159 Red Beard

[ando]

The thread's young yet.

Donald Ritchie alludes to Mifune and Kurosawa'so professional (and, apparently, personal) break in his review of Stuart Galbraith's The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune:

Why so mutually profitable an association came to an end long before their deaths has been a subject of speculation. Galbraith's is that for Mifune "the artistic benefits of working with Kurosawa were outweighed by the overwhelming business concerns that constantly plagued him" and that "Kurosawa felt betrayed and refused to understand how the actor could appear in inferior films."
This is correct, so far as it goes. At the same time, however, Kurosawa was famous for monopolizing those he needed and dropping those he did not.
Mifune led an expensive life and needed the money. Yet he faithfully wore his red beard (and remained otherwise jobless) for the many months it took to complete that 1965 film. Then he had to scramble to find lucrative work no matter where. Kurosawa then resented what he saw as defection.

Actually, it took two years to complete the film though I'm not sure what percentage of that time was devoted to principal photography. In any case, Galbraith is probably correct about the basis of their split.

[dda1996a]

It's a well known story. I can understand both sides, and it's a shame they separated like that. Are there any noteworthy films Mifune made after this (aside from 1941 and Samurai Trilogy)?

[knives]

I'm no expert, but there seem to be a lot including Sword of Doom, Samurai Rebellion, Japan's Longest Day, and Red Lion.

[beamish13]

Hell in the Pacific is the one I recommend most highly. Absolutely gripping and stunningly filmed two-hander by John Boorman

He also made 2 films with John Frankenheimer: Grand Prix and The Challenge.

[knives]

Definite second on Hell in the Pacific. If one of them had an artistic decline after their break up it certainly wasn't Mifune.

[Michael Kerpan]

Mifune was even wonderful in his little role as a benshi (who also ran a mobile theater in long-ago Hawaii) in "Picture Bride" (Hatta 1995).

[domino harvey]

Does Mifune count?

[dda1996a]

Definite second on Hell in the Pacific. If one of them had an artistic decline after their break up it certainly wasn't Mifune.

It sure as he'll wasn't Kurosawa either. Ran, Kagemusha, Dreams, Dersu Uzala

[knives]

Not to distract from the discussion, but I firmly disagree. Michael Kerpan has given a better argument against Ran then I could muster, but of the other films you mention I can really only stand Dreams and that's almost exclusively in the Honda directed segments. Ignoring my worthless opinion though there is a strain of criticism well beyond this board which suggests that Kurosawa did begin to loose his muster with the colour films so even if you disagree the opinion is widely held enough not to be dismissed.

[ando]

Not to distract from the discussion, but I firmly disagree. Michael Kerpan has given a better argument against Ran then I could muster, but of the other films you mention I can really only stand Dreams and that's almost exclusively in the Honda directed segments. Ignoring my worthless opinion though there is a strain of criticism well beyond this board which suggests that Kurosawa did begin to loose his muster with the colour films so even if you disagree the opinion is widely held enough not to be dismissed.

What do you mean by a strain of criticism well beyond this board? Have more confidence in your own opinion. Like life, isn't film viewing an ultimately subjective experience, anyway? Roshomon taught us that!

[bottled spider]

Donald Ritchie certainly considered Red Beard Kurosawa's last good film. I don't remember if he outright stated so in his Kurosawa book, or in the Criterion commentary track, but he did in his journals. (For myself, I like late Kurosawa much more than Ritchie does, but his criticisms of the later films nevertheless seem fair minded).

I seem to remember Ritchie describing Red Beard and Au Hasard Balthazar in similar terms -- you must be willing to go where the film is trying to take you for it to work, but if you do go with it, the experience is powerful.

[beamish13]

Donald Ritchie certainly considered Red Beard Kurosawa's last good film. I don't remember if he outright stated so in his Kurosawa book, or in the Criterion commentary track, but he did in his journals. (For myself, I like late Kurosawa much more than Ritchie does, but his criticisms of the later films nevertheless seem fair minded).

Conversely, Alex Cox considers Madadayo to be his very best.

[dda1996a]

Say what you will, Kagemusha is terrific and a worthy Palme d'or winner, Ran was brilliant, Dreams was great (only held back by its anthology structure) and Rhapsody was great as well. Haven't seen the rest sadly, but I'm willing to fight for at least those four. Sure only Ran reaches the heights of Rashomon, High and Low etc. but it's like ignoring a great film when most other films he made are perfect just because it's not a masterpiece.

[swo17]

Can't argue with adjectives.

[dda1996a]

I need to rewatch them to give a well argued defense of them, especially as I have yet to read King Lear. I still don't think it should be judged solely on how close it is to Lear, as it is inspired by the legend of Mōri Motonari. Kurosawa only noticed the similarities to Lear after writing the first draft. And even if it was, I never judged an adaptation on how close it is to the source material. That is why I find The Shining and Lolita both terrific films, but bad adaptations. Secondly, just on a visual standpoint, aside from Kurosawa's continued brilliant framing and staging, the cinematography and art direction are all flawless. I'll need to rewatch it again to focus on the story and its themes, but I remember being quite taken by the characters. Again how close it is to Lear I o not know, but I found the story extremely engaging.

[knives]

No one brought up Lear. It's one of Kurosawa's worst for reasons completely unrelated to that per most critiques I have seen. Check its dedicated thread for more.

[Mr Sausage]

I love late Kurosawa. Not just because of the power and beauty of some of them on an individual basis (the two period epics especially), but in the way it seems to form an oddly coherent narrative of Kurosawa the artist.

Stabs at affirmation amidst urban tragedy (Dodes ka'Den) and an attempt to find permanent value in natural man (Dersu Uzala) are not powerful enough to lift Kurosawa out of those doubts about the lasting value of anything that had plagued him from early on. With Kagemusha (a vivid representation of how social and political stability, personal identity, even coherence itself, are sustained by nothing more permanent than the illusions of simple mental fictions) and especially Ran (all values are espoused, none survive), with those two Kurosawa gives in fully to an apocalyptic, nihilistic sensibility in which the hopes and plans of his characters not only come to nought, but come to nought so intensely as to preclude any hope. This is the nihilistic pit Kurosawa saw in Rashomon and only just avoided with a sentimental plot device that he makes work through sheer technical expertise and force of will. Dreams is his attempt to work his way through all of life, from birth to death, and pull some meaning out of the nothingness of his previous films. He is successful, imagining in the end a vicarious funeral full of the joy of colour, sound, and movement. His final two films, the last one especially, are affirmations in the face of death.

I wouldn't do without late Kurosawa; I cannot think of another artist who reached the pinnacle of his art and then turned around and spent the rest of his days thoroughly rethinking his own conceptions only to arrive anew, and perhaps more comfortably, at where he had started out. It's interesting to think what would've happened to Kurosawa's career without the Mifune split and the suicide attempt prompted in part by the failure of Dodes'ka Den. But I'm glad it went the way it did. Red Beard is a fitting capstone and a great turning point. I'm not sure Kurosawa could've taken his humane filmmaking any further; his negative filmmaking, on the other hand, was just getting started.

[dda1996a]

Would you consider The Bad Sleep Well humane though?

SpoilerShow

I love that film, but unlike High and Low which does find hope in its ending, it ends in tragedy with the supposed villain prevailing and Mifune dying.

@knives, do I infer that you haven't seen Ran yet?

[Drucker]

I have only watched High and Low once, a few years ago, but I remember the ending being incredibly depressing? The protagonist still loses everything? I thought the general consensus is that Kurosawa's films stopped being "hopeful" after Seven Samurai?

[dda1996a]

Well High and Low ends on a hopeful note, and if I remember correctly so does Yojimbo. Sanjuro has a more cynical ending. Man do I need to watch his entire oeuvre again

[Michael Kerpan]

I will resist the temptation to diss (in this thread) Ran or any of the other post-Red Beard films.

I _will_ note that this features a fantastic cast (with a number of people I associate more with Ozu and/or Naruse than with AK), giving (mostly) wonderful performances. I will also note that acting (and the creation of charismatic characters) seemed (mostly) a lot less important in AK's later films.

It also seems to me that Red Beard was not just the last of AK's widescreen black and white visual masterpieces, but also perhaps had the most uniformly beautiful cinematography of any of those films. I think that, while Ozu could create in color with as much success as in black and white (and use color to much the same effect as he used black and white), AK (like Naruse) seemed to usually be more comfortable with (and successful in) black and white. In any event, I vastly prefer AK's b&w work.

One more point, women seem to have a bigger (more interesting) role in this than was typical in AK (yes, he had some films with _one_ strong and interesting woman -- but this has a variety).

[Michael Kerpan]

Well High and Low ends on a hopeful note, and if I remember correctly so does Yojimbo. Sanjuro has a more cynical ending. Man do I need to watch his entire oeuvre again

I find Sanjuro vastly less cynical than Yojimbo. But this debate probably belongs in the appropriate forum.

[Mr Sausage]

High and Low is depressing, but it's still an affirmation, however qualified. Gondo chooses humanity over money. He isn't rewarded for it Job-like, but he still does it.

The Bad Sleep Well and I Live in Fear are both very despairing films, probably Kurosawa's most despairing of the earlier period. But their despair, like those of the rest of this period, is tied closely to social issues: generational and social divides, the excesses of capitalism, and the legacy of war. Their despair is a critique and a protest, tied to institutions that don't need to be followed. This is true of even something like Stray Dog, which acknowledges how worryingly contingent goodness is, but still ties it to a critique of post-war conditions. This element of social critique is what separates Kurosawa's early despair from Kagemusha and Ran, where the despair is total and unconnected to any specific social or political framework. There are generational divides and political strife, but these are generalized and either dismissed as fictions (Kagemusha) or diminished by a landscape that bears down and squashes humanity and its petty troubles (Ran).

The closest Kurosawa gets to that total despair and nihilism is Rashomon, where the very nature of reality erodes. If there is no stable, mutually discoverable narrative to hold on to, not just truth, but what we take to be reality becomes a phantom, and with it all the values and hopes we attach to experience. Rashomon removes one of the basic stabilities we take for granted; it pulls the ground from under us. But Kurosawa couldn't abide following that to its conclusion, hence he ends the film with an unearned affirmation. He had no such compunction when it came to Kagemusha, however, and stared fully into the apocalypse that results when our mental fictions can no longer paper over the cracks.

I find Sanjuro vastly less cynical than Yojimbo. But this debate probably belongs in the appropriate forum.

Agreed. Yojimbo is a cynical apocalypse, but the movie's a grotesque parody, and anyway Sanjuro behaves decently in the end. Sanjuro is a riotous bildung for the young samurai, with Sanjuro as their unlikely and poorly behaved, but still well-suited and effective teacher (the kind that cuts through bullshit). It's a kind-hearted movie.

[knives]

Sausage, your argument above is largely why I find Dodes ka'den to be the most interesting of Kurosawa's colour films (though I find it is also the best use of colour along with Dreams perhaps because he still had his eyes for the most part). I wouldn't say the film necessarily succeeds, but Kurosawa expresses this complex idea of natural pettiness with occasional human goodness is such a way that at least for me it is impossible to dismiss the film the way I feel comfortable doing to some of the other colour films.

Would you consider The Bad Sleep Well humane though?

SpoilerShow

I love that film, but unlike High and Low which does find hope in its ending, it ends in tragedy with the supposed villain prevailing and Mifune dying.

@knives, do I infer that you haven't seen Ran yet?

What? Of course I have.

[ando]

One more point, women seem to have a bigger (more interesting) role in this than was typical in AK (yes, he had some films with _one_ strong and interesting woman -- but this has a variety).

True, but it's still very much a man's film, trite as that sounds. We primarily see the women through the perspective of Noboru and/or Red Beard. I can't think of a scene involving a female protagonist to which either Noboru or RB are not privy. You could safely say the same for the women in The Lower Depths and, especially, The Idiot. I would even go so far to say it's probably one of the traits he (unconsciously?) picked up from Ford; namely, that women only exist as far men can see them. They have roles but none that exist outside of the purview of whatever K is considering. There's no Life of Oharu in the Kurosawa canon, certainly (though he claimed to have admired Mizoguchi enormously).

This brings me back to speculating on the rationale behind the great leveling scene just before the half involving the ferociously lithe Red Beard and the hapless village defenders of the Bordello. Audience sympathy will hardly be with the loud and dissolute looking bunch but the heorics are Kurosawa's invention, not Dostoevsky's. Why was this needed? Did K think we'd been lulled to sleep with the earlier melodrama and need a jolt to get us back into the narrative (and back for the second half)? The action sequence has all the trademarks of a classic Kurosawa battle - and while no surviving member of the cast or crew ever told it, I bet there was a wind machine perched adroitly somewhere atop a parapet.