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On September 6, 1998, the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, who was praised by Stephen Spielberg as the "Shakespeare of the film world", passed away, and his masterpieces "Rashomon", "Seven Samurai", "DartMan", "Heaven and Hell", "Desuuzara", "Shadow Warrior", "Chaos" and other works with world influence are all works with world influence.
The director, who has directed more than 30 films in his lifetime, won an Oscar lifetime achievement award, and made a significant contribution to the internationalization of Japanese cinema, said in his autobiography "The Oil of the Toad" written in 1978: "I am just a person who does not want to show weakness to others, does not want to lose to others, and therefore works tirelessly." ”
There is a story in Japanese folklore that in the deep mountains, there is a special kind of toad, which is not only uglier in appearance than its kind, but also has several extra legs. When people catch it and place it in front of a mirror or in a glass box, the toad can't help but be frightened out of its oil when it sees its ugly appearance. This oil is also a precious medicinal material used by the folk to treat burns and burns. Looking back on the past in his later years, Akira Kurosawa described himself as a toad standing in front of the mirror, and found himself in his past, scaring out a body of oil...
Akira Kurosawa paints "Chaos" storyboard
Laugh out loud at your sister's funeral
The one who often plays with me is the little sister. I vividly remember when I was in kindergarten, when my sister and I were playing at the school in Omori where my father worked. It was a hook-shaped clearing. One day, a whirlwind blew and blew us off the ground. The two of us hugged each other quickly, and in an instant it fell, and I cried and grabbed my sister's hand and ran home.
My sister, when I was in the fourth grade of elementary school, got sick and went to another world like she was suddenly blown away by a whirlwind.
I can't forget the bleak smile of my sister in the hospital bed when I went to see her at The Hospital. I can't forget the joyful atmosphere when I spent the Puppet Festival with this sister.
My family has old costumed court puppets, including Miyagi, Goraku, Urashima Taro, and female officials with pugs. There are also two pairs of gold screens, two paper-covered wax lamps, five sets of small tables painted with gold, and on the small table are complete sets of small bowls of gold paint, and even a silver hand stove that is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
We turned off the lights, and in the dimly lit room, by the soft light of the wax lamps of the paper cover, we looked at the court puppets on the five-tiered altar covered with scarlet blankets, as if they were about to speak, so vivid and beautiful that I was even a little frightened by it.
The little sister beckoned me to sit in front of the doll's altar, put a small table for me, let me roast my hands on the small hand stove, and drink sweet wine in a glass the size of a thumb nail.
The little sister was the most beautiful of the three sisters, and the femininity was too much. There was a crystal-like transparent, weak, mournful beauty in her body. When his brother was seriously injured, he cried that she was willing to die for him.
Even now when I write about her, I can't help but burst into tears.
On the day of the funeral for my sister, my whole family and relatives sat on our knees in the main hall of the temple to listen to the monk chanting. When the sound of chanting, wooden fish and gongs reached its climax, I suddenly burst out laughing.
Despite the glare of the parents and sisters, the laughter could not be stopped.
My brother took me outside the temple.
I understood that He had brought me out to reprimand me. Yet he was not angry. I thought he was going to leave me outside and go back to the main hall, but that wasn't the case. He just looked back at the main hall in the climax of the chanting.
"Bob, go over there!" He dropped this sentence and left the stone-paved road and walked outside. I followed him closely.
The brother strode and said, "The monks really toss and turn!" ”
I was happy.
The reason why I laughed out loud was not to laugh at the monks, but just to find it ridiculous and I couldn't control it. However, I felt comfortable listening to my brother's words. At the same time, I was also thinking, I laughed out loud, and the little sister would be happy.
My sister only lived to be sixteen years old.
I myself thought it strange, but I remember it clearly, her legal name was: Taolin Sadamitsu Shinnu.
Akira Kurosawa
"Shadow Warrior" storyboard
Purple Style Department and Qing Shao Na Yan
(Editor's note: Purple Style Department, Kiyoshi Nayan, and Izumi Style Department are also known as the three talented women of The Heian Period in Japan, the representative work of the Purple Style Department is "The Tale of Genji", and the representative work of Kiyoshi Nayan is the essay collection "Pillow Grass".) ）
Before I wrote this autobiographical thing, I used to talk to Keinosuke Uekusa. At that time, Ueki said such a passage.
He said that on the ramp in front of Kuroda Elementary School, Hattori Saka, I once said to him, "You are the Purple Division, and I am Kiyosho Nayan." ”
I have no memory.
First of all, it is impossible for elementary school students to have read The Tale of Genji or Pillow Grass.
When I think about it, I probably went to Tachikawa's house to study, and the teacher talked a lot about Japanese classical literature.
Even so, it was probably after I came out of my calligraphy teacher that I happily studied with Mr. Tachibana with Uekusa who was waiting for me here, and then we said goodbye together on the ramp from The Dendo-in Temple to the EdoGawa River, not Hattori Saka.
In any case, comparing yourself to the Purple Style Department and Qing Shao Nayan is really ignorant and absurd. But it is understandable to have such a childish idea. Because at that time, Uerakusa loved to write the composition with a storyline, and it was quite long, I only wrote a short impression.
All in all, at that time, my friend seemed to be the only one who planted grass. I was always with him, but the lives of our two families were very different.
The grass planter is a merchant's style, and my family is a warrior's style. When they talked about the old things, what he said was completely different from what I said.
What Uekusa said was that when he was a child, he saw her white legs and belly from under the hem of his mother's clothes, which left a strong impression on him; the head of the girls' class in the same grade, the most beautiful girl in the school, lived near Otaki in the EdoGawa River, what was her name, seemed to like little black you, and so on. But I have no memory of that.
What I remember most clearly is that I have made great progress in kendo, and I was promoted to vice general in the fifth grade. In order to reward me, my father bought me a pair of black chest kendo utensils. During the game, I used the "anti-chopping" trick to beat five people in a row. The owner of the other side that I defeated at that time would be the small boss of the dyeing workshop, and when I was inseparable from him, I smelled a strong smell of blue indigo. In short, all I remember is the things that I once had a great deal of power.
...... This "Purple Shibu" did not write the Tale of Genji, and I thought it was a great blessing for the Hikari clan.
In the sixth grade of elementary school, Uekusa, who considered himself a purple style, wrote a long essay, but I became the head of the kendo group, whom he called Kiyoshi Nayan.
Akira Kurosawa paints "Chaos" storyboarding the protection of the mother, the sadness of the father
Even in winter, my father would not allow me to wear socks. Therefore, every winter, the hands and feet are frostbitten. The crack made me cry out in pain. My mother felt sorry for me and took good care of me, soaking my hands and feet with hot water every day.
Her mother is a typical Meiji-era woman, but also the wife of a typical samurai. (Later, when I read Yamamoto's "Japanese Women's Path", I was very touched by the fact that one of the characters had exactly the same deeds as my mother's.) But my mother always wanted to protect me behind my father's back and take a laissez-faire attitude towards me.
As I write about these things, the reader may think that I am not interested in writing didactic beauty talk, but this is not the case. When I write about my mother, I naturally think of these things. Everything my mother did for me was also spontaneous and spontaneous.
I think both parents are the opposite of appearance, in fact the father is more sentimental, and the mother is very realistic.
During the war, my father and mother were evacuated to their hometown in the countryside of Akita Prefecture, and I visited two elderly people in Akita.
That was when I was about to leave them and return to Tokyo. I thought, maybe I'll never see my parents again... I came out of the house, and in front of me was a straight road, and I looked at my parents who sent me out.
At that time, I saw that my mother would soon return, while my father stood by the door for a long time until I walked out of the way. When I looked back and saw that he was only a little bit the size of the shadow, he was still standing there looking at me for a long time.
Akira Kurosawa paints a gloomy negative and a positive film of the sun
My brother used to say, "I'm going to die before I'm thirty, and when I'm thirty years old, I can only become ugly." He said this almost like a mantra. My brother was convinced of Russian literature, and especially promoted Alchibassev's "Desperate Situation" as the highest level of literature in the world, always at hand. The words of the brother's foretold suicide, I think he was confused by the strange gospel of death spoken by naumov, the protagonist of "Desperate Situation", were nothing more than the exaggerated feelings of the literary youth.
So, my worries about my mother were in a fit of laughter.
"The more he can't move, the more he can't die." I answered her with such extremely shallow words.
A few months after I said this, my brother died.
Sure enough, as he often said, he committed suicide at the age of twenty-seven before the age of thirty.
My brother invited me to dinner three days before committing suicide.
Strangely enough, I couldn't remember where I had eaten the meal, probably because my brother's death had taken too much of a toll on me. I remembered my brother's tips that day, but I couldn't remember anything else.
My brother and I broke up at Shin-Okubo Station. My brother said, you take a taxi home, and when you're done, go up the steps of the station. So I got into a taxi.
The car was just about to leave, and my brother ran down the steps to stop the car. I got out of the car, stood in front of him and asked, "What's the matter?" ”
My brother looked at me intently for a moment and said, "Nothing, okay!" ”
After saying that, he went up the steps again.
By the time I saw my brother again, it was a corpse covered in blood.
...... Later, when I entered the film industry as the first assistant director of Composition Class (directed by Kajiro Yamamoto), Tokugawa Yumeto, who starred in the film, looked at me carefully and said, "You look exactly like your brother." However, your brother is the negative, you are the positive. ”
I understand Tokugawa's words to mean that it is precisely because of your brother that there is a younger brother like you. But later, according to him, what he meant by that was that my brother looked the same as me, but there was a gloomy atmosphere on his face, and the same was true in personality, and I, regardless of my expression and personality, was bright and masculine.
Keinosuke Uekusa also said that my personality is similar to that of sunflowers, and I have a phototropic nature. So, I thought Tokugawa was right. But I think it is precisely because of my brother's negatives, and it is precisely because of his cultivation that I have such a positive film.
Akira Kurosawa painted "Rhapsody in August" after the split shot after marriage, he was in tears because of his livelihood
Our married life seems to be a very difficult thing for my wife.
My wife stopped working as an actress because she got married, but my salary was less than a third of hers. She never seemed to have dreamed that the director's salary would be so low and life would be so hard.
The script fee for "Zi Sanshiro" was given one hundred yuan, and the director fee was one hundred yuan. Later, the fees for the contribution and director of "The Most Beautiful" and "Zi Sansi Lang Continued" were increased by fifty yuan each, but most of them were used for the liquor when they were on location, and of course their lives were very poor.
When filming "Zi Sanshiro", the company and I officially signed a director's contract. That is to say, I was an employee of the company for a period of time, but according to the regulations, I will be counted as a retired employee from now on. In order to reward the staff member for his or her meritorious service, a severance payment shall be paid. However, when I applied for a severance payment, the company said that for the sake of my future life, the money must be deposited in the company and will not be paid.
This severance payment has not been given to me to this day.
Is it really for me to save for my future life? I owe a lot of money to Toho, probably because I want to take this money to top the account.
In short, the severance payment was not available, and soon after the new marriage, we worried about our livelihood. So, there's no other way but to write a script to make money.
To this end, I once wrote three screenplays at the same time.
Probably because I was young enough to do this, but I was also exhausted at that time. On the night that the three scripts were written, I drank wine and couldn't help but cry like rain.
Akira Kurosawa painted the storyboard Rashomon of "Sunset Love": Even if people die, they will not give up their decorations
The story takes place in the summer, and the actual shooting is also in the summer, so Kyoto and Nara were chosen.
There is no one or no shortage of various conditions, and it can be said that everything is ready.
Only until I made up my mind to start shooting.
One day before filming started, three assistant directors arranged for me by Daying came to the hotel to meet me. I didn't know what I meant, but when I asked, I knew that they still couldn't understand what the script was trying to illustrate, so they came to ask me to explain it.
I said, read it well and you'll understand it. I think I wrote it very clearly, and I hope you will read it more carefully. I said so, but they still wouldn't go. They said, "We've really put in the effort to read it, but we still don't understand it, so that's why we came to visit you." "Repeatedly asked me to explain the script to them.
I gave a brief explanation.
I said, "People don't tell the truth about their own affairs, and when they talk about their own affairs, they can't talk about themselves without being embellished." This script describes the nature of people who cannot live without false decoration. It can even be said that even if a person dies, he will not give up the decoration, which shows how deep his sins are. It is a wonderful picture that depicts man's innate sins and his immutable nature, and shows man's egoism. You say that you still don't understand the script, because the human heart it depicts is the most incomprehensible. If the focus is on the incomprehensible point of the human heart, then I think the script is easy to understand. ”
After listening to my explanation, two of the three assistant directors understood, and they said that they would re-read the script and quit. The remaining assistant director still seemed unable to understand and went back with a sullen face.
Later, I couldn't get along with this assistant director, so I had to ask him to find another high, which is a pity now.
...... The gods and Buddhas opened their eyes and took care of me again.
I didn't even know that Rashomon was at the Venice Film Festival.
This is entirely the result of the Italian filmmaker Ms. Stramigé, who has seen Rashomon, understood the film, and thus paid attention to it, which is purely a sudden shock for the Japanese film industry.
...... At that time, when the television station broadcast the work, it also broadcast a video interview with the manager of the company that produced the work. I listened to the manager's conversation and couldn't help but be dumbfounded.
When he first wanted to shoot this work, he was so difficult, after watching the sample film, he was so angry, he said he did not understand what the film was trying to say, and even demoted the directors and producers who approved and presided over the film. However, when the TV reporter interviewed him, he actually said with his face that everything was because of his promotion that this work was made. He even said that movies used to be shot behind the sun, which is within the scope of common sense, but this work is the first time he let the film crew shoot at the sun. I recorded the achievements of others in my own merit book, and never mentioned the names of me and the photographer Miyagawa Jun.
I watched the TV interview and thought, this is the real Rashomon!
At that time, I had a direct feeling that a sad aspect of human nature described in "Rashomon" appeared in front of my eyes.
It is difficult for people to talk truthfully about themselves.
People always instinctively beautify themselves – and I have a deeper understanding of this. But I can't laugh at the manager.
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This article is published by the new classic collation / editor: Li Xuan
Text source: "The Oil of the Toad", Akira Kurosawa (author), a new classic production
Image source: ARTIST DATABASE