Loyalty, duty, responsibility, and honor -
these were things that Kurosawa valued very much.
I think Kurosawa really liked such motifs or themes.
The Japanese love this kind of idea.
So Seven Samurai
is a very famous film in Japan.
Samurai can be defined
as soldiers or warriors,
or the class of such people in Japan's feudal period.
As a class, they probably made up about five percent of the population.
Loyalty forms the great core of samurai ethics.
That is, loyalty to one's lord.
There are other virtues too, such as bravery, honor,
allegiance to the code, and rigorous training.
In other words, most of the qualities required of soldiers
were all found in samurai.
Also, a samurai's sense of responsibility was of an extraordinary kind.
Bushido is an ideology encompassing all these elements.
Why the morals of that five-percent population of samurai
became particularly important to the Japanese
was because about 150 years ago,
when Japan gave up its isolationist policy,
the Japanese, who had been in the dark until then,
discovered that most of Asia had been colonized by Western nations,
and they feared Japan might be next.
Then, for about the following 100 years,
Japan strove to become strong as a nation.
Those in power pressured people to adopt samurai ethics,
and the people themselves believed they needed to become like samurai
to prevent Japan from being colonized.
They shifted their loyalty to the nation.
This displaced loyalty was renounced after Japan's defeat in the war.
Yet though it was renounced,
it remained in an altered form: As loyalty to one's company.
So in that sense, it could be said that the Japanese tendency
to identify with the samurai still thrives today.
Among Japan's popular stories,
an overwhelming majority were heroic tales about samurai,
and these tales were exciting.
They essentially depicted a strong man of will and discipline
who becomes ruler of Japan through his heroic exploits.
Peasants as well as town dwellers
read such stories as popular entertainment,
so their influence was quite profound.
Each of the 47 ronin has his own unique qualities,
and when these men come together, they become one great force.
These men of widely differing characters are brought together
for a common goal by, of course, their sense of duty or loyalty.
But a sense of humor also binds them as a group.
A sense of obligation and human feelings come into play as well.
These men also recognize each other's good qualities.
The Japanese love these kinds of ideas.
Since ronin have no lord, at least for the time being,
they have freedom, even if they're not well-off.
And men who are free make better heroes.
It's not that Japan's movie fans liked outlaws,
but rather that proper samurai led very boring lives,
so they didn't make good movie subjects.
The men in Seven Samurai are all ronin.
In fact, Kurosawa's jidaigeki films are mostly about ronin.
There were many films around 1930 portraying samurai as rebels,
because that was a time
when Japan's left-wing ideology reached one of its prewar peaks.
Frustration and criticism
directed at Japanese society of that period,
if depicted in a modern-day setting, would be censored.
These films could escape censorship
by shifting the setting to the past.
Generally, a great deal of criticism
of the feudal period
is found in jidaigeki masterpieces.
Japan's defeat in the war marked an important turning point
for samurai movies.
During the American occupation, film projects had to be approved
by the occupation forces.
And although bushido presents an idealized picture of samurai,
neither bushido nor samurai are compatible with democracy.
Because according to bushido, it's deemed acceptable,
when necessary, to sacrifice one's wife or child
to comply with the command of one's lord.
That went against democratic ideas, and bushido lost its prestige.
The story of the 47 ronin
used to be made into a movie several times every year.
But making films about the 47 ronin was forbidden during the occupation.
This was because the story of the 47 ronin
depicts not only their loyalty to their lord
but also their rebellion against the enemy
who demanded that their lord commit harakiri.
Since this kind of film was directly connected to nationalism,
American occupation forces prohibited depicting such a theme.
To find a way to work within that system,
various aspects of feudalism were depicted critically
by presenting samurai who realized feudalism's flaws.
So very samurai-like characters were not portrayed in films of this period.
Then a great revival of samurai movies occurred
from the 1950s to the 1960s.
This period was the golden age of samurai films.
Kurosawa's debut film was called Sanshiro Sugata
and was set in the period after the demise of the samurai class,
but it depicts the story of a young man
who tries to live his life while maintaining a samurai-like spirit.
So Sanshiro Sugata is not a movie about samurai,
but it could be considered a samurai film.
The film is typical of entertainment films of the time.
But while making a typical entertainment film,
the way Kurosawa reinterpreted it displayed his brilliance.
So Kurosawa started out as a film craftsman
who set out to make battle scenes look exciting
and portray a samurai-like young man falling in love.
With this kind of characterization,
Kurosawa wanted to make exciting action movies
that featured interesting interactions between very human characters.
So when he depicted samurai in his films,
that was his approach.
He himself acknowledged
that there were quite a few foreign films that attempted this,
so they were models for his films.
For example, Kurosawa loved John Ford's films
and used to cite Ford as an influence on his work.
Ford's influences would be great action scenes, of course,
and also a wonderfully rendered composition of each shot.
Then there's also the friendship between men.
When friendships and rivalries intertwine,
this indescribable kind of machismo emerges.
This is a particularly common characteristic.
The most important samurai film of the postwar period
was Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.
Its importance lies first of all in the fact
that the theme of loyalty to one's lord is absent.
I believe Kurosawa himself felt
that bushido should be defined in a new way,
away from the original idea of loyalty for one's lord
to fighting for the good of the people.
Kurosawa's ambition was to completely change
the traditional style of samurai films.
Gorobei!
We'll return when that barley's ripe!
I think talking...
is a good thing.
Whatever your burden may be, talking can ease it.
We're letting one in!
But tell me this: Who turned them into such monsters?
You did! You samurai did!
The victory belongs to those peasants.
Not to us.
Being defeated in the war shocked the Japanese,
and the soul-searching began immediately.
And the easiest way to do that
was to reject anything related to samurai,
because what samurai stood for conflicted with democracy.
So there was strong sentiment against all things related to samurai.
But by rejecting everything related to samurai,
things such as honor and responsibility could get cast aside as well.
A sense of alarm that the Japanese might all become corrupt
if all those good qualities related to samurai were cast aside
gradually emerged in the postwar period, I think.
Kurosawa's films showed that some samurai qualities should not be rejected.
That is, it was necessary to apply oneself
with a sense of responsibility and honor.
And the things in bushido that can be made use of
are a sense of responsibility and a spirit of self-sacrifice.