Something Like an Autobiography

by Akira Kurosawa

  Management theory at P.C.L. regarded the assistant directors as cadets who would later become managers and directors. They were therefore required to gain a thorough mastery of every field necessary to the production of a film. We had to help in the developing laboratory, carry a bag of nails, a hammer and a level from our belts and help with scriptwriting and editing as well. We even had to appear as extras in place of actors and do the accounts for location shooting.

  The president of the company went to America to observe how movies were made in Hollywood, and he came back very deeply impressed by the importance of the chief assistant director on a given film and the vigor with which he did his job. In consequence of this, he had a huge sign put up in the middle of the studio saying “Chief assistant directors’ orders are to be obeyed as the President’s orders.” This of course elicited a great deal of resistance and resentment from every division of the company. In order to keep the situation under control, we really had to push. A chief assistant director often found himself having to say, “If you have a complaint, meet me behind the developing laboratory.” This led to hand-to-hand combat with camera people, lighting technicians, prop crew and set designers.

  But even if some of this was a little extreme, I don’t think the basic idea of the assistant director as a management cadet was a bad one, nor was the method of training these cadets in error. Today’s assistant directors are in trouble when they get to direct for the first time. Unless you know every aspect and phase of the film-production process, you can’t be a movie director. A movie director is like a front-line commanding officer. He needs a thorough knowledge of every branch of the service, and if he doesn’t command each division, he cannot command the whole.

  A Long Story: Part I

  IN AUGUST of 1974 I received word that Yama-san—my teacher, Yamamoto Kajirō—was confined to his bed and that his prospects for recovery were not good. I was just about to leave for the Soviet Union to begin making my film Dersu Uzala. I knew the shooting would take more than a year. If something happened to Yama-san during that time, I would not be able to come back to Japan. It was with this anxious knowledge that I went to visit his home.

  The house was on a hill in the northern part of the Tokyo suburb of Seijo. A sloping concrete path led from the front gate up to the entrance. In a strip along the middle of this pathway Yama-san’s wife had diligently planted a long, narrow flower bed. For me, in the somber mood I found myself, the blossoms’ colors were too intense.

  Yama-san on his sickbed had lost so much weight that his unusually large nose looked even larger. I expressed my regrets over his illness and spoke the usual phrases wishing him a speedy recovery, and he replied in a thin little polite voice, “Thank you for coming when I know you are so busy.” But he followed right along with “How is the Russian assistant director?” When I answered, “He’s a good man. He writes down everything I say,” he let out a cheerful laugh. “An A.D. who does nothing but write is no good,” he said. I had been thinking just that myself, but I was worried about having said such a thing now and given Yama-san cause for concern. I lied a little: “It’s all right. He’s a little bit too nice a person, but he does his work well.” “If that’s true, it’ll be all right, then,” said Yama-san, and changed the subject to sukiyaki.

  He told me about a restaurant where you could get sukiyaki that tasted just as good as in the old days. He urged me to try it and gave me careful directions for getting there. Then he talked about the restaurant we used to go to together in the old days and the flavor of the food there. He said he now had no appetite at all, so I couldn’t help marveling at the characteristic enthusiasm he showed in talking about it so cheerfully. He probably wanted to send me off to Russia with light-hearted memories.

  In Moscow I received word of Yama-san’s death. It may seem strange that I should start writing about Yama-san from the point of his deathbed, but there is a reason. I wanted to show that even when he knew he was at the end of his life, his first concern was with assistant directors.

  I don’t believe there has been any other director who paid so much attention to his assistant directors. In beginning work on a film, the first thing the director does is select his crew. The very first thing Yama-san always did was to worry over whom to choose as assistant directors. This man who sought flexibility in all things, who was easy-going and open-minded, showed a surprising thoroughness when it came to selecting them. If a new man had just been promoted to A.D. “cadet,” Yama-san would investigate until he had established to his satisfaction what the man’s character and temperament were. But once he had made up his mind, he would treat his assistant directors without regard for seniority, asking the opinions of all. These free and outspoken relationships were the hallmark of the Yamamoto group.

  The major films I worked on as assistant director with the Yamamoto group were those starring the comedian Enomoto Ken’ichi, Chakkiri Kinta (Chakkiri Kinta, 1937), Senman choja (The Millionaire, 1936), Bikkuri jinsei (Life Is a Surprise, 1938), Otto no teiso (A Husband’s Chastity, 1937), Tōjurō no koi (Tōjurō’s Love, 1938), Tsuzurikata kyoshitsŭ (Composition Class, 1938) and Uma (Horses, 1941). During that interval I advanced from third assistant director to chief assistant director, and I had to do second-unit directing, editing and dubbing. It actually took about four years to reach that level, but it felt to me as if I were clambering up a steep mountain by leaps and bounds in a single breath. In the Yamamoto group every day was full of enjoyment. I was able to speak my mind freely on everything, I had plenty to do and I was enthusiastic in my work.

  However, this was the era when P.C.L. was fortifying itself with directors and stars hired away from other companies and growing into the Toho company. In order to compete with the other studios in the market, it threw prodigious energy into every single picture. The conditions were extremely rigorous, and, no matter what the work, it turned out to be no ordinary job. I’m not saying that because of this it was necessarily the best possible training, but one thing is certain: I never had time to get a good night’s sleep.

  In those days the greatest desire of any film crew was sleep. But while other members of the crew could get a little rest at night, we assistant directors had to prepare for the next day’s scenes. For us there was no respite, and I often had the same recurrent thought. I imagined a huge room that had mattresses spread over the entire floor. My fondest desire was to dive into the middle of that floor and sleep. But even in this condition we’d put saliva in our eyes to help us see a little more clearly and carry on. We put our last ounce of strength into the hope of making the movie a little bit better.

  One example of this energy was Honda “Mokume no kami” (Honda “Keeper of the Grain”)—actually Honda Inoshiro, the director who created Godzilla, and who worked with me on my 1980 film Kagemusha. He was then second assistant director, but when the set designers were overwhelmed with work, he lent a hand. He would always take care to paint following the grain of the wood on the false pillars and wainscoting, and to put in a grain texture where it was lacking, hence his nickname “Keeper of the Grain.” His motive in drawing in the grain was to make Yama-san’s work look just that much better. Probably he felt that in order to continue to merit Yama-san’s confidence, he had to make this extra effort. The confidence Yama-san had in us created this attitude. And of course this attitude carried over into our own work.

  I was one of those whose attitude toward work was shaped by Yama-san’s confidence. When I advanced to chief assistant director, this combined with my natural stubbornness to form an extraordinary tenacity. I remember an occasion during the filming of Chushingura (1939). This feudal revenge story was being filmed in two parts, with director Takizawa Eisuke responsible for the first half and Yama-san for Part II. We had only one day of shooting left or we wouldn’t make the release date, but the whole climax raid still had to be filmed. Yama-san and the company executives had already given up, but I still had hope, so I went to see the open set. The front gate,
the back gate and the gardens were completed, but none of the snow essential to the scene was anywhere in sight. I got a bucket of salt and climbed up on the rear gate to begin making a snow-covered roof.

  The chief set designer, a difficult man named Inagaki who always took the side of the underdog, came by and gazed up at me. “What are you doing?” he asked. “What am I doing? The day the forty-seven loyal retainers carried out their vendetta, there was a huge snowfall. If we don’t have snow, we can’t work,” I replied, continuing to pile salt on the roof. Inagaki kept looking up at me for a long time, and then he went back to the prop room mumbling to himself. He returned leading a whole mob of set workers. “Snow! Give me some snow here!” he bellowed angrily.

  I came down off the roof and went to the Yamamoto group’s waiting room, where I found Yama-san asleep in a lounge chair and woke him up. “The rear gate is almost covered with snow now. Please start shooting from there. While you do that, I’ll finish getting the snow on the front gate and start shooting the scene on that side. Then you can take over in front when you finish in the back, and I’ll get the garden snowed in and start shooting there, and then you can …” Yama-san rubbed his eyes and nodded sleepily. He got up slowly with all his exhaustion showing.

  It was a brilliantly sunny, blue-sky day. We used a red filter to shoot the attack on Lord Kira’s mansion day-for-night, and the pitch-black sky came out in magnificent contrast to the white snow. But as we got to the garden scenes, real night closed in on us, and we finished shooting in the middle of the night. As we cranked up at the end of it all, the studio head arrived on the scene while we were having our picture taken to commemorate the event. He said he hadn’t been able to put together anything much, but would we all please come to the dining hall for a toast.

  Arriving at the dining hall, we found the tables all decked out with saké and fish. We got to our seats facing the line-up of company executives in the seats of honor, but in our extreme fatigue none of the crew felt like making a toast. We couldn’t swallow anything. All we wanted to do was get to sleep. While the executives made speeches of thanks for meeting the production schedule, everyone listened with drooping heads as if they were at a wake. The moment the speeches were over, the lighting technicians all stood up, bowed and walked out without saying a word. Then the camera crew, the sound re-cordists and every other section of the crew followed suit, without a word. In a few minutes only the executives, Yama-san and the assistant directors were left. This must have made some impression on the executives; it certainly did on me.

  Yama-san never got angry. Even if he was furious, he never showed it. Because he didn’t, I took over and made people understand that he was angry. Many of the stars who had been hired away from other studios were very self-centered and pampered, and they showed up late on the set. If this went on for a number of days, Yama-san wouldn’t get angry, but the crew got mad enough to spit. When this happened, the work itself would go bad, so something had to be done.

  On these occasions Yama-san called the whole crew together and explained what was going to happen. When the star arrived on the set late again, Yama-san would thunder out, “That’s it! Wrap up for today!” And everyone would leave. The star and his attendant would be left alone on the set. We knew the actor or his attendant would come to the Yamamoto group’s waiting room later, so I asked Yama-san to put on as terrifying an expression as he could. As expected, one of the two would appear and timidly ask, “Was the shooting canceled today because I (or Mr. So-and-So) arrived late?” I would answer, “Probably,” and look at Yama-san. He usually looked nonplused and hesitant, but I would proceed with my dressing down: “We don’t make up the shooting schedule so that you can come late.” From the next day on, the star would show up on time.

  I never saw Yama-san get angry at an assistant director. Once for a location scene we forgot to call out one of the two lead actors. I hastily consulted then chief assistant director Taniguchi Senkichi (later a director who filmed my scripts Ginrei no hate (To the End of the Silver Mountains, 1947), Jakoman to Tetsu (Jakoman and Tetsu, 1949) and Akatsuki no dasso (Escape at Damn, 1950). “Sen-chan” didn’t hesitate for a moment, but went straight to Yama-san and explained the situation: “Yama-san, X won’t be coming today.” Yama-san stared at him in surprise and asked why. “Because we forgot to call him,” said Sen-chan in a high-handed tone as if it were Yama-san’s fault. This was a specialty of Sen-chan’s that no one else at P.C.L. could imitate. Yama-san took no offense at all at this attitude, and just said, “All right, I understand.” He went ahead and managed to do something that day with the actor who had come. He told him to turn his back and yell over his shoulder as he walked away, “Hey, what are you doing? Hurry up!”

  When the picture was finished, Yama-san took Sen-chan and me drinking in Shibuya. We passed a movie theater where our film was playing and Yama-san suddenly stopped. “What do you say, shall we have a look?” he asked. We all went in and sat through the whole thing. When it came to the part we shot without one of the two leads, we watched the solitary actor look back over his shoulder and say, “Hey, what are you doing? Hurry up!” Yama-san turned to us and said, “What do you suppose the other fellow’s doing there—gone off to take a crap?” Sen-chan and I both stood up in the dark movie theater, bowed our heads and said, “Our deepest apologies.” The other people in the audience turned around in surprise to stare at these two large men suddenly standing up and bowing.

  That’s the kind of person Yama-san was. Even if he didn’t like the footage we brought him from second-unit shooting, he always included it. Then when the film was finished and released in the theaters, he’d take us to see it. He would point out what we had done and say, “Wouldn’t it have been better to do that this way?” and patiently explain why. His attitude was that in order to train his assistant directors it was worth sacrificing his own pictures. At least, that seems to me the only possible interpretation.

  Yet the same Yama-san who educated us in this exceptional manner made the following claim in a magazine once: “All I ever taught Kurosawa was how to drink.” How is it possible to express one’s gratitude to someone so selfless? I learned so much about movies and the work of being a movie director from Yama-san that I couldn’t begin to describe it all here. He was without question the best of teachers. The best proof of this lies in the fact that none of the work of his “disciples” (Yama-san hated this term) resembles his. He made sure to do nothing to restrict his assistant directors, but rather encouraged their individual qualities to grow. He managed to do this without any of the stiffness associated with the image of “teacher.”

  But even this marvelous Yama-san had his scary moments. I remember once we were on an open set for an Edo-period film. I’ve forgotten what they were, but some characters were written on a signboard outside a merchant household. One of the actors asked me what was on the signboard. I couldn’t read what it said either, and didn’t know what kind of goods it meant they were selling, so I just guessed and told him it was probably medicine. Suddenly I heard something very rare: Yama-san’s angry voice yelling, “Kurosawa!” I stared at him in amazement; I had never seen him look so angry before. With that same furious expression he said, “That’s a sign for clothing sachets. You mustn’t say irresponsible things. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.” I had no ready reply. These words have stayed with me; even now I can’t forget them.

  Yama-san was a good talker, too, and I learned a tremendous amount from him over alcohol. He was a man of varied interests, and he was especially knowledgeable about food, enough to be called a real gourmet. I learned much from him about international cuisine. “People who can’t make the simple distinction between what tastes good or bad have disqualified themselves from the human race,” was one of his pet theories. Since he liked eating so much, I accumulated quite a bit of study in this area.

  He was also very well acquainted with antiques, especially antique utensils. He loved folk art as well, and it was
from him that I gained the beginnings of an appreciation for these things. Then, due to my background as a painter, I went on to pursue them even more deeply than Yama-san.

  Yama-san had a game he played with us assistant directors on the train when we had time to kill on the way to location shooting. We would decide on a very straightforward theme and each of us had to write a short story on it. This served as study for screenwriting and directing, but it was in itself an interesting game. For example, Yama-san wrote one like this on the theme “heat”: The setting is the second floor of a sukiyaki restaurant. The blistering afternoon sun of summer beats in through the closed windows and shōji screens. In the tiny room a solitary man concentrates all his energy on seducing one of the waitresses, without even bothering to wipe the perspiration that streams off his body. About that time the sukiyaki boils up, starts to make searing and bubbling noises and fills the whole room with the smell of beef.

  This short story, I feel, leaves out nothing in a full elaboration of the theme, and the image of the sweating man is so vivid you can see it before your eyes. All the assistant directors took their hats off to Yama-san at once.

  A Long Story: Part II

  WHEN YAMA-SAN AND I were working together, we drank together when the day was over, and he often asked me to his house for dinner. After completing a film he was always already under pressure to start the next one, and he would include me in the consultations on it. I remember one time, when we had finished Tōjurō’s Love, how after all our terribly hard work the reviews weren’t favorable. Disappointed, Yama-san and I started drinking in the morning. I’ll never forget the bitter feeling of sitting there silently with him in the morning sun in a Yokohama bar overlooking the port, just watching the ships in the harbor as we lifted our glasses.