There are indeed a number of exhibit catalogues and other publications which have reprints of Kurosawa’s drawings and paintings. Your comment reminded me that I should perhaps look into what exactly contains what. The Japanese book “Akira Kurosawa – Complete Drawings” is probably still the ultimate collection, but some of the smaller ones are quite impressive too, and certainly cheaper.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/kurosawa-akira-ato-ten-akira-kurosawa-drawings/oclc/70859910

I actually tried to find Niogret’s book when last in Paris, but alas with no results. If you want to give French Kurosawa criticism a try though, Le cinema d’Akira Kurosawa by Alain Bonfand is quite nice.

The Truth about Star Wars by Christian Adams is quite roughly treated by the two people who reviewed it – looks like it might be self published?

For Italian speakers there is Akira Kurosawa by Aldo Tassone.

Out of Asia by Bert Cardullo.

And in French: Kurosawa by Hubert Niogret

The Cardullo book looks the most interesting of those (I don’t have any Italian, and I doubt my French is up to standard for reading film criticism).

So, temperamentally, we have the quiet guy who sees a lot and has real insight, but smiles wistfully and takes another sip of saki-and the guy who is oversized, with an agressive, emphatic style who does not comfortably conclude…he takes a sip of whiskey, but it’s not over!

Thats a lovely way to visualise the pair of them! I agree with you a lot, although I do think that Ozu was a little more calculating than he has been given credit – by which I mean the prevailing sense of wistfulness in his films does allow us to overlook the way he slants his arguments in favour of his lovable old patriarchs. Isn’t it odd though that a man who lived his whole life with his mother was so perceptive about extended families? I think you are quite right about Kurosawa – I think he was always deliberately creating difficulties for himself, just for the challenge of finding his way out of the moral conundrums he sticks his characters in. I love the fact that there is never a clear direction for his films or characters, unlike Ozu or Mizoguchi who always knew exactly where they were going.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the frequent criticism of Kurosawa’s works (one I shared in the past), that his films are excessively didactic is a false one. I see him more as repeatedly laying out arguments, sometimes for the sake of demolishing them himself.

And, that’s what makes him so very interesting. The thing I love most about Kurosawa’s work is that I still wonder about so many loose ends…! It’s as if he has a fake “that’s that!” and has his characters say as much, when you still think “What? That’s not the end of this! What about…?”

Again, this passage of yours, Ugetsu, is brilliant:

That he fails to offer us solutions is not a failure, it is the result his refusal to take the intellectually easy options of blanket condemnation, satire or romanticism. This to me is why his films are so endlessly fascinating.

Does he ever fall short of problematizing the argument? That may be when he is less successful. We had very little discussion of Dersu Uzala, and I guess it is because it is a bit didactic, elegaic, romantic and retro in that it mourns the passing of one time without problematizing that sadness. I think it is a beautiful poem of a film. Mellen called it a love story between two men- and, it does have that-(and, even if some folks snigger at the language, calling a film a “love story”-it is a genuine, true human expression of respect, value, and caring) but it is mostly about the feeling of loss of wilderness-the land and the heart of man. So, for me it is beautiful, although not very tricky.

Ozu is generally understood to be the master of the family drama. He can create a world that feels extraordinarily real!

Passing Fancy and I Was Born, But… bring us into the world of children’s relationships with adults in a compelling way that illuminates long-suppressed memories and emotions. Absolutely stellar filmmaking. I think, perhaps,that Ozu is also discussing, in these two films, hierarchies of power that have feudal connotations-what is it to trade one’s shogun for one’s boss…? (Well, first of all, you are no longer a samurai once you are in the office!)

Although never explicity stated by Ozu, there is a functional criticism in his films of the feudal hierarchies that exist without the moral structures present to reign in the abuses and loss of honor that occur when there are weak and strong. However, Ozu’s response is sad acceptance-while Kurosawa’s is heated debate, and a search for solutions. So, temperamentally, we have the quiet guy who sees a lot and has real insight, but smiles wistfully and takes another sip of saki-and the guy who is oversized, with an agressive, emphatic style who does not comfortably conclude…he takes a sip of whiskey, but it’s not over!

I see these two filmmakers in an “auteur” light-both of them making works from centers within themselves-exhibiting so much of who they are as people, and I love them both.

must see Naruse after what you have written, Ugetsu. I love Kawabata, and The Sound of the Mountain is a haunting favorite read of mine. I will check my NETFLIX que and see if anything is available. (I’ve been meaning to watch a Tarkovsky flick for more than a month! That red envelope with the disc mocks me! Just a very busy time, here).

The book is very good, although for some odd reason when reading it I kept thinking it was very similar to the Irish genre of ‘older men looking back on their life’ type books as written by writers like McGahern, Banville and Tobin, books that I admire for their style but I find a bit tiresomely navel gazing sometimes. The reason I think the film is better is that instead of focusing on the old man, it brings out the other characters, particularly his daughter in law, and examines then as essentially two very similar people – both essentially seeing themselves as morally superior to the family around them, and engaging in a sort of passive-aggressive war with everyone else. It is very beautifully done.

Even while Kurosawa rails against feudalism in favor of the individual, he can’t help but hold the samurai ideals as the highest kind of good. Seven Samurai might be Kurosawa’s sigh of sadness at the loss of those examples of moral excellence.

Well, I think you’ve put your finger on why Mellen (and I agree with her) considers Kurosawa to be the greatest of Japanese film makers (she doesn’t say it explicitly, but it is implicit in what she writes). As she notes, many film makers, from Mizoguchi in the 1930’s to the more radical later film makers like Oshima criticise Japanese society incisively and intelligently, and others like Ichikawa satirise it successfully, but only Kurosawa seems to really want to tackle in depth what is both good and bad about Japanese society and to try (even if unsuccessfully) to find some practical way out of the hole it has dug itself.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the frequent criticism of Kurosawa’s works (one I shared in the past), that his films are excessively didactic is a false one. I see him more as repeatedly laying out arguments, sometimes for the sake of demolishing them himself. It is those film makers who manipulate characters to ‘prove’ their analyses of Japanese society that are being didactic (even if very subtly so, in the case of Ozu and Mizoguchi). There is a constant struggle in his film to understand what is motivating his characters, why they are doing things and how they can improve themselves and the lives around them. In contrast, every other Japanese film maker seems content to just condemn in a blanket manner all of the structures of Japanese society in a manner that too often reminds me of a student radical, appeasing his own ego by shouting out slogans. I think Ozu, in his gentle manner, comes closest to actually looking at how families (and by extension society) can work, but of course he expresses it in a deeply conservative manner that is almost certainly impracticable in a modern world. Mizoguchi is content just to point out how lousy everything is, but never lets his characters find a way out. Oshima and Immamura want to destroy everything, but offer nothing more than simple minded romanticism (a return to some idyllic ‘real’ Japan or left wing sloganising) as an alternative.

Seven Samurai sums it all up for me. Kurosawa without hesitation identifies the crucial flaws in a feudal, militaristic society. But rather than take the simple option and condemn it, he also admires its positive aspects and presents to use the reality of human nature and Japanese society, and leaves it to us, the audience to try to come up with real solutions. That he fails to offer us solutions is not a failure, it is the result his refusal to take the intellectually easy options of blanket condemnation, satire or romanticism. This to me is why his films are so endlessly fascinating.

…”But if there is a good side to economic disaster, I think the breaking of the zaibatsu and the other traditional economic structures is one of them. The problem of course is that they haven’t really found a model to replace it.”

And, that’s really the story, isn’t it ? (all of us smug Western folk, pay attention-this goes for us, too!) It’s all about the search for a structure to replace outmoded, broken or inherently flawed structures (Mellen would say “feudal” structures).

The fascinating thing forme is the degree of nostalgia for elements of the feudal as exhibited in Kurosawa, and certainly, Ozu. Even while Kurosawa rails against feudalism in favor of the individual, he can’t help but hold the samurai ideals as the highest kind of good. Seven Samurai might be Kurosawa’s sigh of sadness at the loss of those examples of moral excellence.

One big reason for the appeal of Seven Samurai in the West must be the romantic/nostalgic one-two punch it delivers…and the sense of loss is trans-cultural. In the U.S. we’ve lost our relationship to the earth and our adventure to the west. So, loss plays a huge role in our unconscious attitudes.

I’ve always thought we were inheritors of the bankrupt Romantic tradition. Mono-no-aware is not exculsive to Japan.

I must see Naruse after what you have written, Ugetsu. I love Kawabata, and The Sound of the Mountain is a haunting favorite read of mine. I will check my NETFLIX que and see if anything is available. (I’ve been meaning to watch a Tarkovsky flick for more than a month! That red envelope with the disc mocks me! Just a very busy time, here).