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July 15, 2004
"Something Like An Autobiography"
Ever since I found out that Akira Kurosawa's birthday was the same as mine and my dad's, and that he was the youngest child in his family like me and my dad, I've felt a certain ....kinship with him. Yes, I know, it's weird, especially since I have nowhere near the same talent nor discipline as Kurosawa-sensei. (Or my dad for that matter.) Nonetheless, I feel strangely pleased at this odd little coincidence.
I'd been wanting to read "Something Like..." for a while, but it proved surprisingly elusive. I finally picked it up at Kinokuniya while in New York last month and have been reading it veeerrrryyy sloooowly. Not because it's bad, but because it's so good that I don't want to finish it; it is the only actual Kurosawa biography, really, and so reading it is like glimpsing the soul of the man himself.
I don't know if this is true of all the legendary filmmakers, but Kurosawa-sensei was one hell of a writer. His words flow smoothly from the page, and yet they resound with a individualistic voice that carries echoes of wise old sages. (I'm also currently reading Anthony Yu's translation of Wu Cheng-Ern's Journey to the West, and it surprises me to see how similar the language patterns in both books sound. Maybe it's something to do with the Sino-type languages.) Bouquets must also be flung in the direction of Audie E. Bock, who did the translation - it must have been difficult to preserve the rhythm and meter of the master's surely unique voice in legible English.
"Something Like..." begins at a fairly early point in Kurosawa-sensei's childhood and ends shortly after the premiere of Rashomon. He went to school, got in trouble, went to calligraphy class, got in trouble, went to kendo, got in trouble, and generally lived a normal and somewhat rambunctious childhood; was good at art; got a little older, and was introduced to film (and revolutionary politics) by his older brother; then he happened to see a newspaper ad for film staff, and that was where it all began.
It's fascinating to see the many influences on his life. The first, of course, was growing up in Taisho-era Japan - a bustling period familiar to fans of Sakura Wars, but not often referred to in the West. (As far as most Westerners are concerned, Japanese history apparently started in 1941.) The great Kanto earthquake, which destroyed the town by first shaking it to its core and then burning what was left in the resulting fire, was a key turning point in young Akira's life: in the quake's aftermath his brother Heigo, for reasons unknown, took him to see the heaps of dead bodies, and told him to remember. This brother later introduced him to the world of Western films, and it soon becomes clear that without the influence of his older brother the world might never have known the name Akira Kurosawa. (Let this be a message to the older siblings of the world. You can nurture greatness. So for heaven's sake, don't screw it up.)
The one strong sense I get from the book is that Kurosawa-sensei himself felt that he was a hack. (Somehow it's a little comforting to know that such a great moviemaker could still see himself through humble eyes. I can think of one who needs that kind of perspective, and his name rhymes with Lodge Mucus... but I digress.) The way Kurosawa-sensei described his life - at least the way that he remembers it - it's as if fortunate things just happened to him. By his own account, he was a lazy slob who always happened to be in the the right place at the right time. It isn't false modesty either - it's stated just the way he saw it. And yet it's obvious that there was more than simply the hand of fate at work - Kurosawa-sensei refers only obliquely to this, but it's fairly clear that he worked pretty damn hard to get to where Fate could find him.
Kurosawa-sensei came from an era before film school, when fledgling directors entered the business armed only with a love of film and the willingness to work hard. I think that's what's missing from film school curriculums these days - at least the film schools that the current crop of directors come from. They spend all their time with their eyes glued to a viewfinder, and never seem to look up and experience the real world and let it inform their storytelling. But I digress again.
At the end of "Something Like..." are a few random notes on filmmaking, appropriately titled "Some Random Notes On Filmmaking." The final random note goes:
I am often asked why I don't pass on to young people what I have accomplished over the years. Actually, I would very much like to do so. Ninety-nine percent of those who worked as my assistant directors have now become directors in their own right. But I don't think any of them took the trouble to learn the most important things.
With this book, he has taught them. Now it is up to them to listen, and to learn.
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Posted by Innocent Sidekick of Evil at July 15, 2004 10:18 PM | Posted to Miscellaneous
