In 1989, Shintaro Katsu, who directed and starred in "Humpback City", became a hot figure in the Japanese film industry, but Akira Kurosawa was caught in the situation of no film due to the downturn in the film industry and some discord with the film company.
At this time, a brain-dead fan of Akira Kurosawa came to visit Japan, and when he heard that his idol did not have the funds for filming, he immediately pulled another brain-dead fan to be the supervising producer of the film, and said that Fox Pictures and Lucasfilm invested.
One of the two brain-dead fans is Francis Coppola, who is preparing for "The Godfather 3", and the other is George Lucas, who has just finished filming "Star Wars".
Akira Kurosawa, Coppola and Lucas
Unexpectedly, on the night of filming, Akira Kurosawa expelled the popular Shintaro Katsutaro from the crew and informed Tatsuya Nakayo to replace Shintaro Katsutaro as the male lead, because Katsu Shintaro had his assistant and the cinematographer shoot his performance at the same time without Akira Kurosawa's permission.
This kind of temper Kurosawa Akira has occurred many times.
As for shouting on the set and scaring the staff into weakness, it is common, and it has also received the nickname of "Emperor".
Initially, it was a sarcastic term.
But with the passage of time and the establishment of Akira Kurosawa as a master of cinema in the world, the "Emperor of Cinema" became an honorific title for him.
Born in 1910 in Tokyo, Japan, Akira Kurosawa was the eighth oldest in his family, with four older sisters and three older brothers.
When he was in elementary school, Akira Kurosawa was very thin and weak, coupled with some stupidity, and was often bullied by his classmates, so that he got the nickname of "Crispy Candy" (Crying Ghost).
Samurai are a very special group in Japan, they have their own rules and regulations, they have their own moral standards.
Kurosawa's father was deeply influenced by Bushido, and his life was very strict, and he was also very strict with his children.
He has been combing his samurai hair in a bun since childhood, and when he grew up, he grew up with a beard that was popular in the Meiji era, and even when his children were on the road, he often sat on his knees with his back to the niche (a small space for Buddha statues), raised his knife in his left hand, and gently rubbed talc powder with his right hand toward the body of the knife.
There are also some calligraphy works hanging in the niches, mainly Chinese inscription rubbings, and the first ancient poem Kurosawa Akira learned from his father was "Maple Bridge Night Berth". Once at a banquet, Akira Kurosawa subconsciously read the poem, which surprised the actors.
Kurosawa's mother, who came from a merchant family and was not well aware of bushido rules, was often severely reprimanded by her husband for her fish swing at the dinner table:
"Asshole! Are you going to make me kill myself by caesarean section?! ”
In Japan, if a caesareaner is given a fish, the fish should be turned back toward the person to avoid the caesareaner seeing the lobe of the cut.
When serving fish to guests, the fish's head is facing left and the belly is facing the guest.
The children were scolded by their fathers because of their wrong dining methods and etiquette.
Therefore, Akira Kurosawa's violent temper may have come from his father to a large extent.
At that time, most people in Japan thought that watching movies would have a negative impact on their children's education, but Akira Kurosawa's father thought that watching movies was beneficial to his children's education and took the initiative to take the whole family to see movies.
▲ Childhood Akira Kurosawa
When he was in middle school, Akira Kurosawa liked to paint, admired Cézanne and Van Gogh, and his father, who loved calligraphy, understood Akira Kurosawa's hobbies and encouraged him to apply for art colleges, although he was not admitted, but his works were selected for the national exhibition of newcomer works, and he aspired to be a painter in the future.
Two years later, the world economic crisis broke out, fundamentally shaking the Japanese economy, and the proletarian movement intensified, and the proletarian art movement also emerged.
People are eager to escape the painful reality of economic panic, so there are many absurd, boring, pornographic and violent works in Japanese society.
Kurosawa read Capital and the Materialist View of History, and although there were many things he did not understand and could not analyze Japanese society from a very high perspective, he was still vaguely dissatisfied with and resentful of Japanese society, so he joined the Proletarian Art League.
During that period, while indulging in painting, he greedily studied literature, drama, music and film, and watched many of the world's classic films of the silent film period, which seemed to point the way to Akira Kurosawa's future.
Later, Akira Kurosawa grew tired of the proletarian art movement and turned to proletarian politics.
Like the underground party members during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Akira Kurosawa changed residences repeatedly, sometimes living in the homes of supporters, sometimes living in his brother's home (referring to Akira Kurosawa's brother, named Akira Kurosawa, who is 4 years older than Akira Kurosawa), and the two brothers often discuss movies.
▲Childhood
During the silent film (silent film) period, many theaters will have a narrator when screening the film, who is mainly responsible for explaining the film to the audience. Some of Japan's top commentators even have the right to edit the film so that they can easily interpret it.
Due to the influence of watching many movies when he was young, Akira Kurosawa's brother grew up to write plot commentary for the cinema full-time, and after a period of tempering, he grew up to become the chief narrator of the Nakano Cinema.
In 1927, Warner released the world's first sound film, The Jazz King.
▲ "Jazz Singer King"
Saying that it is a sound movie, in fact, it is just a whim in which the male protagonist said two sentences, but the audience responded warmly and felt very novel.
When sound films first appeared, the film industry erupted in a big debate around the question of whether movies need sound, and Eisenstein, Chaplin and other film masters were clearly opposed to sound films, believing that they undermined the purity of movies.
But with Warner's efforts and the wheel of the times, a vigorous film reform movement began.
On August 21, 1930, "The King of Jazz" was released in Japan. The following year, many sound films were born in Japan, which was indeed a boon for the audience.
But for Akira Kurosawa's brother, it was undoubtedly a nightmare, because it meant that the cinema no longer needed a "narrator".
Commentators held strikes, with Akira Kurosawa's brother as chairman of the strike committee. Panic from the economic crisis, the pressure of unemployment, the trivia of the committee, and the influence of some negative literary works, a few months later, Akira Kurosawa's brother committed suicide.
Akira Kurosawa suddenly froze when he saw his brother's corpse in the compartment.
Later, Akira Kurosawa entered the film industry, and when he met Tokugawa Yumeto (the top Japanese film commentator during the silent film period), he said to Akira Kurosawa, "You look exactly like your brother. However, your brother is the negative, you are the positive. ”
For the next three years, Akira Kurosawa mainly did some chores to illustrate magazines and draw comics for baseball magazines, but he was always thinking about doing something else
One day, Akira Kurosawa happened to see an advertisement in the newspaper for an assistant director at PCL Studios (the predecessor of Toho Pictures), with the title of the exam "Enumerating and Discussing the Fundamental Flaws of Japanese Cinema and How to Correct Them", and he felt that the studio was very enterprising, so he went to take the exam.
During the third attempt, the secretary section chief of the studio "detailed and unreasonable" inquired about Akira Kurosawa's family situation, perhaps touching the scars of his brother's death, and the grumpy Akira Kurosawa fell out with him on the spot: "Are you interrogating?" ”
Unexpectedly, a week later, PCL Studios sent an acceptance notice. When Kurosawa saw it, he said, "I'm not interested in this thing, to be honest, I'm not very interested," and after some persuasion from his father, he went to work.
After entering the studio, Akira Kurosawa was very dissatisfied with his job and decided to resign, and the senior assistant directors desperately dissuaded him from resigning. Later, Akira Kurosawa was assigned to the film crew of Kajiro Yamamoto as the third assistant director, and often clashed with colleagues due to disagreements.
▲Kajiro Yamamoto
Kajiro Yamamoto is flexible about anything, never insists on unity, has a deep knowledge of classical art, is very approachable, treats actors very kindly, and even calls extras by name.
When he heard Akira Kurosawa say, "Hey, the one in the blue suit," he disciplined him:
"Kurosawa Jun, that's not okay. Everyone has a name! ”
In this way, Akira Kurosawa followed Kajiro Yamamoto for four years as an assistant director, and four years later, Akira Kurosawa was able to work as an acting director, editor and dubbing director.
Yoshijiro Yamamoto:
"If you want to be a director, you have to learn to write a script."
As a result, Akira Kurosawa quit his job as an assistant director to write film scripts, and often followed Mr. Yamamoto as an agent.
Every country has a censorship system of films, and Japan is no exception.
Prosecutors in the Ministry of the Interior have denied many of Akira Kurosawa's scripts and plots.
They feel that love is a lascivious act, and the feelings of adolescence are all regarded as the embodiment of the weak spirit of The British and American styles.
For example, they think that "the act of celebrating a birthday is basically an Anglo-American way of life, and it is simply unreasonable to write such a scene now," and even said that the line "the door of the factory is open and waiting for the students who come to volunteer labor" is obscene...
Akira Kurosawa tried his best to control his hatred of these guys, but whenever he thought about what they had done, he couldn't help himself, and the hatred made him tremble all over.
Friends who have climbed the mountain should have an experience:
The mountains are sweltering, airtight, and even have many bugs, but when you reach the top of the mountain, you can feel the oncoming mountain wind, and when you stand on the top of the mountain and look out, you can see the scenery dozens of miles away.
The ancient pond is quiet, and the frog enters the water with a sound.
Kurosawa climbed the mountain for so many years, and finally reached the top of the mountain to photograph his debut.
One day, Akira Kurosawa saw the introduction of "Zi Sanshiro" from the advertisement column of the new book in the newspaper, and he made up his mind to shoot it, and rushed to Morita Nobuyoshi (toho's production director) to get him to buy the adaptation rights of the book and make a good movie with a ticket.
Since then, Akira Kurosawa has gone to the bookstore three times a day to see if "Zi Sanshiro" has been officially published. After I bought it, I read it immediately when I got home, and after reading it at 10:30 p.m., I immediately ran to Morita Nobuyoshi's house, woke him up with sleepy eyes, and stuffed the book into his hand, "Absolutely yes, buy it back quickly." ”
After getting the adaptation rights, Akira Kurosawa immediately began to write the script, the text was not added, in one go, and then took the script to visit Mr. Yamada Kajiro to hear his opinion.
After arriving at the film crew, Akira Kurosawa received news that Kajiro Yamamoto was having dinner with naval officers and men, and by eleven o'clock in the night, Akira Kurosawa was too sleepy to bear it and fell asleep.
I don't know how long I slept, Kurosawa woke up to find that Yamamoto Kajiro's house was illuminated, so he quietly got up and looked into the room from the gap in the partition, and found that Yamamoto Kajiro had a solemn look and was carefully reading his adapted script.
The grumpy Kurosawa sat down in a disciplined manner until Kajiro Yamamoto finished reading the script.
At that time, Akira Kurosawa was thirty-two years old, standing at the foot of the mountain, looking up at the back of the man on the top of the mountain.
Many years later, Akira Kurosawa still can't forget the back of Kajiro Yamamoto reading the script.
Just like we will never forget our father who "wears a small black cloth hat, a black cloth coat, and a dark green cotton robe."
As is customary, a director's debut is sent to the Ministry of the Interior, and the prosecutor will test the new director with some directors.
The prosecutor came up and said that "Zi Sanshiro" imitated Britain and the United States, and then picked a bone in the egg, and Akira Kurosawa was so angry that he almost picked up a chair and smashed it at the prosecutor.
Just when Akira Kurosawa was about to be unable to suppress it, a director said to him: "If you take 100 points as a full score, "Zi Sanshiro" can score 120 points!" Kurosawa Jun, congratulations! ”
The director's name is Yasujiro Ozu.
Sure enough, after the release of the movie, word of mouth box office double harvest.
After the end of World War II, Toho Pictures recruited new actors for the society in order to rise.
One day, a member of the film crew told Akira Kurosawa that an actor with a somewhat rough demeanor was not bad, so Akira Kurosawa went to the exam room. As soon as he arrived, he saw a young man shouting and jumping like thunder, and the chief examiner was making him perform "anger", Kurosawa Akira had never seen such a charismatic actor, and he was stunned for a while.
▲Toshiro Mifune
However, the examination board is composed of professionals such as directors, photographers, sound recordists and trade union representatives, so this person will not be hired after voting.
Before announcing the results of the exam, Akira Kurosawa disputed the way the vote was cast.
He said that when examining actors, you can't treat a vote from a professional as the same effect as a layman's vote, otherwise it is tantamount to letting the gem dealer and the vegetable boss jointly identify when identifying gemstones, and you need to let one vote of the professional be equivalent to three or five votes for laymen.
After Akira Kurosawa finished speaking, the examination committee was in a commotion, and some trade union representatives shouted that this was anti-democracy and directorial authoritarianism. But after a vote, the members related to the film all agreed, and some of the union representatives nodded in agreement.
Finally, the chairman of the examination committee, Kajiro Yamamoto, professionally recognized the young man's acting skills.
The young man who was admitted was named Toshiro Mifune.
There are many examples of collaboration in the history of cinema, such as Miyazaki and Hisaishi, Chow Sing Chi and Wu Mengda, Wong Kar-wai and Leung Chao-wai, Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, and the films they shoot together have a strange chemistry that cannot be achieved when working with others.
▲ Stills of "Rashomon"
Akira Kurosawa said that he is a unique talented man in the Japanese film industry, with excellent speed in the play, clean performance, lily soso, the fierceness of the gangster when playing the gangster is extremely wild and charming, and the performance of Toshiro Mifune during the filming of "The Duel of Quiet Night" moved the photographer to tears like rain, making him constantly wipe tears with his left hand.
Not a family, not a door.
Compared to Toshiro Mifune's way of acting, Akira Kurosawa's way of directing is also very peculiar.
In order to shoot the cloud well, you can ask the entire film crew to stop working and wait for the cloud to arrive.
In order to shoot sunny days, you can wait 100 days.
In order to shoot the heavy rain in "Rashomon", you can add ink to the water to make ink rain.
And so on, too many to count.
Eastwood said: "I like Akira Kurosawa because the protagonists in the film are extremely self-centered and don't care about anything else, which is also his portrayal." He was in a particular environment and turned a deaf ear to other people and things. ”
But later, Toshiro Mifune couldn't stand Akira Kurosawa's temper and parted ways with him.
When asked, Toshiro Mifune said, "Akira Kurosawa is a film director, but he is more serious than others in every way, but we are not puppets, and we can't do what he says." ”
In August 1974, Akira Kurosawa, for various reasons, could not find investment in China, so he went to the Soviet Union to shoot "Delsu Uzara", and shortly before his departure, he was notified that Yamamoto Kajiro was seriously ill and the situation was worrying.
When Akira Kurosawa went to visit, Kajiro Yamamoto thanked him first, and then asked, "How about the assistant director of the Soviet side?" ”
Akira Kurosawa spent four years as an assistant director with Kajiro Yamamoto, then as an assistant for several years, asking him for his opinions on the script and asking for advice on how to shoot movies and manage crews.
Over the years, Kajiro Yamamoto has never changed their personalities for the assistant directors who follow him, but has single-mindedly focused on discovering their personalities, and has not let them have the feeling of learning from their teachers.
Sometimes I think, if Akira Kurosawa could learn Yamamoto's generosity and not mess with so many actors and film companies, wouldn't he make more good movies?
But then I laughed again, if I did, he wouldn't be Kurosawa.
In 1993, Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki, two world-renowned directors, engaged in a pinnacle conversation about sets, recordings, sound productions, actor performances, and so on.
Interestingly, Miyazaki flinched a little compared to Akira Kurosawa's talk.
It seems that the "tyrant Miyazaki" is also afraid of the emperor.
In addition, Spielberg called Akira Kurosawa the Shakespeare of the film industry, Coppola said that he was willing to be Akira Kurosawa's assistant for the rest of his life, Eastwood and Scorsese were very excited when they talked about Akira Kurosawa, and Zhang Yimou's "Shadow" shot last year was obviously inspired by "Shadow Warrior"...
▲ Akira Kurosawa won the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement
Now that these fans of Akira Kurosawa have become masters, when looking back on the life of their common idol, Akira Kurosawa, perhaps we can only use Akira Kurosawa's self-description:
"I'm a filmmaker, and cinema is my real existence."
"Minus the movies, my life is probably zero."
Resources:
"The Oil of the Toad" by Akira Kurosawa
"Character Movie Master Akira Kurosawa" cctv10