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Kurosawa Installment #4
Mar. 11th, 2010 02:26 pmYeah. I went last night because I have to run laundry, pick up groceries and pack for Brushy Creek tonight. (I must be nuts. On the other hand, I'm getting to see a bunch of movies I've never seen before and none of them suck.)
"I Live In Fear" was made in 1953 (the year I was born), a scant 8 years after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Takashi Shimura plays a respectable dentist who moonlights as a mediator for the city's family court where the following case is presented. A 60-something foundry owner (played by then-33 year old Toshiro Mifune in age makeup and coke-bottle glasses) is at odds with his family, who want him declared mentally incompetent. Why? Because he is so terrified of the atomic and hydrogen bombs that he wants to sell everything and take his family and move to Brazil. Who is right? Who is wrong? Is he crazy to be so afraid? Don't they get that he wants to protect them? There are no easy answers. There aren't supposed to be.
"High and Low", from 1963, is a terrific crime drama, based on an Ed McBain novel (according to our nice friends at IMDB). Mifune plays a well off executive who has mortgaged everything he owns and is about to buy enough stock to take over the shoe company he works at. In a case of mistaken identity, a kidnapper grabs his chauffeur's son instead of his and demands a ransom that will ruin the executive. The ensemble cast is great and the ensuing action is well crafted and dramatic with an elaborate police search to find the perpetrator. The Dope Alley sequence is particularly chilling - substitute ghosts and demons for junkies and it could be a kaidan. And although the movie is in black and white, one shot incorporates color for dramatic effect. Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" includes a similar device, quite likely inspired by Kurosawa's having done it here.
"I Live In Fear" was made in 1953 (the year I was born), a scant 8 years after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Takashi Shimura plays a respectable dentist who moonlights as a mediator for the city's family court where the following case is presented. A 60-something foundry owner (played by then-33 year old Toshiro Mifune in age makeup and coke-bottle glasses) is at odds with his family, who want him declared mentally incompetent. Why? Because he is so terrified of the atomic and hydrogen bombs that he wants to sell everything and take his family and move to Brazil. Who is right? Who is wrong? Is he crazy to be so afraid? Don't they get that he wants to protect them? There are no easy answers. There aren't supposed to be.
"High and Low", from 1963, is a terrific crime drama, based on an Ed McBain novel (according to our nice friends at IMDB). Mifune plays a well off executive who has mortgaged everything he owns and is about to buy enough stock to take over the shoe company he works at. In a case of mistaken identity, a kidnapper grabs his chauffeur's son instead of his and demands a ransom that will ruin the executive. The ensemble cast is great and the ensuing action is well crafted and dramatic with an elaborate police search to find the perpetrator. The Dope Alley sequence is particularly chilling - substitute ghosts and demons for junkies and it could be a kaidan. And although the movie is in black and white, one shot incorporates color for dramatic effect. Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" includes a similar device, quite likely inspired by Kurosawa's having done it here.
