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western #4, 'sanjuro.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

Okay, so this wasn’t really a ‘Western’ at all. It was more of a ‘Samurai Comedy.’ It is the sequel to Yojimbo, and after loving the first film so much, I couldn’t help myself. I assumed some of the themes and feel would carry over from film to film, but they didn’t. This had nothing to do with the John Ford, American Western aesthetic that Kurosawa used for Yojimbo (among others).

It still had plenty of enjoyable moments, and was certainly worth my 90 minutes… especially closet guy, I loved closet guy.

However, not a Western. Maybe I’ll add a day onto the end to make up for it.

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western #2, 'a fistful of dollars.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In Uncategorized • 1 min read

I wasn’t sure what I was going to think about A Fistful of Dollars. Directly adapting a brilliant film like Yojimbo without ever successfully getting the rights to do so is sketchy at best (Kurosawa sued and won, receiving 15% of the film’s take).

Yet, somehow, Sergio Leone is a good enough director that he made it work. There are certainly scenes and moments that just made me want to watch the original again (yes, already), but there was enough new delights thrown in that A Fistful of Dollars is a pretty good film in its own right.

There is a scene during the climax, where they use shots of only boots to set up the tension for the final gunfight. It’s been replicated and parodied so many times since that it has become cliché and is usually annoying. Yet it is done so well here that I was impressed and drawn in by it even though I live on the other side of the overuse. It was wonderful.

Eastwood really is a great Americanization of the wandering samurai character. When our nameless hero confronts the gang of douchebags in town, asking them to apologize to his horse for scaring it, he captured everything that was great about Mifune’s performance in Yojimbo. Basically, if you view it as an homage, it rocks, if you view it as ripping him off, it sucks. Eastwood’s personal character in the years since makes me lean toward homage, but I could just be blinding myself.

The one complaint about the actual filmmaking is that the dubbing was utterly terrible. I’m not sure if this was perhaps caused by the particular master used on the dvd, does anyone else know what I am talking about with the dubbing? It really was terrible, and  it would be surprising if it was released that way originally, especially in a film that is otherwise so meticulously crafted. Also, the day for night shots were a little silly as well, but they were limited by their era.

However, the rest of the film is pretty great;  the use of close-ups, Ennio Morricone’s score, Eastwood’s scowling mug being unleashed on the world at large.

It is still difficult to get past the fact that they totally ripped off Kurosawa, but it’s a great film otherwise.

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western #1, 'yojimbo.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 2 min read

The month of westerns is underway, and Mr. Akira Kurosawa kicked things off in style.

There are loads of popular westerns. Some are as popular and famous as the “Man with No Name” trilogy (or the “Dollars” trilogy as it is sometimes called), but there are none more so. Popular culture still offers frequent homages and tips of the cap to Clint Eastwood as the main character in three films which can be understood as the adventures of one lone wanderer, whose name we never learn.

Eastwood obviously starred in more westerns, many of them argued as better than the “Man with No Name” films, but those big three, culminating in the prequel of sorts, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, are the best known.

The first of that trilogy was A Fistful of Dollars, which will be Western #2, and that film is a punch for punch adaptation of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. It is just one of many occasions in which some of the most significant films about the American west were directly adapted from Japanese cinema.

Let me tell you folks, Yojimbo is legit. I loved every damned minute of it.

Kurosawa was influenced by Irish American director John Ford, who directed western classics such as The Searchers, Stagecoach, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The first two of those three are on AFI’s “100 Years, 100 Movies” list, cataloguing the 100 greatest and most important films of the first 100 years of cinema. He took the western theme and set it in Japan, turning cowboys into samurai.

However, while he was largely influenced by American westerns, it was he who is largely responsible for the trend in westerns to tell the story of one lone man beating the odds and a load of bad guys in the process.

Yojimbo is responsible for that trend.

The main character is fantastic. We never learn his name, although he makes a name up while looking out the window at Mulberry Fields, calling himself “Mulberry Fields, Age 30.” He is the ultimate badass, often to hilarious results.

Every scene is remarkably well shot. The score is great. And as alluded above, Toshirô Mifune, as the mysterious, masterless samurai, is brilliant. If I didn’t have so many westerns to watch this month, I would probably watch this one again pretty soon.

I can’t wait to watch more Kurosawa, and if the rest of the month holds up like day 1, this ridiculous idea will also go down as one of my best.

The end