Kurosawa and Geometry

I can't un-see things.

Do you see it? Kurosawa uses clear staging and clean composition to build shapes within his shots. Wada, the character at the top of the frame, serves as a point for two triangular layouts in this shot. From The Bad Sleep Well (1960), Dir. Akira Kurosawa.

This is the problem I have with my self-imposed education in film. I learn about a new technique, a new approach, something woven into the film itself that, once seen, cannot be forgotten. For example: I keep seeing shapes in Akira Kurosawa's movies.

Nowhere is this more evident than in The Bad Sleep Well, the director's 1960 film about corporate corruption and revenge. Immediately, my eye was drawn to triangles made by the blocking of the actors, their eyelines, and how they move in a frame.

Granted, I was aware of Kurosawa’s use of shapes before, but I wasn’t aware of how extensive he made use of this idea. The Bad Sleep Well opens with a wedding reception where just about everything goes wrong. The press show up, as this is a notable wedding – Nishi, played by Toshiro Mifune (big surprise there), is marrying the daughter of Iwabuchi (who also happens to be his boss), a land developer whose company is embroiled in scandal and accusations of corruption.

Nishi, on the left, and Wada, on the right, create another triangular shape with their eyelines, and the viewer's own eye is drawn to the shrine in the distance. From The Bad Sleep Well (1960) Dir. Akira Kurosawa.

Right away, two police inspectors arrive ahead of the wedding party, followed immediately by a gang of reporters. People are taken for questioning, and as the camera moves about the reception, we continue to see triangles formed by the bodies in the room. Eyes and eyelines, too, become massively important, forming the invisible connections between characters, creating yet more shapes.

It makes for remarkable viewing. Mifune is incredibly subdued as a diligent and stoic secretarial worker, but it’s his clear glances and pointed looks that tell the story. It isn’t until a third of the movie is done that he starts to speak and we realize his role.

Explaining this is a challenge. Seeing is believing, after all, and it’s difficult to convey just how much Kurosawa adds to each scene by focusing on simple compositional tricks like these. There’s a beautiful scene (check it out below, with added commentary by Every Frame a Painting's Tony Zhou) where Mifune's eyes alone create a sense of tension.

The dramatic irony this builds works brilliantly – it’s a search for a mole, and though we know Mifune is the man the others are desperate to find, they’re sorting through the chaos of it all, and he just misses being caught red-handed.

Perhaps more so than the other Kurosawa films I’ve seen, The Bad Sleep Well has truly cemented his reputation for strong form and composition.

But now I can’t stop seeing triangles everywhere. 

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ben filipkowski

Ben Filipkowski lives and breathes film, books, history, music, and TV, so it makes sense that he's an aspiring novelist. When he's not watching Seven Samurai for the seventeenth time (with commentary), he can be found rewriting the latest draft of his novel, or out exploring another side of Ottawa.

Kurosawa and Cowboys

A man wanders into a town divided by two warring gangs. Getting the lay of the land, he picks a fight with one faction, killing two men and mortally wounding another. Wandering back to the inn he’s staying at, the man off-handedly tells the cooper, “Two coffins…no, maybe three.”

This is basically Yojimbo, but without the swords and made of plastic. 

Wait. Haven’t I seen this before?

I have – sort of. This scene is from Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 action flick Yojimbo. Italian director Sergio Leone swiped this exact scene – and indeed the whole narrative – from Kurosawa, repurposing it as A Fistful of Dollars in 1964, a spaghetti western.

Yojimbo might not have the flash of Dollars, but it’s a much stronger film. The shots are cleaner, the motion visible, the cutting and staging clear and prominent. It’s so much more cohesive, and so much more fun.

Toshiro Mifune stars as the titular yojimbo, or bodyguard. He’s a wandering swordsman named Sanjuro, selling his services at the highest price he can get. Sanjuro is also tough as nails, with gallows humour to match.

“I’m not dying yet. I have quite a few men to kill first,” he growls at one point. After the final showdown, where both gangs lie dead and bloody in the street, Sanjuro surveys the aftermath.  “Now we’ll have some peace and quiet in this town,” he deadpans. The dialogue is brilliant, to say the least.

Considering Yojimbo came out in 1961, it holds up remarkably well. It’s entertaining, and Kurosawa’s sense of space and movement really ties everything together. No matter how chaotic a fight is, you never lose that sense of space and location. There's a sense of purpose to it all. When people talk about Kurosawa’s eye, I think this is what they’re getting at.

It’s really a shame that Leone’s western overshadows this film. As great as Dollars is, it plods along, rife with false symbolism. It lacks the energy Yojimbo has, the grim and playful humour, and never improves upon its predecessor.

Kurosawa has a wicked eye for detail and story, though. I love that I can watch Yojimbo and understand everything based on body language and the blocking of the actors. It comes back to that sense of movement, and Kurosawa’s precision with it. He weaves the story into the DNA of the film.

I think that’s what’s missing from cinema these days. The focus is either on narrative content or visual showboating. No one seems to realize you can mix the two together.

Here’s hoping that changes.

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Ben Filipkowski

Ben Filipkowski lives and breathes film, books, history, music, and TV, so it makes sense that he's an aspiring novelist. When he's not watching Seven Samurai for the seventeenth time (with commentary), he can be found rewriting the latest draft of his novel, or out exploring another side of Ottawa. 

Kurosawa and Obsession

I have a confession to make: I am obsessed with film.

I have what can only be described as prodigious recall when it comes to movie trivia. I’m extremely good at naming actors, directors, or films, generally when someone starts a conversation with the words, “What’s that movie with that guy?” I find it immensely satisfying to know stuff about movies. I cannot explain it.

It all began around a decade ago.

Sometimes you just need a good sword fight.

I was a movie-obsessed teenager who picked up a British film magazine during a cross-country flight. I wanted to read the story about the new Batman movie. I wound up reading every word on every page in that magazine, gleaning a lot from articles ranking “the best” directors.

It dawned on me – I didn’t know who these people were.

A resolution was made. I would teach myself all I could about “classic” cinema, and would watch all the “important” movies I could. That summer, I spent hours in my room watching Coppola, Spielberg, Welles, Wilder, and Lean. I learned everything I could. I was obsessed.

There was one name that kept popping up, though: Kurosawa.

I had no idea where to begin with Akira Kurosawa. I knew he influenced George Lucas, and the first Star Wars was essentially a loose retelling of Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress, but that didn’t mean much when I had no idea who the guy was or what he was all about.

Thankfully, I had a solution.

Zip.ca, long forgotten with the advent of Netflix, would ship DVDs to your front door every month, for a nominal fee. When you were done with one, you slipped it in an envelope, and sent it back – and soon another would arrive to take its place.

I didn’t know where to start with Kurosawa, but everyone seemed to like Seven Samurai, so I started there. It helped that samurai were pretty cool.

I sat down with popcorn, soda, and hit play. It looked beautiful. But what was going on? Who were all these characters? Why were there only six? Where was Toshiro Mifune, the only Japanese actor I could name? I had no frame of reference, no idea of what this movie meant – but it lit a fire in me.

I’m still feeding that fire. I’ve seen Seven Samurai and his other period epics, but there’s so much more to see. Let’s get started.

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BEN FILIPKOWSKI

Ben Filipkowski lives and breathes film, books, history, music, and TV, so it makes sense that he's an aspiring novelist. When he's not watching Seven Samurai for the seventeenth time (with commentary), he can be found rewriting the latest draft of his novel, or out exploring another side of Ottawa.