Going into this unit I wasn't sure I would enjoy watching these foreign films where I would have to read subtitles all the time and not understand exactly what being a Samurai was all about. After seeing Stray Dog I wasn't really looking forward to watching Yojimbo because I really thought the plot was very dull in Stray Dog and didn't see how this was going to be any different. After watching Yojimbo however I was pleasantly surprised to find a movie that I could really get into and actually care about what happens to the characters. The plot was 100 times better than the previous and I have now gained respect for Kurosawa's work. For this blog post I want to comment on one of the scenes from Yojimbo that really stuck out to me and I felt was a very interesting way to start a movie.
The scene that I want to comment on was the opening scene of the movie that involved a tracking shot of a Samurai walking down a dusty road. We don't know who the Samurai is and Kurosawa doesn't show us his face until later. Throughout this shot Kurosawa focuses on the back of Sanjuro's head and back while not letting us see his face or the expression he has on it. I thought that this was really a memorable scene in the movie because it showed us a mysterious main character that we would learn about throughout the film. By not starting off by showing everything, I was more drawn to Sanjaro as this scene seemed to have given his character a lot more importance.
I also enjoyed the battle scenes in Ran where we would see many men all in the same field on horses or feet. I really appreciated these types of scenes in the movie because after watching a lot of today's movies that involve big battles, ie. Lord of the Rings, I get tired of seeing computer generated people instead of actual men fighting. I think the way that Kurosawa did his battle scenes in Ran took a lot of planning and patience to be able to get them right and show us something really special. Just knowing that everything was actual actors instead of CGI characters made this movie's battle scenes in my mind better than those of Lord of the Rings or any other movie that uses CGI people (which I can't stand anyway).
Overall I can't say that I love all of big K's work and want to see a ton more of his films, but have come to respect his work and the movies that he was able to make with the technology he had at that time. It seems like he was a director that really cared what he produced and wanted everything to look as good as they could make it before releasing a movie - and this is what I think is needed most in becoming a great director of all time.
5 comments:
I agree with your point that Ran was better off not using computer generated images than it would have been if it had used them. Movies are sometimes better off without special effects. For example, the old Star Wars movies were much better than the new ones because the new ones over used special effects making the characters look fake. Many directors these days, with an abudance of technology at their disposal, tend to over use special effects bringing the level of realism in their movies down.
I love the fact that Ran was very realistic in the battle scenes. I really enjoyed seeing men falling off horses without seeing a cut inbetween every shot. Kurosawa did a really smart thing by makeing this film a realistic film rather than a fake film. I do wonder why Akira Kurosawa used so much blood?
P.S. what the hell is with Big K. The guys old not fat!
Wow Rachko, after seeing you not know your left and rights on a lightswitch, that was a remarkably good post!
The initial scene that you mentioned was a very very neat scene in my mind. Any time a 8.5 minute shot makes it into a full length A-list movie, its gotta be legitimately dominant. Also, the computer animation that you talked about is something that is overused nowadays and i loved to see the authentic stuff in Ran. good job rachko
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