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7.
Seven Samurai: 1954 (NR) -4
Japan / Toho
100% (CF)
It is appropriate to talk about this movie after Clerks II because Seven Samurai was my first real introduction to Akira Kurosawa, and it was Kevin Smith who provided the introduction! I know what you are asking, “How the hell did the Clerks Guy get you into a classy director like Kurosawa?” Well let me tell you. I got my first “taste” of Kurosawa in college thanks to said basic film class. I say “taste” since I did not see the entirety of a one of his films. We covered Kurosawa by watching a vignette from his film Dreams. I say again… a SINGLE vignette from Dreams. Not even the whole movie, just one vignette. While a good film, given what I have watched I find this one vignette a criminal under representation of Kurosawa’s oeuvre. I mean hell I had to suffer through Pierrot Le Fou but the professor could not throw up Rashomon or Yojimbo? Seriously, what the hell teach? Anyway the name did not register from that class and I completely forgot Kurosawa’s name. I did not truly get my first introduction to Akira Kurosawa until I heard his name in the most unlikely film, Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I was rewatching Zack and Miri for like the 6th time (great flick by the way) and the name Kurosawa kept popping up. Not even kidding. Here is an excerpt from one of the scenes. Zack and company have just wrapped their first day of shooting their dirty movie and Zack asks the camera man
Deacon how the footage looked.
Zack: Hey how’d it look?
Deacon: How’d you think it looked? It looked like ***** going into other sh!t… in focus.
Zack: What an artist. That was Kurosawa’s motto I think. ***** going into other *****
So I asked the question, “who the hell is Kurosawa?” I was watching this movie on my laptop and did a Wikipedia search and found his page. Read up on the guy and decided to give him a shot. Decided to try what seemed to be his most well received film, Seven Samurai. The rest is history.
Seven Samurai was the film that helped me really appreciate foreign films beyond Godzilla, and started my attempts to seriously seek out other great foreign filmmakers. A very significant accomplishment when you consider that while attending that basic film course I was first introduced to filmmakers like Bergman, De Sica, Josef Von Sternberg, Jean Renoir, and other very highly regarded filmmakers. But Kurosawa was the one who kicked it off. Now as I said before I did need to rewatch this film a second time to really get into the flick, but it is my favorite of his movies. I love the scale, the character arcs, the epic battles, the fact that the final battle is over an hour in film time and several days for the characters. Not to mention it has my favorite performance by Toshiro Mifune. This started a love affair with samurai movies and Japanese period pieces, especially the later Kurosawa flicks I watched. Rather odd since it was Kevin Smith of all people who was my gateway to world cinema. All the more reason to be appreciative of him.
Seven Samurai: 1954 (NR) -4
Japan / Toho
100% (CF)
It is appropriate to talk about this movie after Clerks II because Seven Samurai was my first real introduction to Akira Kurosawa, and it was Kevin Smith who provided the introduction! I know what you are asking, “How the hell did the Clerks Guy get you into a classy director like Kurosawa?” Well let me tell you. I got my first “taste” of Kurosawa in college thanks to said basic film class. I say “taste” since I did not see the entirety of a one of his films. We covered Kurosawa by watching a vignette from his film Dreams. I say again… a SINGLE vignette from Dreams. Not even the whole movie, just one vignette. While a good film, given what I have watched I find this one vignette a criminal under representation of Kurosawa’s oeuvre. I mean hell I had to suffer through Pierrot Le Fou but the professor could not throw up Rashomon or Yojimbo? Seriously, what the hell teach? Anyway the name did not register from that class and I completely forgot Kurosawa’s name. I did not truly get my first introduction to Akira Kurosawa until I heard his name in the most unlikely film, Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I was rewatching Zack and Miri for like the 6th time (great flick by the way) and the name Kurosawa kept popping up. Not even kidding. Here is an excerpt from one of the scenes. Zack and company have just wrapped their first day of shooting their dirty movie and Zack asks the camera man
Deacon how the footage looked.
Zack: Hey how’d it look?
Deacon: How’d you think it looked? It looked like ***** going into other sh!t… in focus.
Zack: What an artist. That was Kurosawa’s motto I think. ***** going into other *****
So I asked the question, “who the hell is Kurosawa?” I was watching this movie on my laptop and did a Wikipedia search and found his page. Read up on the guy and decided to give him a shot. Decided to try what seemed to be his most well received film, Seven Samurai. The rest is history.
Seven Samurai was the film that helped me really appreciate foreign films beyond Godzilla, and started my attempts to seriously seek out other great foreign filmmakers. A very significant accomplishment when you consider that while attending that basic film course I was first introduced to filmmakers like Bergman, De Sica, Josef Von Sternberg, Jean Renoir, and other very highly regarded filmmakers. But Kurosawa was the one who kicked it off. Now as I said before I did need to rewatch this film a second time to really get into the flick, but it is my favorite of his movies. I love the scale, the character arcs, the epic battles, the fact that the final battle is over an hour in film time and several days for the characters. Not to mention it has my favorite performance by Toshiro Mifune. This started a love affair with samurai movies and Japanese period pieces, especially the later Kurosawa flicks I watched. Rather odd since it was Kevin Smith of all people who was my gateway to world cinema. All the more reason to be appreciative of him.