Akira Kurosawa, who is beginning to look like a master

Miller 2022-02-07 14:44:40

"Tibetan"

The first act of the movie is a long shot that rolls down from the blue sky to the street, and then the camera slowly moves forward. The characters on the street leave the screen from left to right. It seems that the director is guiding the audience to discover the protagonist, but this is actually just a trick of the director. .

A sudden burst of singing sounded, and the camera turned to the left following the singing. At this moment, the camera came to life and became autonomous, and what did this autonomous awareness come from? The director did not explain for the time being, but left the suspense behind.

The camera came to a few women, the protagonist's voiceover sounded, and then quickly followed by an outside counter shot.

At this time, the audience suddenly realized that the shot at the beginning is the subjective perspective of the protagonist, so the protagonist actually appeared in the first second of the movie, but it was always hidden behind the camera. According to Hollywood's "transparent narrative", the audience has entered the perspective of the protagonist from the beginning, but the audience is unaware of the director's clever concealment.

This ingenious camera language was used more than seventy years later by director Damien Chazelle in the first act of "The Bursting Drummer." (Of course, the inspiration for the latter does not necessarily come from the former, but at least it shows that Akira Kurosawa has not been surpassed in terms of directing skills)

"Fixing the gap with skill"

Because the relevant shooting equipment is not perfect when shooting the movie, the characters cannot be shot clearly enough when shooting night scenes, especially when it comes to fighting scenes, the shooting will be more difficult, so how does the director use the skills on the lens to What about making up for the lack of equipment?

The first is to clearly present the characters who surrounded Yano Bengoro in front of the audience. The director did not use too many panoramic shots that can accurately explain the identity and spatial relationship of the characters, because under the conditions at that time, if a night scene was shot with a panoramic view The lens, the effect presented is like this.

So the director makes a hostile character move to the right, and the camera follows the character to form a push-track shot, so that the people who are surrounded are like the portraits on the scroll at the end of the central version of "Water Margin", appearing one by one from the right .

At the same time, in order to avoid shooting fighting scenes at night, it is impossible to accurately reflect the superb jiu-jitsu of Yano Bengoro, so the director did not shoot character fights one by one (also a helpless move, even if it was filmed, it would be a black mess), but instead used The close-up of the characters falling into the water brings the tedious and complicated fighting scenes to a screeching halt.

The next few minions also fell into the water, but there is no need to give close-ups, the sound of falling into the water is enough, which not only avoids trouble, but also accurately shows the superb jiu-jitsu of Yano Bengoro.

"Flowing Time"

Director Jiang Wen once used the tossing and dropping of schoolbags in a long shot of "Sunny Days" to complete the transformation of time and space without leaving a trace, and very cleverly expressed the passing of time like a white horse passing by.

Director Akira Kurosawa is quite different. Time in his films passes away in a symbolic, water-like flow.

The protagonist Tsusanshiro dropped a clog, and then the director shot this clog through several montages to show the passage of time. The passage of time was shown by the director in a few tens of seconds with both concrete and abstract images.

The clogs flow with the river water, and on the bank is Zisanshiro running. It seems that nothing has changed, but everything has changed. This is Homecoming.

"Simple but not ugly"

This word is used to describe the scene of the jiu-jitsu fight in the movie. As far as my perception is concerned, the fighting scene in the movie cannot make me feel the slightest excitement. Of course, this is based on the fact that I have watched a lot of genre action movies. And because the technical equipment is not perfect, the film has almost no close-up shots of physical contact during the fight, so the whole fight is like child's play. But if you put aside these shortcomings due to technical reasons, and carefully study the relationship between the characters in this scene, I still admire director Akira Kurosawa.

For example, in the duel between Zisanshiro and Murajin Bansuke, the director forced Zisanshiro to be forced out of the frame step by step in the duel in order to express the sense of oppression of Murajin Bansuke.

And when the first fall appeared, it did not directly reveal who the person who fell down was, but took two sets of scenes reflected by the audience to increase the suspense of the movie.

There is also a scene at the end of the fight that shows the character's situation. When Murasaki Hansuke was thrown down, the director used a large panorama shot from above. Shisanshiro is standing, Murakami is lying down, the protagonist is looking at him in the foreground, and the audience is looking at him in the background. When the eyes of all the characters in the picture are concentrated in one place, the audience also follows the eyes of the characters in the movie. Looking at Murajin Bansuke, the embarrassing situation after Murajin Bansuke's fiasco was immediately reflected.

"The Chill in the Wind"

The three people in the house happily ate their meals.

The door was suddenly pushed open, and it was Higaki Gennosuke who entered. Here, because the three of them sat on their knees to eat, the director shot Higaki Gennosuke upside down, which is logical and reflects the oppressive feeling of Higaki Gennosuke.

Finally, it ends with an indoor panoramic shot. Without any extra words, the situation of the characters is already on the shot.

It should be noted that in the movie, from the moment Higaki Gennosuke opened the door, there has been a chilling wind around the film, and the wind continues to the final duel scene until the protagonist defeats Higaki Gennosuke.

At the same time, the director visualized the invisible things like wind by shooting other scenes, such as swaying electric lights, bamboo shadows and weeds, and scattered clouds, and the sound of the wind in the picture and the background also achieved harmony and unity in the final duel scene. .

In terms of shooting the wind, this film reminds me of Hou Hsiao-hsien's "Assassin Nie Yinniang". In the film, Hou always keeps the curtain in the foreground of the camera in a dancing state to visualize the wind.

This article lists three directors: Damian Chazelle, Jiang Wen, and Hou Hsiao-hsien. And three works that belong to them respectively: "Boom Drummer", "Sunny Day", "Assassin Nie Yinniang". Objectively speaking, these three films are all films that can leave a mark in the history of film, and there are many ingenious lens language, but in fact, as far back as 1943, Kurosawa Akira's "Zi Sanshiro" has already used these scenes skillfully language.

I have to sigh that a really good movie can't attract others just by a touching story, but should use the artistic technique that belongs to the movie - lens language in the movie system to gain resonance.

Of course, the above words do not mean that I deny the value of a director who can tell a story, so based on the film's cuts, and the story is fragmented and the theme is thin (these shortcomings are attributed to the text and cuts), I will not think this is a film. What a perfect movie, after all, it is only the debut, but I am more impressed by the mastery atmosphere that is faintly revealed in it.

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Extended Reading
  • Hunter 2022-04-22 07:01:53

    The overall plot is rough but there are subtleties, and the debut of the 40s is not easy.

  • Allen 2022-04-24 07:01:24

    If the steps are too large, it is easy to pull the egg/Ozu's 120 points. It is estimated that there are elements of comfort and encouragement for Kurosawa in it.