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A14 PEOPLE / ARTS
Friday 5 July 2024
‘Seven Samurai’ at 70: Kurosawa’s epic still moves like nothing

else

By JAKE COYLE revisit a stone-cold classic
AP Film Writer in all its big-screen glory.
NEW YORK (AP) — Akira Affection, of course, isn’t
Kurosawa’s “Seven Samu- universal for “Seven Samu-
rai” is celebrating its 70th rai.” Some quarters of crit-
anniversary this year. But ics will always prefer Ozu
despite its age, the vital- or Mizoguchi. Kurosawa’s
ity and fleet-footed move- appeal in the West has al-
ment of Kurosawa’s epic is ways been in part because
still breathtaking. he, himself, was steeped in
To watch it again is to Hollywood genre films. Ku-
be swept along, all over rosawa, who made “Seven
again, by its flowing action Samurai” after the mas-
and breadth of vision. Just terworks of “Rashomon”
as swiftly as Kambei Shima- (1950) and “Ikiru” (1952),
da (Takashi Shimura), the was influenced by John
noble samurai leader of Ford’s films. Westerns, in
the seven, sprints this way turn, took after Kurosawa’s
and that in the climactic masterpiece, beginning
battle, “Seven Samurai” with the 1960 John Sturges
moves man, does it move. remake, “The Magnificent
It flies through rice fields This image released by Janus Films shows Toshirô Mifune in a scene from the 1954 film “Seven Seven,” a film that took the
and down wooded path- Samurai.” American title from the ini-
ways. Kurosawa’s camera Associated Press tial U.S. release of “Seven
doesn’t anticipate where Samurai,” for which Toho
the action is running so 207-minute epic about a director, Francis Ford Cop- seeing it as a young man, Studios cut 50 minutes.
much as chase headlong 16th-century farm commu- pola, is one of Kurosawa’s he said to himself: “I will The long influence of “Sev-
after it. nity that turns to a band most devoted acolytes. never climb a mountain en Samurai” can be seen
For many of its admirers, of samurai to defend itself Coppola and his contem- that high but I want to be everywhere from the side-
“Seven Samurai” has like- from marauding bandits, poraries like Martin Scors- on that mountain.” ways wipe transitions of
wise been a kind of pursuit. has seemed to always be ese and George Lucas “No one has come near “Star Wars” to Pixar’s “A
It’s not that Kurosawa’s here. It’s about as lodged worshipped Kurosawa. it,” the critic Pauline Kael Bug’s Life.” And, given how
movie is so elusive it’s a fair- in movie canon as pos- Scorsese once described wrote years ago a judge- many movies since have
ly straightforward tale that sible. Any beginner list for “the shock of that level of ment that still holds. taken more superficial ap-
states its meaning plainly. world cinema probably mastery” when he encoun- This summer, timed to the proaches to its band-of-
Its mystery is more the kind includes it. In the every- tered Kurosawa’s movies 1954 film’s 70th anniversary, warriors-assemble narra-
reserved for a grand mon- decade Sight and Sound in the 1950s. Later genera- a new restoration of “Seven tive, a pessimistic view of
ument whose existence poll of critics and filmmak- tions of filmmakers have Samurai” is playing in the- “Seven Samurai” could la-
seems as unfathomable as ers, it’s slid slightly but not had similar reactions. Alex- aters beginning Wednes- ment it as a forerunner to
it is undeniable. much. In 2022, it ranked No. ander Payne called “Sev- day in New York and ex- today’s spectacle-first big-
“Seven Samurai,” a 20, fittingly right alongside en Samurai” a thunderbolt panding around the coun- budget movies.q
“Apocalypse Now,” whose that changed his life. After try July 12. It’s a chance to

Book Review: John Quincy Adams’ gives the sixth president’s life

the sweep and scope it deserves

By ANDREW DeMILLO have easily been a multiv- ists and an outspoken op- Woods uses Adams’ life
Associated Press olume series. ponent of the “gag rule” in to also tell the story of the
To be clear, Randall Woods, a history profes- the House that prevented country’s evolution, and
Woods’ “John Quincy Ad- sor at the University of Ar- the discussion of slavery. his descriptions of life in the
ams: A Man for the Whole kansas, expertly profiles a It also displays that influ- nation’s capital are some
People” is not a leisurely president whose life was ence that Adams’ father, of the most entertaining.
read designed for the defined by contradictions. the nation’s second presi- This includes a tale of Ad-
beach or airport. Clocking Much like his father, Adams dent, and the other Found- ams as president nearly
in at more than 700 pages, despised politics but spent ing Fathers had on his view drowning in the Potomac
Woods’ biography of the his life entrenched in public of the country and public River, where he would swim
sixth president is massive in service. His championing service. regularly.
both length and scope. of the nation’s expansion The biography sheds light In his later years, the book
But that’s the type of book came at the cost of allow- on Adams’ relationships describes, Adams ex-
Adams deserves for a life ing the spread of slavery. with figures throughout his- changes letters with a Brit-
and legacy that stretches The most compelling por- tory, from Andrew Jack- ish actor about the merits of
well beyond his time as tions of the book, in fact, son to Daniel Webster. But William Shakespeare’s play
commander in chief and focus on his years outside what’s even more enlight- “Hamlet.” As Woods writes,
includes his years as a dip- the White House. This in- ening is his personal rela- Adams “identified com- This book cover image
lomat, senator and con- cludes his post-presidency tionships, especially with pletely with Shakespeare’s released by Dutton shows
gressman. Readers could years in Congress where his family, as Woods dem- fallen angel” and viewed “John Quincy Adams: A Man
come away from the book he became an ally albeit onstrates the strain that his the play as a cautionary for the Whole People” by
Randall Woods.
feeling as though it could a tenuous one of abolition- years of service had. tale for the country.q Associated Press