Kurosawa- Intent and Interpretations..
I was reading this article by Kartik, a very detailed review of Akira Kurosawa’s Ran. It drew to a closure with the following query..
//Why can’t we have a similar adaptation of King Lear in bollywood, given India’s history of kings and sultans??? //
At the risk of sounding outlandish, I dont think it works that way. I find that statement to be a lame end to a nice analysis of an unquestionable masterpiece.
Kurosawa all through his life based his films based on two principles
1)The story is just a pretext to convey something interesting.
2)Plots are merely excuses to alter cinema the way a director wishes to see it..
For Kurosawa, King Lear was just incidental to the strides he wished to make while making RAN.
Like he had always maintained… “My films essentially ask the same question.. WHY CANT PEOPLE BE HAPPIER TOGETHER?”
Ran, probably adresses that question in the most perceptible manner of all his films..
I think it wud therefore be belittling Ran to hold it as a reference for further remakes just based on its historical facets…
Also, there is this great, convoluted effort that persists among students of cinema to classify Kurosawa as a technically sound director. Yes, technically he wud have to be like one of the most adventurous directors ever.
A few glorious examples that come to mind being:
a)Shooting directly into the sun( Rashomon)
b)Slow-motion techniques, Wide-angle shots
3)The post-battle sequence in Ran where there is no external sound, but just a melancholic background score( Kurosawa had once said that, that music was symbolic of “The weeping Gods” in response to war)
But, again the classification doesnt do justice to Kurosawa’s intents. What Kurosawa attempted to do all his life was to make movies beautiful. So when you see the woodcutter in Rashomon walk into the forest and suddenly there emerges this shot of the blazing sun, we are enamoured immediately by the beauty of that shot composition. Technique merely becomes a tool to attain that beauty. And because, his intentions were so prystine, the various techniques that he adopted over all his films never really conflicted with his story-telling. They all just amalgamated and blended into his narratives to enhance its presentation.
Kurosawa, rephrasing myself again, felt strongly for two things..
1) A striking reason behind telling a story
2) A deep desire to make movies more beautiful…
Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, John Ford, Tolstoy were all mere instruments he used to get to his ultimate goal. That of making beautiful movies, enriched by a thought or an appendage to that one question he asked all his life.. “Why cant people be happier together?”
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Great piece my friend!
very correct…just to classify Kurosawa as a technically sound director would be doing injustice to the man who i think is one of the best directors in world cinema ever….the battle sequences in “ran” were like watching a choreography along with mahler’s music in the background it created an awesome atmosphere…..”throne of blood” is another prime example….
You don’t sound outlandish. You make perfect sense.
Why can
‘Indian moviegoer is the biggest Sucker. ‘
the day u mature , u’l admit U r the biggest sucker