Page 11 - Pastiche Vol 1 Edition 1 January 2019

The Bad Sleep Well, a revenge drama based on a script by Kurosawa's nephew Mike Inoue
opened in September 1960 to positive critical reaction and modest box office success.
Yojimbo (The Bodyguard), Kurosawa Production's second film, featuring Tatsuya Nakadai in
his first major role in a Kurosawa movie, and with innovative photography by Kazuo
Miyagawa (who shot Rashomon) and Takao Saito, the film premiered in April 1961 and was a
critically and commercially successful venture, earning more than any previous Kurosawa
film. Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars was a virtual (unauthorized) scene-by-scene remake
with Toho filing a lawsuit on Kurosawa's behalf and prevailing.

Sanjuro opened on January 1, 1962, quickly surpassing Yojimbo's box office success and
garnering positive reviews. High and Low, was shot during the latter half of 1962 and
released in March 1963 which broke Kurosawa's box office record (the third film in a row to
do so). In Red Beard, Kurosawa's humanist themes receive their fullest statement. It was
premiered in April 1965, becoming the year's highest-grossing Japanese production and the
third Kurosawa film to top the prestigious Kinema Jumpo. The film marked the end of an era
for its creator.

The contract with Toho came to an end in 1966. With the troubled state of the domestic film
industry and having already received dozens of offers from abroad, the 56-year-old director
considered working outside Japan. For his first foreign project in 1966, the Embassy
Pictures action thriller Runaway Train, was to be filmed in English but the language barrier
proved a major problem and then cancelled in 1968. The director got involved in a
Hollywood project, Tora! Tora! Tora!, produced by 20th Century Fox and Kurosawa
Production, portraying the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor from both the American and the
Japanese points-of-view. Kurosawa spent several months working on the script but very
soon things got complicated and Kurosawa stayed only a little over three weeks as director
till was fired on Christmas Eve 1968 and ultimately replaced by Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio
Masuda.

In July 1969, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi and Kon Ichikawa, along with Kurosawa
established a production company called the Club of the Four Knights and despite the recent
fiasco, Kurosawa moved quickly to a new project to prove his consistency. Although the plan
of the four directors to create a film each, but the real motivation for the other three
directors was to make it easier for Kurosawa to successfully complete a film, and therefore
find his way back into the business.

Dodesukaden was released in Japan in October 1970, but though a minor critical success, it
was greeted with audience indifference. The picture lost money and caused the Club of the
Four Knights to dissolve. Unable to secure funding for further work and allegedly suffering
from health problems, Kurosawa apparently reached the breaking point: on December 22,
1971, he slit his wrists and throat multiple times. The suicide attempt proved unsuccessful
and the director's health recovered fairly quickly, with Kurosawa now taking refuge in
domestic life, uncertain if he would ever direct another film.

In early 1973, the Soviet studio Mosfilm approached Kurosawa, who proposed an adaptation
of Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev's autobiographical work Dersu Uzala. Shooting began
in May 1974 in Siberia, with filming in exceedingly harsh natural conditions proving very
difficult and demanding, the picture wrapped in April 1975. The film won the Golden Prize
(Contd…)

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