera. Rather than do take after take with complex camera arrangements to jump between actors and dialogue, Ford liked to keep the camera rolling and did his best to keep the entire scene in a frame, allowing for clear depth of focus shots in which certain characters remained on screen but out of focus in the background. Ford would often hold shots much longer than the viewer would expect. When he did cut, his transitions were marked by a fade out followed by a fade in circle that expands to fill the screen. Humorously, Ford held distaste for close-up shots and refused to film them claiming that if they were filmed, “they’d use them!” During the closing scenes of Stagecoach (1939), when John Wayne walks Dallas to her home and the viewer anticipates a close up shot as most modern cinema might lead you to believe, Ford instead holds a master shot of the two of them in the middle ground. Instead of close-ups, Ford was known for his distinguishing shots in which characters stood in doorways. This can be seen in Stagecoach when Dallas walks down the hall as John Wayne’s character watches from his room. Ford also made great use of his set, the spectacular Monument Valley by capturing iconic images of the vast expanse in long landscape shots. Though Kurosawa also liked to keep the camera rolling, he often did so using a two-camera set up during which actors performed extended scenes for multiple cameras set at different angles both recording at once. Kurosawa did this in part because of the possibilities when editing the film but also because he felt that his actors performed more naturally when they were uncertain of which camera was on them. Kurosawa probably borrowed the idea for long shots from Ford’s silent era films, which he studied for years. Similarly to Ford’s style of fading in and out, Kurosawa’s cuts were usually marked by a wipe across the screen. Kurosawa also had an eye for working within the frame often using markers at the edge of the frame to help position the camera. One of the best examples comes in Yojimbo (1961), Kurosawa holds a shot with the old man hanging in the foreground on the left side, the two gangsters sitting at the table in the middle, and the hero off in the distance perfectly positioned in the frame between the gangsters and the marker on the left side. Kurosawa used different camera movement intelligently to reinforce the narrative style. In Rashomon (1950), he demonstrates a transition in the mental state of the woodcutter as he comes across the evidence of the crime. The montage during which he walks through the woods makes elegant use of a tracking camera just until he comes across his first clue at which point Kurosawa cuts off the music and switches to a still camera shot. The viewer feels the change from peacefully walking to being at full attention as soon as it occurs. Additionally, Kurosawa often used a long lens that, when used strategically, made his heroes appear larger than life. In Ikiru (1952), he demonstrates this techniQue in a scene where Wattanabe sits at his desk contemplating his life. The lens focuses on Wattanabe’s person making him appear larger than his surroundings and giving thematic support. There is an air of hope about him as a result despite the grim nature of his existence. Kurosawa makes further use of this lens in his film Throne of Blood (1957) in an indoor scene where five characters are on screen at once, three in front facing away from the camera, and two facing the camera in the background. Kurosawa’s composition holds each character fully visible while demonstrating the depth in the room similar to Ford’s master shot techniQue. Similar to Ford’s doorway framing, Kurosawa’s signature camera effect, the axial cut is eQually important to his style. In Ran’s (1985) conclusion, we see Kurosawa’s most elaborate implementation of the axial cut. Kurosawa holds a long shot of the blind man standing on the ruins before he cuts to a closer image along the same axis. Seconds later, it cuts to an even closer image. He holds each shot for dramatic effect before reversing the process back out to the original shot from a distance. The camerawork here is masterfully done and demonstrates Kurosawa’s eye for composition. When watching Kurosawa’s films, Ford’s influence can be easily observed in the camerawork. Ford’s uniQue style; his use of master shots to tell a story within a frame, his use of depth to position characters in the foreground and background, and his long shots can all be seen in Kurosawa’s films. Kurosawa loved and respected John Ford’s silent era films and it certainly had an effect on his own films. Kurosawa makes use of the entire frame especially when he switched to widescreen (2.35:1 ratio), he lets the camera run, he utilizes a long lens during elaborate compositions, and he even developed his own signature similar to Ford’s doorway framing in the form of the axial cut. Ford revolutionized film in Hollywood through his techniQue. Kurosawa held similar aspirations in Japan looking to his idol for demonstration. It’s no surprise that after being so influenced by Hollywood’s greatest director, Kurosawa achieved equal greatness. Stylistically, each director’s use of sound contributes to the strength of his films. Ford displayed flexibility in his use of a score in order to have effect on the viewer. In How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Ford uses a musical score throughout most of both films though How Green Was My Valley is mostly underscored. In contrast, The Grapes of Wrath (1940) scarcely includes a score and consists mostly of the character’s voices and the howling of the wind. At its most basic level, he makes use of associative sounds for added effect and a fluid transition. In Stagecoach, Ford ends a scene at night with the howl of a coyote and begins the next scene by transforming this howl into the cry of a baby. Ford also made use of hymn as a motif in his films. In Young Mr. Lincoln, the audience is given an audible cue every time Abe’s first love, Anne Rutledge, is brought back in his memory after her death at the start of the film. The motif was so successful, it became known as Anne Rutledge’s song. In How Green Was My Valley, a similar motif exists in the miners’ chant. It symbolizes the working class, hard work, and a joy in life as well as hope for the future. Contrastingly, a different type of motif exists in the form of the bell we hear coming from the mine. The audience is kept initially unaware of the foreshadowing nature of the bell as it plays at the start of the film however as the plot progresses, we come to associate the ring with tragedy, whether it’s news of Angharad’s marriage or the death of one of the Morgans. We come to associate the bell’s ring with the dissolving of the Morgan family. As the movie progresses, the underscoring of the entire film also begins to play an important role. Early on, the score’s light tone contributes to our positive view of a successful family especially during several of the montages. Later in the movie, the score begins growing darker and more ominous predicting the eventual fate of the Morgan family and its collapse. In Kurosawa’s words, Ford utilizes a techniQue labeled the “multiplier effect.” Kurosawa saw sound as an opportunity to dramatically increase the emotional effect of a scene on an audience and labeled this notion the “multiplier effect.” He would often use a score in his films to reinforce thematic elements of the plot. In Stray Dog (1949), in one of the final scenes when Murakami and Yusa stand in the forest after a heated chase, the silence is broken when one of Mozart’s piano sonatas can be heard in the distance.
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