Wednesday, September 20, 2017
263 - Making of Dreams: A Conversation between Akira Kurosawa and Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1990, Japan. Dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi.
The imagination is rooted in memory. Memory is the foothold.
So says Akira Kurosawa in an open-hearted interview with Nobuhiko Obayashi, the director of this delicious two-and-a-half hour long documentary of the making of Dreams. It is drawn from 190 hours of raw footage.
Obayashi himself is a celebrated film director, beginning with short films in 1960, his first feature in 1968, and working as a writer, producer, director, cinematographer, and composer through to this day, with his most recent film being 2017's Hanagatami, where he served as writer, director, and editor. His 1977 feature House is included in the Criterion Collection.
Obayashi had open access to the locations and sets of Dreams, which was filmed over the course of several months--and several seasons, from cold to warm to hot--in 1989. His camera enables the viewer to watch the master at work. And consequently, the viewer can see what makes Kurosawa a master.
Kurosawa refers to the novels he reads. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and so on. First, he reads the Russian novelists. Yes. They are at the top. Second, what we would give to know all that is contained in the "so on."
He is calm and focused. At age 80 his mind and body are both as supple and lithe as a young man. He seems to remember everything. He can draw beautifully rendered storyboards on the spot while sitting in his director's chair. His prepared storyboards are works of art in themselves. He knows what he wants. He speaks gently and confidently to others, encouraging and empowering them.
Obayashi filmed the documentary in real time, chronologically, but he presents it to us in the order of the scenes in the movie. This is a good, strong choice, as we are able to simulate the watching of the movie as if it were being made in the order of the final edit, the only difference being that the filming dates jump around.
Kurosawa openly reveals to us that these eight stories were inspired by real dreams he had, and that much of the supporting material was taken from his childhood. Thus, the first house bears the name Kurosawa on the address plate, and it was patterned after the first house in which he lived. Another house in the film was patterned after another house where he lived. The girl who dies in the episode "The Peach Orchard" was patterned after his sister who had died when he was a boy.
Kurosawa appears to have plenty of resources on this film.
The sound stages, grip trucks, rain jackets, and hats seen in the documentary bear the name "Kurosawa Studios." From the beginning, in "Sunshine and Rain," he employs three cranes, artificial rain, and movable giant redwoods. He builds houses, paints water, installs grass, thatches roofs, installs water wheels, hires hundreds of extras, uses gelled reflectors in vibrant colors, and adds special effects.
He rehearses rigorously. He describes how for Ran (1985) he rehearsed one important long take for one scene with the actors every single day for three months. Every day for three months! On the day they shot one take in 15 minutes. He does not like to piece together an actor's performance in the edit. He wants to allow the actor to act. That is an actor's dream. An actor's dream made real in Kurosawa's dream. If only we got some rehearsal from our directors--at least more than the token blocking rehearsal done moments before filming.
For a scene with soldiers he places lights on their backpacks to light up the eyes of the soldiers behind them.
Obayashi asks Kurosawa about the need for the director to have patience. Kurosawa demurs that he is too impatient. Obayashi informs him that he has a great reputation among his cast and crew for having great patience. One of the many things they love about him is that he gives them time to do their work, and to do it well.
Kurosawa--
"What are films? What makes them beautiful and powerful?
There's something you're trying to capture in any given film, and here and there it comes together, but the film as a whole isn't there yet. So you just keep groping, and some shots just click. . . . . I just feel that chill down my spine when a shot works completely. That's the feeling I'm trying to capture."
We see George Lucas arrive on set.
We see Martin Scorsese arrive and then sit in hair and make-up to be transformed into Vincent Van Gogh. He talks about how hard he worked on his role, even while shooting his own film up to the day before flying, because he was honored and wanted to do a good job.
We see the attention to detail that Kurosawa invests in every extra, even when there will be dozens of them in the frame in a long shot. He looks at them up close and makes decisions about the minutiae of their appearance.
He watches. He studies. He thinks. He gives orders quietly. Kindly.
They film at a place called Gotenba. Kurosawa mentions offhandedly that he has been filming at Gotenba since he was 26.
26. That would have been since 1936. It is now 1990. He is 80. He has been filming at that location for 54 years.
Similarly, he mentions Abel Gance's 1923 silent drama The Wheel as an inspiration. When was the last time you heard a director refer to The Wheel? People know of Napoleon (1927) if they know of Abel Gance at all, but Kurosawa saw The Wheel in the theater when he was 18 years old. He says the title was translated into Japanese as White Rose of the Railway. Now that is lovely, isn't it? He says the locomotive and its wheels symbolized the man and his fate, and that Gance used Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude (No. 15 in D-flat Major) to underscore it. Kurosawa remembered that all those years later and uses it in his film here.
He mentions that bullhorns have made Assistant Directors voices grow weak, that before their invention ADs had to have well-developed voices to communicate with the crew at great distances. He suggests that other kinds of technology has weakened filmmakers in other areas as well.
Obayashi shows Kurosawa working alongside Ishiro Honda. Honda, known to westerners for directing giant monster movies and originating the character of Godzilla, worked with Kurosawa at least as far back as 1949's Stray Dog. The two men were great friends and worked well together. Kurosawa here states that most male friends argue at some point no matter how close they are. However, he and Honda, friends for forty-plus years, have never argued, due largely to Honda's great demeanor.
He refers to Honda as "god of the wood grain," as Honda joins the crew on his hands and knees to polish the wood.
We see Kurosawa dealing with children, and stating that they should not be spoken down to but rather treated as equals, and we see him dealing with extras, sometimes hundreds of extras, always with respect and comaraderie.
Obayashi talks to Kurosawa about artists who live past 80, and how often they do their best work then, after a lifetime of experience. They cite several great Japanese painters who produced their most brilliant paintings after they turned 80.
This documentary is technically educational and emotionally inspirational.
It rewards the viewer generously with a front-seat view of Kurosawa at work.
And in reflection.
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