Dreams: Akira Kurosawa's Legendary Status as a Japanese Filmmaker

Below is a essay created for Japanese Cinema course at University, where a essay would have to be formulated in order to analyse a chosen film's textual stylistic and cultural qualities that deemed it a authentic Japanese film. The chosen film for this essay was Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, a film that showcases the style and cultural roots present in the film by legendary Japanese director, this received 62/100.

Dreams (Akira Kurosawa, 1990) is a film that contains eight different vignettes, all having something to say about Japanese society in the wake of the dropping of ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 and ‘Fat Man’ on Nagasaki on 9th August 1945. The film falls into the era of post-bomb films for Japanese cinema, with each vignette dealing with different social issues from World War 2, the home versus the outside, the traditional routes of Japan versus modernisation and the effects of the continued nuclear testing in Japan. Director Akira Kurosawa was known for, ‘as well as revivifying older Japanese narratives, pursues an enthusiasm for reinventing Western subject matter.’ (Burnett 2013:54) Dreams is one of his many films that mixed Japanese filmmaking with Western filmmaking, his inspirations coming from silent films and Westerns, with Dreams being a co-production between the United States and Japan. The vignette ‘Crows’ even features Western director Martin Scorcese as Vincent Van Gogh, each vignette has a clear showcase of the socio-cultural and stylistic qualities that can reflect the Japanese culture Akira Kurosawa wants to convey.

The first vignette ‘Sunshine Through the Rain’ tells the story of a young boy who is warned by his mother to not disturb the kitsune that live in the woods, only for him to visit them and get spotted. He returns home, with his mother informing him that she was visited by the kitsune and he must return to them to seek forgiveness or to kill himself in retribution. This vignette features Kurosawa referring to the Japanese social tradition of the home versus the outside or known simply as Uchi versus Soto. Uchi is commonly referred to as the inside or the home, the place where you belong to, while Soto refers to the outside of the home and a place which is unfamiliar, both seen in this vignette by the danger the boy is placed in once he leaves the home and journeys into the woods. The boy is safe in his home and with his mother, the immediate family that is familiar, but he becomes in danger when he journeys into the unfamiliar, the outside represents the danger of death when going into the outside world leading to those dangers coming back to the uchi, the kitsune threaten him and his own mother. This vignette is also a clear showing of the stylistic qualities that Kurosawa puts into his films, Dreams is a late film in Kurosawa’s career and thus features an evolution of his earlier work, but still possess, ‘the analytic cutting, the reverse-field framing, and the 180-degree perspective violations typical of his earlier work.’ (Prince 1990:263) The most common stylistic element that Kurosawa makes use of is the axial cut, when multiple shots are intercut together with the axis of view still focused on the initial axis placed in the initial shot, with each following shot bringing the viewer closer to the focal point. It has a similar effect as a jump cut with optical changes from shot to shot, it’s a type of cut that Kurosawa used commonly, seen mostly famously when, ‘axial cutting pushes the viewer closer to the burning millhouse in Seven Samurai.’ (1990:299) Author Stephen Prince points out that, ‘the first edit in Dreams is an axial cut. Kurosawa moves from the long shot of the boy standing outside his house to a medium shot using matched axial perspectives,’ (1990:299) a shot that makes the boy part of the home, the shot shows him and the home together before cutting to just the boy, representing the danger that comes from branching away from the home.

The next two vignettes ‘The Tunnel’ and ‘The Blizzard’ follow similar themes, both dealing with death and how Japan thinks of death as a common part of life. ‘The Tunnel’ follows a Japanese commander returning home from the war, as he is visited by the ghost of one of his privates, a solider who does not believe he is dead until the commander forces him to remember. The commander is then visited by all of the other soldiers who died because of him, with him crying, blaming himself for their deaths as they salute him farewell. Meanwhile, ‘The Blizzard’ follows a group of climbers who are hiking up a mountain during a blizzard, with them slowly giving into the conditions and accepting their deaths as they are stranded away from camp. One hiker remains as a spirit, ‘the myth of the yuki-onna or ‘snow woman’’ (Wild 2014:176) tries to lure the man into accepting his death, only for him to survive, finding his camp. Both vignettes are clearly Kurosawa criticising the Japanese tradition of bushido, a tradition that involves, ‘not only fighting spirit and fighting skill, but also absolute loyalty to one’s highest authority, personal honour, devotion to duty, and the willingness to die in battle or through an honourable suicide.’ (Porter 2017:50) Classical jidaigeki films placed clear focus on honourable deaths for samurais, a focal point that followed soldiers going to war, laying down their lives because they viewed it as the right thing to do. During the Occupation of Japan following the war, the allied forces worked to change Japanese cinema and placed portraying suicide favourably as one of its 13 forbidden subjects. Kurosawa is clearly influenced by the West’s opinion of Bushido, he portrays the lost soldiers as dishonourable deaths, placing blame on the commander for the meaningless loss of life, with the commander himself stating it is his fault. He continues this influence by avoiding the jidaigeki ending of killing the hiker. Rather than dying an honourable death, the man disregards the Japanese root of bushido and wants to live instead, Kurosawa showing a clear regard for human life.

Next, the vignettes of ‘Mount Fuji in Red’ and ‘The Weeping Demon’ are grouped together because they, ‘have much in common with the kaiju ega or mysterious creature film genre.’ (Shapiro 2001:293) ‘Mount Fuji in Red’ tells the story of a nuclear plant melting down, with Japanese citizens fleeing to drown in the water. A man explains what has happened to the remaining survivors, clearly responsible for it, as he drowns himself, a mother then curses those responsible for not warning them as she perishes. Meanwhile, ‘The Weeping Demon’ follows a man wandering a nuclear holocaust, meeting a mutated man who has a horn on his head, the man telling him that everyone who was responsible for the nuclear fallout were mutated as retribution, before chasing the man off warning him that he will become like them. Both vignettes fit into the mysterious creature genre, following the socio-cultural criticisms that the films of that genre contained, criticising the various government officials in Japan and the rest of the world that continued to take part in nuclear tests after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The mother curses those responsible for continuing to do nuclear tests and for not warning the population in ‘Mount Fuji in Red’, clearly showing Kurosawa warning what can happen if nuclear tests continue to happen, showing how they will affect everyone. It is even more clear in ‘The Weeping Demon’ that Kurosawa is blaming government officials around the world, the mutated man deems himself responsible for the state of the world and only the government officials are the ones who are mutated, with them literally given horns like a devil to show them as evil. Both vignettes also share stylistic qualities as the mysterious creature genre, clearly inspired by films like Gojira (Ishiro Honda, 1954), with the film shooting in long shots, using smoke to hide the monsters and to create the idea of nuclear waste, using low lightning to maximise the effect.

Finally, the film ends with the final vignette ‘Village of the Watermills’, a vignette that highlights the important themes of the post-bomb cinema, ‘the restoration of balance and humanity.’ (2001:273) The vignette follows a traveller stumbling upon a steam-laden village, with an old man explaining that the village forsakes modern technology to keep to its traditions. The vignette aligns with post-bomb cinema because of its focus on, ‘the dangers of modernity, technology,’ (2001:294) by showing the divide between modernity and the traditional routes of Japan, with Kurosawa’s films bridging the gap between the two by embracing Western style and staying true to Japanese traditions. As author Yoshiharu Tezuka states Japan, ‘suffered a deep-seated anxiety about the loss of Japaneseness, and, historically, an unshakable inferiority complex towards the West.’ (Tezuka 2012:17) With the occupation after the war, many Western beliefs were forced into Japanese culture which shows in the divide created here, the elders of Japan still holding onto the traditions while new filmmakers like Kurosawa trying to evolve the traditions. This vignette however also serves as a, ‘final sequence in which we see balance and harmony restored through playfulness,’ (2001:294) a return to traditions and what’s familiar as a sort of comfort after the destruction of the nuclear bombs.

In conclusion, Dreams exists as a film to showcase the stylistic qualities of Akira Kurosawa, making use of his signature axial cut and recreating the visual style of kaiju ega films. Each vignette also showcases the socio-cultural qualities that his film possess, making comments on bushido in war time, uchi versus soto, modernity of the west versus the traditional routes of Japan and criticism of government officials around the continuing nuclear testing. The film serves as a showcase of the combination of styles between Western and Japanese cultures that Kurosawa conveys in his films, a stylistic quality that sets him apart from every other Japanese filmmaker.

Bibliography:

BURNETT, M. T. (2013) Welles, kurosawa, kozintsev, zeffirelli. New York: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare (Great Shakespeareans, Volume XVII)

PORTER, E, PORTER, RY, & A., PE 2017, Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam

PRINCE, S 1990, The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa - Revised and Expanded Edition, Princeton University Press, Princeton

SHAPIRO, JF 2001, Atomic Bomb Cinema: The Apocalyptic Imagination on Film, Taylor & Francis Group, Florence

TEZUKA, Y 2012, Japanese Cinema Goes Global : Filmworkers' Journeys, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong

WILD, P 2014, Akira Kurosawa, Reaktion Books, Limited, London

Filmography:

Dreams (film). 1990. AKIRA KUROSAWA dir. Japan: Akira Kurosawa USA

Gojira (film). 1954. ISHIRO HONDA dir. Japan: Toho Co. Ltd