Once, when I asked Akira Kurosawa about the meaning of one of his films he answered: "If I could have said it in words, I would have — then I wouldn't have needed to make the picture." Quite true, yet here is a number of words, all extracted from him by numerous interviewers, most of them bent on discovering the "meaning" of his work.
Kurosawa was not what is known in the trade as an "easy interview." Though always civil and sometimes affable, he consistently refused to be drawn into theoretical discussions, and the large generalizations that such talk encourages.
As Peter Grilli here notes: "When the conversation turns toward the abstract, a slight edge creeps into his voice." In addition, the director disliked discussing past works, though he was willing enough to talk about the current one or, particularly, the one next planned.
All of this comes plainly through in these 19 interviews, ranging from the earliest (Ray Falk in 1952) to one of the last (Fred Marshall in 1993). In these four decades of talk, it becomes clear that Kurosawa would speak about specifics (in contrast to generalities) and was quite ready to disclose details. When Gabriel Garcia Marquez asked whether he first thinks of ideas or images, he answered that "I think it all begins with several scattered images."
Many scattered details are thus revealed. He told Audie Bock that "if I were to submit a project like "Ikiru," the education ministry, which gave the film an award in 1952, would kill it today."
Lillian Ross overhears him saying that "The Bad Sleep Well" met with so much company opposition that in the end he had to compromise, but at least he made the film. Now he would not be allowed to.
About the same picture, he told Judy Stone: "If I were to try to make a film like that now, it would be extremely difficult and I would not be able to get any theater to play it." As it was, "I had to do it without naming names, and the worst person never appears on the screen." He told Kyoko Hirano that in the last scene "everyone in the audience deduced that it must be Premier Kishi who is the ultimate source of corruption and who is talking at the other end of the telephone. That is why the company [Toho] never rereleased the film."
Kurosawa grew voluble when the talk concerned the canard (beloved by the Japanese media) that he was really making his films for foreigners. Joan Mellen begins her interview with the question: "To be appreciated by foreigners has made your situation in Japan difficult, hasn't it?" then sits back to watch the results. He counters Dan Yakir's statement that he is considered more "Western" then other Japanese filmmakers with: "I don't think I'm Western at all. I don't understand how I could have that reputation." And Lillian Ross overhears someone saying: "The Japanese are suspicious of international success. Some of the critics in Japan hate Kurosawa."
As we read the interviews — with Tony Rayns, Kawamoto Saburo, John Powers, Shirai Yoshi and, among others, myself — we gain a fuller picture of the man, what he looked like, how he behaved. Also, we learn about specific intentions in selected films, though these are mainly in the later works. This is because directors are interviewed only after they are famous, and in consequence their early work is often neglected. Also most interviewers only know the more popular works.
But whether answering questions about "Rashomon" or "Seven Samurai," or "Ran," Kurosawa steadfastly refuses to explicate a style or discuss a "meaning." He told the Indian critic R.B. Gadi that "I am sure that what I say in my films I cannot say in any other way." Another interviewer (from the magazine "Cinema") is told: "Nothing could be more difficult for me than to define my own style. I simply make a picture as I wish it to be . . . ."
In a hitherto unpublished interview with the editor, Bert Cardullo, he says that he doesn't possess a logical mind. "All I am capable of doing is actually creating . . ." And when Fred Marshall asks what cinema means to him he answers: "It's simple: Take myself, subtract movies, and the result is zero."
Kurosawa resisted intellectualization because he knew that cinema is not words. It is something else. It is this realization that makes great film directors and it is a strong disinclination to talk about "meaning" that makes honest ones.
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