"Trolley Mania" is a magical work, a film that is enough to be selected as a textbook whether it is film art or film history.
Judging from the timeline, it is a central axis that divides Akira Kurosawa's 50-year directorial career, from "Shisanshiro" in 1943 to "Curling Sunset Love" in 1993.
In terms of technological progress in the film industry, it is a watershed, from the familiar black and white world to the unknown color world (this film is the first color film directed by Mr. Kurosawa).
At the same time, the film also represents a turning point in Akira Kurosawa's life and directorial career, a desperate gamble and a dream comeback.
The film was shot at a dark moment in Akira Kurosawa's directorial career and even his life. He broke with his old club and was smugly preparing to conquer Hollywood, but was finally kicked out by Fox. At the time of the rapid development of Japan's economy after the war, the TV industry had a serious impact on the film industry (the blow to Akira Kurosawa, who regards film as his life, can be imagined), and the new color film replaced the black and white film. Said: You are old old man, you old dog go home.
Under these circumstances, he went to the gambling table, thinking that the power of the four knights should be won and praised. But the result is obvious to us now that he lost very badly at that time or even a complete defeat (both box office and audience reputation hit the street).
The reason for its failure is the realism expressed in this film, and this may be the stubbornness of the samurai Akira Kurosawa.
What he wanted to express was the real world the old guy saw and understood. He told people that this is the reality, and the reality is not the equality of everyone as politicians say, freedom for everyone as capitalists say, the sympathy of intellectuals, or the nihilist's immortality.
The reality is a begging father and son, the father builds the most beautiful and livable house for the boy in his fantasy; the reality is a gentle office worker who twitches from time to time and his tiger-like wife, and her wife has never been in the miserable years. I disliked him and shared weal and woe with him; the reality is a pair of friends who moved bricks and a red and yellow CP wife; the reality is an old gentleman who is compassionate to the world like a Buddha; The old and fresh meat; the reality is a brush craftsman who is constantly happy to be a father, but still loves his children and works meticulously; the reality is a tragic girl who was exploited by her uncle and kept working and was raped and pregnant in the end; the reality is sympathy for this A miserable girl and loves her positive energy drinking youth; the reality is a stupid teenager who drives the air train through this hellish reality day after day; the reality is that this is a fucking world, and we have to face this fucking world. And works that represent this fucking world have to be called realism. This is a kind of complexity and helplessness that cannot be expressed in words.
And the colorful pictures we see at the end may represent the gentleness of the samurai Akira Kurosawa. He might want to be a train driver, taking the suffering people to a place where there is no suffering.
Perhaps what the two little fans Coppola and Lucas valued and admired later on was not the gentleness and stubbornness emanating from this old warrior.
The final question is, what will you do when you see the truth of life?
to be or not to be that's a question
Only this document is given to Shakespeare in the film industry, the eternal samurai, the first man who broke the aesthetic barriers of the East and the West and stood at the top of the director's worship chain - Mr. Kurosawa Akira.
He burned himself to light up the movie.
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