3.7 - SEVEN SAMURAI (1954) & Class
The next Akira Kurosawa film is probably his best-known — and certainly most-imitated — film: SEVEN SAMURAI (1954). We both really enjoyed this (one more predictably so than the other); after some general discussions of community feeling and individuality, we get more specific about the social hierarchies of the film, dive into Kurosawa’s cinematography once more, and end with a good, old-fashioned nerd-off.
Next Week’s Film
DODES’KA-DEN (1970): Kurosawa’s first film in colour. Get the DVD for £5.34, here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/DodesKa-Den-Junzaburo-Ban/dp/B00ABAYWIK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506152619&sr=8-1&keywords=dodeskaden.
This Week’s Media
WONDER WOMAN (2017): Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot, Chris Pine
THE DEFENDERS (2017): Douglas Petrie, Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter
Recommendations
BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980): Jimmy T. Murakami, Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn
HEROES (2006—10): Tim Kring, Santiago Cabrera, Jack Coleman
THRONE OF BLOOD (1957): Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada
13 ASSASSINS (2010): Takashi Miike, Kōji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada
Footnotes
There’s more on the visuals of Kurosawa and this film’s influence in cinema, here: http://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/seven-samurai-akira-kurosawa-masterpiece-influence-filmmakers-mad-max-fury-road-1201811690/. Here’s that book on class and aesthetics in Japan, again: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=10krbGkGMyoC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=class+in+japanese+history&ots=SMdOiQbPSf&sig=eAq53yCWiBvqsQE7uIJqqw_YfBQ#v=onepage&q=class%20in%20japanese%20history&f=false. This article has a useful introduction to the history of the samurai in Japan: http://www.history.com/topics/samurai-and-bushido. Finally, while the visual presentation of this website is truly horrible, there’s some interesting stuff on the objective/subjective shots that Rob discusses this week: http://www.videoeditingsage.com/camera-angles-objective-and-subjective.html. (Oh, and the podcast in which Sam is cheating on Rob [but not really: it’s TV, not film] is a forthcoming episode of THE BOX SET POD: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-box-set-pod-the-boxset-podcast/id948417371?mt=2.)