Kurosawa Catalog

THE HERO WITHIN US ALL
Although one must doubt the extent to which native cultural
traditions could simply be erased, as the metaphor of a tabula rasa
would seem to require, the imagery is nevertheless suggestive for
Kurosawa’s cinema because the evidence of the work indicates
an attempt to inscribe a new set of values and messages upon the
culture. Desser suggests that Kurosawa was faced with the task
of making films whose themes and subjects could be seen to be
appropriate propaganda for the United States’ desire to demilitarize
and defeudalize Japanese attitudes” and that Kurosawa’s
strategy was “to adapt Western modes in a deliberate manner so as
to explore the nature of Western ideals as they impact upon Japan.
Kurosawa has clearly scrutinized his own culture by way of the
West. But rather than viewing his films of this period as simply carrying
out the reformist policies of SCAP, we would do well to recall
that Kurosawa’s pre-Occupation films-Sanshir6 Sugata and They
Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tailexhibit the strong, quirky individual
characters and the ambivalent, even critical view of established
Production stills from the filming of The
Seven Samurai. Akira Kurosawa refused to
shoot the peasant village at Toho Studios
and had a complete set constructed at
Tagata on the Izu Peninsula, Shizuoka.
encourages that feeling of authenticity”.
24 EXCERPT: WILLPOWER CURES ALL HUMAN AILMENTS