MY LIFE IN CINEMA
AKIRA KUROSAWA, DIRECTOR
Ready!
Action!
FILMS DISCUSSED IN THIS INTERVIEW:
SANSHIRO SUGA TA, THE MEN WHO TREAD ON THE TIGER'S TAIL
DRUNKEN ANGEL, THE IDIOT
THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, MADADA YO
SEVEN SAMURAI, DREAMS, I LIVE IN FEAR, THE BAD SLEEP WELL
KUROSAWA HAD DIRECTED 30 FILMS AS OF 1993.
I've always considered you KUROSAWA'S HOME, AUGUST 1993
atypical of a Japanese person in your actions and physique,
as well as in the films you've made.
Do you have non-Japanese ancestors? INTERVIEWER: NAGISA OSHIMA
Perhaps I do. I'm not sure.
I've noticed this change in myself,
but when people in my family turn 80,
their eyes turn bluish. - Their eyes?
It happened to my father, and my aunts too.
I used to wonder why their eyes looked like that.
It seems it happens often among natives of Tohoku.
I guess there may have been interbreeding with Russians.
As a child I was puzzled why so many people had Caucasian features.
But this is all speculation.
Were you very tall even as a child?
Actually, no.
I wasn't particularly tall in elementary school.
I had a sudden growth spurt in the ninth grade.
I was a swimmer then, and I suddenly grew tall and thin.
I was really lanky for a long time.
When I'd visit foreign countries,
people often told me I was skinny because I wasn't eating enough.
It was after I turned 40 that I gained some bulk.
- You were thin in photos of your youth. - Wasn't I?
Jackets from my younger days were only about this wide.
I was that skinny, though I wasn't starving myself.
What sort of child were you?
I had a reputation for being a real crybaby.
So you weren't good in sports?
No, but my father wanted to change that.
I had really pale skin, so he'd give me money when I acquired a tan.
And he told me to take up swimming. My brother was a really good swimmer.
So he'd take me along, and I practiced swimming quite a bit,
as well as Japanese fencing.
My father was concerned about my weak constitution.
He even told me to change my name
because the character had an unlucky number of strokes.
But I refused to change it, even though he wanted me to.
I guess my being weak worried him.
But your brother, Heigo - I believe that's the correct reading of his name?
His name is very different from yours, now that I think about it.
That's true. But we were very similar.
That's what Musei Tokugawa, the silent movie narrator, told me.
My brother was also a narrator under the professional name of Teimei Suda.
Tokugawa asked, when we met, if I was Suda's brother, since we looked alike.
He also said that, in one sense, we were completely different:
My brother was like a photographic negative and I was the positive.
So people mistook me for my brother when I wasn't with him,
but when we were together, we were clearly different.
We were unusual as brothers. We had the exact same measurements.
- He was tall too? - Yes.
His features were more chiseled than mine.
We were very different in that sense.
Did the fact that your brother was a narrator
motivate you to get into the film industry?
Not really.
But he would frequently point me to films that I should see.
My father was in the military, and it was unusual back in those days
for a military man to attend movies, since they were deemed unrespectable.
But my father encouraged us and took us to see movies.
I started going to cinema quite young. - What was the first film you saw?
The first movie I remember seeing was something called Cuore.
And I think there was another one called Zigomar.
I had a vague memory of it and described it to someone,
and I was told the film was Zigomar. So that's how far back my memory goes.
- That would be in the early 1910s. - Yes.
Your illustrations are now famous all over the world.
Did you like to draw as a child?
I planned to become a painter, so I studied painting.
But at a certain point,
I realized I couldn't express some things through pictures alone.
Also...
I felt I didn't have enough talent as a painter,
and it's almost impossible to make a living by painting.
When did you start to paint?
It must've been at the end of the ninth grade.
My first work was shown at the Nika Exhibition,
and that's when I began to doubt my talent as a painter,
because I'd complete a piece very quickly.
Artists like Cézanne,
Ryuzaburo Umehara and Kazumasa Nakagawa
would work on their pieces forever.
They'd have a clear picture of what they wanted to create,
and it would take them a long time to achieve their goal.
So I thought painting so quickly may not be good.
Did you go to art school?
Not for long. Although I took an entrance exam,
I had no intention of going.
- So you're mostly self-taught? - Yes.
You mentioned Cézanne. Did you paint in that style?
Yes. The late Impressionist style was in vogue at the time,
so it must've been the greatest influence.
Were you also influenced by the Shirakaba school in Japan?
I liked that style very much.
It's strange, but when I was painting,
I dreamt of showing my work in Paris.
Later, though I wasn't a painter - - You had an exhibit in Paris.
My storyboards were shown at an exhibit.
The painter Umehara complimented me on them.
The thing is, I'm not trying to draw or paint well anymore.
I just work freely,
and as a result, I guess my illustrations have some appeal.
The thought of drawing or painting well doesn't enter my mind.
Rather, my illustrations are to convey images in my mind to my crew.
And making illustrations
helps me visualize concrete images, which you need to direct a film.
I only draw or paint as a means of visualizing,
without the slightest ambition to produce fine illustrations.
As I consider different ways of shooting a film,
I draw images that come to me using the tools at hand.
- But you still work quickly? - Yes.
For example, when my crew and I return to a hotel from scouting locations,
I take a quick shower, because I don't like baths.
But it takes my crew from 60 to 90 minutes
to finish bathing and come down to the dining room.
So as I wait for them, I sit and draw some illustrations,
and then I show them to my crew over dinner. So I work quickly.
That puts a lot of pressure on your crew,
since they have to recreate what you've illustrated so quickly.
I just want them to get an idea of what I'm looking for.
I'm not good at explaining things.
Illustrations make it easier to convey what I want.
In the beginning, though, I didn't draw a lot.
When you were young, were you trying to draw well?
I must have been, looking back on it now,
and I see now that that mindset worked against me.
By the time you started in the film industry,
you were relatively old, in a sense.
Yes, I was 26, the oldest among the assistant directors.
You hadn't worked until then, just concentrated on painting?
Yes. Then my brother committed suicide.
It's strange how things turn out. According to Japan's family register,
a family line is assumed by the eldest son.
If the oldest son dies, the second oldest succeeds, and so on.
So I was my brother's successor.
You became the head of the Kurosawa family.
It just fell into my lap.
Until then, I often slept at my brother's place,
and he was very caring and gave me pocket money.
After my brother's death, I felt I had to find a job.
Then, by chance, I came across a want ad for assistant directors
posted by the studio PCL.
I'd already prepared a copy of my family register to look for a job,
so I applied for the position.
Then I ended up working in the industry by chance.
Was that the very first ad for ADs that PCL placed,
or had there been one before that?
I think it was the first.
Then shortly afterwards, PCL and Toho merged.
Yes, in order to expand as a studio.
It was at my interview that I met Yama-san.
Kajiro Yamamoto?
He was the lead interviewer. We hit it off and talked a great deal.
So it must've been fate that we met.
- Had you heard of him before? - No, never.
I didn't even know where PCL was. I thought it was in Chiba.
In the picture of the studio, there seemed to be
palm trees growing next to a lawn,
so I assumed it was near a beach.
Although I was instructed to take a train from Shinjuku,
I still thought it was in Chiba.
After the interview, Yama-san told me to take a bus heading for Shibuya
because it'd be quicker than a train.
I thought it was strange that there was such a bus
and wondered if I was really in Chiba.
I was that inattentive.
When I checked later, it wasn't in Chiba at all.
So you had no idea who Yamamoto was
or what kind of movies PCL made? - Practically none.
Before taking the job, was there any film that made an impression on you,
such as Zigomar mentioned earlier? - There were many.
For example?
The film that made the greatest impression was La roue by Abel Gance.
It made me think cinema was wonderful. There were many other films as well.
But my brother told me I should see it,
and I was excited by what it achieved. - The Abel Gance film?
Though many other films come to mind,
that's the one that made me the most fascinated with the medium.
What fascinated you? The imagery? It must've been a silent film.
It was. The movie depicts the life of a locomotive engineer,
and you see locomotives in key scenes,
and I was fascinated by the shots of wheels.
I believe the Japanese title for La roue was Tetsuro no Shirobara.
And you felt it was an expressive medium different from painting.
Had you thought of writing novels?
No, I never aspired to do that.
The writer Matsutaro Kawaguchi told me that if I'd written novels,
I'd have become a rich man.
Because there's no money in writing screenplays.
It's interesting that you met Yamamoto on your job interview.
That's right. When I got my first assignment as an AD,
it was so boring working under that director, whom I won't name.
I wanted to quit, but my friends persuaded me not to,
saying not all directors were like that one.
My next assignment was under Yamamoto,
and I stuck with him after that.
I rarely worked under other directors.
I worked once for Mikio Naruse, and also once for Eisuke Takizawa.
How many ADs -
those that started at PCL and then at Toho - were there then?
Let me see.
I don't remember exactly, but perhaps about 30.
And you were relatively free to work with certain people,
say, if you wanted to work with Yamamoto, and vice versa?
When I first started, the studio was a start-up.
PCL stood for Photo Chemical Laboratory,
which originally processed talkies for other studios.
Then they started making movies, like the Tadano Bonji series.
So from the time they started making movies regularly
until they merged with Toho,
they borrowed ADs from other studios.
But they recognized the need to train enough of their own,
so they set up a system to interview applicants.
With this history, the studio treated ADs very well.
They were placed in a sort of cadet system, like at military schools.
There were other trainees in various departments too.
If it were the navy, for example, there'd be gunnery trainees.
Like trainees in a photography department?
But training for future officers in military schools is different,
and the studio adopted that kind of system for its ADs,
so we had to train in every department, even film printing.
We rotated through a series of departments while training.
So they really trained us well.
How long was the assignment in each department? Six months?
- A few months. - Did you carry cameras?
I didn't work with cameras that much,
but I worked in departments such as props and costumes.
I carried a hammer slung from my belt at one time,
and I worked in the print department.
When you starting working, you began as an AD,
but you always aspired to be a director? - Of course.
All the ADs had the same aspiration, and that sort of caused a problem.
There were first ADs who'd been working there before us.
These old-timers and us newcomers, with Satsuo Yamamoto as our leader,
had a difference of opinion.
The studio came up with an interesting offer at one point.
Studio executives had traveled to America to study Hollywood studios.
First ADs work really hard in Hollywood studios.
On a set, you might not notice the director,
but you notice the first AD right away, because he's the busiest one.
So, impressed by how hard first ADs worked in Hollywood,
the executives returned convinced that was how it should be.
They work as career ADs there. - In Hollywood.
The executives asked if any of us wanted to become a career AD.
If anyone chose to devote himself to work in that capacity...
then there'd be a raise.
That was the studio's offer.
We newcomers thought we should take the offer if it meant a raise.
Eventually the studio would have to make us directors anyway,
so it'd be smart to take the raise.
But the old-timers disagreed.
They wanted to be promoted based on seniority.
So we split into two groups and argued quite a bit.
In the end, the old-timers...
the ADs who'd been there before us, left the studio.
It became uncomfortable for them.
So we newcomers became sort of like a new party in power.
The old-timers all ended up leaving,
but they hadn't been a promising bunch.
They weren't attractive material for the studio either.
Satsuo Yamamoto was the first among us to become a director,
followed by Tadashi Imai.
As these promotions occurred,
I guess the old-timers felt unwelcome and left the studio.
There was that kind of history.
Interestingly, there used to be a huge sign by a Toho soundstage
that said that the first AD's command was equal to that of the president's.
There used to be a sign like that,
and other crew members resented that.
It wasn't easy to overcome their disgruntlement.
But that's how well the studio treated its ADs.
The studio was liberal in one sense and trained its ADs very well.
Very much so. In return, we had to do all kinds of things.
- Were you made a first AD fairly quickly? - Yes.
How many years did it take?
Three years, I think.
- Was it on Horse? - No, it was before that.
And I had to do all kinds of tasks.
When shooting on location,
I was like a location manager and had to oversee bills.
Unless you had learned every aspect of filmmaking,
you couldn't become a first AD.
So a first AD was well-informed. - Budget, scheduling, etc?
Yes. For example, how the costume department operated, and so on.
People were appreciative,
because I knew the inner workings of every department.
So that's how I was trained at the studio.
And Yama-san told me
that you couldn't become a director
unless you could write scripts and edit.
So he had me write scripts,
and he gave me editing assignments right away on all his films.
And he'd bring me
some writing assignments.
Even if they were for movies in the "narrative ballad" style,
I made good money writing scripts for them.
Around the time of Horse, in fact, I was writing a script for a Daiei film.
It was when Kan Kikuchi was at Daiei
and wanted to hire me as a screenwriter.
Daiei's executives had to disclose to him that I was a Toho employee.
But I made good money, for that time, with these screenwriting jobs.
Guess what my starting salary was. - I have no idea.
- Twenty-eight yen. - Was that low compared to other jobs?
It was definitely low.
Because an AD could really earn a high salary,
depending on how hard he trained and applied himself.
In comparison, people working in the studio offices got better starting pay,
because their salaries could only go up so high.
Office workers were better paid, but ADs had the potential to earn big.
Even so, we were paid very little. But I don't recall feeling the pinch.
Everything at the studio was handled via vouchers.
We used vouchers at the cafeteria as well.
So we ate as much as we wanted.
Then, when payday came, there was no money in the envelope.
I'd only find used vouchers. - Deducted from your pay.
So I'd go to the studio head's office
and ask him to issue "temporary vouchers."
These were vouchers for the following month.
Since I was broke even as I received my pay,
I'd get by on vouchers issued in advance.
Although I began at the studio after the war,
I rarely went home, sleeping instead at the studio or in a nearby hotel,
and it really felt like I was working 24 hours a day.
So it was the same back then too.
My overtime pay was greater than my salary of 28 yen.
I was paid an additional 30 yen for overtime and location pay.
So in the end, I'd generally receive about 50 yen.
But working that much,
it's amazing you still had time to write scripts.
Well, I tell this to my crew often,
but even if you think you're too busy to write,
you can write one page a day.
At that rate you'll have 365 pages in a year.
It can be done, if you have the will.
So although I was busy on the production of Horse,
I'd work on scripts after dinner, in the futon storage room.
I was mostly writing scripts for other studios, to make extra money.
That's how I worked back then.
Did you receive requests from other studios to write scripts?
You published some in film magazines.
Yes, Darumaji-dera no Doitsu-jin, Shizuka nari and Yuki, for example.
Since they were published,
I was asked to write scripts toward the end of my AD years.
Before that, when Yama-san was asked to write but didn't want to,
he'd ask if I wanted to write for some extra money.
I even wrote for some films starring Torazo Hirosawa.
I didn't know that.
Just recently I was asked by a German producer
about possibly making Darumaji-dera no Doitsu-jin into a film.
So I read the script and thought it was very good.
But it was written at that moment in time
when Japan, Germany, and Italy were allies.
But the script doesn't glorify militarism at all.
No, but I feel its time has passed.
I understand, but it's very - - It's a funny thing.
A script that doesn't get made in its time doesn't get made.
It seems like it missed its time to get made.
Once that happens, that's it.
It would've been made if conditions had been favorable.
For example, Advance Patrol was written
when the captain of the Tatekawa reconnaissance unit
was an ambassador to Russia. He was a lieutenant general in the army.
He said he'd cooperate with us completely.
Back then, many White Army soldiers were stationed in Harbin.
There were Cossacks too, and military uniforms were available,
so it all worked out favorably for the movie.
I remember the name Tatekawa.
He was an ambassador to Russia at the time the movie was made.
He offered to cooperate with us fully, so it was a great opportunity.
The producer Morita, who nurtured me -
Nobuyoshi Morita?
Shortly before he passed on, he said,
"I made the greatest mistake of my life
when I didn't let you make Advance Patrol.
You wanted to make your directorial debut with it,
but I couldn't let a first-time director tackle such a big project.
It was a prudent decision but also the greatest mistake of my life."
I think that movie could've only been made then.
You wrote the script with the idea of making it your directorial debut?
I expressed my wish to direct it.
So even from the beginning, you were confident that -
No, it wasn't like that. I just wrote the script.
I have notebooks from my AD days, and I looked at one the other day.
I found a note saying that Japanese cinema needed to be more dynamic.
Japanese films back then tended to be rather static.
So I guess I wrote the note as a reminder
that we needed to find ways to get more action into them.
I must've written it for that reason.
There was an overall pattern evident in movies made back then,
even by Shochiku.
For example, many films would begin with a scene
where a messenger comes up a slope and enters a gate as he says hello.
There were no scripts that would open a story with a bang,
right in the middle of something exciting.
But what if a movie opened with a character shouting a response
in an action scene? - Making it more dynamic.
I was thinking about something along that line.
What inspired that idea?
Well, when I compared foreign films with Japanese films,
Japanese films were extremely tame.
They do open rather statically.
Yes, that was the overall trend. And everyone followed it.
Though Sadao Yamanaka was an exception.
So as you worked as an AD at Toho,
you had this sense of dissatisfaction, a desire to make something different.
I guess those feelings gradually built up inside me.
But it's interesting how Toho changed after the war.
At Shochiku's Ofuna studio then, I had to do all kinds of tasks,
just as you related earlier,
from being a location manager to overseeing bills.
And when I'd see a Toho AD of that time, such as Hideo Onchi,
I'd get the impression Toho's ADs only had to do certain tasks.
But when you were an AD, you truly had to do all kinds of tasks.
I tell people that's the right way.
It seems they've become specialized in the kinds of tasks they do.
But that's not good.
So Toho changed its system after the war?
Yes, it did around that time.
Every department was put under tighter supervision?
From around that time after the war...
the studio changed its course from one of developing ADs
to a more profit-oriented
and business-minded course. - That must've been a big shift.
In order to successfully run a movie studio these days,
you must nurture ADs as directors of the future.
I feel that I myself benefited from the cadet system,
so I strongly agree with you.
ADs in my current crew
are submissive for the most part, and they don't voice their opinions.
They just do their jobs mechanically. I tell them to get more involved,
but it seems to be an overall trend nowadays to hold back.
We used to speak our minds freely to directors.
Senkichi Taniguchi was merciless. One day he said, "Yama-san,
you're a first-rate screenwriter but a second-rate director."
I thought that was rude.
Then he continued, "So you should listen to our opinions."
Yama-san just laughed, but he valued our opinions.
In that regard, the way things are now makes me worry
for the future generation of directors.
Was there a consensus at Toho
that you would become a full-fledged director?
Yes.
You mentioned Advance Patrol earlier,
but did you suggest Sanshiro Sugata
as a film to make your directorial debut?
I had three other scripts rejected by the Interior Department's censors.
Maybe more than three.
You had to have your script approved by censors first.
As you were trying to direct your first film,
what were the scripts that were rejected?
One was called Mori no Sen-lchiya, among several others.
But they were all rejected. - All were your original scripts?
Yes, so I bore a deep grudge against the censors.
Censors were such a formidable presence,
taking advantage of their borrowed authority.
I wrote about this in my book, but for Sanshiro Sugata's review -
The Internal Department used to interview directors.
Yama-san couldn't come with me due to other business,
but he said not to worry because he'd asked Ozu to help.
At the censors' office, Tomotaka Tasaka said
that the way characters addressed each other,
or a kissing scene on a staircase, suggested Western influence.
Meanwhile, sitting behind the table facing me
were censors, and even office boys, drinking coffee.
I sat all by myself, like a criminal in court.
As all these objectionable parts were read aloud,
I reached my tipping point and was about to storm out.
Then Ozu stood up and said, "Congratulations.
Your movie is worth 120 out of 100 points."
Thanks to Ozu, the movie was approved.
- Was it the movie itself or the script? - The movie.
They made me wait five hours and didn't even offer a cup of tea.
And it was obvious the office boys had been allowed to watch the film
because they were playing in the corridor, shouting a line from it.
It was such a despicable place.
You had to go through that process every time you made a film?
Luckily, when Japan lost the war, that changed overnight.
The first thing the Americans did was get rid of the censors.
I was impressed by that.
- You had to constantly fight before. - Yes.
It's scary when bureaucrats like those censors
gain authority through a greater power behind them.
They become this dreadful presence
making unreasonable demands.
They were more keen to display their power
than to actually review the content of a film?
I guess they came to feel that way.
When I made The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail,
by then the Japanese censors had been fired,
but I got summoned.
I used to get into fights everywhere I went...
so Iwao Mori, the studio head, usually advised me to control myself.
But when the summons came,
he got angry and said the censors no longer had authority
and encouraged me to pick a fight with them.
So I presented myself to the censors.
They said, "What's this script?
It's defiling a Kabuki play called Kanjincho,
thereby tarnishing Japan's classical performing art itself."
I responded, "Kabuki's Kanjincho is a reworking of the Noh play Ataka.
Don't you know that?
In my view, the Kabuki version is an adaptation of the Noh play.
It's odd to suggest that my script has greatly altered Kanjincho,
when, in fact, my script is closer in spirit to the original Noh version."
Then this young censor said,
"In any case, this is worthless."
I retaliated, "If a worthless guy calls it worthless,
it must be a good script."
After that, the guy kept quiet.
But they didn't report the script to General Headquarters,
so we were shooting without proper approval.
And Conde, the GHQ censor, decided against allowing its release.
Mori said that Toho was partly at fault for the mix-up,
and he felt sorry for me.
We were already shooting when we found out.
But Mori allowed me to complete the film the way I wanted to.
He felt really sorry for me.
Even though the film was completed, we obviously couldn't release it.
Then Gercke replaced Conde.
He saw the film, found nothing objectionable,
and gave us his blessing to release it at last.
It seems Conde was a very peculiar man.
Well, he was a leftist.
So as a young man, you were quick to get into a fight.
Did you fight with the studio a lot? - I did indeed.
Who was the studio head back in those days?
It was Mori at first, followed by a number of different people.
But you were mostly able to work on the projects you wanted to.
You pitched your projects, right?
Yes, I foresaw that there could be a problem in the future,
since the ownership of a film's copyright was rather hazy,
as it is even today.
So I decided that there shouldn't be any dispute
if I pitched the project, wrote the script,
and directed and edited all by myself.
I've stuck to that principle on all my films.
How many scripts did you write before becoming a director?
They must really add up.
I've written lots.
I said this earlier, but it's amazing you had time to write.
You must've liked drinking sake back then too, right?
I did. So it was like when I ran out of pocket money,
I'd write a script.
After I'd been first AD for Yama-san for about two years,
he said I didn't have to come to the set every day.
I only had to help when a second unit was shooting.
He said I could help him edit, but I didn't have be on the set.
So I had extra time on my hands.
When I wrote a script, I'd be paid - It wasn't a lot of money even then,
but Daiei, for instance, paid me about 300 yen.
With that I'd take my friends out to drink.
- You spent it on drinks? - Yes.
Then, when I ran out of money, I'd write another script.
It was like I was writing scripts to earn drinking money.
- Where did you write? - At home or anywhere.
For Yuki, though, I received 2,000 yen.
2,000 yen was big money back then. It lasted a long time.
- Yuki won some kind of a competition. - Yes, the Information Agency's.
I earned 300 yen for Shizuka nari.
Toho rarely paid me 300 yen for a script.
Having written numerous scripts, how did you feel
directing your first film, Sanshiro Sugata?
When you were shooting it,
did you feel writing and directing were two different things?
In my case they're not different,
as long as I'm working from my own script.
But when I'd write a script for someone else to direct,
unexpected things sometimes happened,
because the director would misinterpret the script.
You've written many scripts since becoming a director,
like The Portrait for Kinoshita.
Sometimes I'd find a crucial scene had been cut from a film.
It may have been Kinoshita whom I asked, "Why did you cut this scene?"
He said, "It was unnecessary." So I explained its significance.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. So that kind of thing happened.
When you hand over your script to someone else,
it seems a gap exists between the writer and the director
in understanding the script's true intention.
I guess that kind of misinterpretation can occur
when you're not involved in the writing.
Why do you think a script gets misinterpreted like that?
Well, it must be people's different ways of thinking
that cause things like that to happen.
I've seen some inconceivable interpretations of my scripts.
You've also made films with scripts written by other screenwriters.
In those cases, do you rewrite the script before shooting it?
Yes. I wrote scripts with other writers,
because when I wrote by myself, my biases tended to show strongly.
As a group, everyone would write the same scene,
and we'd gather what we wrote at the end of the day.
Then we'd select the usable parts.
So in the end, I was rearranging those parts into one whole script.
I reminisce about this sometimes,
but at one time, there were all these A- list directors working at Toho.
They used to sit on the studio's front lawn and chat.
There were people like Mizoguchi, Naruse, Yamanaka, and Itami.
These great directors were all working there,
each busy on a soundstage. Yasujiro Shimazu was there too.
When I was done for the day, I'd generally visit
one of the soundstages where these directors were working.
Shimazu once said to me, "Kuro-chan,
you'll be a director soon,
but don't make yourself pull all-nighters.
You may feel you've worked hard,
but you won't get good results."
He gave me various tips like that.
It was really -
But many directors who came from Kyoto
would only work in the evening.
It was hard on the crew.
But those directors for some reason couldn't function during the day.
Many of them had that habit.
A studio was a good place to work, with soundstages and space,
people bustling about, projects being born.
Fights erupted, and love bloomed as well.
Most of us were moving at a run when off the set,
because we were so busy.
Toei's employees were known for always running, and similarly at Toho.
Yes, we were always on the run.
Did you serve in the war?
I wrote about this in my book Something Like an Autobiography.
My father was an army instructor.
At the physical examination for draftees,
when I stood in front of this inspector,
he asked, "Are you Isamu Kurosawa's son?"
I said I was.
Then he asked, "Is your father well?"
I replied, "Yes."
"Well, you look frail," he continued,
and he advised me to do certain exercises.
Then he said military service wasn't the only way to serve the nation.
My brother had been injured in the cavalry unit.
The man said, "I'm sorry about your brother's injury.
I want you to serve the nation
in other ways than being in the military."
Then, when I reached the last clerk, he said,
"You're exempted from military service."
The first man had arranged the exemption for me.
So I didn't serve in the war at all.
There wasn't even a roll call at the end.
Near the end of the war, after the air raid over Tokyo,
it was the day of the Yokohama air raid that I was summoned to a roll call.
When I responded to the summons,
I found myself among all these handicapped people.
The man must've classified me into that group.
I was placed in this special classification
with the seriously ill and handicapped.
So I was spared military service.
But my friends joked that I was rejected due to my height.
- There wasn't a uniform in your size. - Right. They teased me like that.
So I didn't serve in the war.
If you had, there might have been different kinds of Kurosawa films.
Right. When I reflect on it,
I don't feel confident enough to make a war movie.
Having Ishiro Honda, who served in the war, as a friend...
it feels rather -
I'd feel odd making a war movie.
I don't know the reality of battle.
But some have made war movies without the experience.
Did your house burn during the Tokyo air raid?
Yes, it did.
I was living in Ebisu at the time,
and studio people told me to move, because Ebisu might get attacked.
The studio lent me a truck to move
to my father's house in Horikawa, because it was to become vacant.
So I moved there in a hurry.
Then, the following night, Ebisu burned.
Areas of Tokyo near here, like Soshigaya and Seijo, were spared.
Did you think Japan would lose the war?
I did. And Honda and I agreed it would be a disaster if Japan won.
If the incompetents in the military stayed in power -
Honda said this too, but what we'd most hate
was to see those military guys have their own way if we won the war
and drive the country into a deeper mess.
So when you heard the announcement of Japan's defeat,
you were relieved and felt a certain joy?
Where were you living at the time? - Soshigaya.
On the day of the announcement...
the studio told us to -
We knew Japan had lost the war, because the studio had informed us
that atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The government called them "special bombs."
On the day of the emperor's announcement,
we were told to come to the studio to hear the declaration.
As I walked towards the studio along the Soshigaya highway,
I noticed certain tradesmen, like fish dealers and grocers,
staring at their unsheathed swords.
They had this maniacal look, and I feared what they might do.
They might get violent, even if the emperor announced defeat.
Then, when I saw them on the way home,
the same guys were smiling and sweeping their storefronts.
I thought then that the Japanese have great flexibility for coping.
But if the emperor had ordered them to fight, they would have.
When the war was over, what changes did you think would happen?
It was more a matter of witnessing how hard
the GHQ was trying to rebuild Japan.
We couldn't go back to making movies right away,
so I wrote a one-act play for Kawaguchi's troupe.
During the war, the Japanese couldn't speak their minds,
and the play is about everyone suddenly speaking freely.
It takes place at a fish dealer's house.
He was a staunch Tojo worshipper,
and he'd been a family tyrant.
But now the war is over, his family can finally confront him,
and they shower him with all their pent-up grievances.
Well, the GHQ summoned me because of the play.
An American theater professional at the GHQ liked the play
and wanted to know how each scene would be played.
In ways like this, the GHQ made a great effort to rebuild Japan.
- Quite different from Japanese censors. - Completely.
I was summoned for The Quiet Duel as well.
I thought they opposed it because it was about syphilis,
but that wasn't the case.
They said that the Japanese view syphilis as a frightening disease,
and, if diagnosed with it, tend to give up on their lives,
but it can be cured when combated with proper medical treatment.
They wanted me to put that message in the film.
And they told me I should consult
with a certain doctor specializing in the treatment
and where I could find him.
An American doctor?
And this doctor helped me wholeheartedly.
They weren't like the Japanese censors at all.
Their attitude was so different.
They respected cinema and film professionals.
It's still the same.
We're treated like VIPs overseas, but in Japan we're seen as tramps.
That's an exaggeration, but actually I feel the same way.
I feel respected when I visit foreign countries.
It's because the general public there respects filmmakers.
After the war,
seeing America's power, and the world changing around you,
did you feel that your style of film
fit in well with the new world?
Well, I didn't know why,
but people responded to my films.
I found it puzzling. In the case of Madadayo, for example,
I thought people overseas wouldn't understand it,
but it got a great response.
Yes, I went to Montreal recently and heard stories about it.
They understand some parts of it better than the Japanese audience.
For instance, they thought the professor's wife was wonderful
because she truly cared for her husband.
The teacher-student relationship in Japan
seems to have elicited great interest.
And the wife.
Women were especially touched by the character.
They said they really understood how much she loved her husband.
The response surprised me.
I went to Montreal thinking people overseas wouldn't understand it,
but I was wrong.
I received a letter from Montreal yesterday
that called Madadayo one of my masterpieces.
A response like that takes me by surprise.
I don't know why people respond to my films.
But I think what appeals most to the foreign audience
is the fact I'm not seeking to please them.
You can sense that kind of movie right away.
If you try to add appeal
by playing up Japanese qualities
and depict a story that Westerners will find exotic,
they react very negatively.
But if you, as a Japanese person, just tell a story
about the concerns of Japanese people,
it will appeal to people worldwide, as every country has similar concerns.
I guess that's what people find most appealing about my films.
It's no good to try to cater to the overseas market.
I've been asked if I make special concessions
to appeal to foreign audiences.
It's precisely because I do nothing of the sort that they appeal to them.
I've never entertained the thought, in fact.
As I said at the start of this interview,
you are somewhat atypical of Japanese people.
What you've just said proves that. But you've always been that way.
You've never emphasized the Japanese aspect of things,
nor have you tried to cater to overseas audiences.
Even the movies you made soon after the war
were very different from typical Japanese films.
I recall seeing them as a child.
I don't see my films as being different.
In the case of Sanshiro Sugata, I was forced to insert a certain line.
I had to insert the line, "Loyalty and filial piety are the ways of man."
I didn't have any choice. - You had to comply.
I think most directors go through this experience,
but in the beginning, you're just caught up in making movies.
Then at some point, you become aware
that you're a certain kind of director.
That is, there comes a time when you discover
that you want to make a particular kind of movie.
Which of the films you made after the war
did you feel was the kind of direction you wanted to take?
In my earlier films, it felt like I was putting in
everything I'd learned.
But with Drunken Angel, I suddenly felt sort of liberated.
It felt like I got bolder.
I didn't hold myself back even when writing it.
That was the film where I began to feel that.
Other than that, I've never thought about discovering my direction.
What concerns me most is being natural.
I always remain natural and follow my instincts when I work.
I don't do things in any particularly strategic way.
That's how I approach characters in my films.
Even with human relationships -
When you read Dostoyevsky's novels, for example,
it's mind-boggling how thoroughly he depicts human relationships.
I read quite a few of his novels when I was young,
and it must be filtering out into my films,
though I haven't come close to Dostoyevsky's heights.
Only through literature can you tackle something on that scale.
I made The Idiot, and it wasn't at all a successful adaptation.
Still, having taken on the challenge of a work like that,
I think I learned a lot from the experience.
Once I began working on it,
the immensity of the project dawned on me.
I thought to myself, "What was I thinking?"
I felt the weight of Dostoyevsky on my shoulders.
There's one scene...
where the idiot, played by Masayuki Mori, comes to Setsuko Hara's party...
and says, "You are a nice person by nature.
You really are a nice person."
Hara asked me, "What expression should I use?"
I was sort of taken aback.
I asked Nomura, my first AD, to get a copy of the novel.
I looked up the scene, and it said that Nastasia smiled "crookedly."
She must've smiled that way because the idiot was right.
But I hadn't really read the passage that closely.
It was only because Hara asked
that I noticed the description of Nastasia's smile.
So I said to Hara, "Smile crookedly."
When we did a test shot, with her smiling crookedly,
Mori reacted with amazement and exclaimed, "That was great direction!"
I said, "It wasn't me. It's what Dostoyevsky wrote."
So when you tackle a great work of literature,
you make some amazing discoveries.
I love War and Peace and have read it countless times,
but every time, I find something I hadn't noticed before.
It's fascinating each time I read it.
A simple line in a piece of literature can be brilliant,
but a lot of times, you read on without noticing it.
What it expresses is just superb.
You've mentioned how thoroughly literature can depict human beings.
In Dostoyevsky's novels, it's as though he's experimenting in a laboratory,
having one "human atom" clashing with another.
I've been reading novels like that since childhood.
When you come up with an idea for a script or theme,
do you first imagine characters?
Well...
Do characters come to you first, before the story?
It's more like I run with an idea that I find interesting.
That's the most important thing, of course.
Critics may read whatever they like into my films,
but I don't make movies as deliberately as they think.
Whatever they see in my films is there as a part of what I found interesting.
If I'd tried to depict those things critics see,
don't you think it'd be tiresome to watch?
I make films about things that I really find fascinating.
In doing so, I may end up examining human nature.
But if you try to present some kind of theory in your film,
you'll fail to depict anything.
It's very difficult to find the right balance.
So a study of human nature results from depicting what you find interesting.
I think so.
What I really find interesting -
As I depict what fascinates me, a human portrait unfolds.
What's interesting varies from person to person.
It's based on individual taste. - That's right.
Among those things that interest you, it seems you always incorporate
a portrayal of human beings pushed to the limit.
I believe so.
I'm not sure how that happens. I don't have the brain to work that out.
- You're being modest. - No, really.
I can deal with things in a concrete way.
But when something is described in abstractions,
I have no idea how to depict it.
If the way a character smiled or an action he took
is described in concrete terms, I can deal with that.
Like Nastasia's crooked smile that you described earlier.
At one point, you often wrote scripts with other writers.
When working that way, did you read what others wrote,
sort out the inferior writing and have them rewrite it?
We'd write around a table until 5:00 p.m.
Then we'd collect what we wrote into a pile.
I'd sort out what was no good. Only the usable parts would be left.
We'd all write the same scene. Then I'd weed out any subpar writing.
I heard that when you wrote with Taniguchi,
you tore up his pages right in front of him.
Well, I felt guilty doing that sometimes.
Everyone wrote diligently until dusk,
and then I'd tear up pages that were unacceptable.
- You'd rip them up, just like that? - Yes.
But you didn't mean to hurt their feelings.
No, and my writing partners were used to it,
though it must've angered them at first.
And after tearing up their writing, you'd have dinner together?
Yes. One time, though, I tore up pages that I needed.
I was gathering all the selected pages and noticed two pages missing.
Just then, the proprietress of the inn came to inquire about our dinner.
"Not now!" I yelled at her, irritated over the missing pages.
All of us searched the room and found them among the ripped-up pages.
I mended the two ripped-up pages and had them copied,
and finally that day's work was done.
Then I opened the door to call the proprietress
and found her sitting on the floor outside our room.
She'd been waiting there the whole time.
I felt bad. I'd completely forgotten about her.
So there was that kind of blunder.
Depending on the writer -
Oguni is one of the more interesting writers.
He's really good at Japanese chess. - Hideo Oguni?
Oguni once played two of us blindfolded and still won.
He's extremely insightful.
When we'd get stuck on a particularly difficult passage,
he'd often come up with a solution.
I once read somewhere how you described Oguni.
You stated that people think you value Oguni for his technical skills,
but that he actually provides a spiritual backbone for your writing team.
I was very impressed by that statement.
He studied under Saneatsu Mushanokoji, the novelist.
That's his background.
So he provides a consistent view of morals and human beings?
Yes, and he's also very perceptive.
Say he leaves on an assignment while we work on a script.
He returns, reads what we've written in his absence,
and says, "The story's veering off in the wrong direction."
He shows us that it won't do to take the easy way out.
You shouldn't steer the story in the direction you're comfortable with.
"The story should go this way, but it's veering off like this," he says.
He has that knack for accurately assessing the problem.
I always valued that ability of his.
There's a scene where the protagonists need to pass through a checkpoint.
That was -
I heard that one team of writers wrote from the protagonists' POV,
and another from that of the guards.
We struggled over that scene for about a week.
One of us would suggest crossing the river, and I'd turn that idea down.
Then other ideas were rejected one after another.
One writer said, "There's no way to get through."
I said, "There's gotta be a way!"
Oguni sat quietly like this the whole time.
Day after day, he just sat like this.
Then at last he said, "I've got an idea!"
It was to have one of the protagonists intentionally report to the guards
that he'd found a piece of firewood with gold concealed inside.
Normally you'd want to conceal that.
By reporting it, he causes a commotion among the guards.
Then, when he asks them to return it to him,
they ignore him and tell him to get lost.
Oguni came up with that idea.
It's not easy to hit upon an idea like that.
But Oguni would come through with an inspired solution,
something unexpected.
You wouldn't think of something like that,
to reveal the very thing that should be hidden.
To do the complete opposite.
It's easy to say it, but you don't hit upon it so easily.
In hindsight, it's a simple idea to do the reverse of the normal.
But it's not easy to think of it. We tend to see things in a certain way.
So you're quite insistent that your writers and crews
come up with solutions? - Yes, I am.
I work really quickly, though everyone seems to think otherwise.
The thing is, I take plenty of time for thorough preparation.
I'm sure you've made difficult demands on your whole crew,
but who's had to bear them the most?
My crew members are all used to my demands,
and they don't seem to find them particularly difficult.
You mentioned you spend the most time on preparation.
When you prepare thoroughly,
you don't waste time on the set.
So a day of shooting starts at 9:00 a.m. And ends at 3:00 p.m.
I usually have two or three cameras rolling at the same time.
For shooting the scene of the Maadha kai,
that is, the first gathering of the Maadha kai, in Madadayo,
the production team and ADs estimated it would take one month.
To shoot that one very long scene of the Maadha kai.
But I shot it in six days, and everyone was amazed.
It was because I shot the entire scene in a single take.
For instance, the scene where they sing "One-two, Mr. Pharmacist"
was shot in a rectangular room.
First I'd shoot the scene from this side using three cameras.
I'd shoot the entire sequence that way once.
Then I'd shoot again with lenses and camera positions changed a little.
I did that three times from each of the four sides of the room,
so there was a total of -
- Twelve different shots. - No.
Three cameras were rolling, so there were nine shots per angle.
So four times nine makes 36 shots.
- You're right. - That's a lot of footage.
Everyone said it'd be an ordeal to edit,
but I started at 9:00 a.m. And was done by 3:00 p.m.
I threw out whatever didn't look interesting, one piece at a time.
I weeded out parts I didn't want, so I'd only have the footage I needed.
Then I simply had to piece together the good parts.
So I work quickly with that kind of task.
Before the camera starts rolling,
do you spend a great deal of time on rehearsal?
Well...
I don't spend a particularly long time.
Before rehearsing, though, I give instructions on what I want.
So you direct where to position the cameras before entering the set.
No, actually, I give instructions to the actors.
I emphasize what kind of acting I want from them.
Camera positions are not their concern.
I see.
On my set, actors don't know which camera is trained on them,
so they have to act naturally and not play to a camera.
Say there were three cameras shooting a scene.
Camera A would usually shoot the establishing shot,
focusing on the center of the action and panning a little.
Another would shoot close-ups.
That camera would be the furthest from the actors.
That way, there's no way for actors to play just to the camera.
They have to give a fully rounded performance
and forget about performing to the camera.
The best thing I gained from setting up the cameras that way
is that actors stopped playing to them.
They have to perform from every angle,
because they have no idea which camera is shooting them or how.
Your use of multiple camera setup has become legendary.
I believe you first used it on Seven Samurai.
We had to because of the rain scene, with the horrendously muddy ground.
Otherwise, we couldn't make the action look continuous,
even if we tried.
So we resorted to shooting the scene
with all three cameras rolling at the same time.
The result was very interesting.
That's how it came about.
You've employed it since for interior shots as well.
Earlier you talked about capturing the depths of human nature.
By drawing out naturalistic acting from actors through the camera setup,
are you aiming for realism rather than make-believe?
It's more like -
What the camera reveals most is an actor's self-consciousness,
which would turn the viewers off.
To eliminate that self-consciousness is the most difficult task for the director,
as well as for the actors.
But the multiple camera setup
automatically eliminates the actors' self-consciousness.
The longest shot I've filmed is the tunnel segment in Dreams.
It's 16 minutes long, which wouldn't fit on one reel.
So we made use of the part where the actors do an about-face.
On each actor's backpack was a lightbulb
to light the face of the person behind.
Since we couldn't use regular lighting equipment for that shot,
the lightbulb on each backpack lit the face of the next actor.
But as the actors did an about-face, the lightbulbs would be revealed.
So we needed to intercut just before that happened.
I gave the following instructions:
"The lighting crew will remove the lightbulbs as soon as I say 'stop.'
Meanwhile, the camera crew will change magazines.
Then, when I say 'action! ' We'll resume shooting."
All that time, the actors were to stay perfectly still.
As a result, we got that 16-minute scene.
We rehearsed on the set, and it was initially 20 minutes long.
Then, as we rehearsed further on the set
and on the actual location, everything became condensed.
The scene improved greatly because it gained this condensed energy.
And it made the scene shorter.
When you employ a cutback shot like that, it generally slackens the scene.
But with tightly controlled shooting, the scene's energy intensifies.
I think Mizoguchi's films have that kind of energy.
It makes the film more powerful too.
It definitely shortens a scene.
And it improves the scene.
So condensing like that shortens shooting time?
Yes. Generally one scene will be shot in a single take.
This hasn't changed even today,
but when Japanese cinema was at its peak,
you had the cream of the crop of Japanese actors in your films.
Did you always keep a sharp eye out for the right actors?
Yes, of course.
That's why I've made shrewd use of Shochiku actors
such as Reikichi Kawamura and Shinichi Himori.
When you like a certain actor's work, it stays in your mind.
So I watch television quite a bit
to find actors who interest me, as was the case with Joji Tokoro.
I watch television fairly often for that purpose.
The other day, I read an interview in which you said
that Japanese people look different today,
and modern actors don't have the right faces for period roles.
I feel that way when it comes to actors in period dramas.
In olden times, a 20-year old used to be a real adult.
In the Meiji era - What was his name? Kogoro Katsura?
He later changed his name to Takayoshi Kido.
The movers behind the Meiji restoration were in their 20s.
Many government ministers of that era were in their 20s.
Today it's a different story.
Nobunaga Oda and Shingen Takeda did amazing things while still young.
But young actors today don't have the right look to play those roles.
The men of olden times managed impressive feats at a young age.
Only one piece of Yoshitsune's writing remains today.
Done in his 20s...
it exudes a maturity beyond his age.
So you can't cast an actor to play Yoshitsune
just because he's the same age as Yoshitsune was.
He'll have to undergo proper training to play the character.
I don't think it's possible anymore for an actor in the right age category
to play a historical figure.
This is a serious challenge in making period dramas today.
At one point you made a lot of period films,
such as Throne of Blood and Seven Samurai.
Had you seen many Japanese period films in the past?
Yes.
But you aspired to make a different kind of period film.
One of my first assignments as an AD
was on Takizawa's film, Saga of the Vagabonds.
I was 26 at the time.
Takizawa was directing -
Back then, there were lots of horses in Gotenba, in peasants' stables.
We had armor and other equipment for the film
stored in the homes of peasants working as extras.
In the morning, as the film crew drove up Mount Fuji,
the doors of the peasants' stables would open,
and out would come the armor-clad peasants, leading their horses.
It was very picturesque.
As our cars advanced, they'd follow us at a trot.
When we'd arrive on the set,
they'd have bonfires going, just like bandits might, among the cedars.
But Takizawa didn't shoot any of those images.
He'd just stick to the status quo. - In the conventional style of the time.
When a northerly wind blew,
these peasant-bandits would turn the horses' rumps toward the wind,
and the horses would hang their heads down
as the clouds swept by above them.
It was all so beautiful...
and evocative of a song lyric from the film:
"Far away is the homeland, and one's heart yearns for it."
But Takizawa didn't bother to capture those images.
So I hoped one day to make a film capturing those things.
They were making stock period films back in those days,
and I wondered why they didn't make good use of those beautiful images.
Period dramas were made in a certain established mode back then.
Yes, but it wasn't a realistic rendering.
If that were the case, those films would've looked different.
Period dramas were stuck in a mold invented by the film industry.
That's why they weren't inspiring.
If you try to recreate how things really were in a certain era,
it's a very challenging task.
In the case of Seven Samurai, even the peasants' wigs were different.
Usually, the top hairline comes up to here, but ours came much lower,
so a special lining was used for the top part of the wigs.
- So you prepared all new wigs? - Yes, we did.
Someone drew sketches of them?
No, the hair stylist, Yamada, who has since passed away,
was passionate about his work and wanted to do them that way.
But it was Seison Maeda who first said -
The painter?
He said the topknot hairstyle seen in films looked odd,
because the top of the head is shaved only down to here,
while where the hair ends is set like a bar of solid seaweed jelly.
He drew a sketch to show how it should look,
explaining how far the top is shaved and the position of the topknot.
Yamada listened intently and worked hard to recreate what he'd heard.
Unless you put in that kind of effort,
you can't break away from convention
and create something new.
On that film, Maeda advised us on kimonos and everything else,
and his apprentice provided us with sketches.
And you've been constantly trying new things like that in your films.
A helmet worn by one of the bandits was actually a national treasure,
and Maeda chided me for it.
"Don't you know that's a national treasure?"
I think what you did was okay.
Moving on to a different subject,
I've heard you're very picky about your film music,
that you have a very clear idea of what you want,
and that you ask the composer for scores conveying that.
Was that the case from the beginning?
I don't think I'm especially picky.
But Fumio Hayasaka understood
that film music is different from regular music.
He firmly believed that film music is in a special category by itself.
That's why our collaboration was so successful.
But his life was cut short prematurely.
It was a great loss.
We would've collaborated on many more projects.
Musicians demand that a piece of music be able to stand on its own.
But it's different with film music. Even if something is lacking,
it works together with images on the screen to form an expression.
But musicians have difficulty grasping that.
They insist that a piece of music - - Stand in its own right.
I understand where they're coming from as musicians,
but Hayasaka was different.
When music accompanies an image on the screen,
it may work better if it's lacking a certain something.
It may be more effective that way.
But it's hard for musicians to get that.
- Yet Hayasaka did from the beginning? - Yes.
How did you first meet him?
He was at Toho from the beginning, but he was stubborn, and so was I,
so the studio didn't pair us at first, fearing there'd be trouble.
But when they did, we worked great together.
- What project was that on? - We first collaborated on...
Drunken Angel, I think it was.
The music for that film was very memorable.
Your collaboration continued up through I Live in Fear.
So you didn't work together for very long, actually,
but he contributed greatly to your films.
You wrote a piece on the film for a laserdisc edition.
I was moved by what you wrote.
He was really a very close friend. Irreplaceable.
We were in a crazed state as we shot the film,
especially the fire scene.
We shot it after Hayasaka's funeral, and my crew was very shaken,
because they all loved him too.
I guess our state of mind infused that scene with a sort of eerie energy.
The theme of the film was actually inspired by Hayasaka.
He visited me one day and said he couldn't work.
I asked him why,
and he said he couldn't work when he thought
about hydrogen bombs and where the world was headed.
"Let's make a film about that," I said, and I began writing the script.
But Hayasaka died during production...
and I think as a result the film is charged with a particular energy.
We were in a strange state when we shot.
When asked to write about it, I found myself in a very difficult spot,
but somehow I came up with some insights for the piece.
The film really shows, probably more than any other,
that cinema stands on images above all, not on story alone.
And I couldn't help feeling that your recent films
show some similarities with I Live in Fear.
Well, Kashiko Kawakita said
she wanted to reintroduce that film to the whole world.
She said that my films were ahead of their time.
When the film was released -
It's the only film of mine that lost money.
The Japanese audience didn't care for it. They didn't want to look at reality.
At the premiere...
Umekichi Nakamura, who later became education minister, said,
"It's stupid to make a big fuss over atomic bombs."
I wanted Toho to get his comment printed in the papers,
but they didn't.
This is a studio that wouldn't even sue the guy who slashed its movie screen.
I guess Toho is suing after all, though. - Yes, it seems so.
It's really embarrassing how Toho handled that.
I wanted to experiment more with Hayasaka.
He really understood film music.
He'd turn other jobs down when he was working on a film.
He'd devote himself to a project.
When you worked with him, did you tell him what you wanted,
and did he bring his own input to it?
Most of the time he'd score a film at the piano.
For Seven Samurai,
there were musical themes for the samurai, the bandits,
Kikuchiyo and Shino, to name the main ones.
When he told me he'd written some possible themes for the samurai,
it was a stack this high. - He prepared a lot.
He played them one by one,
and I said no to every one of them.
He hung his head like this. Then he said he had one more.
It was in a wastebasket.
It had been torn up, so he taped it together and played it.
"That's it!" I said.
The scrapped piece was the good one.
So that's how we'd start working on a project.
He'd compose diligently as filming progressed.
That way...
You'd have music more or less to your satisfaction.
Yes, by the time the music was ready to lay down.
Lately you've used existing music for some scenes in your films,
such as "Heidenröslein" in Rhapsody in August.
Yes, a member of my crew actually suggested that.
There's all kinds of music in the world.
I'd pick what went with certain scenes and have it recorded on CD.
Then I'd play it in synch to the scenes as I showed my crew the rushes,
and I'd get a great response.
If I were to have original scores made - This may make musicians angry.
You wouldn't get as good a score by trying to emulate the original.
No, you wouldn't.
My crew tells me original scores aren't as moving, and it's true.
But it's also true that new scores work beautifully for some scenes.
A director like Tarkovsky
shows the name of the composer whose music he's using.
If it was Bach, he'd indicate which Bach piece he was using.
That's one way of doing it.
I once asked John Gillett, the well-known British film critic,
about using famous music for a sound track the way Tarkovsky does.
He said there's a certain problem that goes along with that.
John Gillett said that?
For example, if you hear Mahler in a certain scene,
you're very aware that it's Mahler,
and that works against the scene.
He does have a point.
I used a piece by Vivaldi in Madadayo, but Vivaldi wrote so many pieces
that most people wouldn't notice it.
With that kind of piece, you wouldn't be distracted
by noticing that it was a Vivaldi piece.
Another way of using famous music is to do what Tarkovsky does,
to indicate it clearly at the beginning.
To plainly show that you're using certain music
is one way of dealing with it.
I have reservations
about having the entire sound track newly scored by a musician,
though you do need new music for some scenes, of course.
I think there are different approaches you can take for film music.
Whether it's selecting music for your films,
or selecting a literary work such as Shakespeare to adapt,
you always seem to be aiming
to take on
the top of the lot, the very best.
I don't do it intentionally. I don't consciously set out to do that.
But you gravitate toward the best.
It's puzzling to me too. Hayasaka was often befuddled.
You hear the "Cuckoo Waltz" in the scene where Mifune is walking dejectedly.
I said that the "Cuckoo Waltz" would work for the scene.
So we recorded the piece
and paired it with the edited footage, and they matched perfectly in length.
I somehow knew they'd be the same length.
I have an uncanny ability to do that, which amazed even Hattori.
Both cinema and music are art forms involving time,
so they could be perfectly matched in length.
The "Stabat Mater" in Rhapsody in August, for instance,
was a piece I heard somewhere,
and I felt it was absolutely necessary for the film.
And when I actually used it, it was a perfect match.
And that piece...
as well as the Vivaldi piece,
were played by the uncle of an Italian AD named Vittorio
who was working as part of my crew.
His uncle had been saying that he wanted to work on my film,
so when I contacted him, he was happy to oblige.
You seem to connect with people worldwide
because you're on the same wavelength with them.
I don't know about that. I'm just being myself.
It's puzzling, though, that I have this instinct for music.
A piece I choose fits perfectly in length with a given piece of footage.
I must be measuring it on some unconscious level.
What needs to be done about Japanese cinema?
If you have any advice for Japanese filmmakers,
I'd be very interested in hearing it.
First of all, Japanese filmmakers need to have confidence in their work.
And they need to stand up for their rights.
These missing elements aren't helping gain support for Japanese cinema.
They should make films they really care about.
John Gillett said this to me, and I may have related it before,
but at one point in time,
Japan produced a continuous stream of superb directors and brilliant films.
This phenomenon has never been seen anywhere else.
He wanted to know how that occurred, or what made it possible.
He said he wanted to interview me on that subject
before an audience at the Royal National Theatre.
I agreed to do it, and so he asked the question.
My answer to him was this:
"It occurred simply
because studios gave free rein to directors back in those days.
There was no such thing as a producer then,
and studios let directors make the films they wanted to make
without interfering.
That's all there was to it."
Everyone in the theater was shocked.
This period you speak of - when does it start and end?
The years that Naruse was at his peak
and Mizoguchi and Ozu were working.
They only made films they cared about.
Naruse made quite a few films requested by the studios,
so they made those kinds of films too, but only a few.
Generally, they chose their own projects.
But it's different today.
So it's the period - excluding the war years -
from 1937 or 1938
through the last half of the 1950s?
That sounds about right.
When the producer system was introduced -
Japanese producers are not the real thing, though.
They don't raise money for the film.
American producers work hard
because they're putting their money into a film.
Japanese producers aren't like that.
Producers should put their money into it but stay out of the filmmaking.
But Japan's producers are just the opposite.
It's no wonder Japanese cinema isn't improving.
Especially nowadays,
control in Japan's film industry lies with the sales department.
You can't expect a good product when the creative side doesn't have control.
These days, the so-called studios aren't really making movies anymore.
Right, they're not.
They lack the talent for it,
because only those without talent remained in the studios.
So to put it simply,
I think that period produced so many great filmmakers
because the studios let them make films they really cared about,
so each film was made with attention and care.
That's the simplest way to make a film, but it's rarely practiced.
It's important that filmmakers make films they really care about.
But for example, my son said
that next I should make something with a little more mass appeal,
a crowd-pleaser that would be a big hit.
You can't do it, though, when you're asked to like that.
Hisao related that story to me too!
I said, "I can't make movies at all when you say something like that."
To tell you the truth, I can only make films that I care about.
I just can't help it.
But working within those parameters,
I made films like Seven Samurai and Yojimbo,
though it was by chance that I made those crowd-pleasers.
It's not possible to make films like that
just because you're asked to, unfortunately.
I agree with you. Films are funny that way.
The real problem we have -
I wish the Japanese audience today would turn out more
for the kind of films I've been making recently.
More people would've seen them in the old days.
My most recent film is currently doing well overseas.
The most difficult thing
is to raise the level of the audience's appreciation of film.
That's a tremendous thing to pull off.
It's easy to lower it, and that's what has happened.
Movie theaters are playing only the awful stuff,
and audiences today are apt to actually believe that that's cinema.
So it's necessary to raise their awareness of what cinema really is.
And educating people in that regard
is an enormously difficult and challenging task.
I'd like you to send out a message
to Japan's younger generation of directors
and aspiring directors, who are really quite numerous,
to wrap up this interview,
if there's any advice you can give them.
The thing I stress most
to the aspiring directors who often come knocking at my door is this:
"It costs a great deal of money to make a film these days,
and it's hard to become a director.
You must learn and experience various things to become a director,
and it's not so easily accomplished.
But if you genuinely want to make films,
then write screenplays.
All you need to write a script is paper and pencil.
It's only through writing scripts
that you learn specifics about the structure of film
and what cinema is."
That's what I tell them,
but they still won't write.
They find writing too hard.
And it is. Writing scripts is a hard job.
Still...
Balzac said that for writers, including novelists,
the most essential and necessary thing
is the forbearance to face
the dull task of writing one word at a time.
That is the first requirement for any writer.
When you consider Balzac's body of work with that in mind,
it's just staggering,
because he produced a volume of written work
that we couldn't finish reading in our lifetimes.
Do you know how he wrote?
It's very interesting.
He'd scribble along and then send it off to the printer right away.
One page would be printed on a sheet of paper this big.
When he got the printed pages back, he'd make revisions in the margin
until very little of the original writing remained.
Then he'd send those revisions to the printer.
That's a good way to work,
though it may be hard on the printer.
He was able to produce so much because of that method.
That may have been one ingredient,
but the most essential thing was to have the patience
to write one word at a time
until you reach the required length.
Too many people lack that patience.
Once you get used to it,
you'll be able to write with no trouble.
You only need paper and pencil to write a screenplay.
When Naruse and I were staying in an inn to write,
I used to visit him in his room.
He'd have writing paper and a pencil on the table.
As we talked, he'd write something down now and then.
That writing would turn into one of his wonderful scripts.
This is a funny story,
but I asked to see what he was writing, and he just chuckled.
He'd written that such and such characters
were in a room doing something.
Just "something"! Nothing specific?
For Naruse, that description was enough, because he'd be directing.
He didn't need to be specific.
But that "something" was funny.
But the tedious task of writing
has to become second nature to you.
If you sit down and write quietly the whole day,
you'll have written at least two or three pages,
even if it's a struggle.
And if you keep at it, you'll eventually have a couple hundred pages.
I think young people today don't know the trick of it.
They start and want to get to the end right away.
When you go mountain climbing, the first thing you're told
is not to look at the peak
but to keep your eyes on the ground as you climb.
You just keep climbing patiently one step at a time.
If you keep looking at the top, you'll get frustrated.
I think writing is similar.
You need to get used to the task of writing.
You must make an effort to learn to regard it
not as something painful but as routine.
But most people tend to give up halfway.
I tell my ADs that if they give up once, then that'll be it,
because that becomes habit, and they'll give up as soon as it gets hard.
I tell them to write all the way to the end no matter what,
until they get to some sort of end.
I say, "Don't ever quit, even if it gets hard midway."
But when the going gets tough, they just give up.
Also, young people today don't read books.
I don't think any of them are widely read in Russian literature.
It's important that they at least do a certain amount of reading.
Unless you have a rich reserve within, you can't create anything.
That's why I often say that creating comes from memory.
Memory is the source for your creation.
You can't create something out of nothing.
Whether it's from reading
or from your own real-life experience,
you can't create unless you have something inside yourself.
In that sense, it's important to always read a variety of things.
Current novels are fine,
but I think people should read the classics too.
So if a film school was set up,
it would be important to stress reading.
Thank you for the great stories.
Supervised by SHIZUO SATO
OF THE DIRECTORS GUILD OF JAPAN, COMMITTEE OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Produced by THE DIRECTORS GUILD OF JAPAN
THIS INTERVIEW WAS EDITED
WITH SUPPORT FROM THE COMMUNICATIONS CULTURE FUND