Continuing my countdown of the last ten of 100 consecutive movie nights
Seven Samurai (1954) dir. Akira Kurosawa, starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, and many more! This is an astonishingly epic action movie that set the standard for the genre for decades to come. It is hard to fully appreciate how innovative it was when it came out, as so many aspects of it (plot points, characters, structure, camera and editing techniques) have since been borrowed and reused many, many times. The entire genre of the ‘spaghetti western’ is pretty much just a retread of this film.
The story will feel very familiar. A small farming village is periodically raided by bandits, so they hire a ragtag handful of ronin (samurai turned mercenary) to defend them. The warriors whip the peasants into shape as a fighting force, and most of the film is spent preparing for the big battle. There’s the calm, impeccably moral leader, the wide-eyed young pupil, the wizened village elder, the taciturn, supernaturally good warrior, the grimacing cowardly buffoon, and the undisciplined, goofy loose cannon who proves his worth. There are characters with secrets in their past, there’s a protective father with a beautiful daughter, there’s an illicit romance, there is distrust overcome by camaraderie, and the weak and cringing are transformed by discipline and example into the confident and brave. There’s shame, revenge, sacrifice, survival economics, and class warfare. There’s romance, tragedy, and comedy. The sheer number of elements and characters that Kurosawa piles on results in an insanely rich viewing experience.
It’s long, but the 207 minutes (!) is put to good use, as the director patiently reveals his multitude of characters and allows the camera to linger on scenes and situations that enrich our knowledge of each personality. Apparently Kurosawa wrote up full dossiers on every character, and created family trees and histories for the entire village, and it certainly pays off, as every face in the crowd feels like a real, rounded character. By the end of the movie the viewer has grown inordinately fond of a great many of the characters, some who fall and some who survive.
It is also due to Kurosawa’s patient set up that throughout the fighting – which occurs in several spots around the periphery and in the centre of the village – I always knew what I was looking at and what was happening. Most directors just edit confusion and noise together to give a general feel of the fight, but here the geography was always clear.
The battle itself lasts several days and is brutal, with moments of savagery that are less than noble. The violence is performed simply, not lingered over and made beautiful. There are slow-motion shots but they are used for suspense, most commonly that “killed but taking a moment to fall” effect. The actual sword slices and spear thrusts are not slowed down and beautifully lit as in many subsequent films. In fact some of the more violent moments – killing captives begging for their lives, for example – are not even shown onscreen. And as in the best westerns, the mood when battle is over is not jubilation but sadness and exhaustion.
Seven Samurai is indeed a film of multitudes. Kurosawa blew both his budget and his schedule, terrifying his studio (they shut down production several times in protest)*, but the end result is a masterful feast of a film that will reward multiple viewings.
*Considering the other major production the Toho Company released that year was Godzilla, I think they were able to recoup whatever expenses Kurosawa ran up.
