Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa, is a movie that I have long wanted to see. It was
the well spring for an American knock-off, The Magnificent Seven, which I saw
not too long ago, but I was hungry to see the "original". When the reluctant wife and I were looking at
a list of 100 films recommended by Rotten Tomatoes, The Seven Samurai jumped
out. It is a movie that I have so much
wanted to see that I imagined I had – but then the images started rolling and I
realized this was not the case. It is
another long film – even longer than Kenneth Branagh's unedited Hamlet we saw recently, but
at least 10 minutes of the almost 3 and ½ hour viewing time is an
intermission. It is also paced in such a
way that it doesn’t seem as long as its running time. Perhaps because it was made into a Western in
its Hollywood incarnation, it had the feel of being in the saddle of a horse
that was not going anywhere fast, but it didn’t matter because the scenery was
great.
Before going much further, I should caution you that this
movie was made in 1954, was shot in Black and White on a square screen, and it
is in Japanese with surprisingly modern language in the subtitles, at least on the criterion
version that we saw (is “slut” a word that the Japanese used in the 1500s when
this film is set?). The plot is simple and familiar from the
Magnificent Seven – but also I had somehow known it even before then – perhaps by
osmosis – perhaps from a well-meaning friend who gave a particularly animated
description of it way back in college.
There is a small village of farmers that is regularly attacked by
bandits. The bandits show up right after
each crop is harvested and they demand the lion’s share of the crop. The farmers don’t have enough rice after the bandits
steal the rice harvest, so must survive on millet until the next crop – barley –
comes in. A village member overhears the
bandits planning to come back after the barley harvest to take that crop as
well. The farmers, in a panic, consult
with the village elder about what to do.
The elder remembers a time when a village hired samurai to defend it
against bandits and this particular village survived because of that. There is much discussion of the merits of
hiring samurai, but there is agreement that something needs to be done, so four
villagers are sent to secure the services of five samurai.
It is important to note that the samurai were essentially Japanese
knights errant. The villagers are
actually sent after rōnin, who are masterless samurai – knights for hire. The samurai are known for the long, tempered
steel swords that they carry. These
swords, as I remember from reading The Ascent of Man in high school, were
particularly strong because when they were forged, the steel was folded in half-length
ways and then beaten to the same size, then that process was repeated numerous
times. This was used as an example of
the power of exponential growth – the number of layers was equal to the number
of folds squared. The samurai are also
known for being the models of the Jedi in the Star Wars franchise – they are
warriors who have done more than secure strong sabers – they are well trained
in the art and psychology of warfare.
They are also, like the Jedi, determined by birth – they are royalty and
have much more class power than the lowly farmers they serve in this film. So when the farmers are tasked with hiring
them, they need to look for warriors who are down on their luck – and will work
for meager wages for low caste employers – not a hopeful mission.
In town, when they approach the most down and out samurai,
they are shamed by him. But they do find
a wise and grizzled old Samurai named Kambei (Takashi Shimura) who
uses subtle subterfuge to save a child from a robber who is holding the child
hostage. In these scenes – and many
throughout the film – there are masses of people who follow the leads around,
watching, commenting, and interacting with the leads and with each other. They function as a kind of Greek chorus, but
also as a window into the culture, first of the town and then of the
village. They are a kind of mass of
people. It would be easy in this age of
reducing cultural differences to catchphrases to see them as representing the
collectivist culture – and there may be more than a grain of truth to that –
but I think there is something else at work here. Especially in the midst of watching so many
western dramas – especially historical dramas – that focus on lead the four
characters that are recognized by the Oscars, I have become tired of the idea
that history is made by heroes. As far
back as War and Peace, Tolstoy was arguing that history turns not exclusively
on the brilliance of Napoleon, but on whether this soldier picks up the flag at
just the right instance to turn the skirmish that is at the center of the war –
and the flag ignites the group to perform at a level that it otherwise wouldn’t
– the flag bearer is less a hero than a catalyst. And in this movie, a movie that we know will
focus on seven heroes, it is useful to know that there is a larger cast at
work. That this is a story of a
community. And we are introduced both to
the larger culture and to the local one through these mass scenes, but also
through seeing the villagers interact with other patrons of the inn they are
staying in and other chance scenes that are also facilitated by the length of
this film. It takes time to get to know
the context in which the action will take place.
And the action in this story turns on the a story of a
community of samurai that is built after the kindly and smart samurai is
convinced to take on a quixotic mission of saving a village all to get a bit of
rice. Because this film is so long, we
are given the chance to get to know the seven characters (as well as the village
members) in detail. As each one is
brought into the fold, we see that they have particular assets. Though the villages have been sent to procure
five samurai, the wise leader, Kambei, decides, after hearing a description of
the layout of the village and that there are forty bandits, that they will need
seven. After a total of six have been
recruited, a seventh begs to be on board.
This samurai, Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), has
been rejected by Kambei multiple times as inappropriate to the group, and is
revealed to be lying about being a samurai, but he simply won’t go away and he
follows the group back to the village, making a fool of himself along the way,
and the group takes him in to make seven (though on the battle flag they draw
up, the samurai are represented by six circles – with Kikuchiyo represented by
a triangle).
As the samurai are headed back to the village, two of the
villagers race ahead to tell the village that they are coming. One of them cuts his daughter’s hair off and
dresses her in men’s clothing to protect her from the samurai. This causes a stir in the village, and when
the samurai arrive, the villagers have all hidden from them. Kikuchiyo begins to display his worth here as he bangs
the alarm drum and the villagers appear as if from nowhere begging the Samurai
to protect them from the bandits.
Kikuchiyo, whom we come to know and appreciate in spite of his boorish
and unbridled character, is revealed over time to have come from a village like
this. He is able to understand the
villagers in a way that the samurai cannot – and he is able to act as a comic
go-between, respecting both cultures and presenting each to the other. In
this instance, Kikuchiyo is able to help the samurai realize that, for the
villagers, they are making a deal with the devil – with a force that, like the
bandits, is stronger than they are, but that they are therefore at the mercy
of, just as they are at the mercy of the bandits. Kikuchiyo is able to ferret out the
stockpiles that the wily villagers have set aside, both the grain and sake they
keep hidden – so hidden that they themselves believe themselves to be more
impoverished than they are (I think), as well as the armor that they have taken
from samurai vanquished by them in the past.
Kikuchiyo helps the samurai recognize their role in past atrocities and
realize that the theft of the armor and the duplicity of the villagers is
necessary, from their perspective, for their survival in a world that doesn’t
value the importance of their humble but essential function. Kikuchiyo helps them (and us) see the other’s
perspective – a hallmark of the Kurosawa film Roshoman. That short film has been used to name the
psychological effect having only our viewpoint from which to see the world –
and reminds us of the problems that ensue when we do that.
Kikuchiyo, in his role as perspective taker, is the bridge
that allows the samurai and the villagers to come together and to work towards
vanquishing a common enemy. Of course,
this enemy is not a foreign contingent for the samurai, but actually a version
of themselves. As a result, the tragic
form of this drama is constructed – it is not the villagers that we pity – not the
people who are at the bottom of the food chain – it is the samurai – whose work
– so exquisitely on display here as they prepare for battle, prepare the
village to fight with them, and then function as the fine warriors that they
are – is ultimately destructive, not constructive, in the way that the villagers joyful
planting, so merrily portrayed at the end to the film, ultimately is. Kambei is able to realize this tragic
element, as are we. We revel in the
battle – in the wonderful craftsmanship that goes into planning the fight and
executing it (and filming it – this film is dated in some areas, but the action
sequences are spectacular), but we also realize the toll that it takes. And the final shot, if we haven’t gotten it
yet, underscores that toll.
Of course, there is another toll. The villager who has tried to protect his
daughter does so for a reason – one that is tragically portrayed as the plot
unfolds – and he ultimately is not able to prevent the thing that he fears the
most. And even though it happens in the
loveliest of ways – love between castes proves as problematic in Japan as
anywhere else in the world. And, of
course, this film portrays, in part by the absence of significant actresses
except for the star crossed lover, the disempowered status of women. Were it shot today, that might have been
portrayed differently, but I don’t know that this isn’t a veridical portrayal
of gender roles at the historical time portrayed and probably more certainly at
the time of filming.
Central to this film, though, is a deeply anti-violent
message. But it delivers this message
without shaming those who would engage in war.
It honors them every bit as much as Kikuchiyo helps the samurai realize
the honor of the villagers and their own complicity. We revel in the noble samurai and their
protection of the village – but we also see that war is ultimately not a
productive undertaking. Made as this was
less than ten years after the war, in a country that was deeply reflecting on
the costs of that war and the nuclear peril that it unleashed, being the only
country ever to have felt the destruction of nuclear weapons used against them,
this movie seems to me to be a very deep reflection on the costs of war.
Kurosawa is rightly praised for creating a film that
introduces all kinds of important tropes into the movie maker’s arsenal –
including the forming of a team that seems to be part of every action film up to
and including our current Avengers series – but I think his technical skill as
a moviemaker should be seen as merely a support of his functioning as a hero – a comic hero - Kikuchiyo - or a psychoanalyst - someone who sees and appreciates the lure of war – of terror – of the costs of
aggression (and he does put this firmly in the hands of men in this film – the gendered
references give men the destructive power that they misuse so egregiously),
and heroically urges us to recognize that, as much as we have organized our
culture to glorify and honor those whom we place at the top of the
cultural hierarchy because of their ability to engage in it, that this is an
abomination that ultimately does us no good.
Given that this film’s imitators have, I think, used the
tropes to glorify the good guys and their triumph over evil – rather than to
help us see, as this film does, that we are all complicit in the bad stuff, I
am tempted to see Kurosawa as having failed.
But I think, by that metric, we are all failing, psychoanalysts maybe
more than anyone, to help us learn to acknowledge, live with, but not to act
primarily on baser instincts that we have glorified out of deeply held,
essentially instinctual fears. The task
of becoming human – in the sense that many of us use the word – as the base of
humane, and humanistic – as the exemplar of all that we can do that is great,
gets overshadowed by our preoccupation will all things dangerous – and our
delusional belief that hiring a monster that is bigger than the feared monster, the belief that the hired monster will
save us, rather than realizing that it is our connection with each other –
including those who are foreign and appear to be allied against us – trying to
find out how to genuinely connect along the lines that will help us all – is our
true calling.
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