September 22nd 2013. Pick Of The Day.
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Classic film awesomeness this day includes George Cukor's perhaps definitive take on a Dickens perennial, Howard Hawks' prophetic warning for vegans from any galaxy, and Akira Kurosawa's tribute to the service, sacrifice and search for honor that defined his country's past. Ongoing series include Film Forum Jr., Moving Image's Complete Howard Hawks, and Anthology Film Archives' Middle Ages on Film. Here be the full rundown;
Film Forum
DAVID COPPERFIELD (1935) Dir; George Cukor
THE KILLING (1956) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
NORTHERN LIGHTS (1978) Dir; John Hanson & Rob Nilsson
IFC Center
HUD (1963) Dir; Martin Ritt
Museum of the Moving Image
TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934) Dir; Howard Hawks
THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951) Dir; Howard Hawks
Anthology Film Archives
SEVEN SAMURAI (1954) Dir; Akira Kurosawa
THE BLACK KNIGHT (1955) Dir; Tay Garnett
Today's Pick? While I normally never take sides against the Grey Fox himself, one Howard Winchester Hawks, I feel relatively unshackled from my usual loyalty in light of another cinematic maestro and a screening of what might be his career-defining work. Akira Kurosawa had been directing for over ten years in Japan, spanning his country's wartime and postwar era, before undertaking what many believe to be his magnum opus. He'd wrestled with cinematic influences both native and hailing from the western world, AKA Hollywood, just as surely as he'd struggled to reconcile his country's soul both past and present. He turned to American noir to deal with the proliferation of Yakuza influence on a weakened, surrendered Japan (DRUNKEN ANGEL, STRAY DOG). He turned to his own country's folklore for a film (RASHOMON) that not only helped forge a forum for world cinema, but ultimately used that podium to accuse all cinema of being false, of an incapacity for truth. He did all this in a search for his soul, for his homeland's soul, in the wake of a bloody and unfortunate war where the custodians of Japan's greatness had misspent that bounty as surely as a ne'er-do-well lout blows his family's fortune.
In 1952, after the release of his masterpiece IKURU, the tale of a dying bureaucrat who risks all to provide a permanent and peaceful pastime for the community he oversees, he took a retreat with that film's writers, and went on a deep and complex search for an explanation for his country's then-current circumstances. Kurosawa himself was descended from a samurai clan, so the internal struggle was a most personal one indeed, and pretty much everyone agrees that the film he ultimately emerged with, the tale of seven strangers, masterless samurai in search of purpose, is a defining work not merely of Kurosawa's CV but of Japanese cinema period. Each of the featured warriors represents a native characteristic of any culture's folklore; stoicism, impulsiveness, shame, honor, selfishness, capability. And, of course, Toshiro Mifune is on hand to represent sheer testosterone. As elegiac as any John Ford western, as influential as any Bushido blade celluloid hackery that followed. It is one of the essential epics of the postwar era and you get the chance to catch it in 35mm tonight. Earn this.
Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI screens at Anthology Film Archives as part of their Middle Ages on Film series. Miss this at the risk of your Cinegeek cred.
For more info on these and all September's classic screenings click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Stay safe and sound and make sure the next guy/gal is too. See ya tomorrow with the daily rundown and a new Pick!
-Joe Walsh
