When we left the Zenran-ji Temple we stopped for coffee and cake (Ella will describe). Then we walked through neighborhoods of more upscale houses towards the center of town. We passed a zoo. Stopped for a crab roll at a market.
After about forty-minutes we ended up at the Museum of Kyoto.
The museum had exhibits explaining the cultural history of Kyoto. Chosen in 794 as the seat of the imperial court (Heian-kyo, “tranquility and peace capital”), it was where emperors ruled Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. This is why it home to more than thirty-thousand shrines. On exhibit were scrolls of Confucian wisdom dating from the eighth century, elaborate kimonos, and frightening masks, all of which I wasn’t permitted to photograph. However, in one room, I got a shot of Ella watching a set of silk screen painted panels that showed an animated day in the life of 12th century Kyoto.
The culture exhibit was on the second floor. On the third floor the sign outside the door merely said, “Film.” We entered a movie lobby that had old 50s movie posters on display along with a replica of the Oscar Kurosawa won for the 1950 production of “Roshomon.” The two-hundred seat theater was about to show “Akagaki Genzo”, a 1938 film directed by Tomiyasu Ikeda. (Not to be confused with Takehiro Tomiyasu, the Arsenal soccer star.) Akagaki Genzo is a character from the story of the 47 Ronin. As a samurai, Genzo, along with his master, plotted revenge for the murder of their lord against a high-ranking official.
The film was about to start, and since we weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere, we took a seat in the cinema. It was evident from the start of the movie of how much Kurosawa changed Japanese film-making ten years later. Twenty minutes into “Akagaki Genzo” and there wasn’t one camera setup that didn’t follow a framed pattern of wide shot-two shot-closeup reverse closeup. It was all dialogue with very little movement. The acting was good, but the action that Kurasawa perfected in even his most dialogue-laden scenes was missing. Think of a Kurasawa film and there’s always some atmospheric element that adds movement, like rain, smoke, wind, steam, or background figures shifting places. And then there’s the momentum of a Kurasawa edit with cuts being made on an action.
So we left after twenty minutes and went to browse through a paper store on the first floor. How about origami dragon?
Did Kurasawa bring ideas from Western film making to Japanese films or did he invent them independently? Or maybe some of both?
Some of both. Hollywood was hugely influential for him. But his atmospheric, neo-Shinto style was unique and consequently influenced Hollywood directors like Robert Altman who openly confessed they were indebted to him.