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An Actor and a Director: Mifune and Kubrick

On December 25th, Toshiro Mifune passed away in Tokyo at the age of 77. He was one of the finest actors of his generation, and his collaboration with the great Akira Kurosawa resulted in sixteen films, several of them acknowledged masterworks, including Rashomon and The Seven Samurai.

The collaboration between Kurosawa and Mifune has always reminded me of a similar relationship between Satyajit Ray and Soumitra Chatterjee. Chatterjee was Ray's favourite leading man, and has appeared in many of the master's best films. Theirs was clearly a symbiotic relationship, with each enhancing and embellishing the strengths of the other. So too with Kurosawa and Mifune.

Mifune has embodied, for me, the unusual idioms of Japanese film that make it one of the world's finest. With his general air of dignity and gravity, he seemed to typify all that is good about the traditions of samurai warriors: honor and heroism. Although he played a number of roles, such as in the American television series Shogun, set in medieval Japan, and in the World War II film Tora, Tora, Tora, he will be best remembered for his samurai characters, especially in Kurosawa films.

The first Kurosawa/Mifune effort that made an international impact was Rashomon, the haunting and allegorical tale of an incident in a 12th century CE forest. It is widely considered a classic: A sophisticated, even Zen-like comment on objective and subjective reality. The bare facts are as follows: a nobleman and his wife encounter a bandit, and a woodcutter is eyewitness. The traveller is robbed and killed, and the wife molested.

There is a trial, and the events are enacted from the points of view of the characters, who, predictably, each fashion a self-serving version. The woman claims that the bandit attacked and killed her husband and then raped her. The bandit claims that the wife seduced him and conspired with him to kill her husband. The dead man (through a medium) claims that he died honorably, trying to save his wife, and that she betrayed him. The woodcutter is perhaps the most objective of the lot, as he has no particular axe to grind, no pun intended.

The film gives us no indication as to which of these versions is the truth; ultimately, it is up to the viewer to decide. In some ways, the film presages today's possibility of `manufactured reality' using computer-doctored images, which would be indistinguishable from the real thing. The evidence given and the logic of each of the versions is entirely compelling and believable and internally consistent, but out of the four, only one could be the objective truth.

Mifune gives a scintillating performance in Rashomon. One of the reasons for the film's universal appeal -- given the somewhat unique theme -- is the fact that his rough bandit is so compelling. Similarly, his famous samurai roles -- in Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and The Hidden Fortress were all recreated successfully in Hollywood: in The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars, and yes, Star Wars. In George Lucas's film which is essentially a transposition of the story from 16th century CE Japan to outer space, Harrison Ford is Toshiro Mifune minus the solemn nobility.

From the bandit in Rashomon to the imperious but tortured King Lear figure in Ran, Mifune brought to the screen an explosive mixture of dangerous machismo and thoughtful introspection. Always heroic, always charismatic, sometimes manic, but with a touching humanity that was the basis for his enduring international following.

There is also an intriguing message of national honour, even nationalism, that underlies the Japanese reaction to Mifune. For, he came to the scene at a time when Japanese self-esteem was at its lowest ebb, in the wake of the shattering defeat in 1945, the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the American occupation of Japan. The dignified samurai, austere and stoic in the face of adversity, touched a chord in the Japanese psyche. Mifune helped them (as did nationalistic writers like Yukio Mishima) use their proud history to re-invent themselves.

Film buffs everywhere will miss Toshiro Mifune: His devastating performances will always be remembered as highlights of post-Second World War cinema. Some of his sequences are unforgettable: For example the wonderful battle scenes in Ran, and the shattered King Lear character afterwards, or the grotesque death of his Macbeth character in Throne of Blood.

Moving from great actor to great director, a couple of new biographies of Stanley Kubrick have appeared in the recent past, both entitled, confusingly, Stanley Kubrick: A Biography. Although Kubrick has only made 12 films in his career, they are some of the most extraordinary films ever made. He is, in my opinion, the best living American film-maker, ahead of, say, a Martin Scorsese, a Steven Spielberg, or a Francis Ford Coppola.

Several of these films are classics or near-classics: for example: