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In the 1930s and 1940s, Chinese cinema was in its earliest golden age, and there was more than one master. At that time, Akira Kurosawa was still filming his debut film "Zi Sanshiro". Rashomon, which was recognized by the world, did not come out until 1950. Since then, with "Seven Samurai", "Chaos", "Shadow Samurai", etc., Akira Kurosawa has become the first director to break the monopoly of European and American films, enjoying an international reputation. In 1990, at the 62nd Academy Awards, Akira Kurosawa received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Akira Kurosawa was born on March 23, 1910. 88 years later, he passed away. He said, "Minus the movies, my life is probably zero." And his achievements in film are inseparable from the seven noble people in his life.
by Lan Chuan
Subtracting the movies, my life is probably zero.
This is the confession of the movie Emperor Akira Kurosawa.
Why is he called emperor? Originally due to Akira Kurosawa's violent temper. Every time he shoots a movie, he is 1.8 meters tall and always has obsessive-compulsive disorder about some details, and he is often furious about it, so the shooting staff gives him this title similar to the roaring emperor. Later, it gradually evolved into an affirmation of the high artistic value of its creation of films.
The emperor never lacked a shortage of people to worship.
Spielberg praised him for "Shakespeare in cinema" (and Akira Kurosawa also made "Chaos" to pay homage to King Lear and "Spider's Nest City" to pay homage to "Macbeth"); Martin Scorsese (director of "Infernal Walker" and "Wolf of Wall Street") threw away the film and crew he was working on and flew to Japan for two shots of Van Gogh in his film Dream; Francis Coppola (director of the Godfather series) said: "If you can make a movie with a master, I'd rather be an assistant, and that master is Akira Kurosawa. When Akira Kurosawa was struggling with the money to shoot Shadow Samurai, Coppola went around the world looking for investment; a young director had remade his film "The Big Bad", and the imitator named Soggio Lyon ended up becoming the king of Westerns (the director of Once Upon a Time in the West). Another Western director, Clint Eastwood, said: "He is the starting point of my film life. Zhang Yimou did not dare to meet him when he arrived in Japan, "In the kingdom of movies, I was just a small person at that time. ”
Akira Kurosawa with George Lucas (left) and Spielberg (right)
As the first Asian to win an Oscar for lifetime achievement, it's no exaggeration to say that Akira Kurosawa's films rekindled the world's interest in Asian cinema. However, no one would have thought that such an influential figure would be a crying ghost when he was a child.
Akira Kurosawa transferred schools in his second year, and when he first arrived, he was at odds with the new group. The students around them all wore bald heads, kimonos, long pants, clogs, and carry-on canvas bags. Only Akira Kurosawa has long hair, wears a suit, shorts, pedal shoes, and uses a leather school bag on his back.
Failure to integrate into the collective means exclusion.
Akira Kurosawa became the target of bullying, some pulling his hair, some stabbing him from behind in his leather backpack, some smearing his nose on his suit... Akira Kurosawa was made to cry N times and was given the nickname "Crispy Candy".
"Crispy candy" is equivalent to "crying ghost" and comes from a song from the time:
That "crisp candy" in my house, ah,
It's too embarrassing.
He went from morning to night,
Two tears do not dry.
How did "crisp sugar" transform into "emperor"?
In Akira Kurosawa's life, there are 7 people who have a deep influence on him and help him complete his transformation.
1.
Tiger father has no dogs, he should fight
Akira Kurosawa was born into a samurai family. When my father was very young, his hair was tied into a samurai bun, and when he became an adult, he often sat with his back to the niche, raising his sword in his left hand and gently rubbing talc powder on the body of the knife with his right hand. My father was very fond of calligraphy, and there were always calligraphy works hanging in the niches, one of which was a rubbing of the ancient Hanshan Temple inscription. Perhaps it is influenced by the style of the samurai family that Kurosawa Akira created many works with samurai themes, such as "Zi Sanshiro" and "Seven Samurai".
His father was strict with Akira Kurosawa, and he received a Spartan education from an early age. His father took him to the Ochiai Dojo to learn martial arts, and every morning, he wore clogs and walked on the avenue with the street lights still lit. The morning lessons at the dojo begin with a meditation, where you take off your clothes and change into a thin kendo suit. Even in winter, his father did not allow him to wear socks, his hands and feet were so cold that his hands and feet were sore, and his mother was so distressed that she let him soak his feet in hot water every day.
As time passed, his kendo also improved greatly, and he was promoted to vice general in the fifth grade.
● Teenager Akira Kurosawa
Teenager Akira Kurosawa
Once, on my way home from the Ochiai dojo, I passed a fish shop where seven or eight sixth-grade lepers gathered, armed with bamboo knives, sticks, and wooden sticks. The children had children's territory, and the one he passed was probably the territory of these little lepers. Of course, Akira Kurosawa, who considered himself a young swordsman, did not allow himself to be intimidated by this battle, and pretended to be calm and swaggering through. Unexpectedly, it did not go far, and the stones behind it flew one after another.
He wanted to escape, but Bamboo Knife would not agree. He took down the bamboo knife and pulled away, and the little leper saw the noisy waving of his hand and the guys flocked up.
Akira Kurosawa shook off his kendo suit wrapped around the bamboo sword, just like he usually practiced, shouting "Your face!" prothorax! hand! "The little lepers were beaten and fled, and they ran to the fish shop. He was about to catch up when the fish shop owner rushed out with a flat shoulder. At this time, Akira Kurosawa picked up the thick-toothed clogs that he had taken off during the big fight, and ran away with a cigarette.
He crossed a narrow alley, and jumped left and right to avoid the stinking gutters and decaying gutters in the hutongs. It wasn't until he ran out of the alley that he put the clogs on.
It is said that Akira Kurosawa's debut novel "Zi Sanshiro" was inspired by the handling of the thick-toothed clogs bridge section.
Clogs experienced ups and downs, and simply and clearly explained the time span of Zi Sanshiro's learning martial arts.
When he was in the third grade of Kurosawa Akira Junior High School, his father fostered him in to toyokawa Village, Akita Prefecture, in order to give him more experience. He spent his entire summer vacation in that deserted mountain village, living a life of "reading in the rain and in the sun".
Akira Kurosawa lived in his uncle's house, his uncle had died, and his uncle's eldest son, his cousin, became the head of the family. According to his father's letter, every sunny morning, his cousin asked him to bring enough rice and sauce and pickles for two people to eat twice, all of which were packed into a large food box, and an iron pot, and the duck seemed to have to drive Kurosawa out of the door, and there was already a sixth-grade elementary school student waiting outside the gate. In this case, if you want to eat some meat, you can only fish by yourself.
On rainy days, he doesn't have to go out and can read books.
When Kurosawa reached the age of 82, he was able to insist on filming "Sunset Love", which undoubtedly laid a solid physical foundation in his youth.
In addition, in an era when it was widely believed that movies would have a negative impact on their children, strictly so, the father took the initiative to take the whole family to the movies (then called "activity photography"), and insisted that movies were beneficial to their children's education. This also seems to point out the direction for Akira Kurosawa's future life.
Stills from "Sunset Love"
2.
My mother brought me a tough character
Akira Kurosawa's mother had incredible resilience.
Once the oil pot was on fire, and the mother held the oil pot that started the fire in both hands, and her hands burned, and her eyebrows and hair burned loudly, but she calmly carried the oil pot through the living room, put on the clogs, and took the oil pot to the center of the yard. Later, the doctor used forceps to peel off the blackened skin and apply the medicine. It was an unbearable sight, but the mother's expression did not change at all. For nearly a month, her bandaged mother did not cry out in pain.
And Akira Kurosawa inherited this toughness from her mother.
During the filming of The Seven Samurai, he stood in the mire for hours, so that his toes froze and could not be recovered for life.
3.
Myself and my brother are like positive films and negatives
Akira Kurosawa with his brother
Akira Kurosawa's older brother, Akira Kurosawa, played an important role in his childhood.
When he was bullied as a "crisp candy", his brother always arrived in time to scare off the lower grade bear children.
One summer, the brothers learned to swim. One day, his brother came to him with a small boat and beckoned him to board. When the boat reached the middle of the water, his brother suddenly pushed him off the boat. He rowed desperately to the boat, but every time he was about to get closer, his brother deliberately shook the boat away. After a few times, seeing that Kurosawa was about to drown, a pair of powerful hands lifted him up.
Afterwards, his brother bought him ice cold sweet beans, "Xiaoming, can't you swim?" ”
My brother is also very accomplished in movies, writing in Akira Kurosawa's autobiography The Oil of the Toad:
My brother's cultivation in movies can be said to be very high. On the other hand, he also has a lot of confidants in the film industry, plus he is young, as long as he wants to do it, he will definitely become famous in this field.
As a silent film narrator, his brother always recommended some excellent movies to him, and Kurosawa's film literacy was probably cultivated at that time.
His brother undoubtedly helped him grow. Later, Kurosawa Akira also said that he and his brother, just like positive films and negatives, it is precisely because of his brother's cultivation that he has such a positive film.
"Shadow Samurai" directed by Akira Kurosawa is more or less a tribute to the late brother, mixed with the complex emotions of being his brother's shadow.
4.
How far apart are brothers
Keinosuke Uekusa and Akira Kurosawa, who had deep roots from adolescence to their youth, grew up like two twisted vines.
Ueru is in his class and cries more than he does. Maybe it is the same disease, the two crying ghosts have a sense of closeness to each other, and treat each other warmly.
Like all children who love to play with their families, he and Uekusa Zibi Kiyoshi Nayan (by "Pillow Grass") and "Purple Style" (by "The Tale of Genji"). The two good brothers are inseparable, and when they fight with others, the weak Uekusa rushes to the front without a head; after changing the new class teacher, the new class teacher slanders Mr. Tachikawa's teaching methods and criticizes Kurosawa's drawing method in the painting class. On the way out of school, Uekusa accompanies Akira Kurosawa to curse the new teacher's unreasonableness.
Portrait from Kikuchi Ryozai's "Former Sages"
Later, Ueki changed schools, and the two broke contact.
We will meet each other.
A few years later, he saw Uekusa's name in an advertisement for Japanese Cinema, and the magazine published Uekusa's script "Mother's Map." Curiously, when he bought the magazine from the bookstore on Ginza Street, he had just left the store and unexpectedly encountered Uekusa, whose pocket contained Akira Kurosawa's script.
The friendship they cultivated as teenagers continued from this day.
5.
Not unprovoked confidence
Kuroda Elementary School
Kuroda Elementary School's head teacher, Mr. Seiji Tachikawa, gave Akira Kurosawa confidence.
At that time, the art class was dogmatic, only requiring students to copy the physical object according to common sense, the more like it was drawn, the higher the score, and the students generally drew according to the requirements.
However, Akira Kurosawa is not an ordinary person, and he will not go the usual path.
I don't remember what I drew anymore, but I remember very seriously, drawing hard, even if I broke the pencil. After applying the color, it is also wet with saliva and applied well, resulting in various colors on the hands.
Fortunately, he met Tachikawa-sensei, who not only did not criticize Kurosawa's freedom-advocating style. The mere fact that his fingers were dipped in saliva to color him was greatly appreciated, and he was praised for drawing large three-tiered circles for his paintings.
With this inspiration, Akira Kurosawa fell in love with painting. Later, he became obsessed with Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Utrilo, laying the foundation for painting. When "Shadow Samurai" could not start filming due to lack of funds, hundreds of hand-drawn sub-shot pictures were drawn, detailed to the demeanor of the characters, which not only recorded the inspiration in time, but also provided a reference for the actors' performances when filming began later.
Shadow Samurai is hand-drawn and stills
With the encouragement of Mr. Tachikawa, Kurosawa became angry and became the class president soon after, and his classmates began to change from calling him "crispy candy" to "little black".
Mr. Tachikawa always discovers the ability of students to sleep and not wake up.
In order to let Kurosawa's friend Yuki make progress together, he also deliberately promoted Ueki to be the deputy squad leader, "Let the bad guy be the deputy squad leader, he will definitely take it seriously." ”
Later, they really lived up to their teacher's kindness.
After the release of the film "Good Sunday", Akira Kurosawa received a postcard:
After the film "Good Sunday" was released, the theater lights came on. The audience all stood up, but there was an old man who was sitting still and sobbing... From the beginning of the opening subtitles, screenwriter Keinosuke Uekusa and director Akira Kurosawa began to roll in tears, and the screen was blurred.
Oh, yes! As a teacher, what can be more joyful and tearful than witnessing Tao Li Chengcai?
6.
"I only taught Himazawa Jun to drink"
Akira Kurosawa on the set
The one who really took him on the road of directing was a predecessor with a plank and an eye, Kajiro Yamamoto.
Entering Mr. Yamamoto's film crew was the beginning of Akira Kurosawa's life.
The wind at the top of the mountain finally blew in my face.
When I say wind at the top of the mountain, I mean people who have been walking the mountain trail for a long time, and when they reach the top of the mountain, they can feel the cool wind blowing in front of them. As soon as the wind blows on their faces, the climbers know that they are almost at the top of the mountain. He will stand on the top of these mountains, with a thousand miles of eyes and a panoramic view of all the scenery.
It was as if from this moment on, he crossed the hill and became a craftsman who studied movies.
Mr. Yamamoto not only taught him the qualities that a director should have, but also used his noble personality to impress the people around him all the time.
Sir is stern.
During the filming of "The Love of Fujishiro", Mr. Kurosawa handed over all the post-dubbing to Akira Kurosawa. After seeing the samples, the gentleman asked him to rework them all. He was very upset, after all, he had poured too much effort into it. In order to find out the error, he read it again and again, and finally handed over the work that satisfied mr. Li. In retrospect, he realized his husband's good intentions. Only by groping out mistakes by yourself can you thoroughly grasp the relationship between image and sound!
Sometimes, sir will be carefully advised.
When Akira Kurosawa adapted the script "Mizuno Shiro Zoemon", after reading it, Mr. Kurosawa criticized one of the paragraphs for being written poorly and personally revised it for him. It is not difficult to make criticisms, but if you can personally revise and improve them according to your own opinions after making criticisms, not everyone can do it.
Kakuaki (left) Yoshichi Taniguchi (Middle) Kazuki's father, Kajiro Yamamoto (right)
In daily life, Sir is an interesting person who knows how to have fun and educate.
On the way to shoot the location on the train, Mr. Yamamoto made a game with the assistant directors. The rules of the game are to set a theme and write a short shot script according to it. No one can beat Mr. Because the script written by Mr. is very interesting, such as the theme of "hot":
The scene is on the second floor selling beef and chicken vegetarian grilled.
The scorching summer sun burns the paper windows that have been closed. In the narrow room, a man sweating profusely and courting the waitress without wiping it.
The chicken roast pot next to it grunted, the soup was about to dry up, and the room smelled of beef.
In the editing room, Mr. Li became a murderer.
For redundant clips, Sir is "Cut! cut! cut! ”
He believes that film is the art of time, so it should be deleted without use, even if it cost a lot of sweat when it was first filmed. Because of the hard work behind each frame, the audience doesn't care, they only care about the moment it is presented on the screen. Of course, when shooting, I thought it was necessary to shoot, but when I took a look at it, I found that I didn't have to shoot at all, so I had to cut it decisively.
Sir does things like this with a board and an eye!
Until the time of his serious illness, mr. Li was still worried about the filming of "Delsu Uzara", "Assistant director of the Soviet side, how about it?" ”
Mr. Yishi passed on his mantle about film to Akira Kurosawa and taught him to be a human being. During his lifetime, he only wrote lightly in the magazine: "I only taught him to drink to Kurosawa Jun." ”
7.
Good actors and good directors achieve each other
Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune
The last one I want to write about is Mr. Toshiro Mifune, because without Mifune there would be no Kurosawa movies.
Mifune is an actor with explosive performances, and the relationship between Akira Kurosawa and Mifune is like that of a commander and a shogun. One is a strategic genius and the other is a tactical master. He gently shook the lupine in the long, but it was the three ships that really led the troops to charge.
Mifune always grasps his intentions and performs appropriately. Mifune's speed of entering the character is rare. For a scene, Mifune may only need to be filmed once, while other actors may need to shoot it three times.
For example, as Dr. Fujisaki in "The Duel at the Beginning of the Quiet Night": Mifune's previous roles were all rogues, but Dr. Fujisaki is an intellectual with a strong sense of ethics who is completely different from his previous role. Mifune's successful transformation, in the film, changes the past demeanor, from mental state to physical action, fully shows the tragic protagonist's distress. This talented performance is staggering.
Sometimes, Mifune also improvises to make the characters more vivid.
For example, play Kikuchiyo in "Seven Samurai": the samurai eat on the rock, Kikuchiyo has nothing to eat, so he has to catch fish. Kikuchiyo's entire movement into the river had to be done in one shot, so Mifune had to go naked, first with the fish in the water, and then put the fish into the water, making the appearance of just caught and overjoyed. In order to hide the fish, Mifune suddenly appeared and hid the fish in the crotch of the cloth.
Stills from The Seven Samurai
Before the filming of "Red Beard," which divided the two, Akira Kurosawa and Mifune had 16 films, most of which were famous films.
Mifune, like him, has dedicated his life to film. Until 1995, when Mifune was 75 years old, he still insisted on performing. Mifune's final role is that of a bedridden Japanese veteran in Kei Kumai's Deep River. At that time, Mifune's internal organ function had been completely eaten by the disease, but he still insisted on reciting his lines.
Akira Kurosawa was silent for a while, looked into the distance, and said to Teruyoshi Nogami, who had come to visit:
"Mifune is really good. If I saw Mifune, I would have praised him so much. ”
The two were afraid that their differences from many years ago had long since been relieved, but unfortunately, this sentence could not be delivered to Mifune's ears in the end.
Akira Kurosawa said: "Subtracting the movies, my life is probably zero." ”
I want to say that in Kurosawa's world, in addition to movies, there are these 7. Without any of them, his life would not be complete.
﹍
The copyright of this article belongs to New Classic Culture Co., Ltd
Welcome to forward the circle of friends, please contact the background / Editor of this issue: Lanchuan, Huanhuan
[Source "The Oil of the Toad" by Akira Kurosawa translated by Li Zhenglun, new classic production]
Unwilling to show weakness to others, he made unremitting efforts
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