When Criterion’s new Blu-Ray of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai arrived the other day, shivers went up and down my spine as usual; we all have those films, the ones that have an immediate effect on us at the very mention of their name. In the case of Kurosawa’s film, this has to do with more than just its innate awesomeness (though said awesomeness is, in fact, considerable). Check out the above stills, taken from Adam Low’s 2001 documentary Kurosawa, in which the director’s long-time script supervisor and assistant Teruyo Nogami shows us her script for the film, its pages having been battered back in the day by relentless wind and rain and mud, the whole thing now looking like some ancient scroll. In other words, there’s something heroic about the film’s very existence, in the idea of Kurosawa and his cast and crew out there shooting for more than a year, running catastrophically over budget, braving the elements, and coming back with, well, Seven Samurai.
Much has been written about Seven Samurai, and much will continue to be. (Somewhat paradoxically, when I tackled Kurosawa’s oeuvre in two separate pieces earlier this year, I didn’t dwell much on it, despite the fact that it’s my favorite and probably his best-known film.) It’s hard to overstate the film’s importance, but it’s also the case that words don’t quite do it justice. The thing I keep coming back to is this scene right here, occurring less than half an hour into its 206-minute running time. It’s far from the most important or poignant or powerful or exciting scene in the film, but I’ve always found it hard to shake. Here’s the setup: A bandit has taken a young child hostage in a small shack. The film’s head bad-ass Kambei (Takashi Shimura), comes to help. And, well, you’ll see what happens.
