Director: Akira Kurosawa
Is there a greater filmmaker than Akira Kurosawa? I ask this in all earnestness. I think Kurosawa's detractors, like Spielberg's, declare him to be oversentimental and obvious. These are legitimate criticisms - ones which I think it's difficult to answer if one doesn't speak Japanese. Kurosawa could be accused of focusing on a certain historical period in Japan, except that Ikiru is set in modern times (and I think some of his other films are as well).
Sanjuro is the sequel to Yojimbo, and it features Mifune in the titular role as an itinerant disgraced samurai. Sanjuro is alternately bored and cunning, as well as an exceptional fighter. He is like a modern man dropped into feudal Japan - in a land bound by honor and God, he has neither. The film almost comes off like noir - Sanjuro is comparable to, say, Nicholson's J.J. Gittes. He's a natural wiseass who gets by on his own wits.
Kurosawa meticulously stages each scene. Notice where Sanjuro is placed in each scene, and how his nine followers arrange themselves relative to him. See the way the nine followers move together in a way that Sanjuro doesn't. Kurosawa understands that filmmaking is primarily a visual medium - it's about time some of our modern filmmakers figured this out.
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