Forgive me me if I don't address everything, I guess we need to be mindful of forum bulk for the folks on their phones.
DirkGently wrote: ↑1 year ago
The music will probably be hard to really reconcile since it's so subjective. At the end of the day, probably the biggest difference between the Yojimbo soundtrack and the dollars trilogy soundtrack is that I would, and have, happily listened to the dollars soundtrack on its own, whereas I can't imagine doing that for Yojimbo. .... There are some individual moments in the soundtrack that I do think sound pretty good (most of titles is solid), some of which you highlighted, but I think they're mostly fairly small sections of the soundtrack, and none of it is something I'd enjoy on its own.
Removing cultural bias from the equation, I don't judge the quality of a soundtrack based on how well it stands on its own. IMO it's more about how well the musical accompaniment supports the overall tone and content of the film. When I say the Unosuke theme slaps, it isn't because it's a song I'd tell my friends to put on all their playlists, but because it provides a fitting encapsulation of the character in 17 seconds. A soundtrack full of great songs that doesn't gel with the film attached to it isn't a great soundtrack because it fails its primary objective. I think beyond this being subjective, we're probably measuring in completely different metrics. C'est la vie.
Something else I've noticed while rewatching sections of the film is that the music is typically at its loudest when there's relatively little happening on screen. Opening credits over Mifune walking around? Big and bombastic. Once he starts doing something, though, the music generally either disappears or becomes much less obtrusive. It happens at the opening when he picks up the stick, and it happens at the end once the fight commences. I suspect that the use of music is a lot more obtrusive to me for that reason, on both fronts. I really don't like the use of sound during the fight because it clashes with the bombastic buildup. The wind sounds are roughly analogous to crickets to me, a sound that you'd only expect to hear when the point is that it's very quiet, which doesn't gel with a big fight scene. By contrast, the scene where he's just walking around the town, especially once the wood block enters, feels very loud considering that very little is actually happening. It feels like the film is trying to say "wow how exciting" when not much is going on. The overall effect is that I find the soundtrack to really stick out, and since I don't really love the soundtrack in general anyway, it's a pretty big negative.
Huh. I did not notice that but then again I liked the soundtrack. That is interesting to point out though, could be a deliberate choice about building and breaking tension or just some archaic sound design theory. Either way, I can see why you find it unpleasant but it don't bother me none. Movies have certainly come a long way though in figuring out how make the medium as palatable to the senses as possible.
I'll concede that the eavesdropping scene shows Sanjuro as being clever, but I didn't really get any humor out of it. The prostitutes were more distracting than funny to me. As far as editing, I found it a little confusing - where exactly is Seibei relative to Sanjuro? Seibei seems to be in a closet of some kind but I have no idea where it is. And then I also found it kinda odd that Seibei just immediately is on-board for his wife's plan without even thinking about it.
It sure looks like they're all in a closet to me, directly diagonal to Sanjuro on the inner perimeter of some kind of courtyard, but I don't know jack about Japanese architecture tbh. As for why Seibei does it, his wife very clearly runs the show here. The way Seibei reacts to her demand to speak to him and the cowed way he follows after her looks like whipped to me, and especially to a likely sexist 1960's era film audience.
The fight is just a little too silly for me. The guys freaking out when someone several miles away waves his sword in front of him goes too far. It also goes on for way too long for basically one joke imo, with too many reaction shots of Sanjuro.
That's sad, I thought this scene was pretty well done. I had a good chuckle when Honma jumped ship and I thought the back and forth was good physical comedy.
The fight is super lame, mostly because the enemies make almost no effort to fight him.
I mean, they got jumped, so yeah, they die pretty quick. It's still cool to watch. They're just goons and the movie has already demonstrated a few times that these gangs suck at fighting for the most part. I dunno what you're missing here.
But my main issue isn't with Sanjuro but with the other characters, or lack thereof. The wife says almost no dialogue and her only personality trait seems to be wanting her son back. The sake maker's (?) only personality trait seems to be being sad that he lost his wife. And the kid's only personality trait is wanting his mom. Characters who exist only as cardboard cut-outs don't impact me emotionally.
I guess... but isn't that just a little cold? I mean, these characters aren't experiencing foreign or abstract emotions, they're all very understandable within the context they're in. Family is separated, family wants to be reunited. Sure, they don't have five acts exploring the depth of their moral ambiguity, but they're the
victims here. The fact that they've been victimized should be enough to evoke some empathy. I mean, jeez, are you made of stone?
My only real note on Sanjuro is that I think the scene would have been better if he gave them less money, maybe last-minute changing the amount to either less or more depending on how you want to portray his character. Even if you want him to ultimately give them all the money, I think it would have been more interesting if he initially gives them half, then grumpily decides to add the other half, maybe when he grabs the money off the ground. Giving away 100% of the money without a second thought is a bit too idealized for me.
I 100% disagree. I don't see how the money really matters at all, let alone see the value in him wasting precious seconds haggling with the people he just saved about the exact extent of his generosity. We see Sanjuro state his desire for profit multiple times ("I get paid for killing", etc), but act against it every time he has a chance. Hell, at the end of the movie, he just walks away. without ever paying the innkeeper, but also without actually making any money on this whole escapade either. All of that reads to me as a character to whom money is unimportant, not necessarily operating out of ideals.
My issue with the hammer guy is that he's setup in the following scenes as being a relevant muscle character, but there's no payoff in terms of vanquishing him, even though he's clearly visible in the leadup to the final showdown. I had to rewatch it frame by frame to be sure he's even in it - he's almost entirely got his back to the camera and nothing interesting happens, he dies as unceremoniously as everyone else. I would have liked at least a couple seconds of Mifune dodging his hammer or something.
Fair enough, I could have done with a little more Hammer Man. I did like seeing him throw Sanjuro by the face(!) a few times, but a little more could have been done in the final fight, I'll concede that. This might be a case of Chekov's Gun not quite going off, as they could have just given him a sword and there'd be less expectations attached to him and his weirdly distinct weapon. The hammer itself has none of the payoff that Unosuke's gun has, for example.
The escape scene is the one place in the movie (well, maybe the shot where he's looking down the from the tower, but I don't like that scene very much overall for aforementioned reasons) where I did think the composition was interesting enough to be noteworthy. So I'll give you that one. I do think it drags on a bit, though, especially the shot you highlighted. I feel like, after a couple seconds, we understand what's going to happen and we don't need to see every second of it.
I think it being 31 seconds is actually perfect; the scene isn't about what you
know will happen, it's about making you
feel the tension inherent in that moment. It goes on as long as it does because crossing the street when you're beaten senseless and being hunted down and you have very little time left to hide, every second away from safety feels like an eternity. To me, this is form following function very elegantly.
I'll claim a small victory in noticing on my first watch that the kid he spares was also in the beginning (though I did watch the clip of the final fight first) - the call back is the line about eating gruel. I also did figure out what the drum dude was about (again having prewatched it) - it's the original mayor of the town stabbing the "fake" mayor planted by Ushitora. But also I thought the original mayor was supported by Seibei so idk why he's being such a weird freak, and it goes on for way too long with the drumming. Despite successfully following that part of movie, it wasn't until I read the plot summary and confirmed it that I was sure. So despite understanding what was happening, more or less, I still didn't enjoy that scene at all.
Good catch, I had no clue the first rewatch. I also did not enjoy the drum bit, as I noted earlier. Very weird.
As far as the actual fight - I mean seriously, I don't think any one of the villains actually takes a swing at him. I'm not sure if he has to deflect a blow in the whole movie. The final fight is also so bloodless and boring, it's really obvious that it's a prop sword and has all the impact of a piece of plastic. It seriously does look comparable to a high school LARP. I know, I know, they couldn't exactly CGI someone getting sliced in half, but squibs existed back then. Half his opponents are partially offscreen anyway, one of them could have been a fake body that falls in half, or drop a fake arm, or SOMETHING. I don't like the choice to have so much of it in one wide shot, either, I think having some closeups would have made it feel more dynamic and capture the impact of the action more, as well as making it easier to insert some special effects of dismemberment or blood spurts or whatever.
I hate to bring up outside context but I think these expectations are just a little unrealistic given the time period in cinema we're dealing in. First off, screw the modern moviemaking school of thought that throws 3,000 nauseating cuts into a fight scene, give me one wide shot over that any day. But really, just try to find me any 60's era film where someone gets bisected onscreen without some major offscreen insinuation to prop it up or imply violence that can't be depicted. Spoiler: they don't exist. Technical limitations and prudish social standards are pretty hard ceilings on what Kurosawa had to work with and I still think he did a pretty great job even so.
As far as the gun return scene, I would have respected it more if Sanjuro just kicked his gun back to him immediately when he asked for it - the transparent lies plus the length of time Sanjuro examines it, only to give it back to him, make him seem less charitable and more just an idiot. Alternately, I would have gone the other direction - have him clearly see that there are more bullets in the gun, to make it clear that he's deciding to trust his enemy despite the risks (and probably cut the dumb lie about the gun only holding 2 bullets - again that just makes the hero look stupid).
Upon rewatching the scene, it seems more like a quick attempt at some final tension. The dramatic irony allows the audience to know Unosuke is still very dangerous, but whether Sanjuro doesn't know or care is not quite clear. I choose to interpret it that he genuinely doesn't know how the gun works, what with being a foreign weapon and all, and doesn't see the harm in giving a dying man his comfort gimmick. I certainly think the scene is funnier that way at least lol.