Ran (1985) : A Presentation
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
'Ran' (乱), variously translated as chaos, disorder, or revolt, is Akira Kurosawa's magnum opus. This film was my generic elective presentation in College.
The professor didn't find the film itself palatable, though my content and viva were very good (and I was the only one for whom everybody clapped), and awarded me a lower grade. Here's to VD sir, who also never replied to my mail. :(
The story is this. "At the age of seventy, after years of consolidating his empire, the Great Lord Hidetora Ichimonji decides to abdicate and divide his domain amongst his three sons." Tatsuya Nakadai's portrayal of helplessness, disarray and insanity is scathing.
Ran is said to be an adaptation of King Lear. However, Kurosawa reportedly only realized the similarities between his then-un-produced screenplay and Shakespeare's tragedy during pre-production. Originally conceived in the mid-1970s, Ran's story was inspired by the Sengoku-era warlord Mōri Motonari of the Chūgoku region of Japan in the 16th century. This was a time plagued by social upheaval, political intrigue and near-constant military conflict.
Kurosawa says "I started out to make a film about Motonari Mori, the 16th-century warlord whose three sons are admired in Japan as paragons of filial virtue. He goes on to comment, "What might their story be like, I wondered, if the sons had not been so good? It was only after I was well into writing the script about these imaginary unfilial sons of the Mori clan that the similarities to Lear occurred to me. Since my story is set in medieval Japan, the protagonist's children had to be men; to divide a realm among daughters would have been unthinkable."
Some views on Ran, I think are crucial to the study of it:
Frank Coppola said: "One thing that distinguishes [Kurosawa] is that he didn't make one masterpiece or two masterpieces. He made, you know, eight masterpieces."
When asked what his best film was, instead of answering "the next," as he usually did, Kurosawa simply said "Ran."
"It is King Lear, yet it is not King Lear." Chris Marker in his documentary, A.K. (1985)
Anthony Davies, in "Exploring the relation of Kurosawa's Ran to Shakespeare's Lear,"Those who regarded the essence of a Shakespeare play as residing in the poetic language of the dialogue have maintained that the film did not belong in the same category as films which incorporated the Shakespearean dialogue in English or in direct translation.
Then, central to the growth of Kurosawa's interest in the narrative and dramatic structures of Shakespeare is the conflict between authority and challenge within the family. Kurosawa sets his films Kumonosu-Djo and Ran in 16th century Japan, a more rigidly ritualized social context than is the social frame of King Lear. Dialogue is not a lot, but the images with which Kurosawa projects the inner world of the characters as well as the outer spatial world carry their own searing poignancy.
There are some scenes, dare I say, close to my heart.
Notable is the "three arrows" scene, which is based on a classic story from medieval Japan, still told today to children. Hidetora gives each son a single arrow which is easily broken, but three arrows together is much tougher to break. The implication is that if they stick together the clan will be much stronger. They don't. Sometimes, you only learn when you touch the candle.
The scene of the destruction of the Third Castle may be the most impressive in all of Kurosawa. As the first and the second forces momentarily lie in wait of Hidetora's next move, the viewer is taken aback with the brilliance of the gothic castle aflame. The layers force one to appreciate the grand spectacle.
In a scene, soldiers' attack on the second castle acts as a metaphor for the attack on the integrity of the house of Ichimonji. Blood drips from the ceiling, as Hidetora's general lies supine by the beam. The walls anchor the arrows, and the stairs act as a cover for the aggressors. What a spectacular shot, the less I say the better.
Further, the film frequently draws upon the motif of loyalty, fate and the Amida Buddha. In a scene, we see the Buddha's visage lit by the sunlight as against the darkness of the room. The message is didactic on purpose, like Noh theater which heavily influences Ran. The film is shot as though we, the viewers, are the Amidha Buddha himself looking down at mankind, apart from it.
The mass suicide of Hidetori's concubines so they won't be taken prisoner. The placement of the clothing, the platform, their hair and expressions amplify the scene. The clothing hung on the extreme right of this panel which separated the women from the public eye lies discarded at the end. The result is a harrowing montage.
Other than this, the film characteristically touches upon all bases pertinent for those as pretentious as I. A large part of the visual appeal of Ran is its use of colours. Kurosawa's early films were black and white, but in Ran he uses colour to buttress thematic tension. Each of the three main players in the civil war that erupts are color-coded. The eldest son, Taro (Goneril) and his men are always clad in a regal yellow. The middle, Jiro (Regan) wears red and the youngest, Saburo, blue.
Architecture is highlighted, as well. The magnificent Japanese-style castle was built from $1.5 million to be burnt onscreen. This was done in one take which had to be perfect, and it was. Few other directors would have even attempted this. Were they to do so, they may have lingered on the shots reveling in the spectacle of a real castle-structure engulfed in flames, but Kurosawa is cheeky. He teases us with how short some of the scenes are.
Kurosawa also plays with light. Even the naive observer is aware of the sun, the time and the mood in the shot. This makes the sequences feel like a hallucination, as the story develops from sunrise on the hill to the sunset on the second castle.
Another element is the meez aahn senn.
In 'How to Read A Film', James Monaco writes, "When our sense of the connotation of a specific shot depends on its having been chosen from a range of other possible shots, then we can say that this is, using the language of semiotics, a paradigmatic connotation. That is, the connotative sense we comprehend stems from the shot being compared, not necessarily consciously, with its unrealized companions in the paradigm, or general model, of this type of shot."
In one shot, the four elements of the meez-aahn-sennuh, namely setting, costume, lighting, and movement come together to display a neo-Platonic integrity. Kurosawa's genius lies in making it operatic, even layered. Some critics may see these as detriments, but they are intentional and a part of what Kurosawa is trying to portray.
It is the evident, by now, that the film is set mainly in a military milieu. It is full of spectacular imagery, ornate costumes, and sweeping cinematography. Even without 'action' per se (as we've grown accustomed to in most films these days), one gets a sense of the 'nature' of war.
It's a film that gives a raw, direct look into the nature of battle. The meticulous appeal of Ran is evident is Kurosawa's kinesthesia. During the final battle, Prince mentions that this not only was the last epic scene in Kurosawa's oeuvre, but may be the last great battle scene of its kind in cinema. His meaning is that after this time period of the late 1980s, CGI will take over and there will no longer be epic battle scenes involving hundred of extras and horses where everything you see was actually photographed. After Ran (starting with Jurassic Park in 1993 actually), there is always the CGI that one recognizes as fake. Once things can be done at a keyboard, it cannot be justified to spend the money to do it for real. The sense one gets while watching, that everything you are seeing actually happened, is one reason why the film is a masterpiece.
Prince also points out that although the setting is the 16th century, the bloodshed is meant to evoke the 20th. Guns in a samurai battle represent modernity, and the mindless killing is just foreshadowing what man will later do to each other in even greater numbers with machine guns and artillery.
Again, Kurosawa said Ran is about god observing mankind, and his sorrow at how they continually fight and inflict suffering on one another. The battle scene mid way through where both brothers betray their father and attack the castle really conveys this well. We don't feel like we're part of the action, because it's impersonal and just a montage of chaos with haunting music played over the top. It's as if one is observing the chaos from afar, just like God supposedly is, and is powerless to prevent it.
Kurosawa's use of distance, coupled with light as seen in the previous shots, illuminates specific entities. The tonal quality this lends to the shot has the cumulative effect of creating a frame larger-than-life.
In a frame, Lady Sue, the wife of the second son, Jiro, is shown praying to Amida Buddha. She is faithful to God and respects Hidetori, even though he massacred her family. Hidetori even asks her to "look upon him with hatred", so it would be easier for him to live with his deeds. The sunlight falls on her clothes, as she stands atop a plateau. Again, the observer is situated at a distance, and must watch the drama unfold.
In a shot from the starting of the movie, Hidetora's costume helps set up the parabolic narrative arc, where it feels like all of our characters are playing out real history, and all of this immersion feels at once relatable and new. At this juncture, it is evident that Hidetora is still the great lord, and has just killed his son's presumptuous advisor. He bests the better sniper, and this is conveyed to us by the focal length of this shot.
Next, I'd like to point out the interplay of painting and cinematography in the film.
"Nicknamed the 'emperor' of Japanese cinema in reference to his dictatorial behaviour on set, Akira Kurosawa made 33 films between 1941 and 1993 and controlled all aspects of the production process, from writing to directing and editing. His work is influenced by traditional Japanese painting and Western painting in equal measure, and particularly by European impressionist and expressionist artists like Chagall, Van Gogh, and Cézanne." However, Kurosawa abandoned painting in favour of cinema from the mid-1930s, when he became an assistant director.
'When I changed career, I burned all the paintings I had done up until that point. I intended to forget painting once and for all', the director explains in his autobiography. 'Once I started working in cinema, I no longer did any artwork at all. But after becoming a director, I discovered that drawing sketches was often a useful way of explaining ideas to people I was working with.'
We might chalk up the filmmaker's interest in painting — and perhaps in filmmaking — in large part to his older brother Heigo, with whom he gazed upon the aftermath of Tokyo's 1923 Kantō earthquake. A live silent film narrator and aspiring painter in the Proletarian Artists' League, Heigo committed suicide in 1933 after his political disillusionment and the career-killing introduction of sound film. Young Akira would make his directorial debut a decade later and, in the 55 years that followed, presumably do Heigo proud on every possible level.
True to his dictum, Kurosawa created storyboards for his movies before making them. Ran was the labour of decades of ideation, and painting. It is a very Japanese film, meaning to a western audience, it will be slow and often boring. I think it should be watched as one would a museum. The film builds on slowly, and each scene has its own unique details. There is subtle meaning, with plenty of boredom, repetition, and derivative work. However, also like a museum one is emotionally affected without notice, and occasionally awed and shocked.
In some sense, he never wasn't making movies. Even when he lacked the resources to actually shoot them, he prepared to make movies in the future, thinking through their every detail. Critic and historian of Japanese cinema Donald Richie's remembrance of the director who did more than anyone to define the Japanese film emphasizes Kurosawa's "concern for perfecting the product".
"He hand-crafted these images in order to convey his enthusiasm for the project," writes Alison Nastasi.
With regard to "Sound", there are two main strands in the film. Tsurumaru, the brother of Lady Sue plays the flute. Kurosawa's use of sound reflects upon the irony of the scenario: the man who welcomes Hidetora and plays for him is none other than the Prince he had ruthlessly maimed. The other, of course, is the main score.
The weather too is a perverse accompaniment. There is a scene where a character on horseback crosses a field with a cloud looming above, moving through the sky with him as an ominous omen. This wasn't a special effect. Kurosawa had them all set up in a field and wait for the right cloud to move at the right speed for them to get the right shot for something not many people would notice. The progression conveyed by the weather serves as the theatrical addendum in Ran as it does in dramas. From sunny skies, we see a dust storm, as the jester and the loyal advisor come to terms with their beloved lord's downfall.
I also noticed that the banner of the family and the eldest son is a bright sun. The banner of the middle son is a crescent moon, and during the battle scene halfway through where the eldest son is killed by the middle one, the moon also blocks out the sun, with their banners reflecting the movement of celestial bodies. When night falls and the sun goes down, so too do the soldiers under the flag of the blazing sun, and as the moon rises, the men with a moon flag are victorious.
At once, we see the vast Azusa plains of Japan. Hidetori tries to escape from the mention of his son Saburo, and his jester, Kyoami follows him. The lush green fields we saw a few frames ago give way to this barren abyss.
In the last shot, Saburo is shot and Hidetori dies of grief. This is analogous to the ending of King Lear.
There are a variety of visual effects coherently blended together. We have wide horizontal compositions and a sense of vertical scale that makes us dizzy, intimate scenes filmed indoors or in ragged landscape. The limited use of music, the way every dialogue and scenes are held in place by the rules of courtly etiquette: it is surreal for lack of a better word. The viewers are stuck watching this unfold. Every character wants something, has some grudge with another character.
This is a study of mankind. At the end, we do not see the powerful samurai. We see Tsurumaru, an innocent victim of war and of life. He is blind, and waiting for his mother and sister to return with his flute. They never come. Accidentally, he loses the picture of his deity: the Amida Buddha. Now, he stands alone at the edge of an abyss. L. Wittgenstein may have suggested he fling himself over, but Kurosawa leaves us hanging. Now, it would have been very good had I ended it here, but I simply cannot.
The shot pans out.
The final dictum in the printed script of Ran is a single word: wretchedness. Accordingly, Ran probes the depths of a world destined for destruction. While the film's passages of stillness and contemplation are treated with great sensitivity, they are nevertheless laden with the gravity of impending doom.
The film's thematic core is encapsulated in several passages of dialogue, as when Kyōami tells Hidetora, "Human beings are always lost. Human beings have walked the same way again and again from earliest times"; when Kyōami screams to the heavens, "Is there no God or Buddha in this world? … God and the Buddha are nothing but mischievous urchins! Are they so bored in heaven that they enjoy watching men die like worms? … Is it so amusing to see and hear human beings cry and scream?"; and when Kyōami is himself chided by another of Hidetora's remaining faithful, "Human beings seek sorrow, not happiness, and prefer suffering to peace."
This was long, wasn't it? My apologies.
