Appreciating Akira Kurosawa’s sharp, humane, melancholy epic.
Whoever heard of farmers hiring samurai?
asks the farmer whos about to hire the samurai.
Credit: Everett
Six decades later, everyones heard ofSeven Samurai.
The films outline is movie myth: Tormented villagers, cruel bandits, a few wandering heroes for hire.
Director Akira Kurosawa was a John Ford fanboy who transplanted the Hollywood Western onto feudal Japan.
Hollywood borrowed right back.
There was aMagnificentsequel,and now a remake, butSamurais influence is cosmic.
It defined a narrative structure: The misfit badasses on a mission of mercy.
ItsThe Dirty DozenandGuns of Navarone,ArmageddonandGuardians of the Galaxy.
Zack Snyder has described next yearsJustice Leagueas aSeven Samurairiff.
Back in 2013, Snyder was rumored to be working on aSeven Samurai-influencedStar Warsspinoff.
(That wouldve been poetic: George Lucas was a Kurosawa fanboy who invented space-samurai with laser-swords.)
Instead, this December bringsRogue One, starring six hero humans and one badass droid.
Everyone knows aboutSeven Samurai.
Has everyone seen it?
Its Kurosawas longest movie Im not sure anyones racing to see a 200-minute black-and-white subtitled movie.
With a long running time, they become true characters.
His deadpan is a joy to behold: He always looks astounded, amused, disappointed,andresigned.
Hone your skills, then go to war and do great things.
Then become lord of your own castle and domain.
By that time, youve lost your parents, and youre all alone.
A whole life in a minute!
Later, Kambei plots defense along the perimeter of the village.
He finds a beautiful wooded area; it’s possible for you to smell the summer breeze.
What a peaceful grove, he says.
But its also a death trap.
The whole movies like that: Beautiful and paranoid, conscious of life in all its brutal complexity.
The villagers are meek and naive but also devious, distrustful.
The samurai are filmed like old gods, moving with balletic grace, carrying longswords twice their size.
Kurosawa never loses sight of their tragedy, though.
The village needs them but they are weapons, not people, single-service instruments of defense, disposable.
(Expendables butactuallyexpendable.)
Whoever wins, they lose.
The films action has been much imitated.
But its the desperate, yearning humanity that makesSeven Samuraitruly magnificent.
