Akira Kurosawa, or the master of painting with pictures

Composing movement is an art that many American films are lost on. If you are not using the entire canvas, what are you even doing?

I am having a moment with Japanese film. I watched this video Composing Movement the other day from Every Frame A Painting, a video that compares some of the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s work to those of modern American filmmakers.

The difference was astonishing.

A still from Seven Samurai’s by Akira Kurosawa | Columbia Pictures

I’ll admit, I only recently discovered Kurosawa’s work. I have been working on my film history knowledge and falling in love with this art all over again… And then I received an email from The Industry that highlighted Clint Eastwoods 1967 film “A Fistful of Dollars” starring the man with no name. And right at the end of this section, they mentioned that “A Fistful of Dollars” was a beat by beat remake of Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo”. (“Fistful of Dollars” is currently getting a remake, which is a story for another day.)

This sent me down a rabbit hole of work that I came away from wholly inspired by.

Plainly put, Akira Kurosawa is one of the most well regarded film directors in the history of cinema. He is a master of movement, one who used his films and every frame within them, to convey the sensual and lived emotions of his characters. He did this through juxtaposition, and exaggeration. He cut on movement and changed the direction of the camera often. He told his actors to choose a character movement and to repeat it throughout the film, so the audience could grow closer to the them.

His films inspired the making Star Wars and The Magnificent Seven.

He left nothing on the table. He used every inch of his canvas and his films were more dynamic and intriguing to watch than any modern film in theaters today.

In the video shared by Every Frame A Painting, they compared a scene from Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai’s to one in The Avengers: Endgame.

In Kurosawa’s scene, the camera direction changes with each jump cut, following the action or pushing against it for maximum effect. There are people who are not part of the primary scene carrying out their realities in the background. There is wind and weather, emotion and layers.

In the Avenger’s scene, the camera only moves in one continuous direction across all cuts: a slow left pan. The actors are all sitting or standing still, talking to each other. There is absolutely no one in the scene that isn’t an integral part of it.

It is BORING.

American films increasingly feature these basic camera moves and talent focused scenes. Outside a few extras wandering in and out of the background, there is rarely secondary storylines happening in the background.

This comes down to the mind of the director…

The Making of a Great Director

Akira Kurosawa’s career spanned almost 50 years, with his directorial debut released in 1946 and his last in 1993. His most well-received films were Seven Samurai and Ran, which translates to Chaos. They are grand epics based decades and even centuries in the past.

Seven Samurai’s plot line features seven “soldiers” who must protect a helpless farming village from marauders (sound familiar?) Watch the trailer below.

If you have never seen a Kurosawa film, please do yourself a favor and go watch a few of them. You will be overwhelmed with the way in which the stories unfold.

Which brings me to my point…

To all the young and/or new and/or aspiring directors out there…

Use your canvas! Paint a picture with the camera. Imagine your films as more than rote actions written on a page but as real, vivid, imperfect, and layered real moments or a real lived experience. Exaggerate! Juxtapose. Reveal.

Or don’t.

That’s up to you.