Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954)

To understand where we are now, we must understand our past. Every month, Hollywood releases some large action film with big actors and fight scenes. But how did today’s action film begin? The answer lies not in America, but in Japan.

Akira Kurosawa’s three-and-a-half hour sweeping epic Seven Samurai remains the epitome, and the beginning, of today’s adventure and action films. It takes a simple story, combines it with compelling characters, throws in some heart pounding action scenes, and a pinch of romance. But unlike the action films of today, all these parts work as a whole, and were made for the glory, not the money.

The story follows seven samurai who decide to defend a helpless village from a group of bandits who are planning to raid their crops during the harvest. The samurai will be fed small bowls of rice and given little to no payment, with the chance of success at a minimum. Why bother then? Maybe it’s for the samurai code and honor. Maybe for the adventure. Each comes for his own reason.

At three-and-a-half hours, Seven Samurai IS a daunting task for many to watch. The original American release had fifty minutes cut. But there is a reason for its length: to build real characters. Each samurai is given his own story without feeling unnecessary. We see the relationship between the samurai and the villagers grow. We see the crops grow. So when we get to the big raid of the village, we actually care for the characters and can actually mourn their deaths. It’s an ambitious task to say the least.

Kurosawa seems to meander toward two main characters. Takashi Shimura, also greatly known for his role in Ikuru, plays Kashimi, the eldest and leader of the samurai. He is not the strongest or best swordsman, and spends much of his time shaking his head, planning out the attack, and mapping out the story for us. Shimura simply plays this straight, not trying to overact. He is a knowledge bowl of mystery, a quiet man with a great aura, and works perfectly as our guide throughout this adventure.

Our comic relief and slight underdog is Kikuchyo played by the phenomenal Toshiro Mifune. Kikuchyo is only posing as a samurai, while actually a farmer’s son. He is bold, impulsive, clumsy, and a showoff. He carries a sword longer than others, thinking that can prove his worth. But in a film that’s 207 minutes long that, we start seeing him less as comic relief but as a full-fledged character that we will cheer for.

As Kurosawa would influence generations of filmmakers, Seven Samurai has many influences. Marxist ideas and Russian literature flow through the story. The action scenes feel inspired from Americans DW Griffith and John Ford. The characters, as fleshed as they may be, can be attributed a lot of Western cinema. Japanese critics attacked Kurosawa for being too Western sometimes, but he was simply doing what he must do – breaking out of the norm. His Japanese auteur counterpart, Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), whose films were slow meditations on human nature, has no place in Kurosawa’s epics.

As much as Seven Samurai influenced today’s modern action films, it also created the remake. The Magnificent Seven, a western set in Mexico, is one of the first remakes ever made. Many of Kurosawa’s films would be slightly remade for American audiences, including Yojimbo as A Fistful of Dollars and The Hidden Fortress as Star Wars. Influences are simply not just in remakes but also in story arch, character types, and climaxes.

Seven Samurai is the king of action and adventure films. It’s brilliant in character, production design, and story. Although it is a daunting task to watch the entire film, the breadth of the film allows audience’s to appreciate its brilliance. To understand where we are going, we must know where we came from. One of the most influential films of all time, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is a true masterpiece.

Peter Labuza
Film Club

Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989)

Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing is an important movie, one that penetrates to the heart of racial unrest in our country. Despite its intense conflicts, there are no villains in the film. Everyone’s point of view is clear and supportable. This is how life is. And when it comes to solving the conflict we are often faced with contradictory options, unsatisfactory compromises, and potential chaos. Or, as Spike Lee demonstrates so clearly, choices that are as widely divergent as the perspectives of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.

We offer the following discussion questions from William V. Constanzo's Reading the Movies for your consideration as we take this week and this movie to think about the legacy of Dr. King and America’s ongoing struggle to find racial harmony and respect within a diverse community. Enjoy Lee’s film; it’s one of the best.

- Film Club and Intercultural Club

1. Do the Right Thing presents more characters than do most films. How does Spike Lee keep them all alive? How does he create a sense of community among them? To what extent is the block itself a character in the film?

2. Is the central issue between Sal and the community or does it involve other people, other groups?

3. Who are the victims of the violence in this film? Where do you think the blame lies? Does the film suggest solutions?

4. What is the function of the disc jockey, Mister Senor Love Daddy? Of Da Mayor? Of Mother Sister?

5. Spike Lee has been commended for his ability to keep up the momentum through the entire film. Do you agree? What helps to maintain the pace?

6. What motivates Mookie to throw the trash can through the window of Sal’s Pizzeria? At the end of the movie, does Mookie “do the right thing”? Explain.

7. Many of the characters in the film seem inarticulate. Smiley stutters. Radio Raheem speaks chiefly through his radio. Mookie accuses Tina of choking her speech with obscenities. How does this film dramatize the frustrations of expressing deeply felt emotions and beliefs?

8. What parallels can be drawn between the film and historical or current events?

9. Several conflicts are presented in the film: between Sal and Buggin’ Out, between the police and the community, between the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. and those of Malcolm X. Do you think the director takes sides? How can you tell?

10. What do you think has been learned by the end of the film? Who has learned the most?

Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H (1970)

Robert Altman, director of tonight’s film M*A*S*H and the recently released Prairie Home Companion, died last November. He leaves behind an impressive body of work, including Nashville, Short Cuts, The Player, and Gosford Park, notable as ensemble acting pieces in which character and character interaction supercede plot. Altman is not the only director to build his films around people and naturalistic interactions – Woody Allen has done the same for decades – but Altman’s style is less self-conscious and often impishly mines more political undertones.

M*A*S*H, for instance, depicts the daily life of doctors and nurses at a ramshackle military hospital during the Korean War. Altman made the film, however, during the Vietnam War; its audience could be expected to draw some obvious parallels. And in making a movie that is essentially plotless and comic, Altman is offering a satirical criticism of war’s insanity.

If you’ve watched the TV show M*A*S*H, you’ll notice some major differences. Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers as “Hawkeye” Pierce and “Trapper John” McIntyre are more righteous, cleaner, more scripted, and less likely to offend than their film counterparts, Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould. In short the movie is more profane, poking fun at military bureaucracy, racial identity, the sanctity of death, hypocrisy, and self-importance. Also the TV show had a laugh-track, famously turned off during the surgery scenes, while the movie has more faith in its humor and in the audience’s ability to perceive it. For me, one of the most telling differences has to do with the movie’s soundtrack. Both the film and the TV show use the same theme, “Suicide is Painless,” written by Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman (son of Robert). One verse and the refrain cynically go: “The game of life is hard to play; I'm gonna lose it anyway. The losing card I'll someday lay, so this is all I have to say … that suicide is painless. It brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I please.” The TV show, however, removed the lyrics and kept it just as an instrumental theme.

As America continues its involvement in Iraq, perhaps this as good a time as any to rescreen M*A*S*H, for it reminds us that no matter where we fight, what military prowess we bring to bear, or what larger purpose we might serve, in the end humanity, however wounded, survives while sanity is frequently the first casualty.

We often try to link the cartoon we show with the movie. Tonight we have a perfect pairing with Jules Feiffer’s “Munro.” Although it is made a decade earlier, Feiffer’s short animated film about a four-year-old boy who is inducted into the army and can’t convince them that they’ve made a mistake, comically unites tonight’s two features. Enjoy, and keep your head down.

R. Findlay
Film Club Adviser