In 1962, Akira Kurosawa was at the top of his game. With
classics like Rashoman, Seven Samurai, and
Throne of Blood under his belt he was
already being lauded as Japan’s (and arguably the Earth’s) greatest director.
Unlike many of today’s top directors, Kurosawa was able to make films that were
both populist crowd pleasers and beautiful pieces of art, like Michael Bay and
Stanley Kubrick rolled into one man.
Nowhere were these dueling goals, crowd pleasing and
thoughtful art, more in harmony than in 1962’s Sanjuro. It was a semi-sequel to the previous year’s Yojimbo in that it featured the same
main character: a gruff, street-smart samurai of few words but quick with a
blade, played by the great Toshiro Mifune (Clint Eastwood played the part in
the American remake Fist Full of Dollars).
This time around the nameless Samurai finds himself shepherding around a
gaggle of naïve and hapless samurai as they fight to save their clan from the
plots of the villainous Superintendent.
Along the way the Samurai becomes more and more disillusioned
with the violence and killing he is forced to engage in purely due to the
stupidity and thoughtlessness of others.
Throughout the film he repeatedly spars with his opposite number, a
brilliant young henchman of the Superintendent who is in many ways a dark
reflection of the Samurai. In the end the Samurai defeats the young henchman
through trickery and deception rather than skill with a blade.
In the final scene of the film, the young henchman Muroto
confronts the Samurai at a dusty crossroads as he is trying to leave town. Masterless
and disgraced, Muroto challenges the Samurai to a duel. After trying and
failing to convince the younger man to change his mind, the Samurai agrees and
the two square off for a fight to the death.
Kurusawa stages the entire sequence as one long shot, with
the gaggle of young samurai watching in the background framed between the two
men, who are standing conspiratorially close as they discuss the duel.
If this whole setup looks like a high noon scene from a
Western that is no accident, Kurosawa was a big John Ford fan, and all of his
Samurai movies show a distinct Western influence. Ironically, Kurosawa’s
Samurai movies would go on to inspire a generation of Spaghetti Western
directors in Italy, due in no small part to the ending of this shot.
The two men stare at each other for a long moment, appearing
relaxed except for the intensity in their eyes, until suddenly they both draw
their swords. The Samurai is just a bit faster, of course, and he slashes
across Muroto’s chest, creating a shocking fountain of blood as the young man
falls.
The blood is shocking first of all because it’s there at
all. Up to this point Sanjuro has
been a bloodless film. Plenty of people were killed, but all we see is a man
getting hit by a sword and falling down. Its also shocking because there is so
much of it. It flows out in a sudden, gushing, torrent. According to legend,
Kurosawa wanted people to see the blood in order to drive home the violence and
finality of this duel, but it was only supposed to be a short spurt. The effect
malfunctioned sending fake blood out of the spout concealed in the actor’s
clothes with such force that the actor had to struggle to keep from being
lifted off the ground. Reportedly Kurosawa loved the result so much that he
asked for no second take.
That blood fountain became iconic almost immediately, and
after that it wasn’t possible to release a Samurai movie without fountains of
fake blood spraying everywhere. Subsequent directors around the world based
their entire careers around creating gorier and gorier effects. You can draw a
straight line from this shot to such diverse modern masterworks as
Harryhousen’s Clash of the Titans or Tarantino’s
Kill Bill.
There is a good point to be made here about too much of a
good thing. To an audience in 1962 that blood fountain was shocking and novel
(and it still works, especially after viewing the entire film in all its
bloodlessness), but today you have blood filled squibs popping off everywhere
in every action or horror film with nowhere near the same effect. Kurosawa
couldn’t have known that he was sending us down a road that ended in mass desensitization
to violence, he just knew that he had made an awesome effect, and he was right.
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