The Hidden Fortress, 1958, directed by Akira Kurosawa
The Story: A samurai general guards and transports his clan’s gold and princess across enemy territory, departing from a hidden fortress in the desert mountains. Along the way there are spear duels, close escapes, pursuits through the forest mists, scrapes with the executioner, and even a paganistic wood-burning ritual around a giant bonfire. The story is told largely from the perspective of two pathetic and bickering peasants who accompany the general and the princess on their journey.
The French director Jean-Luc Godard, a notorious iconoclast and subversive filmmaker, once said (perhaps ironically) that all you needed to make a picture was “a girl and a gun.” In a sense, Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress has both, albeit in unusual forms. Instead of a gun we get swords – and for the most important battles, long spears – while the girl, hardly a passive damsel in distress, is a spunky and crafty heroine, a spitfire through and through. If the description sounds condescending, that’s only appropriate. Princess Yuki (Misa Uehara) can be as irritating as inspiring, her tomboyish stubbornness both a sign of immaturity and immense vitality. Her heartbreaking appeal lies in the simultaneous frustration, admiration, and poignance evoked by her fierce energy and emotional nakedness (whether it’s her anger, irritation, or sorrow which is exposed at the moment).
The film’s more conventional hero, General Rokurota Makabe (Toshiro Mifune) is certainly admirable, and displays a robust sense of humor (Mifune’s blustering trademark) lest his heroics become too stiff. But Yuri and especially the focus on the viewpoint of bumbling farmers Matashichi (Kamatari Fujiwara) and Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) ensure that Kurosawa’s classic adventure remains surprising and refreshing despite drawing on mythic archetypes and Japanese feudal history. Critic David Ehrenstein called the focus on the two lowly (and remarkably petty, whiney, and greedy) peasants Kurosawa’s “worm’s eye view”; yes, we laugh at them, but we also see this remarkable epic largely through their eyes.
The Hidden Fortress is thus as fresh as it is stirring; as modern as it is old-fashioned – it can’t help but be immensely satisfying. The film is alternately funny (several instances of reverse psychology, hammed up with Mifune’s forghright bravado), moving (the weirdly intense juxtaposition of Nuri’s tears with her lost country’s flag amplifies the mostly neglected patriotism to a throbbing predominance for a few moments), and even sexy (despite her tomboy getup, or perhaps because of her assertiveness and defensive skill, Nuri is irresistably enticing – one of the great heroines of adventure genre history). The dance around the bonfire is a wonderful set piece, but also almost a throwaway – Kurosawa’s got great sequences to burn (no pun intended).
The film is perhaps most widely famous (and has been for thirty years) as the inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars. Certainly the peasants, especially in the first scene, recall (or rather, foreshadow) Lucas’ robots in the 1977 classic, while the princess-disguised-as-a-commoner is limply and lamely echoed in the 1999 prequel The Phantom Menace. However, Lucas only took bits and pieces of the plot when crafting Star Wars‘ storyline. Actually, the greatest influence of The Hidden Fortress on Lucas’ film (as well as on other modern blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark) is not in any specific plot detail but in the overall feel of the movie: an epic that can be funny and dramatic from moment to moment, in which the characters are sharply drawn, the themes larger than life but – and this is crucial – the details idiosyncratic and illuminating.
Sadly, these touches have been lost in an epoch when blockbusters favor doom and gloom over exuberance and ebullience, painting in broad strokes for vague effect rather than filling in absorbing details on an epic canvas. Anyway, The Hidden Fortress is best appreciated not as the progenitor of big Hollywood adventures nor as the representative of a lost enthusiasm and clarity in cinema, but rather as a wonderful entertainment on its own terms. It does not have the universality of a Star Wars, in which historical specificities and genre conventions are displaced and cross-referenced in a new and unfamiliar context – but it has a purity which is just as thrilling, if not more so.
Looking at it, one feels like the heroes must when gazing across the welcoming plains of their homeland, captured with crystal clarity by Kurosawa’s lens – it just seems so right, so rich, so immensely satisfying, much like the perfectly composed triumvirate whom the peasants grovel before at film’s end. A girl, a gun, a samurai, a sword…it doesn’t matter what a director utilizes when his work feels this good.
Interesting – I was wondering what you’d pick as I had not sent you any e-mail this time. This is definitely one of my briefer reviews (though this is from a couple months ago, it’s a direction I want to move in soon so that I can post more there) but hopefully it captures a bit of the spirit of the movie.
Next week, can you link to the fall movie preview? I think it could be a discussion-starter, both because of its topical nature but actually more so because it focuses on the directors, with my rather opinionated takes on each one.
Thanks again!
In the sense that it emphasizes an unconventional (and normally sidelined) point of view (in Rashomon’s case some POV’s are more conventional than others), you are correct. In fact, I think a lot of great movies do this – they surprise is with one element or another, and often it’s with how the action is framed.
As for Kurosawa, I have to admit he “historically” has not hit me as directly as other great international auteurs of his era, like Fellini or Bergman. I admire his immense skill – how could I not – but have often felt somewhat distanced from his work. Actually, it took me a little while to get into this movie too (though there were extraneous reasons for that) but by the time they were settling into the hidden fortress (and especially once the princess was introduced) I was completely enamored. Seven Samurai was a movie I enjoyed on video without quite seeing why it was ranked not just a good movie, or even just a great one, but an all-out full-stop masterpiece. Then I saw it on the big screen and “got it”.
Rashomon might be my favorite Kurosawa; it was one of the first I saw and was my favorite for a while, but I need to see it again, because it’s been about 7 years or so. Ikiru lost me with the second half the first time but years later I appreciated it much more.
Of course, this is just my own personal take on the master, offered as a comment, certainly neither an assessment nor analysis of his status. Among Japanese directors (and I admittedly way more on the wavelength with American – European films than Asian ones, which I often admire without connecting to in quite the same way), I would say Ozu is my favorite.
Nice piece on a film that gives me more “unmixed pleasure” than any other in the director’s oeuvre. It offers the least to ponder over among Kurosawa’s works and yet the fairy tale quality of this film combined with the director’s signature technical prowess and narrative drive makes this one of the most compulsive viewing experiences in cinema. I hope Criterion do a restoration on it soon.
“but more than that it’s a deliriously entertaining film, one of Kurosawa’s best in this regard”
‘Delirious entertainment’ is a fine phrase for this film Sam! This is the closest a Kurosawa film comes to being ‘mere’ entertainment but for all this I’d take it over many more ‘serious’ works! To my mind this is one of those essential works that encapsulate the sheer joy of cinema.
A great essay on a truly great film! I’ve read all of Joel’s pieces and, as always, find them completely delightful in their expressive quality and passion. However, this could be, along with your spectacular piece on David Lean’s LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, your best work so far. I look forward to Joel’s contributions every week like an added supplement to both WitD and the films he reviews with each. His work, presented here is like the magazine section you get every Sunday in the NEW YORK TIMES-a little added bonus to everything else. As I am also a lover of this particular film I was especially interested in Joel’s opinions and perspectives. Of course, the fact that he and I agree a lot and think alike adds a extra pleasure to each essay for me as well. BRAVO! Excellenty work here. Thank you for this.. Dennis
Actually, I will agree with Schmulee a bit abovr. Do I think this film is better than SEVEN SAMURAI or THRONE OF BLOOD? RAN? No. I do not. But, as I have said about Hitchcock in the past, I’d take the directors worst efforts, any day, over most other directors best. This film might not be up to snuff with the others in his canon, and its certainly not RAN (my favorite film by Kurosawa). But, THE HIDDEN FORTRESS IS one of those rare entertainments that’s smarter than others “entertainments” and has the ability to hypnotize its audience completely for a few hours. I saw this movie in my high school literature class, of all things, when I was 16 years old. When the film started the class boo-ed the idea of a subtitled foreign film. However, about 10 minutes into it, the paper planes stopped flying and the spit-balls ceased. THEY WERE HOOKED! We skipped the next two classes to finish the film up in one day! Extraordinary film!
Yes Kaleem! Yes! I couldn’t have said it better myself. This film is an excellent example of pure, joyful cinema and film-making. I have often wondered if guys like Kurosawa, Ford (with a film like MY DARLING CLEMENTINE), Kubrick (with A CLOCKWORK ORANGE), Fellini (with 8 1/2), Allen (with BROADWAY DANNY ROSE), Hitchcock (with NORTH BY NORTHWEST), Spielberg (with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK) or Scorsese (with AFTER HOURS) knew, consciously the cinematic fun they were creating with these particular films. Pure hypnotic, entertaining, professional cinema. I’m smiling from ear to ear thinking of the happiness they may have had with themselves and the relish they got out of making fun films like this.
DELIRIOUS ENTERTAINMENT!!!! YES, YES! How many films can be said to make the audiences they approach feel that way?! I honestly think the real intellectual film-makers get a rise when they know what they got. Welles, I always believed, knew what he was cooking up with KANE. I know Hitchcock was devilishy laughing over his ingenuity while making PSYCHO (even if he thought it was throw-away) and I GOTTA believe Kurosawa knew he was gonna blow the viewers outta their socks with the above reviewed film. There must be an almost murderous glee a director feels when he knows he’s gonna blow-em-away!
To me, a film like THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, is the director saying to all involved: STAND BACK AND WATCH OUT!
Actually, this is my least favorite of Kurosawa’s films. Maybe it’s because it was my first (wonder why) but I was always more wowed by the movies I discovered through this. “Seven Samurai”, “Rashomon”, “Ran”– even “Dreams”, an effort that’s usually written off, I find is a stronger, more compelling work. Most of this movie, by comparison, is rather empty. This is a very entertaining movie, and it has a lot of widespread, simple appeal that transcends the easy-in that a lot of people my age have for it.
Still, I maintain that this is one of those times when the film that a work influenced, in this case “Star Wars”, outdid the original itself. Just like Cronenberg outdid the original “Fly”, just like Scorsese outdid “Infernal Affairs”, just like Kurosawa himself would outdo the Bard at least once (sorry Will, but Hidetora is a better Lear than Lear), so to did Lucas outdo the Master on this occasion. It’s easily the only time when Kurosawa inspired a film that was better than his own. Leone came close, though, with “The Good, the Bad & the Ugly”, which more or less redeemed his pilagging of “Yojimbo”.
It’s a good introduction to the director, I’ll say that. A fine cinematic gateway experience. Still, I have to admit that the first time I watched it, I only made it a little more than half-way through. Instead of finishing it, I turned off the film and put on “Seven Samurai” instead, which I’d taken out of the library at the same time. I watched all three-plus hours without pausing once, except to change tapes. I even watched “Ran” and “Dreams” on television before I finally finished “The Hidden Fortress”. I think that sums up my feelings of the movie, pretty well.
Bob,
You may well be right. It’s a bit of apples and oranges, but I would accept Star Wars as a greater film than Hidden Fortress. But more for the invention and imagination of its images and ideas than for its formal qualities; Kurosawa outdirects Lucas by a long shot. As for Ran…I don’t know about that. It IS a great movie, and there’s no reason a movie can’t be on Shakespeare’s level, but Lear is probably my favorite of the Bard’s, so I’d have to read it again (or preferably see it live, which I’ve never done) to assess that. Ran is a film I quite liked on first viewing – it was a contender for my favorite Kurosawa. I bought it, and on the second viewing was not quite in the right mood to see it and it didn’t work for me quite as well. But I’ll see it again and probably love it again, I hope.
As for Hidden Fortress, this is a case where my enthusiasm and praise is mostly based on subjective appeal (on something like Lawrence, it was a mixture of my more subjective enthusiasm with appreciation for the formal ways Lean evokes such enthusiasm and heightens it with appreciation of his objective accomplishments too). The film just WORKED for me – I’ll be honest and say it delighted me more than any other Kurosawa I’ve seen. I realize this isn’t necessarily a universal position – and I’m pretty much diametrically opposed to you on this, as I think it was Seven Samurai that I paused and picked up on a later day, on first viewing. I liked it, but wasn’t very wrapped up in it and grew restless.
Hidden Fortress too takes me a little while to get in, but perhaps it’s the princess (who’s easy to have a crush on with her spunkiness) who drew me fully into the movie – there are not many women in Seven Samurai, certainly none as central as the princess is here.
Gosh, I sound like Andrew Sarris now.
Again, I have to diagree on a few points. Lucas does outdirect Kurosawa, at least as far as his command of the 2.35:1 scope. Kurosawa was a master of 1.33:1, and when he made his color masterpieces in the 80’s he was smart to go back to a smaller format of around 1.85:1. But even though in “The Hidden Fortress” he shows off a nicely ambitious use of the wider frame, there are times when he plainly doesn’t really know what to do with it. This is a problem that would pop up more noticeably in other films– it’s especially bad for me in “The Bad Sleep Well” and “Red Beard”.
Kurosawa’s best movies have a raw, primal quality that makes it feel as though the images really were caught on the fly, which is what gives his jidai-geki their immediacy, and their thrills. “The Hidden Fortress” is the start of where he loses that, at times– he uses the wider frame with a greater degree of formality, emphasizing compositions, which is one of the things the aspect ratio is good at. But he doesn’t figure out how to really use it in the same naked, verite way that he did before, while still containing the image well through careful framing. 2.35:1 is a more difficult aspect ratio than most people realize, because it forces the director to be far more pictorially disciplined, which can be a challenge for action-oriented directors like Kurosawa, and here you can see him being rather fenced in.
In a few later movies, it gets positively worse– “The Bad Sleep Well” has the bad end of static-filmmaking at times, while he does get away with a creative use of light, darkness and distance occasionally, it feels a little flat at times, like an early CinemaScope picture in the tradition of “Ben Hur”. The same thing occurs towards the end of “Red Beard”, a movie that does a lot rather well, but feels artificial and contrived, visually, at its later points. This isn’t to say that Kurosawa didn’t eventually adapt himself well to 2.35:1– in “Yojimbo” and “High and Low” he delivered veritable masterpieces, wherein he figured out how to use the aspect ratio to his advantage.
“The Hidden Fortress”, above all, feels like an exercise, a test-balloon by the director to help him get ready for TohoScope, more than anything else. It has some nice visual moments, but they’re almost all early on in the film for me. The best moment is probably the very beginning, as the peasants bicker, interrupted only by the sudden, brief and frightful appearance of warring samurai. It has a combination of the raw ferocity Kurosawa prided himself upon and pictorial discipline that the wider screen dictates which the directors who made the best use of 2.35:1 have strived for, and often attained. It’s what Lucas displays in every frame of “Star Wars”, and it’s one of the reasons I call that the better film.
As I said before, Kurosawa’s good work here was essential in leading to better work later. “Ran” is one of those works, and yes– I think it’s EASILY better than “King Lear”. Shakespeare was at his best when he centered in on situations that were simple enough for audiences of high-minded theater patrons and low-brow groundlings alike to appreciate in equal doses, situations simple enough to be used throughout the play in variations without losing focus. You can see it in “Hamlet”, where nearly every plot-strand and every character is defined by their relationship with the Dane, or his father. Are there really any B-plots in “Hamlet”, even in its longest versions? Everything has SOMEthing to do with the Prince’s quest to avenge the death of his father– even the often-cut sublot of Fortinbras serves as a counterpoint to Hamlet’s own revenge, and a reminder to the dark deeds done by the dead father.
“King Lear” is not quite so clean– that extra side-story with the feuding bastard son never really fit in with the rest of Lear’s tale, for me. “Ran” on the other hand is a far more elegant, streamlined affair, in which, like “Hamlet”, all the characters are defined by their relationships to Lord Hidetora. It’s one of the reasons the films has such a weighted, apocalyptic tone at its conclusion– so many people have been left alive, but they’ve lost the one person who held all their lives (for good or ill) in his hand. Kurosawa’s command of imagery, and especially COLOR in this picture, is certainly on par with Shakespeare’s command of words. Perhaps it’d be safer to say that “Ran” is the equal to “Lear”, and just leave it at that as a fine compliment. But I can’t help myself– the film is better. No doubt about it.
As for the Princess in “Hidden Fortress”– she’s a little shrill and self-righteous to me. Let’s face it, Kurosawa never really knew what the hell he was doing with his female characters…
The fact that the movie’s full title reads as “Three Bad Men and a Hidden Fortress” kind of shows it as a very odd, adolescant retelling (hear me out on this one) of “Three Godfathers”, only with each of the men in question either a greedy, lecherous lout or a cold-blooded, unfeeling killer, with an impetuous teenage brat on their hands instead of a smiling baby. Has this angle ever been covered before? It’s always made sense to me, considering Kurosawa’s love of Ford.
actually Kurosawa preferred widescreen to anything else and used as much of it as he could when the industry apparatus allowed him to. With the later films he went to 1.85 only because of commercial pressures. The feeling was that television had to be accommodated. I think he would otherwise have gone in for a greater ratio for both Ran and Kagemusha. And with all due respect I must disagree quite strongly that he doesn’t know how to use the wider frame. In fact it is quite the opposite. There is never a point at which his mastery of widescreen is less than evident. Nonetheless I do respect your thorough analysis on this point and the response overall is very thought-provoking. I lastly find the analogy with Star Wars a bit blasphemous too.
As soon as Sam put up this link I knew there could be a confrontation between Kaleem (Kurosawa’s no 1 fan) and Clark. I now have fathomed out why Clark will not have George Lucas called anything less than Hitchcock’s superior. The name should have told me, he’s George Lucas’ secret love child spawned following an affair with one of the stars of American Graffiti, Candy Clark, on the set.
In this case, however, Kaleem is absolutely right, even mentioning Lucas in the same frame as Kurosawa as an artist is like comparing a child tunelessly blowing at a recorder with the sounds of a full scale orchestra. Kurosawa may not be my favourite Japanese director – I’d take Ozu or Mizoguchi, and perhaps even Naruse ahead of him – but if there’s one thing he was a master of, it was mise-en-scène and composition, and he utilised the widescreen as well as anyone before or since.
As for liking Ran as an improvement on Shakespeare, that does inply someone preferring an utter lack of complexity. On that level, Lucas is DEFINITELY your man, a filmmaker (I use the term in its broadest sense) for the Cliff’s Notes generation, short attention span cinema for the retarded masses. It took him 22 years after Star Wars to get behind the camera again. I wish he hadn’t been so impatient and had left it at least another 30.
Kaleem– just because he preferred 2.35:1 doesn’t mean he always knew what to do with it. Granted, in movies like “Seven Samurai” you can see him striving for a larger canvas, a screen at least large enough to fit all of his characters in one shot at the same time. But there was also a fluidity he had with 1.33:1 and the other ratios around that size that I feel he lost with the wider screen, at least with this picture and “The Bad Sleep Well”. By the time of “Yojimbo” he’d figured out how to use the larger frame as effectively as he’d used the smaller one, but I still think that a retreat into 1.85:1 was the best thing for him in “Kagemusha” and “Ran”. It gave him enough of the widescreen expansiveness to not feel fenced in by the sometimes claustrophobic Academy 35 frame, but it also spared him the visual surplus of Cinema/TohoScope. As for blasphemy, if thinking “Star Wars” is a better film than “The Hidden Fortress”, then go ahead and excommunicate me right now. Nevertheless, it moves…
And Fish– Kurosawa isn’t necessarily my favorite Japenese filmmaker, either. He’s made some of the greatest movies of all time, but part of me prefers Teshigahara, as infrequently as he worked. His collaborations with Kobo Abe (the three I’ve seen, anyway) are gems, as is his transcendent “Antonio Gaudi”. At this moment, I’m trying to track down a decent DVD of “Rikyu”– phenomenal work, but just plain shitty R1 release, with a not-much-better R3 out there, somewhere. Kurosawa was a master of mis-en-scene and composition, but I still maintain he was overwhelmed at times with 2.35:1. The first real talents of widescreen were probably Truffaut, Godard and Coutard. Maybe Lean, but I’d venture to say his earlier, smaller films were better than his epics.
But more importantly, that’s the best crack you can come up with my name? Really? That would be like my implying you must be an ex-convict, and assumed a new name based on your first day in prison. I guess you missed the 9/11 thread, or else you’d know I don’t exactly fit into the timeline of your joke…
At any rate, I do say that Lucas is a better filmmaker than Hitchcock (though, in my book, that isn’t saying very much). And c’mon– is it really so terrible to say that “Ran” bests “King Lear”? It’s not like I’m favoring “Forbidden Planet” over “The Tempest”. Granted, that might be different if we’d actually got to see a little more of Anne Francis during her skinny-dipping scene, but that’s just plain wishful thinkin’…
You do realise that, to quote Jason and numerous others, in dismissing Hitchcock and saying that Lucas doesn’t have to beat much to beat him has rendered you pretty much irrelevant the laughing stock of the known world. It’s like preferring Jackson Pollock to Caravaggio.
As for the statement “the film is better than Lear, no doubt about it”, much as though I love Ran, I’ll have to sit down or else be in fits of giggles at the truly staggering, monumentally mis-placed, laugh-out-loud arrogance of the statement as if the whole known world is wrong and you are right (you’re not a member of the Flat Earth Society, too, are you, or any other society that applauds the complete inabiluty to look facts in the face). Never mind thick-skinned, to get away with those sort of statements, we’ll have to get in touch with National Geographic and tell them all so-called pachyderms have to take a bow. We’ve found the Clarkius Maximus, a creature that comes out with such laughably ridiculous statements that he encourages the sort of treatment dished out to Quasimodo during the Festival of Fools, and keeps coming back for more. I have to admire the masochism of it all, it’s truly impressive, it’s enough to make the Marquis de Sade feel inadequate.
It’s only masochism if it actually causes pain, Fish– don’t flatter yourself. And while we’re at it, I DO prefer Pollock to Caravaggio. Getting down of your high-horse would do you some good, pilgrim.
As for elephants in the room, I only take offense to that remark on a political basis. If you want to use an animal-comparison to insult me in the future, pick the jackass, instead.
As always, Bob, you live up to your site’s name with a surprising focus on the aspect ratio of a film. Can’t really knock that in and of itself, but I find your assertion a bit of a head-scratcher. I don’t consider Lucas to be the “master” of any concrete formal elements. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s get the craft don’t pat, or at least he did in the 70s. He knew to assemble sound and image and make a “movie” which is not a skill all people, including many filmmakers, exhibit in spades. But did he ever really go beyond the, if not competent, than slightly-more-than-competent in this regard? Do we remember Star Wars for its framing, its editing, its camera movements, or for the iconic – almost comic-book – imagery (not how it is shown, but what is shown) and the ideas and associations it sets in motion? For all of that, I am more than willing to consider Star Wars a great movie. But again, I just don’t see how Lucas is the “master” of anything formal, except perhaps sound and set design (more in the sense of having an eye for unique details than for overall impact), and special effects before he blew his load for CGI. Not that those aren’t important, but they’re not what we’re discussing here.
As for being a master of Scope, I just don’t see it, but to be fair I tend to think of Star Wars in the full-screen presentation I watched in 90% of the time. (I’ve never owned a DVD of any of the films, and while I owned the VHS tapes of the Special Editions – which were widescreen – I quickly came to prefer the older, THX-remastered tapes. Though you can’t beat the CBS-Fox releases for nostalgia value, particularly with those old narrated intros including the promo for “From Star Wars to Jedi”.)
As for the rest of your points, you tend to do two things, Bob. One is back yourself up really well – you don’t just make assertions, but offer detailed assessments for why you think they are the case. I respect that. The other thing you do is leave your opposite flank wide-open, leading inevitably to things like Allan’s fulminations below. I’ve perused his comments, and while they look amusing, I think he’s tending to assert commonly-held positions rather than fully defend them. But I understand where he’s coming from in that you seem to absolutely disregard conventional wisdom. I suppose you see this as independent-thinking, and in a sense you may be right, but it also shows a lack of humility which leaves you wide open to attack: don’t you think there’s some reason that few other people are willing to venture the claims you make? Besides just common prejudice? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the contrariness and the thought-provoking arguments that ensue but you have do have a tendency to blithely wander into the eye of the hurricane.
And the Princess … yes, she is DEFINITELY shrill and self-rightous. But cute as hell.
Man, if you haven’t seen the “Star Wars” films in letterbox format, I’m afraid you can’t really comment on their use of scope. Granted, that’s why you’re saying so, so I don’t blame you. Still, if all you know is the pan-and-scan of early VHS and television, you’re not just missing half the picture– you’re missing all of it. To be fair, Lucas’ creative use of scope is more evident in “THX 1138” and “American Graffiti”, where he actually spends most of his time shooting actual people in honest-to-god real locations, but his space-opera camera-work is no less inventive. I’d reccomend at least renting them to see what I’m talking about, but I know a lost cause when I see one…
Speaking of St. Jude, but I fail to see any error in judgement by pursuing lost causes, no matter how little hope one has in changing minds or winning converts. Maybe it’s the latent Catholic in me (or the stubbornly optomistic liberal Democrat). Is it really lacking in humility to insist upon one’s perspective, when all that’s meant to disuade one from it is the pervailing perspectives of others? You can’t outnumber a point-of-view. Conventional wisdom doesn’t hold much sway for me– even the phrase itself strikes me as both redundant and oxymoronic, in the wrong mouthpiece. Popular opinion cannot and should not write off the value of minority voices, or else we’d all be championing mainstream hits based solely on their box-office returns. It’s those majority voices, I feel, that often drown out the dissenting few, and if at times I find myself as part of the handful instead of the masses, then it’s the least I can do to raise up my voice and let myself be heard.
In the case of Lucas, I understand and appreciate how low everyone elses’ opinion is of his work here and elsewhere on the Internet, but just because I’m the only one on this site who keeps speaking up in his defense doesn’t mean I’m the only one out there who finds him a director worth defending. In time his admirers will come out of the woodworks, I’m sure. Until then, granted, I don’t think you could call us a great “silent majority”, but sooner or later you won’t be able to kick us around anymore, just the same.
Anyway, I do appreciate your kind remarks, and while I’m wary as to whether or not I’ve truly exhibited any outward signs of pride, I’ll do the Christian thing and watch myself in the future, lest I seem holier-than-thou before the fisherman. As for walking into the eye of the hurricane– what you see as blithe ignorance, I see as pure transcendence. To walk facefirst into the center of the storm, unafraid with perfect calm– if I were feeling a little more ambitious right now, it’d move me enough to write a sestina…
Actually, this is probably Clark’s best comment he’s made all night, very lucid and nothing at all inflammatory, though the idea of Lucas advocates coming out of the woodwork and not being pushed around any more does sound dangerously cult-inducing -we shall overcome, we shall overcome.” One step from blasting out that God awful Gloria Gaynor song.
And I can appreciate the irony in the ‘fisherman’ comment. A tip may be for him not to bring Lucas into every thread as he has done. No way of avoiding it here considering he owed so much to THF, but bringing him in in relation to totally apposite directors just gets a bit much. My old sparring partner Kaleem used to do that a bit with Kurosawa and Antonioni, but at least they qualify as masters, just no more so than a few dozen others. Lucas, I’m sorry, but I do not exaggerate when I say that he wouldn’t make a list of my top 200 directors. That’s not overstatement, not meant to be insulting, merely how I see it, and probably how most people who’ve seen as many films as I have – and there are a lot more of them than you might think, there are many who have seen more – would see it.
I only bring Lucas into the threads where there’s a connection to his work, Fish. I’d say it’s just about impossible to ignore that connection when talking about
“The Hidden Fortress”, a movie that would frankly be little more than a footnote in Kurosawa’s filmography if not for its influence upon “Star Wars” (that’s not a dig, mind you– good movie, but nowhere near the master’s other films). Also, I’ve only really discovered this site since the end of the 70’s countdown and the start of the 80’s write-ups, so forgive me if I find that Lucas is relevant enough filmmaker in those decades to bring up. If I came here during the 50’s or 60’s countdowns, instead, it would’ve been a long while before it came up…
As for the “cult-ish” comments about “not being kicked around”– c’mon, don’t you know a good Nixon quote when you see one? What, do I have to bust out a Checkers speech for you? Then again, I suppose you could call the great “silent majority” a cult of its own, though in the end, Nixon wound up drinking the Kool-Aid alone…
A random response to something said a few comments up– wouldn’t the best Latin-ization of “Clarkius Maximus” be “Clericus Maximus”? Now I have images of a Bartleby-type scrivener becoming a champion in the Roman Empire, defeating gladiators, centurians and man-eating lions alike with his wit, wordsmanship and almighty literacy. I can even see the tag-line:
“This Fall… The Pen IS mightier than the Sword!”
Well, thanks to everyone for bringing the thread to life! Kaleem for kicking things off, and Dennis, as always, for his unbridled enthusiasm. Dennis, I gotta say, when you get going you really get going! I’m glad everyone likes the piece – truth be told, I considered it one of my lesser efforts, which is why it kind of got skipped over as I was sending Sam ideas for links. I didn’t suggest anything (I was too deep into the De Palm editing process) this weekend, so he put this up – I guess it was a good call. Sometimes brevity can be a virtue, so perhaps it works in this piece’s favor (I hope so, as that’s the direction I hope to be taking on the Examiner in the next week or two – a post every single day, probably even shorter than this – a synopsis, an analysis, and further thoughts, maybe 3 paragraphs. As I said, this will allow me to post more than the current process, which I tend to regard with a bit of weariness, hence posting only once a week.
As for Bob, as always your contrariness provides food for thought. I’ll be responding above.
Wow! Its amazing. I never knew STAR WARS was a better film than THE HIDDEN FORTRESS. I did not know George Lucas could out direct Akira Kurosawa. And, DAMN, who’d have thought that Kurosawa could out do Shakespeare. I have to start changing my thinking these days. I’ve had everything wrong for decades. I’ll have to hurry up and burn my Shakespeare books, seems that Stephen King is rewriting HAMLET and George Lucas is thinking od directing a version. Its gonna use TOHOSCOPE because in the big scene where Hamlet (played brilliantly by Jim Carrey) faces the ghost of his father, the spectre himself will be rolling through the clouds riding the back of GODZILLA. I also heard that Michael Bay plans to remake Ingmar Bergman’s CRIES AND WHISPERS, the three women in the film will now be played by WILMA FLINTSTONE, BETTY WHITE and MY MOTHER. Looks like Bergman is OUT DIRECTED as well. The executive producer is GEORGE LUCAS.
Dennis, if you get any more bitter, we’re going to have to call the poison control hotline. Either that, or break out a razor-blade and a bottle of potassium permanganate solution, in case anybody’s carrying that in their bicycle…
I can’t wait for Lucas’ next Indy film, Indiana Jones and the Case of the Thirteen, where he invades the set of Rivette’s Out 1 and shoots them with a revolver declaring “enough of this shit!, let’s get into the Millennium Falcon and kick some Hutt butt…oops, sorry, wrong franchise…who cares, no-one will know the difference.” I mean, the nearest Lucas ever came to profundity was American Graffiti, which was the poor man’s Amarcord, if Amarcord wasn’t the old man’s inferior version of I Vitelloni.
I also heard he was planning on remaking Rivette’s later Le Pont du Nord with ewoks; the final kung-fu stand-off at the end is a blast. You thought Yoda was cool, watch these ewoks move! Like coyotes with piles!
The funny thing is, if somebody actually made the movies both of you describe, you’d probably love them to death. Of course, their names would have to be Gilliam or Godard for you to allow them to get away with it.
Though I am Kurosawa’s greatest fan and though Ran is a masterwork I cannot privilege it over Lear in any sense! The Bard cannot be superseded. It’s a fact of life as basic as the laws of physics!
meant to say this in the earlier response but had to step out suddenly..
Also Gloucester/Edmund/Edgar and Lear/Regan-Goneril/Cordelia is an obvious parallel. One is driven to madness, the other is made blind. In each case a failure of ‘vision’ and of ‘knowing’.
It’s a parallel, but they’re still more or less in their own separate plotlines. It’s a great play, no doubt, but not as dramatically lean and neat as “Hamlet” was, or “Ran” is. I refuse to subscribe to the notion that there are authors whose work cannot be exceeded by rules of asthetics as certain as the laws of physics. The Bard was great, but he was a mere mortal, nothing more (unless you believe all the half-baked conspiracy theories that say his plays were written by commitee, or unnamed authors, or Christopher Marlowe in hiding, whatnot).
Allan, in old age we shall all turn to Ozu and he will have the last laugh!
The irony of course being Ozu never lived to see his. Poor old soul, damned cancer sticks.
Bob, but that’s an odd claim to make given that Kurosawa is most valued by his critics (even ones who are not his greatest fans) and his peers (before and after) precisely for his widescreen compositions! On Seven Samurai incidentally I can only quote David Desser again who suggested there was more concentrated technical brilliance in any 4 min segment of the film than any other in move history. Such a view is always by definition a little hyperbolic. Nonetheless it gives one a sense of who (or what) the subject is!
Incidentally I don’t consider it blasphemous to prefer a number of directors to Kurosawa. Nor do I find it odd for someone to enjoy Star Wars more than Kurosawa. Pleasure can be rather subjective! But the precise claim you’re making Bob is something different.
I’m speaking specifically to “The Hidden Fortress” with the “Star Wars” claim, Kaleem, if there’s any confusion. I do personally enjoy Lucas’ films more than Kurosawa’s at times (if for no other reason than I like science fiction more than samurai– pure personal preference) but I’m not about to say that the former was a better director than the latter. Granted– I enjoy and value every one of Lucas’ films, from “THX 1138” right on to “Revenge of the Sith”, but at the end of the day, that’s only 8 movies. Kurosawa, on the other hand, was as prolific as he was talented, and while I don’t appreciate all his films as much as the others (“The Hidden Fortress” is a little hollow, “Ikiru” a little strained, “Sanjuro” a little redundant) he certainly directed more classics than almost anyone. I think some people go a little too far in implying that every film he did was a masterpiece (at least from his most productive period– I don’t think anyone thinks too much of “Rhapsody in August”, except Richard Gere) but he certainly contributed more than most other directors do in a lifetime.
Lucas is like Malick, to me– just about every movie he made is a masterpiece, of some kind, but they play to very specific audiences (just as “Star Wars” is juvenile drivel to some, “Days of Heaven” is pretentious nonsense to others– both are acquired tastes). Kurosawa had creative peaks and valleys, but when he peaked, his masterpieces were more or less universal in appeal.
On a final note most of Kurosawa’s critics think he was unfortunate not to have been able to make many of the earlier stuff with much greater ratios as well! Much as they like those films they sense the director ‘straining’ for a bigger frame. In a similar sense Kurosawa always complained about sound technology in Japan and there are those who feel Dreams demonstrates he knew exactly what to do with it once he had the chance.
Like I said before, I agree that you can see him straining for a larger canvas. But what he loses in aspect ratio he gains with fluidity and spontaneity.
Bob, Hamlet wouldn’t be my privileged example if I had to find faults in Lear on notions of ‘leanness’. Macbeth is probably the best example on that score. This without getting into the whole problematic issue of what constitutes the canonical text of Lear or for that matter Hamlet. But also remember that you’re relying on somewhat classical parameters which have never applied to Shakespeare. As Voltaire suggested (and I’m paraphrasing) Shakespeare broke all the rules and yet he pulled off everything so well.
Shakespeare is precisely not a ‘mortal’. There are artists who inform a culture so enormously, who shape that culture’s language so indelibly (Homer, Dante, Plato some others), who ultimately create an entire history of ‘literature’ so profoundly that they do not remain simply ‘mortal’. They become far more.
Kaleem, I have to say that I categorically disagree with your view of how great authors stand in history. Homer and Dante are very interesting examples, because they represent the kind of cultural intertextuality that goes strenuously discouraged whenever we look upon artists too reverently. If Virgil respected Homer too much to believe he couldn’t outdo him, we wouldn’t have “The Aeneid”, and by connection, we wouldn’t have “The Divine Comedy”. Granted, great authors, artists and filmmakers demand respect as long as their works continue to impress and influence us, but we shouldn’t place them on too high a pedestal and disallow ourselves the creative freedom of believing we can soar higher. The human imagination always has potential.
I think we’re talking apples and oranges here. I never suggested that great authors shouldn’t be emulated or that followers shouldn’t try to outdo them. By all means! Kurosawa has every right to try and outdo Lear (doubt this was his aim) if he so wishes. But Ran isn’t that film!
I also think some authors are ‘events’. In other words their writing enframe every successive follower. This does not prevent another event from occurring but that newer talent then has to create a paradigm shifting work. So Homer is never outdone in the classical epic form. And no critic suggests this. Canonical classical drama is also not outdone by anyone. But Shakespeare then creates a new mould. And this is my entire point. Plato defines the parameters of philosophy forever. As a thinker suggested all of Western philosophy since Plato constitutes a dialogue with the terms of the debate as he set them up. This does not prevent an Aristotle from emerging but he is also a similar titan even if he too engages with Plato.
No one supersedes Raphael though a Picasso creates his own event. Bach cannot be outdone (he’s a bit like Plato for the Western musical tradition in many ways). Nor can Mozart. The Taj Mahal constitutes one architectural event, the cathedral at Chartres another.
Arguably no novelist is free from the influence of Cervantes. Certainly no one writing in Spanish anywhere. Much as Dante’s language is like scripture for anyone composing in Italian.
This is the logic of the ‘event’. That which defeats traditional notions of aesthetics. One could perhaps pick faults in Shakespeare and Dante but it would be beside the point. Note, this does not mean there cannot be writing ‘critical’ of these giants or any other. That’s not what I am arguing. But one must begin to recognize the irony of one’s position. Because our critical approaches are also in all probability contained by the author! Here’s a quick, well-known example — Aristotle’s treatment of epic and the theoretical ideals he associates with the genre. Everything he says fits like a glove onto Homer. So is he defining the ideal epic and then finding Homer to be head and shoulders over everyone else or is his ‘theory’ already dependent on Homer?! A bit circular isn’t it? Because we do not have evidence of a titanic epic poet like Homer to then juxtapose with him and prefer in some sense. Nor did Aristotle. Plato also obsesses only with Homer. For him in many ways Homer is not only the ‘poet’ but the very name of ‘poetry’ (incidentally the debate over whether the Odyssey was composed by a different author is not germane here inasmuch as Plato/Aristotle believed the author to be one and the same). Similarly the entire tradition of the English novel owes a profound debt to Shakespeare’s sense of ‘characterization’ much as the greatest English poets since the Bard owed everything to him. And I am not even getting into other traditions. Take Freud. He is the very name of psychology. One can argue about his methods, try and debunk him but he’s altered the language permanently. How does one argue against this?
All of this does not foreclose critique of any kind. I am just trying to illustrate how mortals become gods!
Well argues. It’s apples and oranges, indeed, but still a lively, worthwhile discussion. Cinematically, I think all directors are still under the influence of Fritz Lang, and maybe John Ford. They’re the events of the film world, so far, and as much as I like other directors, I doubt we’ve really had any others whose impact is as far reaching as theirs.
*Well argued, that is.
Yup yup, Allan. I saw this coming too. But I DON’T blame Bob here. He’s unable to keep his feeble-mindedness from getting the best of him when its handed to him on a silver platter. No, I blame Sammy for this one. He stares at the computer screen all day long, like a bump on a log, knowing full well what the result of THE HIDDEN FORTRESS would bring while “LucasLad” was buzzing around the blog-roll. Did he refrain from posting it? NOOOOOOOOOOO. Instead of waiting for a week when Bob would be on vaacation or out at some STAR WARS convention (painted green like an alien from the cantina scene), he purposely posted Joels wonderful review now, sat back, and waited for the sparks to fly. No, no, Bob is only doing what he does, reacting. Schmulee’s the culprit here. He’s probably home now, at his desk, sitting in his shorts, laughing his ass off right now. Kurosawa’s classic undone by a sado-masochistic grade school teacher. Shame on you Sam! MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU! LOL! Dennis
Jeez, you’re still holding a grudge against me for thinking I insulted Richard Matheson, aren’t you?
Dennis, let’s cut Bob a break here. Some of the interchanges were funny, but I continue to greatly admire Bob for holding his ground, and for his vast knowledge of the cultural field.
I will say that Kaleem Hasan again has put on a show here that few bloggers could ever match, not that there’s any competition.
there is no competition for the generosity of your spirit either Sam!
Sam, go hence, your fence is missing its ornament.
The only fence Sam need worry about is himself, generously giving away region-free DVD’s on the sly. I’ll take that before your habit of turning every discussion into a fencing match, Fish. It’s no way to make friends, let alone good neighbors.
I’m not out to make friends, and it’s obvious with your predilictions, nor are you. Let’s face it, to convert people you need a figurehead worth revering, not George Clueless (no disrespect, George, nice guy, can’t direct a movie). We could ignore you, but when you confirm Shakespeare inferior to Kurosawa and Hitchcock inferior to Lucas – any doubtless even John Hughes – and state it like it’s a cast iron fact, the words ASKING FOR TROUBLE come readily to mind.
Though I hear he is considering an offer to turn up at Waco to turn water into the shape of a giant wookie using the powe of The Force…woooooooo!
Allan, now that I know that you’re a Buffy fan, of all things, I really couldn’t bring myself to give a damn about what you say or think. Whedon is as low as television-creators go in my book– unimaginative as a storyteller, undisciplined as a writer, untalented as a director. I’ll never understand what people see in his obnoxious, unlikeable characters, who spend more time hooking up with each other and namedropping pop-cultural references every other second than confronting whatever monster-of-the-week they’re up against this season. I gave his jailbait Van Helsing a chance, as I did his interstellar Johnny Rebs and his Phillip K. Dick rip-off (which will hopefully be cancelled this season), but I’m only patient with sacred cows for one or two episodes at best. If Whedon is what you see as quality, then there’s little wonder you don’t get Lucas, Fish. The truth is, he’s too good for you.
By the way, what the hell is up with that Waco comment? Seriously, it risks mocking the dead for a lame bit of alliteration.
Yes, I do admire Whedon’s best work, Clark. It’s in my book, as is Star Wars for it was a milestone of sorts, but your comment is pretty redundant, as you think Lucas is too good for Hitchcock and Lang and Ford the pinnacle of achievement and no-one else really matters. Lang and Ford were masters, but neither would make my top 10 or many serious connoisseurs for that matter, and the arrogance of the statements is truly something to behold. People have said stupid things before, as will happen, we all do. But when delivered by the Gospel According to Clark…Ch.1, Vs.1…George Lucas created the universe and he created ewoks and it was good – it’s the stuff of absolute ridicule.
Having differing opinions is fine, but it’s all in the tone, and your tone is always “I’m right, and everyone else is wrong” and it’s off-putting to say the least. Sam may say he respects you as he would fight to keep anyone on the site if it gave him comments, he’s a politician who very rarely says what he feels, only what the reader wants to hear. The bringing Lucas into every argument like he’s the benchmark when he’s anything but – and frankly, I challenge you to find one person on this site to share you opinions on Lucas – is just plain embarrassing.
Some people ask to be shot down in flames, some people bring their own matches, you are kind enough to bring your own gasoline with a flame thrower and pass it to the sane to do their worst. And we’re happy to oblige. Most of the time in the UK we have to wait till 5th November to toss a Guy on the bonfire, you let us do is several times a week.
Again, Fish, if anyone insists upon their opinions as absolute fact, it isn’t me. All I do is state my perspective, and if I do so with an air of absolutism at times, it’s only to match the rhetoric here, which doesn’t really leave too much room open for qualifications of subjectivity. You’re the one who’s continually shown the arrogant streak here, opting to ridicule and insult those you disagree with. If I raise a dissenting opinion, I always try to at least provide some kind of analysis or evidence to back up my assertions, so to at least provide the train of thought to led to my conclusion, rather than relying upon the validity of my beliefs as self-evident and above explanations. Perhaps at times I’ll lower myself to your level and play the insult game, as I do above, but that’s only because you don’t seem to understand any kind of discourse except the ones which most everyone else outgrew in elementary school, and to be quite honest, I never really enjoy it.
You don’t agree with my opinions? Fine. But just because I refuse to keep my mouth shut doesn’t mean I’m disrespecting yours, or insisting that mine be agreed with, even. I’m not looking to win converts. I’m just looking to be read, understood, and respected. If I happen to change a few minds along the way, that’s fine, but my chief aim is to express myself, and to be treated with the same appreciation that everyone else deserves.
I’m not looking to start an internet gunpowder-plot here. But I know programmers, so don’t tempt me…
“Sam may say he respects you as he would fight to keep anyone on the site if it gave him comments, he’s a politician who very rarely says what he feels, only what the reader wants to hear.”
OK, let’s stop right there. How much am I getting paid to expend maybe 2/3 of my waking time to this site? Ander, like you, not a cent. Am I getting anything extra for the extra comments except for bragging rights that may be pulling me back to my years as a teenager.
It is my natural disposition to be friendly, as much as it is yours to be suspicious of motives. I mean what I say at this site, even if my language can be over-the-top.
Bob, that was a fair answer there. It’s true, I’m no fan of Lucas either, and side with Allan on much of what he says, even if his method of expression is not to my own liking. You absolutely do deserve the respect that others get, and you do have it from nearly everyone here.
Bob Clark’s loyalty to this site has been incredible. The last thing is the world I would want is to lose him, especially with his talents and knowledge.
Sam, if he survived Scarface, I thinkhe can make it through the Hidden Fortress…
Bobby, Bobby, Bobby.. Get one thing straight: this is in no way a personal attack on you personally. I happen to think of you as a friend. I was just telling Sammy on the phone that you are my “my late night nemesis”, you keep me company when I’m holding the fort down during the night shift. I’m not disputing your humanity or emotions and I’m definately not in the business of hurting a persons personal feelings. I’m not attacking YOU. What I am attacking is your taste. I have to agree with Allan. When you say things like Lucas can out-direct Kurosawa and say it so definatively; then you have opened a door to commentary. So you have, basically, gotten exactly what you called for. You got challenged. No hard feelings, just challenged. Take the ribbing, take the debate, and don’t walk away huffy or insulted. Everyone has a right to defend an opinion, even if its as wrong as yours.
I’m fine with being challenged, Dennis, it’s just that only a few commenters here bother to do more than bring personal ridicule and insults to the table. Kaleem and Joel are two very fine exceptions, and I’ve enjoyed the intellectual-tennis with them, bringing up points, counterpoints and evidence beyond conventional wisdom.
Bob, I’m responding to your way-above comment down here, as these discussions tend to get lost in the shuffle.
Actually, I’m responding to one part first: “Man, if you haven’t seen the “Star Wars” films in letterbox format, I’m afraid you can’t really comment on their use of scope.”
Some clarification is in order.
I said that 90% of my viewings of Star Wars were probably in pan-and-scan, which leaves at least dozens of viewings which weren’t. Because, lest my latter-day Lucas skepticism mislead you, I was a Star Wars fanatic in my adolesence. I used to watch at least one of the films every day after school in 6th grade, and even at one point – God, I can’t believe I’m admitting this – I would choose a character and fast-forward through all the scenes they weren’t in, just to see the movie from “their” perspective. Granted, this was all on the chopped-up VHS’s, but I still saw the widescreen versions as early as ’93, when I was 9 and my dad took me to see the whole trilogy back-to-back on the big screen at the Wang Center. Years later, of course, I saw the Special Editions multiple times on the big screen and then purchased them on letterboxed videos, bring my trilogy collection to 3 – that’s 9 videotapes, 3 version for each movie – in ’97. Eventually I tired of Lucas’ CGI tinkerings and returned to the THX versions when I felt like watching one of the films, which was less and less often. At any rate, I could probably STILL discourse with you about Max Rebo’s escape from Jabba’s barge (what a relief it was to discover the endaring blue elephant escaped the explosion, averting what had alwasy seemed one of the unspoken tragedies of Return of the Jedi), if you’re even that brand of Star Wars fan, which I actually kind of doubt.
So, point being, I HAVE seen the letterboxed versions, it’s just that in my mind’s eye I probably still see things in the square frames.
Wow, I feel like I’ve just finished an introduction at an AA meeting.
OK, the rest of my response will have to wait. Just to wash of the stink of geekdom, I’m going to go watch the Patriots game. 😉
Well, we have a few minutes before kickoff, so let me see what I can get in under the gun.
I respect your positions, Bob, it’s just that you’d probably “win more converts” if your tone were more humble. But I feel kind of ashamed writing that, because part of your “character” is your forthright, blithe manner of assert which I appreciate even as it drives me batty. Just as I would not REALLY want to change Allan’s acerbic scorn or Tony’s dagger-like orneriness…or Sam’s diplomatic ecumenicism, for that matter! Nonetheless, worth saying.
The more I think about the whole humility thing, the more I’m not so sure of whether it’s even that much of an issue. Honestly, I don’t think my rhetoric has been any more arrogant than anybody else’s on this site– if anything, I’ve always tried to be as emotionally restrained in my arguments, only rearing up in self-defense. Perhaps the fact that I continually voice opinions everyone else strenuously disagrees with, however, means that everyone else is going to inevitably percieve arrogance on my part.
As for the main body of your comment however– it’s interesting, because I think we’re pretty much the same age (we were both in the 12th grade in the fall of 2001) yet our trajectories with Lucas’ work are almost diametrically opposed. I don’t know if I could have ever really called myself a fanatic of the series– I’ve never been to a convention, or anything, nor would I ever want to. I grew up with the movies on VHS and watched them regularly, but they weren’t an obsession for me enough to fast-forward to my favorite characters’ scenes to watch over and over again.
It may sound odd, but instead of “Star Wars” being something I grew out of as I grew older, it’s something I grew more interested in. When I was around 10 and 11 I started getting curious about filmmaking in general, Lucas was the first director whose work I explicitly sought out independently, discovering “THX 1138” and “American Graffiti” as equal parts surprising, intriguing and entertaining. I looked up old interviews with the director, which led me to the filmmakers who’d influenced him, like Kurosawa, Godard and Lang, and contemporaries like Coppola, Scorsese and De Palma. Part of the reason I never went along with the passionate backlash against Lucas that began with the Special Editions is because those ’97 re-releases were the first time I’d ever had a chance to see the movies on the big screen, and more importantly in their full aspect ratios– you could’ve given Greedo a gattling-gun to shoot first with, and it wouldn’t have detracted from the experience.
By the time “The Phantom Menace” came out in ’99, I was already hooked on the films less as pieces of sci-fi escapism or pop-cultural nostalgia, but as vibrant pieces of inventive, expressive cinema, no matter how stilted their deliveries were. Growing up, “Star Wars” was my “Citizen Kane”, the cinematic gate-way experience that shows you what’s possible with the medium, and where to look next if you want to go deeper, and it still is, today. They’re among the few movies that make me want to stop just watching and writing about films, and actually try making them myself. It’s probably too late for me, by now, but as all such cinematic flights of fancy attest to, a boy can dream, can’t he?
First of all:
“It’s probably too late for me”
Don’t be ridiculous! Granted I have self-serving reasons for saying that, as I’m an aspiring filmmaker myself, but seriously, Bob, do you know how few directors had established any sort of career at 25? How few had even touched a film camera? You’ve got plenty of time, my friend. Not that one should get lazy about it, of course…
As for Star Wars, I should note that while I did grow out of the Star Wars phenomenon-cult (though it was mostly a solo adventure; shared with a friend, sure, but I never attended a convention), I still greatly value Star Wars – particularly the first film – as a movie. I would say my “gateway” films were probably the Indiana Jones films – particularly the first and third – a few years before I first saw Star Wars. Granted, there was a coincidence of too many factors to be sure what the tipping point was (my cousin’s video collection which to be fair included Indiana, the cardboard-bound monster movie books I wrote about in my movie-book post, the trifecta of Kindergarten Cop, Home Alone, and Edward Scissorhands and the phenomenon of their advertising before one another in the theaters and the odd effect this had on my mind). But though I already owned The Land Before Time and a grab-bag of random kid vids (you know, of the straight-to-video type, not necessarily all bad either), I always dated the official, self-conscious beginning of my video collection to the Christmas present of Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1990. So there you have it.
So the whole Star Wars thing was, in a way, separate from my general love of movies, almost as if I’d been getting into sports or music or something. When the obsession subsided, it was hard to watch them for a while, the experience had become so rote (granted, the same was true of The Godfather at one point as well) but in recent years I’ve returned to the first film especially and greatly enjoyed with “new eyes” so to speak, not so much taking it for granted as seeing with excitement the brash, wonderful charm and imagination of what Lucas was doing.
[…] A Christmas Tale Flight of the Red Balloon For the Love of Movies Gone With the Wind Grizzly Man The Hidden Fortress Historias Extraordinarias Jaws Kings and Queens Lawrence of Arabia Nights and Weekends Rocco and […]