Alternate Best Actor 1957: Results

5. Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd- Despite an effective beginning to his performance Griffith never quite matches the ambition of his character, even though he does try.

4. Henry Fonda 12 Angry Men- Fonda gives a good performance consistently portraying the steadfast conviction of his part.

3. Toshiro Mifune in Throne of Blood- Toshiro Mifune gives an effectively brutal turn as his version of Macbeth. He holds no bars physically or mentally in his towering performance.

2. Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success- Tony Curtis gives a strong performance that portrays well the abilities of his amoral press agent, and only shows a glint of conscience in the most powerful moments.

1. Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory- Douglas gives the second best performance that I have seen this year, and gives one of the very best performance as almost entirely moral character. Douglas never gives a hint of sanctimony, or falseness, but instead powerfully and honestly portrays the deep of concern of his character believably throughout the film. 

Overall Rank:

1. Alec Guinness in The Bridge on The River Kwai
2. Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory
3. Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success
4. Toshiro Mifune in Throne of Blood
5. Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution
6. William Holden in The Bridge on the River Kwai
7. Henry Fonda 12 Angry Men
8. Anthony Quinn in Wild Is the Wind
9. Van Heflin in 3:10 to Yuma
10. Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd
11. Glenn Ford in 3:10 to Yuma
12. Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon 
13. Marlon Brando in Sayonara
14. Rock Hudson in A Farewell to Arms
15. Lee Philips in Peyton Place
16. Don Murray in A Hatful of Rain
17. Anthony Franciosa in A Hatful of Rain

Next Year: 2008 Supporting

Alternate Best Actor 1957: Toshiro Mifune in Throne of Blood

Toshiro Mifune did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Taketoki Washizu in Throne of Blood.

Throne of Blood is an excellent adaptation of Macbeth set in feudal Japan.

Macbeth is certainly a character who has received many different portrayals as Macbeth certainly is very open to interpretation. As with most of Shakespeare's leads there really is not a definitive portrayal even in film. Mifune's performance as Washizu who is Macbeth really is very different from other portrayal of the treacherous lord, one reason I would say is unlike other portrayals his does not have soliloquies. Akira Kurosawa keeps this version of the story very refined, and it always moves forward leaving Mifune to move right forward with his performance of the character.

Although Mifune does not have his inner monologues to himself to describe his internal struggle as that is not really a problem. Mifune takes a striking approach with Washizu as a man who barely has any time to really think about the moral troubles of the situation. Something that really is effective about this version is actually that it is a very short adaptation. It never seems lacking though making it that Washizu's decision to betray the King to seem even more pointless than in other versions of Macbeth due to how little time he seems to be able to enjoy his time at the top.

Mifune portrays the ambition as a necessity though brought on by his wife who basically convinces him that it will be either him or the Emperor whether he likes it or not. There is not a delay in his performance as Mifune portrays the betrayal as his own preservation. It really is not ambition he has at first as it very much is in his concern for his own place and power. Mifune genuinely shows that his original intentions may not be nearly as dreadful as one might think, even though his thoughts are entirely manipulated by his wife who most certainly wants the Emperor dead entirely for her own ends.

Of course the amount of sympathy one can have for Washizu quickly drifts as Mifune only can portray concern for one's self for so long. As he quickly becomes deeper into his dark deeds Mifune brings out his incredible intensity in the part. There are not hesitations in his Washizu once he justifies his actions once.  There is rage and passion here that conveys well the level that Washizu will go to keep and maintain what he has gained. Mifune has a great power in his performance showing Washizu's desires to be an incredible force of nature that propels forward his desire and greed that only causes him to commit worse acts along the way.

As he goes down further into the darkness Mifune brings about a growing insanity within Washizu. Mifune has quite a challenge in that Washizu begins pretty crazy and he only goes crazier and crazier. Mifune though actually manages to bring about the level of insanity required for the part as his actions drive him further and further out of control. The famous ghost scene is particularly well handled by Mifune who in the scene brings a strong visceral effect in his portrayal as Washizu goes on a mad rant of hatred, fear and some regret at the apparition that only he can see.

Mifune creates a portrait that really is unrepentant though, even though he does indicate some regret, when he sees his best friends severed head that he ordered done. Mifune though does not beat about the bush here as there is a great deal of conviction in all of his actions. Even in his short moments of shame, Mifune is terrific in that he has Washizu almost hatefully blame those he wronged for the guilt he feels, rather than honestly feeling any honest or lasting grief for the wrong he has done.

The greatest moment in this performance has to be the final moments of the film as he psychotically postures his presumed power, that is instantly shattered as he sees the truth of what his fate will be. Mifune's final breakdown well being slowly killed by a barrage of arrows is astounding. Mifune becomes a beast in a cage as Washizu flails around trying to avoid the arrows well fully realizing the results of his action. It is a very physical and extremely effective death scene by Mifune that is fitting painful and powerful end for his treacherous character.

He takes a very specific approach with the part that easily commands the screen through the entirety of the film. Macbeth can be portrayed many ways often as a man who reluctantly becomes the same evil he vanquished at the beginning of the story. Mifune takes really no prisoners with his performance as he turns his version of the character that truly is the evil really from the beginning. It is exceedingly memorable that Mifune creates Washizu as a man where the evil simply needed to be let out by a twisted justification. This is terrific portrayal of "Macbeth" that is uncompromising in his depiction of the immorality and brutality.

Alternate Best Actor 1957

And the Nominees Were Not:

Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men

Andy Griffith in A Face in The Crowd

Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory

Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success

Toshiro Mifune in Throne of Blood

Toshiro Mifune

Toshiro Mifune(April 1, 1920 – December 24, 1997) was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. Toshiro Mifune achieved more worldwide fame than any other Japanese actor of his century. He was born in Tsingtao, China, to Japanese parents and grew up in Dalian. He did not set foot in Japan until he was 21. His father was an importer and a commercial photographer, and young Toshiro worked in his father's studio for a time after graduating from Dalian Middle School.

 He was automatically drafted into the Japanese army when he turned 20, and enlisted in the Air Force where he was attached to the Aerial Photography Unit for the duration of the World War II. In 1947 he took a test for Kajirô Yamamoto, who recommended him to director Senkichi Taniguchi, thus leading to Mifune's first film role in Shin baka jidai (1947).

Mifune then met and bonded with director Akira Kurosawa, and the two joined to become the most prominent actor-director pairing in all Japanese cinema. Beginning with Drunken Angel (1948), Mifune appeared in 16 of Kurosawa's films, most of which have become world-renowned classics.

 In Kurosawa's pictures, especially Rashomon (1950), Mifune would become the most famous Japanese actor in the world. A dynamic and ferocious actor, he excelled in action roles, but also had the depth to plumb intricate and subtle dramatic parts.

A personal rift during the filming of Red Beard (1965) ended the Mifune-Kurosawa collaboration, but Mifune continued to perform leading roles in major films both in Japan and in foreign countries. He was twice named Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival (for Yojimbo (1961) and "Akahige").

 In 1963 he formed his own production company, directing one film and producing several others. In his later years he gained new fame in the title role of the American TV miniseries "Shogun" (1980), and appeared infrequently in cameo roles after that. His last years were plagued with Alzheimer's Syndrome and he died of organ failure in 1997, a few months before the death of the director with whose name he will forever be linked, Akira Kurosawa.

Alternate Best Actor 1954: Results

5. Charles Laughton- Charles Laughton has a fairly simple role but he is consistently amusing in his performance.

4. James Stewart in Rear Window- Stewart manages to provide a realistic portrait who we can easily go along through the sometimes quite seedy world of being a voyeur.

3. Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai- Mifune gives a very big but also a very striking performance of a swordsman driven mad by his past.

2. Ray Milland in Dial M For Murder- Milland gives a strong performance by both bringing to life the fierce some hidden motivation of his murderer, but as well as easily adding an appropriate degree of humor in the role as well.

1.James Mason 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- Mason gives a great performance of an iconic character by always bringing to life both the wondrous qualities to his portrayal in equal measure with his more violent aspects.

Overall Rank:

1. Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront
2. James Mason in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
3. Ray Milland in Dial M For Murder
4. Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai
5. James Stewart in Rear Window
6. James Mason in A Star is Born
7. Bing Crosby in The Country Girl
8. Kirk Douglas in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 
9. Dan O'Herlihy in Robinson Crusoe
10. Takashi Shimura in Seven Samurai
11. Charles Laughton in Hobson's Choice
12. Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny
13. John Mills in Hobson's Choice
14. Paul Lukas in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
15. Gene Kelly in Brigadoon
16. Bing Crosby in White Christmas
17. Danny Kaye in White Christmas
18. Robert Francis in The Caine Mutiny

Next Year: 1937

Alternate Best Actor 1954: Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai

Toshiro Mifune did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai.

Seven Samurai is an excellent film about poor villagers who hire seven samurai to fight against a large group of bandits who steal their crops.

In the group of the Seven Samurai there is the wise old leader, his young protege, a learned right hand man, a world weary veteran samurai, an poorly skilled but jovial samurai, a stone faced and most skilled of all of them, and Kikuchiyo portrayed by Mifune who is not even a samurai. Kikuchiyo in fact does not seem to really have a name, or at least either does not remember it or does not wish to state what it is. The other samurai in fact give him the name of Kikuchiyo which is in fact rather derogatory. Not really being a samurai he never really is just part of the group as some of the others are and Mifune performance sticks out the most within the film.

Mifune early on in the film is off to the side as Kikuchiyo tries to join the samurai on their adventure even though all he has is a one huge sword, and a fake birth certificate to prove his worth. Mifune is terrific in just being a crazy man easy to being drunk, but very much a wannabe Samurai. Although at this point you cannot tell really where he came from but Mifune still is able to convey that his craziness comes from something in his history. Mufine is also great in just creating the dynamic between the insane Kikuchiyo he does anything but stand still against the rest of the Samurai who are all very stoic and reserved.

Eventually Kikuchiyo makes his way with the Samurai by basically just following them until they give in to allowing him to come as well even though his birth certification does very little to prove that he is of noble birth. He nevertheless becomes one of the most motivated of the fighters, even if his insanity never does seem to leave him. Mifune is like a wild animal at times, a particularly vicious one, as he shows the degree of passion Kikuchiyo does have in the fight. It is extreme and the most intense of any of the men hinting that Kikuchiyo has more invested than just wanting the food they are promised by the villagers.

It should be said that there is a great deal of big acting going on in the film that really separates most of the villagers from the samurai who are rather low key save for Kikuchiyo. Toshiro Mifune though really is a master at this rather broad approach, since he firstly does not forget to still have subtle aspects to the performance that keep his performance properly grounded, but as well being able to act this big is a talent not seeming completely overblown, and Mifune most certainly has this talent. For example one great scene of Mifune is when Kikuchiyo chews out the other samurai for their comments regarding the farmers of the village they are protecting.

In this scene Mifune is full force in his intensity and intimidation as he rattles on about his anger toward the remark against the farmers. His hatred of the disregard of the farmers is violent and vicious and Mifune does not lose a beat as he goes off on Kikuchiyo full loud monologue. While he handles this scene in a very big fashion indeed, Mifune never fails though in the same moment to offer smaller hints as to an underlying sadness within Kikuchiyo since really all of this anger comes from the fact that Kikuchiyo himself came from a farming family.

During the all important battle scenes it is hard not to watch Mifune he is consistently entertaining and effective in the role. He portrays Kikuchiyo as a man with almost a death wish the way he throws himself into the battle field seeming almost psychotic at times when he basically eggs on the bandits to aim for him. There is never a moment where Kikuchiyo does not seem to be throwing himself head first into the fray. Mifune is able to through in just the right amount of humor in his performance through his manic approach. Mifune though is able to with ease bring humor at the same time in showing Kikuchiyo's genuine, and very passionate in regards to fighting the battle.

This is especially powerful performance by Mifune as he uses his energy in his performance to become both a very enjoyable comic relief at times, but also does manage to bring to life the very heartbreaking character that is Kikuchiyo. It is indeed a very manic approach as Mifune shows not the slightest hesitation in any scene whether Kikuchiyo is flopping around the battlefield, or is raging in anguish over witnessing an event that mirrors something in his own past. There is never a disconnection in any moment or any facet of Mifune work here. It is simply a great performance that contributes so much to this amazing film.

Alternate Best Actor 1954

And the Nominees Were Not:

James Mason in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Charles Laughton in Hobson's Choice

Ray Milland in Dial M For Murder

James Stewart in Rear Window

Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai

Scandal (1950)

***
Country: Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa

While clearing off my DVR last week, I watched this early film by Kurosawa, which I had recorded last spring. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, knowing little beyond the fact that it stars two of Kurosawa's greatest actors, Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura, each of whom made many movies with the director, and is about an artist who sues a gossip magazine for libel. It turned out to be not only one of the most unusual films by Kurosawa I've ever seen, but—and this was purely by accident, since I wasn't aware of it in advance—perhaps the oddest Christmas-themed movie I've ever come across.

The film stars the young Mifune as a pipe-smoking, motorcycle-riding artist. While out painting in the mountains, he encounters a concert singer (played by Yoshiko Yamaguchi, who was billed as Shirley Yamaguchi when she made House of Bamboo for Samuel Fuller a few years later) who has missed her bus and offers her a ride on his motorcycle to a nearby country inn. The two spend a chaste night at the inn in separate rooms. But two paparazzi who work for a scandal magazine called Amour spot the famous singer and sneak a picture of her and Mifune relaxing on the balcony of her room in their kimonos. The magazine publishes the photo and a wholly concocted story about the pair being caught spending a dirty weekend. Motivated partly by gallantry and partly by sheer stubbornness, the outraged artist is persuaded to sue the magazine after being visited by a shabby lawyer played by Takashi Shimura.

The second part of the film shifts the focus to Shimura, who pulls out all the stops in his extravagant performance as the lawyer. This is a man who at first appears to be a charmingly comic eccentric but is soon revealed to be a deeply flawed person, a man who gambles compulsively, drinks too much, is considered a washed-up failure and object of ridicule by others, and is consumed with self-loathing. Egged on in his gambling by the sleazy editor of Amour, he accumulates large debts then accepts money from the editor to pay his debts, in effect being bribed to lose the case. The lawyer also has a long-suffering wife and a teenaged daughter gravely ill with tuberculosis. The painter and singer become involved with the family and give the daughter a Christmas to remember while she dispenses optimistic platitudes like a bedridden Tiny Tim. You haven't lived until you've seen Mifune riding through the slums of postwar Tokyo with a fully decorated Christmas tree on the back of his motorcycle as "Jingle Bells" plays on the soundtrack. This sequence also contains Yamaguchi singing "Silent Night" to the daughter with Mifune accompanying her on a pump organ. Later that same night Mifune and Shimura visit a squalid dive called The Red Cat, where the two proceed to get rip-roaring drunk while the house combo plays "Buttons and Bows" and the drunken Shimura ends up leading the entire club in a maudlin rendition of "Auld Lang Syne."

The third part of the movie deals with the libel trial. Suborned by the editor of the magazine, Shimura is torn between the hold the editor has over him and his duty to his clients. Things look pretty bleak for Mifune and Yamaguchi, and the question becomes whether the lawyer will go through with his plans to lead the case to defeat or have a last-minute change of heart and reveal his unethical behavior to the court and ruin what is left of his reputation and career. To appreciate the ramifications of this dilemma fully—for both the lawyer and his clients—it's necessary to keep in mind the importance traditional Japanese culture places on saving face and the complete shame associated with dishonor.

David Thomson has written that Kurosawa is the Japanese director "most alert to Western art and American cinema in particular." One can certainly see the influence of American gangster movies and film noir in early Kurosawa films like Stray Dog and later ones like High and Low, and so closely do his well-known samurai movies resemble Westerns (his favorite movie was reportedly Stagecoach) that more than one has been remade as just that. But while watching Scandal I kept thinking of Frank Capra. Mifune's painter is as idealistic and headstrong, and in his way as naive, as Capra's Mr. Deeds and Mr. Smith. As the villain of the movie, the magazine editor is as heartless as Edward Arnold's newspaper publisher in Meet John Doe, or for that matter any of Capra's villains, a man driven by greed and the love of power and indifferent to the human cost of his actions. Kurosawa's view of the media is as negative as Capra's in several of his movies, especially Meet John Doe. The climactic trial is reminiscent of the one in Mr. Deeds, while the Christmas setting brings to mind It's a Wonderful Life. And the slow fall of Shimura as the lawyer is as poignant as George Bailey's descent into despair in It's a Wonderful Life.

While none of these things is unique to Capra, their presence together in one movie makes the similarity of Scandal to Capra's social comedies hard to overlook. It's almost as if Kurosawa sliced and diced several Frank Capra movies and threw in a pinch of A Christmas Carol for good measure. Kurosawa, however, did this with so little restraint that he makes Capra seem almost temperate in comparison. If you find Capra sentimental, you'll find Scandal downright mawkish. If you find Capra lacking in subtlety, you'll find Scandal positively overbearing. If you think Capra's heroes and heroines are conflicted, you'll find Shimura's lawyer a virtual martyr to weakness, self-pity, and hopelessness.

With its every element so overstated, Scandal has clear shortcomings that make it likely to be of greater interest to followers of the director than to the general viewer. Still, it is certainly a fascinating movie and unlike any other Kurosawa film I've seen. Vincent Canby called Scandal "a parody of Hollywood," but while watching the film, it never occurred to me for a moment that Kurosawa's intentions were anything but serious. He directs with confidence and professionalism, providing many imaginative visual touches, and parts of the film are quite affecting even if the level of pathos is often excessive.

The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)

***^½
Country: Japan
Director: Hiroshi Inagaki

The Japanese director Hiroshi Inagaki, who made seventy-five films between 1928 and 1970, is probably best known in the U.S. for Chushingura (1962). This is his version of the well-known and frequently filmed story of the forty-seven ronin, 18th-century samurai whose master has been unjustly forced by rivals to commit hara-kiri and who devise an elaborate (and suicidal) plot to exact revenge on those responsible for their master's death. Earlier than this, though, his film Samurai (1954), starring Toshiro Mifune, received an honorary Oscar as the best foreign language film released in the U.S. in 1955, the last year before this became a competitive award. In reality, Samurai is the first part of a trilogy of films about the legendary 17th-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto, played by Mifune: Musashi Miyamoto (1954), actually the correct title of the film originally released in the U.S. as Samurai; Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955); and Duel at Ganryu Island (1956), also known as Bushido. The three are available as a boxed set from Criterion.

Each of the three films deals with one stage of the development of Musashi Miyamoto from a callow, self-interested youth to a mature man who embodies not only the physical but also the mental and spiritual virtues of the samurai. The first installment opens in A.D. 1600 in the midst of civil war. At this point Mifune is called Takezo, and we first meet him as a young man sitting in a tree in the courtyard of a monastery with his friend Matahachi watching a battle take place below. Thrilled by the excitement of what they're witnessing, the two determine to leave their native village to become samurai. Takezo, who seems to be the more dominant of the pair, is an orphan, but Matahachi leaves behind his mother and his fiancée, Otsu. Being soldiers turns out not to be the glamorous occupation the young men envisioned, though, and before long they find themselves stuck in muddy trenches on the losing side. Escaping, they take refuge with a mother and daughter who survive by stripping the bodies of dead warriors and selling their equipment. The mother sets her sights on Matahachi and soon seduces him; the daughter, Akemi, falls in love with Takezo. While Matahachi stays behind, Takezo decides to return to their village to tell Otsu of her fiancé's fate.

Because he must defy a ban on travel to get home, Takezo becomes an outlaw and fugitive. When he finally does reach the village, he develops an attachment to Otsu (which she returns) that lasts for the remainder of the cycle of films. But before he can leave the village, he is captured by the Buddhist priest Takuan, who binds him and suspends him from the very tree where we first saw him. Released into Takuan's custody, Takezo is taken to a nearby castle, where the priest lures him to a barred cell in the attics of the castle and locks him in, showing him piles of books in the room and telling him to study those books, for they contain all he needs to know. Three years later Takuan returns and releases Takezo, now reborn as Musashi Miyamoto, to take his place as a real samurai. After a final meeting with Otsu, during which she tells him she will wait for him, Musashi is last seen heading down the road and on to his destiny.

In the second film, Musashi becomes involved in a dispute with the Yoshioko martial arts school and its head, Seijuro. He also meets for the first time another warrior named Kojiro when he saves Musashi from an ambush by the warriors of the Yoshioko School. Kojiro later allies himself with the Yoshioko warriors, however, and becomes Musashi's rival. Akemi also returns in this episode, first being raped by Seijuro after her ambitious mother attempts to arrange a liaison between her daughter, still in love with Musashi, and the powerful young head of the samurai school and later taking refuge with Kojiro. In this film, Musashi spends a peaceful interlude between battles as a guest of the most famous "club" in Kyoto and its "star courtesan," the Lady Yoshino. Near the end of the film, he finally does meet Seijuro in battle at the Ichijoji Temple and defeats him. As he prepares to kill his enemy, though, Musashi has an epiphany in which he recalls in a montage of rapid flashbacks the defects in his character that several people he encountered in the past pointed out to him, an experience that persuades him to spare Seijuro's life. Just when it seems that Musashi has advanced to the next stage of his personal development, the finale of the film shows him that his education is not yet complete: His ego swollen with victory, he impulsively attempts to assault the faithful Otsu, who rebuffs his crude advances. Shocked and shamed by the brutality of his own behavior, Musashi takes off and is again last seen heading down the road and into the future.

In the final installment, many of the characters from the first two parts return: Otsu, Akemi, and most important Kojiro, now Musashi's bitter rival who challenges him to a duel on Ganryu Island. Musashi accepts the challenge but asks to postpone the duel for one year. He spends the interval with two companions he has picked up along the way, a hero-worshiping boy and a buffoonish older man, living in a rural village and becoming a farmer. Like the villagers in The Seven Samurai, these people are menaced by brigands, and Musashi finds himself organizing the farmers to defend themselves. Akemi also shows up and, after being rejected by Musashi again, betrays the village to the brigands in an outburst of wounded vanity. With Musashi's assistance, the villagers are able to repel the invaders during an exhilarating attack sequence. The climax of the film and of the trilogy comes with the duel with Kojiro on Ganryu Island. Musashi does, of course, defeat Kojiro after another rousing duel sequence on the beach. He is last seen leaving the island on a boat, but this time he is returning . . . to the ever-faithful Otsu, whom he has promised to marry if he wins the duel.

Taken together, the three films of The Samurai Trilogy offer a highly entertaining blend of thrilling action sequences, romance, and thoughtful examination of the nature of honor, personal growth, and being a samurai. The films are directed by Inagaki in a style that, while less distinctive than those of his better-known contemporaries, is still quite proficient and seems very naturalistic compared to the direction of the two heavily stylized Japanese films that also won honorary Oscars in the early 1950s, Rashomon and Gate of Hell. Inagaki makes especially good use of colorful and dramatic outdoor locations and shows great skill in staging action sequences. But if there is one thing that holds all this together, that gives the trilogy real thematic resonance and depth, it is the character of Musashi and the chronicling of his personal development. This development is the result not of physical training or even the love of Otsu, but of Musashi's own internal growth towards a moral and ethical stature he has already achieved as a fighter early in the first film.

Each of the three films concentrates on a different area of Musashi's development. Musashi Miyamoto focuses on the growth of his spiritual and intellectual awareness under the tutelage of the priest Takuan, who tells Musashi that even though he has the physical prowess of a samurai, he lacks the spiritual development of a real samurai. The priest teaches him that there is more to being a samurai than using his warrior's skills for personal advancement, that he must learn self-control and the need to direct his power to less egoistic aims. While Musashi is hanging in that tree, the priest tells him, "Conceited in your strength, you ignored wisdom and virtue. . . . Could you but use that force for humanity's good." At the end of the film, after spending three years in that cell reading and meditating, Musashi is clearly a different man, a man now prepared to accept the chivalric responsibilities that are central to being a samurai.

The second film, Duel at Ichijoji Temple, focuses on Musashi's emotional development. During Lady Yoshino's farewell to Musashi before he leaves to meet Seijuro at Ichijoji Temple, she tells him, "You're craving for self-control [because] you lack affection. Human affection." She correctly recognizes that he is incapable of real feeling for another person because in his emotional insecurity he sees affection for others as a weakness. Under the priest Takuan's guidance, Musashi has acquired self-restraint and compassion for his enemies. But having shed his youthful pride and self-absorption, he has been unable to fill the vacuum left behind with real empathy or meaningful connection with another human being, not even the patient and loving Otsu. He has not yet fully grasped that being a samurai is not just a matter of restraining negative impulses, but of generating the positive feelings towards others that will allow him to transcend the limitations of the self.

The final film, Duel at Ganryu Island, with its year-long interlude in the village, focuses on Musashi's forging of a connection with the earth and for the first time in his life becoming part of a community. In this film he finally achieves the humility that Takuan attempted to instill in him in Musashi Miyamoto. By helping the villagers to organize and repel the threat to their village, he is at last able to turn his martial skills to a good and selfless purpose, as Takuan urged, and to experience the caring affection for others that Lady Yoshino told him he lacked. His journey from the selfish desire for personal glory to the samurai's ideal of selfless service to others is complete. He is now ready to face Kojiro and afterward to accept and return the love of Otsu.

The growth and development of Musashi, the arc of his spiritual and sentimental education, is not based on quasi-mystical twaddle about the samurai code, but grounded in specific behaviors and attitudes, and one reason The Samurai Trilogy is so affecting is the way Toshiro Mifune brilliantly expresses the challenges of learning and applying those qualities. For nearly five hours, Mifune leads us step by step through the process of Musashi's gradual transition from an alienated, arrogant, and spiritually unaware young man driven by the most selfish motivations to a mature and serene man who has learned how to connect with the rest of the world and humanity. The lessons in self-awareness, self-control, and selflessness that Musashi learns in these films are surely principles applicable not just to persons of great physical skill and latent spiritual nobility like himself, but to all people, a concept which Mifune expertly conveys by showing how extraordinary ability and ordinary human fallibility can exist side by side in the same person.

I've seen Toshiro Mifune in quite a few films and consider him one of the great film actors of all time. But I don't think I've ever seen him give a finer performance than he does here. In the end, even with all the other strengths of these films, it is Mifune's sustained representation of the formation of Musashi Miyamoto's character and values that towers over all else in The Samurai Trilogy. It is a performance of the utmost subtlety, gravity, and control—one of the most remarkable screen performances I've ever seen.

Contemporary Kurosawa: The Bad Sleep Well and High and Low

The Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. He first came to international prominence with his eleventh film, Rashomon (1950), which received both the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival and a special Oscar as the most outstanding foreign language film released in the U.S. in 1951. Kurosawa worked steadily in the 1950s and early 1960s; from 1965 on, his output slowed to about one movie every five years. Kurosawa seemed to be drawn to stories that take place in historical times, and when thinking of a typical Kurosawa movie, one most often thinks of a story set in feudal Japan, like The Seven Samurai (1954). He did, however, from time to time make films with contemporary settings and in the early 1960s made a pair of dark and thematically challenging thrillers set in contemporary Japan. Both are visually and dramatically striking works that show Kurosawa successfully applying both the technique and the thematic preoccupations of his historical films to modern plots.

The Bad Sleep Well (1960) concerns a huge construction company that develops real estate projects on land controlled by municipal governments. The company is a hierarchical organization of interlocking fealties not unlike the feudal clans and their samurai of Kurosawa's historical epics. The company acquires the rights to develop the properties by bribing corrupt government officials to manipulate the bidding process in its favor. The movie opens with a wedding—a long, elaborately staged sequence in which the daughter of the second-in-command of the corporation gets married to her father's personal assistant.

Several unexpected and dramatic things happen during the wedding. First, the police delay the beginning of the ceremony when they arrive and arrest a prominent director of the company for bribery and corruption. Then the bride, dressed in a traditional kimono, collapses on the way to the altar, and it is revealed that she is actually lame. Her brother ends up carrying her in her arms the rest of the way as Mendelssohn's Wedding March plays in the background.

At the banquet after the ceremony, an executive of the company makes a bizarre toast to the newlyweds that is actually a statement of his innocence in the developing scandal. The drunken brother of the bride, in his toast, threatens to kill the groom if he ever does anything to cause harm to his sister. When the wedding cake is wheeled out on a trolley, a second mystery cake appears at the same time. This cake is a replica of a large office building constructed by the company, a building that became the object of a scandal when a public official implicated in bribery committed suicide by jumping from the building. The window he jumped from is indicated on the cake by a small black flag. All the while, a large group of reporters, drawn by the arrest and the notoriety of the company, lounge about in the background and act as a chorus, commenting on the action and supplying expository details. Careful viewers will be aware of how skillfully and unobtrusively Kurosawa arrays these large groups of players in the frame and moves back-and-forth and among them.

The part of the bridegroom, Nishi, is played by the great Toshiro Mifune. Gradually it is revealed that the strange goings-on at the wedding are part of an elaborate revenge plot by Nishi, who, unknown to the others, is actually the son of the unjustly accused official who jumped from the window. He has changed his name, insinuated himself into the corporation, and married his boss's daughter as part of this elaborate scheme. Critics have noted that The Bad Sleep Well is based on Hamlet, and although the picture is not a faithful transliteration the way Throne of Blood (1957) is of Macbeth, it clearly uses many elements of Hamlet. Nishi's bride is an innocent pawn much like Ophelia. Nishi even manages to gain control of one of the company executives who is believed to have killed himself and stages eerie "ghost" scenes for another executive in an effort to persecute and unnerve him. And as in Hamlet, Nishi's machinations end up backfiring on him and bring about his downfall.

Although presented as a mystery thriller, the movie actually examines serious ethical issues, in much the same way Kurosawa's samurai action movies do. In The Bad Sleep Well Kurosawa explores the distinction between justice and revenge. He asks the viewer to judge how far one should go to exact retribution, and if a wronged person is justified in harming the innocent (here Nishi's bride, who actually is in love with him) to punish the guilty (her father and his associates). He also shows the conflict Nishi feels between his use of others as cat's paws and his dawning recognition that they too are human beings with feelings. Kurosawa doesn't really answer the questions he poses so much as examine the effect on Nishi and others of his obsessive need to get revenge and to erase the shame he feels has befallen his family.

Kurosawa returned to a contemporary setting in High and Low (1963), based on a novel by Ed McBain. From the moment it begins, it is apparent that this movie is something special. Behind the credits we see a leisurely montage of scenes of a bleak, deserted industrial landscape—factories, rail yards, and docks—while spooky theremin-dominated music that seems to belong in a science fiction film plays. Like The Bad Sleep Well, this movie also opens with an extended tour de force sequence. The entire first hour of the movie takes place in two rooms of what appears to be a penthouse apartment overlooking a harbor and docks. The apartment belongs to Kingo Gondo (again played by Toshiro Mifune), a director of, and major stockholder in, a large company that manufactures shoes. The movie opens with a meeting in Gondo's apartment of several company directors soliciting his support in an effort to gain control of the company from its founder by joining Gondo's shares in the company with theirs, giving the group a controlling interest.

Gondo refuses to cooperate in the scheme, giving the others the impression that one reason is loyalty to "the old man." Already Kurosawa has introduced the element of the struggle for power within a closed organization not unlike the feudal power structures of his samurai movies, as well as the elements of loyalty and conspiracy, again not unlike the subjects of many of his historical films. The other reason Gondo refuses to go along with the scheme is that he despises the group's plans to lower the quality of the company's product in order to increase profits. In one dramatic scene he takes one of the shoddily made shoes they plan to produce and rips it to pieces with his bare hands to show how poorly made it is.

After the others leave, we find that Gondo himself is scheming against them and plans to use all his financial assets to purchase enough stock to give him control of the company. The reasons for this are complex. He began as a worker on the floor of the shoe factory, but when he married well used his wife's dowry to buy stock in the company and engineer his rise to executive status and financial success. Within just a few minutes, Kurosawa has established Gondo as an aggressive and competitive man ("You have to attack or get attacked," he tells his young son, who is playing cowboys and Indians with the chauffeur's son) who nonetheless genuinely cares about the quality of his product, a man motivated equally by ambition and principle.

It is these two things—ambition and principle—that collide when the movie takes two completely unexpected turns just a few minutes after it opens. As Gondo is happily contemplating his business plans, he receives a telephone call telling him that his young son has been kidnapped and demanding a huge ransom that will wipe out his fortune. For Gondo there is no question that he will pay the ransom. Gondo contacts the police, who come to the apartment to await the kidnapper's further instructions. Then the movie takes another unexpected turn when Gondo's son turns up and it becomes clear that the chauffeur's son has been kidnapped by mistake. Gondo is adamant that he will not pay the ransom. His wife, however, does not agree. "Success isn't worth losing your humanity," she had earlier warned him. As he waits for the telephone call from the kidnapper, the stubborn Gondo, frustrated by his helplessness, wrestles with his conscience: Is it worth ruining himself financially to save the life of the son of a servant?

During this section of the movie Kurosawa makes brilliant use of the widescreen format to convey the claustrophobic tension of the situation and Gondo's isolation. The action is confined to the main room of Gondo's house. The police team and Gondo, along with his wife and chauffeur, are often arrayed across the screen in tableau fashion. In these scenes Gondo is shown separated from the others—often positioned apart from them in the foreground or the background, isolated from them on one side of the screen, and facing away from them in the opposite direction.

When Gondo finally makes his decision, it is the ethical one: He will pay the ransom and suffer the financial consequences. At this point, about an hour in, the movie shifts gears and becomes less an exploration of ethical conundrums and more a straightforward police procedural. Yet even these more action-oriented sections are handled brilliantly, with equal emphasis on character, realism, narrative excitement, and visual panache, an exemplary version of a familiar genre. The police briefings are reminiscent of those in Fritz Lang's M. One sequence in which the police follow the kidnapper to Dope Alley, where Tokyo's heroin addicts congregate, is so dreamlike that it wouldn't seem out of place in a Buñuel or David Lynch film. It is also in this section of the movie that we finally see Gondo's residence from the exterior. It is not a penthouse apartment at all, but rather an ultra-modern house standing alone on a high, barren hill overlooking the harbor.

This actually turns out to be key in the kidnapper's explanation of his motivation for his crimes when he is finally captured. (In the meantime he has coldly murdered three people.) The police had speculated from the beginning that because of the exorbitant amount of ransom demanded, this was a crime motivated by personal hatred, not financial gain. The kidnapper has never even met Gondo, though. His motive is pure and simple envy. When Gondo later visits him in jail, he explains how every day he sat in his dismal hovel on the docks and looked up to the great man's house looming on the hill above (the high and low of the title?), until all of his dissatisfaction became obsessively focused on Gondo. If Throne of Blood is Kurosawa's version of Macbeth, and The Bad Sleep Well his version of Hamlet (as 1985's Ran would be his version of King Lear), then perhaps High and Low is his version of Othello: The wealthy, self-made man who married into society becomes the object of the irrational hatred of a person who sets out to destroy him.

This version of Othello, however, has a happier ending. As in most of Kurosawa's movies the villain, driven by overpowering obsessions, ends up badly. But he does not succeed in destroying the victim of his obsessive hatred. The experience causes Gondo to re-examine his values, and instead of pursuing his power grab, which he is once again able to do, he decides to sell his shares, start over again, and found his own shoe factory. In the future he will be free and independent in more ways than one.

In High and Low Kurosawa redirects the conventions of the thriller-police procedural genre to his own preoccupations. The purpose of the movie is not just to solve the mystery, to reveal and clarify the meaning of the mystifying things that have been happening. Its true purpose is less to thrill—although it does this quite well, both narratively and cinematically—than to detail the effects of events on the people involved. In this way, even in modern genre films like this one and The Bad Sleep Well, Kurosawa is working in the tradition of the great humanist filmmakers like Jean Renoir, John Ford, and François Truffaut. For Kurosawa, as for those directors, all of whom were also visual masters and compelling storytellers, it is ultimately the people—the internal and external forces that drive their actions and the results of those actions on themselves and others—that are the most important thing in the movie.