R I C H A R D
D .
P E P P E R M A N
EVERY THING I KNOW ABOUT FILMMAKING —
I L E A R N E D WAT C H I N G
M I C H A E L
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Published by Michael Wiese Productions 12400 Ventura Blvd. #1111 Studio City, CA 91604 (818) 379-8799, (818) 986-3408 (FAX)
[email protected] www.mwp.com Cover design by Johnny Ink. www.johnnyink.com Cover art by Alessandro Bricoli Edited by Gary Sunshine Interior design by William Morosi Printed by McNaughton & Gunn Manufactured in the United States of America Copyright 2015 by Richard D. Pepperman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
for Akira Kurosawa and students of film everywhere
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kenworthy, Christopher. Kenworthy, Christopher. Master shots. Volume 3, The director’s vision : 100 setups, scenes, and moves for your breakthrough movie / Christopher Kenworthy. pages cm ISBN 978-1-61593-154-5 1. Cinematography. I. Title. II. Title: Director’s vision. TR850.K4633 2013 777’.8--dc23 2013015076 Printed on Recycled Stock
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CONTENTS Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii
. SAMURAI AUDITIONS. PART I: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
Prelude: East Meets West Meets East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .x
00:32:57 – 00:40:30
Foreword: Sidney Atkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv STORY: Teaching and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxii
DISC 1:
. MAIN TITLES: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
. SAMURAI AUDITIONS. PART II: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 00:40:31 – 00:49:50
. THE SEVENTH SAMURAI: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 00:49:51 – 01:01:11
. FRIGHTENED VILLAGE: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
00:00:01 – 00:03:09
01:01:12 – 01:09:44
. “IS THERE NO GOD TO PROTECT US?”: . . . . . . . .3
. FALSE ALARM: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55
00:03:10 – 00:10:26
01:09:45 – 01:14:13
. SHOPPING FOR SAMURAI: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
. MAKING PLANS: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
00:10:27 – 00:17:09
01:14:14 – 01:22:38
. DEATH OF A THIEF: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
. “STILL A CHILD”: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63
00:17:10 – 00:24:58
. A MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES: . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 00:24:59 – 00:32:56
01:22:39 – 01:26:31
. SAMURAI ARMOR: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 01:26:32 – 01:34:14 v
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. THE SECRET GARDEN: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
. THE FIRST BATTLE (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
01:34:15 – 01:40:25
00:30:24 – 00:41:30
. TRAINING: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 01:40:26 – 01:46:38
00:41:31 – 00:49:08
. INTERMISSION: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84
. THE SECOND BATTLE (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
01:46:39 – 01:51:52
00:49:09 – 00:56:55
DISC 2:
. BEHIND THE LINES (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
. HARVESTING (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 00:00:01 – 00:03:30
. NIGHT WATCH (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 00:03:31 – 00:07:05
. BUILDING BARRICADES (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 00:07:06 – 00:12:56
. THE SCOUTS (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
00:56:56 – 01:08:23
. THAT NIGHT (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 01:08:24 – 01:21:36
. THE LAST BATTLE (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 01:21:37 – 01:30:35
. FINALE (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 01:30:36 – 01:34:51
00:12:57 – 00:20:13
Awaken: An Enduring Muse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
. THE SURPRISE ATTACK (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
00:20:14 – 00:28:07
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
. FUNERAL (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
00:28:08 – 00:30:23
vi
. NIGHT SKIRMISH (): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
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PRELUDE: EAST MEETS WEST MEETS EAST
Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) opened to audiences in Japan on April 26, 1954, released by the Toho Film Company. In August of that year it appeared at the Venice Film Festival; director Akira Kurosawa was acknowledged with the festival’s Silver Lion. American audiences received the film on November 19, 1956 at the Guild Theatre in New York City, released by Toho and Columbia Pictures. The running time that autumn day was 160 minutes, “far too long for comfort or for the story it has to tell. The director is annoyingly repetitious,” wrote Bosley Crowther in the next day’s New York Times. Mr. Crowther was fifty-one years of age on that date, so it is possible that his discomfort was authentic, though urinogenitally rooted. A film’s actual running time, however exact in measure, is less a vital figure than its perceived duration: the psychological or emotional “feel” of time. I am into my seventy-second year, and while I understand the distresses of aging, by way of empathy and regard for Mr. Crowther, I’ll give attentive deliberation to
the duration; but I, unlike Mr. Crowther, do not face the edginess of a critic’s deadline. Releases and re-releases accepted running times of 163 minutes in Argentina; 202 minutes in Sweden; 150 and 190 minutes in the United Kingdom; 141, 203 and 207 minutes in the US; and a 202 minute DVD edition in Spain. The film’s original release — also the version used for this book — was 207 minutes. Mr. John McCarten, writing for “The Current Cinema” in the New Yorker magazine of December 1, 1956, under the title, “East is West,” suffered the running time not as much — “… [the] tale meanders a bit in the course of this two-and-a-halfhour film… ” — but nonetheless, he dispensed a flippant and prickly appraisal: “The well-known Japanese talent for imitation is readily discernible in the movie called The Magnificent Seven, an importation from the Orient. Directed by Akira
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Kurosawa, the man behind Rashomon, the picture is supposed to be a depiction of life in a small town in sixteenth-century Japan, but what it boils down to is a kind of Far Eastern version of one of our own sagas of the lone prairie, deficient in only such local ingredients as six-guns, flap jacks, young ladies in dimity, and nasal monotones.”
Mr. Crowther’s review begins: “The Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, who gave us that eerily exotic and fascinating picture Rashomon, is now, after five years, represented by another extraordinary film, which matches his first for cinematic brilliance, but in another and contrasting genre. It is called The Magnificent Seven… ”
Kurosawa’s film was originally released in the West entitled The Magnificent Seven. The title Seven Samurai was reappointed by Toho following the 1960 John Sturgis film The Magnificent Seven, featuring Yul Bryner, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, and Horst Bucholtz in the “imitation” of (or homage to) Kurosawa’s film. Mr. Crowther’s appraisal does prophesize Kurosawa’s — and cinema’s — universality:
“… the qualities of human strength and weakness are discovered in a crisis taut with peril. And although the occurrence of this crisis is set in the sixteenth century in a village in Japan, it could be transposed without surrendering a basic element to the nineteenth century and a town on our own frontier. … [Kurosawa’s] use of modern music, which is as pointed as the ballad in High Noon, leads you to wonder whether this picture is any more authentic to its period of culture than is the average American Western film. However, it sparkles with touches that would do honor to Fred Zinnemann or John Ford… ”
The Japanese director often acknowledged his esteem for the work of American director John Ford — Akira Kurosawa unhesitatingly and gratefully met the West. He was content with Imperial Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, ending, as he saw it, the rule of foolish and dangerous militarists. He was jubilant with the freedoms offered by the West’s setting aside Japan’s severe limitations on the arts. In the December 29, 1951 issue of the New Yorker Mr. McCarten reviewed Kurosawa’s Rashomon: “Perhaps I am purblind to the merits of Rashomon, but no matter how enlightened I may become on the art form P R E L U D E
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of Nippon, I am going to go on thinking that a Japanese potpourri of Erskine Caldwell, Stanislavski, and Harpo Marx isn’t likely to provide much sound diversion.”
Mr. McCarten was but forty-five years old at the time of Seven Samurai, and according to the recollections of colleagues at the New Yorker — publicly reported in 1974 obituaries and memorials — he was a kindhearted gentleman. I suspect that many Americans of the day were patently blinkered when confronted by things Far Eastern; most notably Nipponese. The “Greatest Generation” exhausted far more post–World War II years scorning America’s Pacific adversary than their Atlantic foe. In 1964 American director Martin Ritt cast Paul Newman, Claire Bloom, and Laurence Harvey in Outrage — a Western “imitation” of (or homage to) Kurosawa’s eighth-century tale based on two stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke. In 1951 Rashomon received the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and a Best Foreign Film Academy Award. Mr. McCarten’s apprehension notwithstanding, Kurosawa’s film granted Japanese cinema opportunity and approval in the West. Mr. McCarten’s “The Current Cinema” of December 1956 assigned near equal space to Walt Disney’s Secrets of Life, and the Doris Day–Louis Jourdan murder mystery, Julie — especially peculiar today, after a half-century of retrospection. xii
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The Discerning Film Lovers Guide (2004) judges Seven Samurai “a passionate, exhilarating epic that stands alone in the realm of adventure films.” Film & Video Companion (2004) reflects, “Much imitated, still unsurpassed. By critical consensus one of the best movies ever made.” In his autobiography, Akira Kurosawa tenders his reminiscences, summoned up as appreciations of decisive life glimpses. One early chapter is entitled “Storytellers.” It includes memories of movie-going adventures to see mostly foreign films from America and Europe. At the Ushigomeken theatre Kurosawa saw action serials and films starring William S. Hart. While particular images stayed “emblazoned in (his) mind,” what remained “of these films in [his] heart [was] that reliable manly spirit and the smell of male sweat.” Kurosawa honors recollections of his father taking him to hear storytellers (Kosan, Kokatsu, and Enyû) in the music halls around Kagurazaka, and the bright sway these masters of resourceful tales — many told with accompanying pantomime — had on him; and he reports his pleasure eating tenpura on buckwheat noodles on his return home with his father following an afternoon of story-listening: “The flavor of this tenpura-soba on a cold night remains especially memorable. Even in recent years when I am
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coming home from abroad, as the plane nears Tokyo airport I always think, ‘Ah, now for some tenpura-soba.’”
In 1961, William Kronick, a Columbia University graduate and an independent New York film director, saw Kurosawa’s Yojimbo at the Toho Cinema in Los Angeles. The experience was so inspiring that Kronick joined with friends Robert Gaffney and Robert McCarty — two other independent New York filmmakers — and created Seneca Productions and distributed Yojimbo in the United States. William Kronick grew up in Amsterdam, New York, with Everett Aison. Aison had designed and titled Kronick’s first theatrical short, A Bowl of Cherries, and Seneca Productions engaged Everett to design the opening titles, graphics, and ads for Yojimbo. Tetsu Aoyagi, a graduate of the UCLA film school, was being groomed by Toho to be their American representative in the newly planned Toho Cinema in New York City. Mr. Aoyagi’s father was one of the original Toho studio directors, and mentored Kurosawa in his early years as an apprentice and assistant director. Tetsu Aoyagi came to live in New York City and represented the Toho theatre, which opened on Broadway in 1962 after the
success of Yojimbo. Impressed by Aison’s designs, Akira Kurosawa met with Everett at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Everett Aison said, “Tetsu introduced me to Kurosawa, and I spent an hour in awe!” Everett Aison retired as Film Chairman (1973), and screenwriting teacher and thesis advisor at the School of Visual Arts (2011). For a change of place, he left the East Coast of the United States and went west for the moist moderate Pacific climes of the Japanese (Kuroshio) currents. Living in Bellingham, Washington, Everett was invited to introduce a screening of Yojimbo to an audience attending “The Masters of Japanese Cinema” series at the Pickford Film Center. Everett met Mr. Sidney Atkins at that film center, and providentially introduced me. Sidney — a connoisseur of the East — emailed this book’s Foreword to me in Long Branch, New Jersey. And today, following all the many weaves and loops and synchronicities in film and personal histories, I am increasingly confident that despite mankind’s ethnocentric propensities, and their many instances of cruel foolhardiness, the past 120 years confirm that the lure of cinema is global — above all because the allure of story paraded on light beams offers enduring rejuvenation to the world.
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DISC
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. MAIN TITLES :: – ::
Kurosawa begins with straightforward head credits: white text on a black ground. No designed title fields or drop shadowed letters; no optically produced superimposed titles over live action. A drum thumps in repetitiously sustained tension: a foreboding that will soon be “announced” and let loose. Traditional Japanese string and wind instruments offer an effortless melody accompanying the listing of cast and crew.
LESSON LEAR NED: There is something — and possibly many things — to be said for simplicity in opening credits. The obligation of contractual acknowledgments is fulfilled with no meddling in the story’s images. The music affords an anticipatory atmosphere, and all that needs announcing is accomplished; so that story is immediately underway.
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. “IS THERE NO GOD TO PROTECT US?” :: – ::
Following the Master’s [directing] credit, a fade to black holds till transverse Japanese characters instruct: “The Sengoku Period was a time of civil wars; it was a lawless era and in the country the farmers were at the mercy of bands of brigands… And the farmers everywhere were being crushed under the iron heels of cruel brigands… During the civil wars an endless cycle of conflict left the countryside overrun by bandits. Peaceable folk lived in terror of the thunder of approaching hooves… ”
The Criterion Collection DVD translates the last of these, while the earlier banners are reported in Kurosawa’s screenplay, and subsequent to East Meets West Meets East, it is a worthy note that Kurosawa sets the time — in part — with reference to Catholic brutalities against France’s Huguenots: “Around the time of the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre in France, Japan was in the throes of Civil Wars.” Kurosawa’s passage supplies an historic and global context.
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LESSON LEAR NED: A surveying of Seven Samurai sculpts an exemplar in story form: Where to begin, and why? Kurosawa’s text puts forward a history — a pattern: the enduring peril plaguing “peaceable folk” and “farmers.” The primitive sound is segued into galloping hooves, which succeed the fading drum and a dissolve — a simultaneous fading illumination of an initial image with an increasing illumination to the next — replaces the text on the screen. It is an image split into three horizontal bands: gray clouds high in the frame, an early light in the sky, and a near-silhouetted lower frame (and foreground) of a grassy hill and tree. This shot with a slight upward angle soon reveals fast approaching horses and riders.
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A pan — a camera scanning right or left, simultaneous to continuous filming — follows the horsemen across the screen. Several cuts — the joining together of selected filmed moments — bring other views of this action. A long shot (LS) of the horsemen fades out (FO: diminishing illumination) to a black screen, and immediately fades in (FI: increasing illumination) to another shot from behind the horsemen as they hurry away from the camera.
LESSON LEAR NED: This delineation expresses a purposeful ellipse from daybreak to a later time that morning. Kurosawa also provides delineation in audio: the sound effect (Sd EFX) of the pounding hooves has been a constant until this shot; with the fade in (FI) comes an apparent “newness” to the galloping sound: time passage is obvious! But it is noteworthy that there are moments in film where the audio can successfully play unbroken even if images are changed.
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A quick dissolve brings a high-angle shot of horsemen and a distant village well below them.
LESSON LEAR NED: Kurosawa smartly allows the last lingering movement and hard-riding sounds to soften the transition to this scene after the breakneck images that preceded it. A few equine snorts and whinnies assist in this! The essence of cinema is to be found in the many pieces, separations, and fragments of images and sounds that need assembling so that the various selections vanish and bits of moments create an easy form. Here too Kurosawa teaches us techniques to make inconspicuous the many pieces that are joined together! We have now a time-honored example of shot to scene organization: The shot is moviemaking’s smallest component. Shots are continuous camera-runs capturing segments of words and deeds. They are frequently replicated via a variety of setups — differing camera positions (visual compositions) presenting alternate angles and distances of the same moments; and takes — additional repeats (“do-overs”) of setups. In postproduction selected fragments from shots and takes are joined into distinct scenes.
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Bandit Captain: “Take this village too!” Off-Camera Bandits: “Take it. Take it.” Bandit Chief: “We just took their rice last fall. They’ll have nothing now.” Bandit Captain: “Very well. We’ll return when that barley’s ripe!”
LESSON LEAR NED: Take note that following the shot of the (sleepy) village, the cut to the Bandit Chief begins with the Bandit Chief looking downward and to screen right. This choice provides a visible connection to the shot of the (Sleepy) Village. It interprets the cut as a point of view (POV) — the village as observed by the bandit — offering visual logic to the joined shots.
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Selected moments from shots are assembled and reassembled into a movie’s final arrangement of form — scene and sequence — pacing and rhythm. A scene is a construction of shots joined in a continuum in time and place. The hard-riding bandits of Kurosawa’s initial images unite as scenes and combine with the (sleepy) village to fashion a sequence. A sequence is an arrangement of scenes that function in concert via inflection (attitude/manner), subject (topic/event), and/or obstacle/cause and response/effect or correlation. It is a progression of information distributed across shots and scenes combined — at times with visual or aural delineations — and emotionally sustained until a transition replaces the previous concentration — forming fresh scenes and their sequences. As a cut presents another high angle shot of the village, a hedge of brushwood, tied with ragged and fraying rope, lifts above the foreground. A frightened farmer is carrying bundled kindling. He has heard the bandits’ plan, and now turns toward the village. The sound of hooves diminishes, signifying continuous time — the bandits have withdrawn. A wipe urges the retreating farmer “off the screen” as it progressively surrenders — from right to left — to the first shot of the next scene:
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A bird coos and chirps in synchronization to three ever tighter images of huddled and crouched farmers and their families on the dry earth of the village square: The sorrowful cooing gives way to distressed moans and sobbing. The DVD chapter’s title, “Is There No God to Protect Us?” is derived from the wailing protest of a village woman. Her off-camera (OC) grievances play against assemblages of submissively modeled farmers.
LESSON LEAR NED: We need not “lock” dialogue exclusively to the character giving voice. Inclusive dialogue assists in the creation of moment-to-moment reality across related images, and is, in many vital ways, a powerful distinction between cinema and theatre. It is not uncommon in a film scene to observe (only) the listener while hearing the speaker. In this case the audio of ambiance and human sobbing advises the emotional atmosphere.
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Kurosawa reveals the villagers in gathered despair. It is clear from the start of the scene that the farmer who overheard the plotting bandits has already made the threat known to the village. Kurosawa grants two significant notions:
LESSON LEAR NED: There is no need for the audience to hear, yet again, of the bandits’ plan. Previously known information makes for feeble (and redundant) exposition; and, excluding the farmer’s reporting encourages an intimate commitment to the moment at hand. The audience is affected by “emotional thinking”: the entire village is distraught — the news has spread! More directly, superior storytelling permits an audience to learn of a deed — already known, or suspected, or its result — in past tense rather than in present tense. The farmer has told the village, rather than the farmer is telling the village. This fact also grants immediate function to the next scene(s): What will happen next? The Villagers Crouched introduces a new scene. And, by giving clear notice to the audience that the village has already learned of the impending peril, Kurosawa makes the consequence of the subject urgent and immediate. Something analogous to a chapter divide in literary forms; yet visually and aurally riveting so as to communicate an emotional breath — a new dramatic inhale!
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LESSON LEAR NED: With this new scene, Kurosawa puts forward conflicts and obstacles: a vital attribute that prompts the story is the contrast between farmers and bandits: a showing in substantial inequality, the invincible and the vulnerable. And, as well, a universal aspect: Good vs. Evil. Kurosawa finally reveals the sobbing woman. She is crouched low to the windswept earth. Her wide backside and soles of her shoes are all that we view. A younger woman embraces her in consolation. More sobs of additional complaints: Woman: “Land tax, forced labor, war, drought… and now bandits!” The camera tilts upward and pans right bringing a group of farmers into the frame. Woman: “The gods want us farmers dead!” The sounds of sobbing and the song of a bird blend into the setting’s atmosphere. Then one of the farmers stands: It is Rikichi: “We’ll kill those bandits. We’ll kill them all!”
LESSON LEAR NED: Kurosawa does not attempt a match cut — the joining of two shots across a continuous action so that the result imitates real-life time and gesture — nor even a cut-on-action of the standing Rikichi. Instead, the farmer stands over the huddled villagers as the camera follows him to his feet in long shot (LS). A brief pause then
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allows a cut to an extreme close-up (ECU) of Rikichi’s face and words. The difference in composition in both scale and axis provides a dynamic join. The audience has little choice except to follow Rikichi to his feet; and the aesthetic of the farmer’s face in extreme close-up (ECU) is not jeopardized by the actor’s movement upward and into frame. Actions need not match across a cut or be the impetus for cutting. Rikichi’s declaration is received in fearful rejections and practicable assumptions:
Yohei: “Not me. I couldn’t possibly.” Manzo: “That’s crazy talk.”
LESSON LEAR NED: Kurosawa covers the scene from outside and inside the crouched farmers, and in so doing, the two-dimensional display of the screen transports the audience into the three-dimensional space of the village gathering: an example of the intrinsic duality 12
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of cinema. The audience moves from observation to participation instantaneously; and back and forth yet again. Yohei looks to screen left after his cowering words. A cut brings Manzo to the screen. He is looking to the right — acknowledging Yohei. Manzo’s words and eyes now focus upward and take us to the extreme close-up (ECU) of Rikichi. His eyes now shift quickly from Yohei to Manzo. Rikichi: “So we can kill defeated samurai, but not bandits?” The arguing and eventual physical contact occurs in a long shot (LS) until Mosuke pulls the farmers apart, saying, “Stop it. This is no time to fight amongst ourselves.” Manzo: “It’s impossible. What if we lost the fight? They’d kill us and the pregnant women, and all of the babies. We were born to suffer. We’ll give the bandits our harvest. We’ll beg on our knees that they leave us enough so that we won’t starve.”
LESSON LEAR NED: This scene supplies a beautifully prepared study into the scope (and promising space) of the two-dimensional screen. Though moments are captured by the camera in a three-dimensional setting, they are ultimately portrayed via a flat screen: images produced in the 360 degrees of a setting are then edited and projected onto a 180-degree facade. The proficiencies of the director and cinematographer during production, and the director and editor in postproduction, can create a participatory space for the audience; and a curious paradox in its distinctions to live theatre: an on-stage presentation resides in a 360-degree environment of setting (set design) and characters 2 .
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(actors), yet for the most part, live theatre holds a proscenium view — that of a 180-degree world — a look into and through an imaginary fourth wall. Keep in mind that the villagers’ quarrel suggests one of two options: fight the bandits and likely perish, or beseech the bandits, a bartering of grain for mercy.
LESSON LEAR NED: Rikichi’s accusation — and near denunciation — about “defeated samurai” communicates a subplot. Manzo and perhaps others in the village have a history stained with the blood of samurai. This distribution of information shared with the audience will eventually tally up to apprehensions. Kurosawa will not let this comment go unresolved! The film’s title advises what the farmers’ ultimate determination will be. And so, in due course, the audience will, along with the villagers, own knowledge that the (soon to be) employed samurai do not possess: dramatic irony. Simply, it is a fascinating element in storytelling: secrets shared with the audience, but not with each character. The distraught Rikichi exits the circle of villagers. He crouches alone at the outer ring of farmers.
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LESSON LEAR NED: More often than not, a new sequence will be introduced at the start of a scene, yet here Kurosawa begins the next sequence at this point in the continuing Villagers Crouched scene. Rikichi’s new position outside the gathered farmers, and the many beats of respite from arguing and agitation begin a new sequence — a poignant pause and new proposal to solve the villagers’ dilemma. Mosuke moves toward Rikichi, then looks back to the villagers: “We should go see the Old Man.”
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Kurosawa directs and edits a magnificent example of cinema’s ability to “break” a proscenium view; and he takes the audience not merely into close-up (CU) and master shot — and varying scaled compositions — but to every side of the gathered villagers: depicting east and west, and north and south!
LESSON LEAR NED: An illustration in simplicity of story: an instantaneous and unambiguous plot! The villagers face the threat of deadly assault — or starvation — at the next harvest. Here is a conflicting irony. The farmers must find defenders or face the loss of foodstuff (and life) when the crop — and bandits — comes in: a harvest yielding produce and bandits. The old man (Gisaku) furnishes advice to appease the desperate villagers and their impasse: “Find hungry samurai.”
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. SHOPPING FOR SAMURAI :: – ::
A wipe from screen right to left concurrently announces in composition and instrumentation a march of unapproachable warriors. The camera pans in the same direction alert to a single samurai laden with warrior trappings assigned firmly to a long rod carried over his far shoulder. Here is a transition made visible in its optical effect: a wipe! It provides a clear delineation of scenes: a response to the villagers’ quarrel, which also merges fresh moments in conflict, tension, and obstacles, plotting another scene in the sequence activated in the moment of respite and the isolated Rikichi.
LESSON LEAR NED: Kurosawa creates a procession in dance: a cinematic choreography. Before the quickstriding samurai exits frame left, another somewhat taller samurai steps into frame left and the camera pans with him to the right. He is less burdened with gear. The knob of a sword designates a weapon borne slantways on his back. The pan ceases, and the camera “hold(s)… on Rikichi, Mosuke, Yohei and Manzo.” The farmer quartet shifts in near unison: “They watch him go.”
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A cut brings a frame filled with the face of Rikichi — Mosuke is visible just behind in screen left. The join from the long-shot (LS) preserves an elegant overlap, sustaining the deferential tracking of the farmers’ eyes. The out-of-focus forms of pedestrians pass in the foreground, intermittently obscuring Rikichi.
LESSON LEAR NED: Kurosawa again demonstrates an editing motivation: cuts result from the attention in the eyes of the characters — visual logic. The overlapping, and various degrees of focus, of the many passing townspeople contribute to a stimulating illusion of space on the screen. When a lens is focused on a specific point in space, objects in front and beyond that point can appear in precise focus, slight focus, or out of focus, depending on illumination, lens, the camera’s distance from the primary object, and distances to background and foreground objects. This range of focus is known as the depth of field.
LESSON LEAR NED: This scene seems to substantiate Rikichi as protagonist. An audience rightly requires highlighting a character that can be celebrated as central to the recitation of plot and point-of-view. Feature-length forms allow a flexibility to such determinations. We shall see how and why it is possible to alter this purpose and judgment.
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Are the farmers taking the Old Man’s admonition directly? Are they trying to identify “hungry samurai”? They do take note of a particular samurai. Rikichi glances at the others as if to confirm “this must be our samurai,” and he dashes off: No time is spared — we hear no request from Rikichi — as a wipe reveals a very angry samurai tossing Rikichi to the ground. The hopeful farmer is sympathetically (yet disappointingly) cared for by his village neighbors. A new sequence begins. It is late in the day, and late in the drenching downpour in town. The farmers try to keep dry — even as they fetch water — “wearing straw hats and matting on their backs.”
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Mosuke, Manzo, and Yohei rush to the foreground and a patch of ripening barley. The farmers are alarmed! The urgency of their mission — now in its tenth day — is called to their attention (and the audience’s). Rikichi reminds them: “This barley is early. Mountain barley like ours is later.” Rikichi enters a house (“a rough sort of inn”). A few laborers exit and one ridicules the farmer: “You found any samurai yet — strong, willing and cheap?”
In Kurosawa’s script this scene ends the chapter and sequence. In the film Kurosawa continues into the night and the inn lodging the farmers, the ongoing derision of town laborers and their threats against a timid samurai, and sarcasm toward a blind musician, and a peddler of buns.
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LESSON LEAR NED: The many characters encountered at the inn might easily intrude as irrelevant subplot — entertaining perhaps, but a distraction to the story’s flow. This does not happen because Kurosawa assertively integrates the laborers — in the scene’s (and story’s) emotion, and action, and its moments’ setting — within the essential scenario, here and in coming scenes. The laborers are assimilated as town antagonists, and as “messengers” of sixteenth-century social conflict, and eventually serve as narrators of impending proceedings.
LESSON LEAR NED: The moments and unpleasant lodger-strangers complete the farmers’ inescapable duress, frustration, and approaching hopelessness! This is crucial to the next chapter’s opening: an emotional plausibility that tolerates Rikichi and Manzo’s angry brawl.
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. DEATH OF A THIEF ::–::
The chapter opens with a fade-in (FI). While this is not an uncommon transition, it is worth noting that the fade-out (FO) at the conclusion of Chapter 3 occurs at a late night moment; and while ending a scene with a fade-out is familiar, there is a simple yet splendid reason for the choice:
LESSON LEAR NED: The optical effect of a fade-out and a fade-in is a sensible visual version of light and dark — as opening and closing of a scene; and as phase of day. The fade-in also provides a contrast to the farmers’ “fixed-settling” composed inside the dark stable-like shelter — described by Kurosawa in his screenplay as “a rough sort of inn,” which could refer to either architecture or guests — and the brightness of the new day, then contrasted in violent argument. There is immediate chaotic action: a clash between Rikichi and Manzo. Mosuke and Yohei are trying to stop the scuffle, clutching the farmers to keep them apart. It is evident that Manzo has come to believe that Rikichi will return to the village, accepting the failed effort to secure samurai, and Rikichi is outraged that Manzo has mischaracterized his intentions, and is willing (once again) to consider a bargain with the bandits. 22
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Rikichi sneers at Manzo and threatens that the bandits might accept an offer of Manzo’s daughter: “Shino’s pretty enough, it might work.” Manzo is — and looks — horrified! The scene’s distribution of information avoids redundancies of the earlier adversarial perspectives, all the while disclosing this dispute with a harking back to the villagers’ dilemma, with added particulars: Manzo’s daughter! Kurosawa will not forget Shino. A wipe addresses a brief duration. The audio of light wind and ready water holds in a continuum. The farmers wash at the side of a minor flat bridge, bordered by timbers.
LESSON LEAR NED: With the clarity of the plot keeping story and viewer focused, this chapter introduces a storytelling lure: life’s unexpected and unprompted moment of chance — what might classically and spiritually be considered fate! The camera draws back slowly as Mosuke and Yohei take note of something in the setting’s foreground. On screen left a few figures enter in near silhouette, and this grants a straightforward cut to a reverse behind the farmers, and the now fully visible entrance of a crowd through the gateway of a “prosperous” house. In the lead is Kambei. The chapter’s title might well be referencing a ritual execution: a man directed (?) to a pond’s edge. Positioned to kneel, he cuts the topknot (chonmage) off of his head. A blade is passed to a priest, and Kambei’s head is shaved.
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The inquiries from the crowd inform the farmers — and the audience — that this man, Kambei, is a samurai, and has volunteered to impersonate a priest in an attempt to rescue a child held by a thief in a nearby barn. But, of course we first learn about the thief, and wonder, as does Katsushiro, how one thief can so paralyze the townspeople. This scene will set a new confidence in the farmer’s original venture, and will introduce Kambei and the farmers and the audience to Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo — two other samurai gathered with the onlookers.
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LESSON LEAR NED: Watch the many magnetic moments as the faces in the crowd create portraits in varied groupings; and Kurosawa gives time to a slow disclosure of the curious situation. As requested by Kambei, the child’s mother hurries from her house with two rice balls. This moment elegantly proceeds the farmers, townspeople, and Katsushiro exiting the composition — to again attend to Kambei’s preparations. Wind whips dry earth about the scurrying mother. We get our first look at Kikuchiyo. He scowls at the returning onlookers when they stand behind him.
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An intensely somber Kambei becomes aware of Kikuchiyo.
LESSON LEAR NED: The intercutting between Kambei and Kikuchiyo demonstrates cinema’s expansive models of dialogue: film dialogue need not hold words! Kambei is closely followed by the townspeople (back) through the gateway and blowing earth. Kikuchiyo is especially eager and aggressive to get the best view. The bandit all but screeches, “Stay back! Any closer and I’ll kill the brat!”
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LESSON LEAR NED: Though the action is swift the reactions are anything but; and it is the reactions that empower the scene; then, simply and efficiently, assemble the perfect feel for the next scene — and chapter. 4 .
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. A MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES :: – ::
Seven Samurai’s collective construction is a storytelling progression in absolute chronology; that is, as the story unfolds each scene represents the most current and present moment in events. There may be hefty or slight interludes in time, but at all times the story travels from the present to the current. There will be no flashback! No scene — or sequence — that will fracture the enduring “now” time so as to reveal an episode out of the past — a depiction of character history; and so, no risk of a story-break to divulge moments (always) less urgent in substance or competence in progression. A medium shot (MS) begins the chapter. We follow a respectful distance behind Kambei. He is familiarizing himself with the feel of his new head. The early phrases of the samurai theme mimic his stroll and isolation until: Now, a long shot (LS) “drops” us back. We are behind the village’s four farmers. They are eager to enlist Kambei. Rikichi: “[Y]ou can’t object to a samurai like that”, and Mosuke: “Ask him quickly. It’ll be harder in town.” Kikuchiyo swiftly enters the frame and is much quicker than Rikichi to close the distance to Kambei.
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LESSON LEAR NED: Watch the three-cut arrangement: long shot (LS) behind the farmers, medium shot (MS) of Rikichi in profile looking right, and the medium long shot of Kambei from behind at first, then he turns looking over his left shoulder. Kikuchiyo is the focal point across the cuts: in the actions carrying across the compositions and, as well, the focus of the story’s moment. Kurosawa builds a tempo that accounts for both Rikichi’s and Kambei’s awareness of Kikuchiyo’s sudden arrival, rather than joining shots that are only concerned with the action. That is, it is possible and likely efficient to maintain Kikuchiyo in each out and in frame of each of the joined shots, and produce an effective arrangement. But! That would be at the (great) expense of context. Into this composition runs…
“My name is Katsushiro Okamoto. Please make me your disciple!”
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The parade follows the heroic Kambei Shimada. Kambei advises that he does not take disciples, and that he is a ronin. During the sixteenth-century civil wars in Japan, many samurai were without a warlord or master, thereby finding they were without salary. Some of these ronin joined together organized as bunches of hooligans and bandits. In modern Japan the etymology of the word ronin has led to its use as “wandering man” and “between employment.” A wipe and Kambei’s laugh introduce the next scene. Kambei and Katsushiro walk left to right and the camera tracks with them. Kambei: “I’m at a loss. You think far too highly of me.” In due course, Kambei forbids Katsushiro’s pleas to attend him as disciple.
LESSON LEAR NED: Kurosawa’s script carefully considers the influences of time and argument on plausibility. Kambei provides good reasons for Katsushiro not to select him as master: “There’s nothing special about me.” “I may have seen my share of battle, but always on the losing side.” “That about sums me up.” “Better not to follow such an unlucky man.” Katsushiro rejects these, and jumps in front of Kambei, saying, “No, I’m determined to follow you whether you allow me to or not.” Plausibility is resolute only if the information and inflections of earlier moments are respected.
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As Kambei moves to pass Katsushiro, Kurosawa cuts to an above-angle long shot (LS) from behind the trailing farmers. And, as before, Rikichi begins to move toward Kambei, when Kikuchiyo hurries along the road and shoves Rikichi aside. We now see all the characters, and that they — and we — have arrived in town.
LESSON LEAR NED: By beginning the scene in a medium shot (MS) that focuses on Kambei and Katsushiro alone, Kurosawa recognizes that the following above-angle long shot (LS) cannot help but distribute an array of additional information. And, there is no better view to display the fullness of a setting than an above-angle shot. But! Remember there is a great number of heights and angles to consider, and the choice must take into account the other and varied compositions for the scene. Kambei asks Kikuchiyo, “Can I help you?” Kikuchiyo scratches his head and wanders to the front of Kambei. “What do you want?” Kikuchiyo wanders back to the left of the frame. Katsushiro scurries to Kambei’s side. He scolds Kikuchiyo, “Insolence!” Now Kikuchiyo speaks for the first time: “Stay out of this, little chick.” Kambei leads Katsushiro away and down the street of the town. Kikuchiyo kicks high in the air cursing, “Bastard!” Katsushiro is now an attendant to Kambei.
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Rikichi once again pursues Kambei:
“I beg you sir.”
A wipe and we are inside the gloomy “rough inn.” Yohei is preparing rice. The aggressively abusive laborers are still lodged there. While Kambei speculates on battle and defensive strategies, and a likely number of samurai needed for the tasks, the laborers ridicule the peasants: “Better to be born a dog” and “Go ahead and hang yourself and die.” Kambei estimates, “All you have to offer is food. Only those out to fight for the hell of it will agree. Besides I’m sick of fighting. Age, I suppose.” The tenor of this moment persuades Rikichi that all is lost, and he breaks down and cries. His whimper is accompanied by deep tones of a solemn slow chant. It is Rikichi’s uninhibited sorrow that encourages the full sarcastic attack of the laborers! 32
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Katsushiro grabs his sword to combat the insults, now directed at the samurai as well: “Don’t make me laugh. If you know about the farmers’ suffering why don’t you help?” Kambei shouts, “Enough!” A laborer takes a bowl of brilliant white rice from Yohei, and holds it out to Kambei. “Hey, samurai, look at this. This here is your dinner. But what do you think these blockheads eat? Millet. They eat millet to feed you white rice. This is the best they can offer. What do you say to that?” Kambei stares across the room. Manzo and Mosuke gaze back in pity. Rikichi has turned to the wall, his face hidden. The firm and noble samurai theme fades in. Kambei takes the bowl of white rice from the laborer and says, “Quit your jabbering.” He extends the bowl to the farmers not in offering, but in respect:
“I won’t let this rice go to waste.”
Rikichi turns to face Kambei. He drops to his knees and smiles before bowing.
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LESSON LEAR NED: It is probable that the preceding two chapters have seen an adjustment to Kambei as the story’s protagonist. Rikichi has initiated — more than any other farmer (or character) — the actions that construct the plot, and its moment-to-moment recitation, and the audience’s commitment to the story. Now the characters and audience follow Kambei.
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. SAMURAI AUDITIONS. PART I ::– ::
The musical theme, somber yet heroic, that concludes the previous scene — and chapter — wraps with a fade-out (FO). Kurosawa then holds silence across black. This chapter opens with a scene that returns the viewer to the threatened farm village.
LESSON LEAR NED: There are two categories of transitions: The first is distinctly cinematic; it is visual, and noticeable in appearance. In Seven Samurai, Kurosawa makes regular use of an optical effect called a wipe that slides the early frames of the incoming scene across the screen as it replaces the last frames of an outgoing scene. This chapter opens with a fade-in (FI) — a progressive increase in illumination that finally settles and holds the chosen brightness. A dissolve is another (universally used) visual transition. I would include in this first category an associate transition, no less valuable to the filmmaker, but less exclusive to cinema. These are the audio designs applied to designate a change — at times they benefit a film’s structure by creating an appealing harmony across switching scenes. The audio (or sound design) can embrace music, effects, dialogue, ambiance, or blends of some or all. The second category — also used in theatre and literature — might be no less apparent, but it is internal: it resides in attitude, inflection, scene subject matter, and 35
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dramatic performance. Movie moments happen when the two categories and associate transitions play in concert. Chapter 5 ends in Rikichi’s grateful gesture — kneeling to Kambei. The business and sentiments that conclude the scene are intoned by the score, and the fading to black. This chapter fades in (FI) with a quiet ambiance, and the sound of speedy footsteps — heard off-camera (OC) — as the audience is scarcely aware of a straw shelter in the background. Into close-up (CU) darts Gosaku, who shouts to all the village, “Ahhh, Ahhh” and runs to screen right, stopping in the village square:
“Manzo and the others are back!”
LESSON LEAR NED: As villagers in the foreground hurry into the square, villagers in the background quickly stride forward, and other villagers appear on screen left moving to center and
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background. It is an unruly congregation. But note the glow on two farmer hats, approaching from the background. The reflected light creates an instant focal point to the extreme long shot (ELS). The audience’s eyes know immediately where to look; and the chaos assumes (some) order. Manzo and Mosuke explain the absence of Yohei and Rikichi; and that samurai will be coming to the village… “Seven of ’em!” The gathered farmers repeat the number, not as confirmation, but as apprehension.
A wipe brings Gisaku’s darkened mill interior. Mosuke and Manzo face the Old Man. The audio is the vibes of thumping beams and flowing water. Gisaku repeats the number. Manzo makes clear, “I was against it because you said four, Old Man.” Gisaku confesses, “I figured we’d need at least ten. But if I’d said ten, we’d have ended up with fifteen.” 6 .
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Manzo is worried: “The village girls will go crazy over the samurai. If the samurai touch ’em all hell will break loose.” The Old Man responds:
“Bandits are coming, you fool.”
Manzo’s close-up (CU) in shamed expression brings the scene to an end. On a cut, the samurai “parade” theme returns us back to town. Rikichi summons the “services” of a ronin. Katsushiro and Yohei watch at a distance… a scheme of sorts has been calculated. Kambei, seated in the center of the lodging, hands Katsushiro a cut tree branch, asserting, “Don’t hold back. Give him a real whack.”
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Yohei takes shelter behind stall-like timbers and Kambei is calmly settled as Katsushiro takes his stand to the right of the doorway, the tree branch high above his head. The unsuspecting samurai enters the inn. In an instant he identifies the threat, and in half an instant he grabs the branch, twirls, and, grabbing the back of Katsushiro’s neck, throws him across the room. Kambei calls out, “Excellent!” Getting to his feet he apologizes: “Please don’t take offense. I am Kambei Shimada. We are seeking expert swordsmen and have no time to waste. Forgive me.” All in all, the samurai finds the query to join in a fight against “bandits” on behalf of “farmers” — the only “reward” to be “food” — “ABSURD.” Kambei exits into the street. A disheartened Rikichi remains outside.
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LESSON LEAR NED: A screenwriter or a screenwriter/director can demand anything of the script and actors, but the story’s credibility and the storytelling qualities are expected to embrace consistencies made plausible by all previous information about characters, places, and the story being told. Kurosawa does not make it easy for Kambei to overcome the burdens and obstacles of his task. Rikichi, Yohei, Kambei, and Katsushiro watch as another ronin passes the “rough inn.” The samurai theme music reflects the unsuccessful attempt thus far. The music carries the cut to the village. Streaming water adds to the audio. Manzo and Mosuke stop near the village’s cemetery, and debate concerns about the character of the “other six” samurai. Now, the bold samurai “parade” theme strikes on a cut back to the town. The camera again pans right with a lone samurai and then left picking up two samurai; and then “finding another lone samurai, the camera pans right again.” We hear Kambei’s voice: “That one there.” And the tree branch/doorway scheme is again enacted!
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This time the samurai pauses, steps back, and does not enter. He smiles, then laughs: It is Gorobei!
“I’m with you.”
Gorobei credits Kambei’s character for his acceptance and adds, “In life one finds friends in the strangest places.”
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. SAMURAI AUDITIONS. PART II :: – ::
The opening shot is contained by the dark interior of the inn. A square of light features the outside in background with Rikichi fruitfully setting a cooking fire.
LESSON LEAR NED: The composition commands a precise focal point. Rikichi is framed within the illumed square; and so, while a foreground object might more easily secure our eyes, Kurosawa gives proof that light, character, and motion are the prevailing fundamentals that seize our attention. The darkness of the interior is acceptable and appealing because of light reflected off textured and soft surfaces. The planking tenders visibility as a result of light skimming the wood grain, and/or reflection resulting from moist (if not wet) surfaces. And, as well, the scene’s shadow and light establish a visual contrast: an effective addition in cinemagraphic design to the many contrasts in Kurosawa’s story and characters. This opening moment does not exist in the screenplay, and without it in the film — and its continuation to Rikichi and Yohei’s “stolen rice” confrontation, the film’s structure becomes abrupt and inadequate as, far too quickly — and therefore, much too easily — samurai are enlisted during this and the previous chapter.
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Rikichi calls to Yohei, “Hurry and wash the rice.” When he gets no reply, Rikichi enters to see “What’s wrong.” Yohei’s anguished response: “Someone stole the rice.” Yohei pleads to the fuming Rikichi, “I slept all night hugging that rice jar.” Rikichi resolves to go back to their village and return with more rice; but of course, there will be no provisions till then. A motivating irony: bandits are intending to pilfer the village’s food supplies; farmers are seeking the shelter of samurai, and someone has made off with the nourishment needed while securing samurai guardians. And a skillful turn on the irony: Katsushiro (the youngest samurai) extends coins to a thankful Rikichi and Yohei! Note that Katsushiro concedes little sympathy or appreciative acknowledgement of their respect: “Stop being so (acting) foolish.” Kambei returns to the inn, followed closely by a new samurai. It is Shichiroji! Kambei’s words are presented in sentiment and motion: “But this is wonderful. It is so good to find you alive. I’d given you up for lost. How did you get away?”
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LESSON LEAR NED: The integration of the physical action of Kambei’s forward strides and his blissful line reading cleverly restrains blatantly severe exposition. There is a lucid and affecting subtext of chance, spontaneity, and back-story. At a short distance from the inn, Gorobei sits admitting surprise to “the Stall-Keeper”: “I never knew they were so few.” The identification in the script likely means an innkeeper — few if any livestock appear to warrant a reference to a stable-keeper. The Stall-Keeper asks, “What is it you’re after?” Gorobei announces, “Samurai.” And the Stall-Keeper explains that a samurai “is at the back of my house.” Heihachi is chopping firewood in compensation for food. We now see Kambei and Katsushiro In the town square. A group is gathered to watch “two samurai in the grounds of a temple, preparing to start a practice bout with long bamboo shafts.”
LESSON LEAR NED: Here is a master class in coverage. Kurosawa’s camera presents the samurai with the gathered crowd and Kambei and Katsushiro in long shot (LS), and following medium shots (MS) and medium close-ups (MCU) of Kambei and Katsushiro, we see their point of view (POV) as their eyes fix left and right — the cuts then display setups with the camera situated between the crowd and the fighting samurai.
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The Tall Samurai (so described in the screenplay) in due course challenges Kyuzo: “Let’s use swords.” Kyuzo offers fair warning, but upon the Tall Samurai’s deaf ears. A single swipe of Kyuzo’s blade finishes the “stupid” samurai.
LESSON LEAR NED: This chapter holds the enlistment of three additional samurai, but Kurosawa concedes only that of Shichiroji; and that by the old friend’s accepting reaction to Kambei’s, “Are you ready for another fight?” The very smart non-reply of the firewood-chopping samurai to Gorobei’s, “Incidentally — are you interested in killing twenty or thirty bandits?” is a simple technique that poses “what will happen next?” and thus instantly furnishes incentive for the audience’s eager participation in the scenes to follow.
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