Madadayo (1993)

Madadayo 1993

Madadayo (1993) is Akira Kurosawa’s last film. That is the most important aspect of the movie. After 49 years and 29 films, this 30ith film was the end. Few artists have an as thematically appropriate final work as Madadayo. One can look at Kurosawa’s entire body of work as one singular artistic expression. He completed his masterpiece about humanity with Ran. With that accomplishment achieved, he turned inward to examine his own thoughts, fears and hopes in Dreams. He returned to his roots by making a social issue film about his homeland with Rhapsody in August. After these films what could he make that would feel in keeping with his body of work, but not feel like a pale retread? He made an ode to the most important quality he had as an artist, his almost greedy drive for the new and a refusal to admit defeat. What it represents is fascinating. It doesn’t even really matter about the quality of the film itself.

Rhapsody in August (1991)

Rhapsody in August (1991)

Rhapsody in August (1991) is a film about the atomic bomb, and how it’s affected humanity. It’s not about the politics of dropping the bomb or about World War II. It’s about the threat the bomb poses to us as a species. It’s also about a family that’s composed of three generations spanning three periods of Japan’s history. This is Kurosawa’s first realistic film with a contemporary setting since the 1960s with High and Low. It’s not a particularly convincing depiction of the 1990s, but it’s not a film about the present, but about the shadow of the past with the atomic bomb and in a way Kurosawa’s own past. He was a survivor of World War II who saw his country pass him by and move away from his values and concerns.

Dreams (1990)

Dreams

Dreams (1990) is Akira Kurosawa’s last great film. Kurosawa had completed a masterpiece in Ran that was not only a hit, but also re-established him as a major figure of cinema worldwide. So how does he follow his greatest success in decades? He makes something completely unlike anything he had done before. Even at 80 he was still striving to do new things. This is an anthology film based on Kurosawa’s dreams. These eight short sections range from nightmares, personal fantasies and larger hopes for society. All of them have a fantastical element so not only was this a chance to break away from liner narrative structure, it was also a chance to stretch himself in content.

Ran (1985)

Ran

Ran (1985) is Akira Kurosawa’s late period masterpiece. The late period work of artists whose careers span decades is not judged independent of their journey. To be respected the artist must follow their own muse at this point. For example, Bob Dylan’s album “Tempest” is definitely an album worthy of its existence. It follows themes he’d explored for years, not conforming to popular tastes, but no one expects it to be in the same league as the work he did in his prime during the 60s and 70s in terms of accessibility, energy, inventiveness, clarity and overall quality. Ran is as good as any film Kurosawa ever made. He made it at 75. It has the craft and wisdom of a life fully lived with the passion and accessibility usually associated with a younger man’s work.

Kagemusha (1980)

Kagemusha

Kagemusha (1980) was envisioned as Akira Kurosawa’s comeback. Kurosawa’s work in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s had an international reach and proved particularly popular in America. The young people watching his movies as imports ended up in the ‘70’s reinventing the industry with films heavily influenced by Kurosawa. By the late ‘70’s Kurosawa was over a decade into his involuntary exile from the Japanese studio system. He managed to make a movie every five years, but he could never get the big scale projects he dreamed of making funded. This is when two of those successful young American directors decided to pay back their teacher. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas (whose Star Wars owes a large, well documented debt to Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress) funded Kagemusha. The story was something Kurosawa wanted to make since World War II, but couldn’t due to lack of horses. It was the largest production he had ever undertook, it’s deeply felt, it fully develops themes Kurosawa had been exploring for decades and it was a financial and critical success. Still it is frequently overshadowed by a later film, which was more popular, more prestigious and an overall better film, Ran.

Dersu Uzala (1975)

Dersu Uzala

Dersu Uzala (1975) was only able to come about due to Akira Kurosawa’s popularity abroad and unpopularity in Japan. After the blow Dodes’ka-Den dealt his professional and personal life, Kurosawa was devastated. It took Russian financiers to get another movie funded. It was his only film made outside of Japan. Working in extreme weather conditions with a cast he did not share a language with, he made his most financially successful film in a decade. It played widely around the world, even winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Langue Film. Yet it’s success did not lead to more funding. Dersu Uzala is a strange film partially because it doesn’t fit into the standard narrative of Kurosawa’s later career, where after Red Beard he was forced into obscurity until young American directors brought him into prominence leading Kurosawa to his late triumph of Ran. Dersu Uzala had mainstream visibility and did well, but it stands alone.

Dodes’ka-Den (1970)

Dodes’ka-Den (1970) is a strange film. It’s strange for Akira Kurosawa, but it would also be an odd, eccentric film from anyone. It’s an ensemble-anthology-comedy set in a trash dump. It was a huge gamble for Kurosawa, but at this point in his career anything he did was a gamble. After the financial disaster of Red Beard he was seen as a huge liability and he couldn’t get funding anywhere in Japan.   He spent years trying to get American projects off the ground (Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Runaway Train both of which were ultimately made by other directors) but for whatever reasons they fell through. It took him five years to get another film made, and he had to create a small production company with the directors Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi, and Kon Ichiwara to raise the budget. He filmed it cheap and in color, but he didn’t play it safe with subject matter. He continued to experiment and push himself as an artist even when it was financially a terrible idea.

Red Beard (1965)

Red Beard

Red Beard (1965) is the culmination of Akira Kurosawa’s work up until that point. It’s Kurosawa’s attempt to make his definitive statement on the human condition, specifically pain and kindness. It takes all the moral lessons of his earlier films and evolves them into a cohesive philosophy. Kurosawa’s obsessive filmmaking reached a climax here, where he spent a full year of preproduction with the actors living in historically accurate sets for verisimilitude. Red Beard was also an ending. The movie was so expensive to make and was such a financial flop that he could never again easily get funding for projects. He went from making a movie a year for twenty years, to making a total of four films in the next 20. Each film he made after this he knew had the potential to end his career. Red Beard was the last film he made with Toshiro Mifune. They had a falling out during production that they were never able to repair. This was the last film Kurosawa made in black and white. It’s the last film he made in the glorious wide screen aspect ratio of TohoScope. Red Beard is a giant film worthy of being the marker of the end of an era.

High and Low (1963)

 

High and Low

High and Low (1963) is Akira Kurosawa’s most under-seen masterpiece. Its scope is wide and focus precise. It’s one of his most radical narrative structures. It’s one of his most morally dense and complex films. Visually it’s a directorial tour de force. It’s Kurosawa’s last crime movie, and his last film explicitly about the problems of contemporary Japan (Dodes’ka-Den and Rhapsody in August have contemporary settings, but have different goals). Again this is his most under-seen, but not underrated movie. It has a great reputation. It just deserves more viewers. It’s a masterpiece, but it’s a very accessible one. The plot and the structure are very simple.

Sanjuro (1962)

Sanjuro

Sanjuro (1962) is the lesser-known sequel to Yojimbo. Akira Kurosawa made the two films back to back. Sanjuro is not as iconic as the first film, it’s not as widely imitated, and it’s just not as cool. That’s okay because it’s a stand-alone film with different goals. It should be noted that it’s not a continuation of a story started in Yojimbo. They simply share a lead character played by Toshiro Mifune. In fact many actors reappear here playing different characters. Kurosawa had already begun preproduction when Yojimbo became a huge hit and decided to lift the unnamed lead character into Sanjuro. So what is this movie? It’s with the possible exception of The Hidden Fortress, the funniest film Kurosawa ever made. Simultaneously it’s him most pointed critique of violence.