Post by klep on Oct 9, 2017 6:51:00 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/9: Yojimbo
GENRE MASH-UP WEEK!
Western cinema's inclination to draw from Akira Kurosawa's films is legendary. Whether just taking heavy story and character influence from The Hidden Fortress for Star Wars or just outright remaking a Kurosawa film in a new context with The Magnificent Seven, Hollywood doesn't hesitate to draw on the lessons of a true master.
But at the same time, Kurosawa took influence from the west as well. Perhaps most famous are the films he draws right out of Shakespeare - the likes of Throne of Blood or Ran. But for Yojimbo he would combine his domestic genre of the Samurai film with that most American of genres - the Western.
In Yojimbo, Toshiro Mifune plays The Man With No Name; a ronin wandering through the wilderness. He arrives at a fronti- I mean rural town run by competing gangs. The local lawman is corrupt, and feckless in any event. The Samurai resolves to do the killin' what needs doin', and sets about his task in ways both humorous, clever, and badass before wandering off into the sunset.
But it's also very much a Samurai film. Set during the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, Yojimbo deromanticizes the samurai, showing Mifune's wandering ronin to be - while a principled and good man - nonetheless a homeless, impoverished drifter. This was a common theme of Kurosawa's period films.
Much how Game of Thrones deromanticizes Western medieval fantasy stories, so was Kurosawa doing for the Japanese reverence for the samurai. He wished to show the base reality behind the legend, how even good honorable samurai could end up ronin, forced into mercenary work in order to live - or in some cases, so trapped by honor and caste that they would live in complete misery. Mifune's samurai has held on to his honor, but he's clearly only just scraping by. He has no lord to fight for and provide for him, but fighting is his only trade.
By bringing the tropes of American Westerns together with Samurai films, Kurosawa is able to naturally accomplish this goal. A Western demands that its hero be a loner, an outcast, a stranger. It demands a lawless setting in which the hero can restore order, and it demands a cast of scum for him to mete out justice to. A desperate wandering ronin is the perfect hero for such a story, and a nation in which the social order is corrupt and falling apart a perfect setting.
But if you thought these are the only genres Kurosawa is pulling together, there's one more thing to share with you. Kurosawa got the story idea from The Glass Key, an adaptation of a Dashiel Hammett noir. And then of course Yojimbo was remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars. Influence is circular, and all the greats take from each other.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/16: The Straight Story
DEPARTURES WEEK!
For Departures Week we'll be looking at a strange David Lynch film. Which is to say, it's a fairly straightforward narrative without much in the way of dream logic or twisted reality. Just a story of a man going from point A to point B to reconcile with his brother. The Straight Story is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 10/5: mother!
Last week's podcast concludes by discussing Darren Aronofsky's film mother!. Also centered on a house that its protagonist seems unable/unwilling to leave, this divisive film may still be in theaters near you. We'll have a thread to discuss it on Wednesday.
GENRE MASH-UP WEEK!
Western cinema's inclination to draw from Akira Kurosawa's films is legendary. Whether just taking heavy story and character influence from The Hidden Fortress for Star Wars or just outright remaking a Kurosawa film in a new context with The Magnificent Seven, Hollywood doesn't hesitate to draw on the lessons of a true master.
But at the same time, Kurosawa took influence from the west as well. Perhaps most famous are the films he draws right out of Shakespeare - the likes of Throne of Blood or Ran. But for Yojimbo he would combine his domestic genre of the Samurai film with that most American of genres - the Western.
In Yojimbo, Toshiro Mifune plays The Man With No Name; a ronin wandering through the wilderness. He arrives at a fronti- I mean rural town run by competing gangs. The local lawman is corrupt, and feckless in any event. The Samurai resolves to do the killin' what needs doin', and sets about his task in ways both humorous, clever, and badass before wandering off into the sunset.
But it's also very much a Samurai film. Set during the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, Yojimbo deromanticizes the samurai, showing Mifune's wandering ronin to be - while a principled and good man - nonetheless a homeless, impoverished drifter. This was a common theme of Kurosawa's period films.
Much how Game of Thrones deromanticizes Western medieval fantasy stories, so was Kurosawa doing for the Japanese reverence for the samurai. He wished to show the base reality behind the legend, how even good honorable samurai could end up ronin, forced into mercenary work in order to live - or in some cases, so trapped by honor and caste that they would live in complete misery. Mifune's samurai has held on to his honor, but he's clearly only just scraping by. He has no lord to fight for and provide for him, but fighting is his only trade.
By bringing the tropes of American Westerns together with Samurai films, Kurosawa is able to naturally accomplish this goal. A Western demands that its hero be a loner, an outcast, a stranger. It demands a lawless setting in which the hero can restore order, and it demands a cast of scum for him to mete out justice to. A desperate wandering ronin is the perfect hero for such a story, and a nation in which the social order is corrupt and falling apart a perfect setting.
But if you thought these are the only genres Kurosawa is pulling together, there's one more thing to share with you. Kurosawa got the story idea from The Glass Key, an adaptation of a Dashiel Hammett noir. And then of course Yojimbo was remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars. Influence is circular, and all the greats take from each other.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 10/16: The Straight Story
DEPARTURES WEEK!
For Departures Week we'll be looking at a strange David Lynch film. Which is to say, it's a fairly straightforward narrative without much in the way of dream logic or twisted reality. Just a story of a man going from point A to point B to reconcile with his brother. The Straight Story is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 10/5: mother!
Last week's podcast concludes by discussing Darren Aronofsky's film mother!. Also centered on a house that its protagonist seems unable/unwilling to leave, this divisive film may still be in theaters near you. We'll have a thread to discuss it on Wednesday.