kurosawa ran
...y its formal presentation. Akira Kurosawa spared no expense at dramatising Ran with all the visual splendour he could muster. Battle scenes were carefully choreographed and exquisitely produced. During the storming of third castle, the combined armies of Hidetora's two eldest sons marched, ran, and galloped in formation, reminiscent of the elaborate planning of Olympic ceremonies. Though the director employed many "samurai flick" conventions such as the porcupine soldier, the soldier holding his own severed arm, and the soldier with the arrow through the eye, Kurosawa was able to depict such images in an astonishingly beautiful way. Graphic images of dying soldiers interspersed with scenes of carnage inside the castle were grotesque, yet remarkably sublime. The colours of the army standards, the whirl of the running troops, the advance of the rushing cavalry, the lustre of the armour, the bright red colour of the blood, and the architectural beauty of the castle in flames combined to produce a all-encompassing hallucinatory effect. The majestic scope coupled with the spectral intonation of the Fool's pipe uncannily alluded to the rich and expansive tapestry of life. Without the tumult of battle noise, the battle scenes unfolded and flashed by with all the intensity of the passage of historical time and the eternal suffering of humanity. The impact of the assassin's bullet on Taro's back symbolically and abruptly restored the noise of battle and the viewer to real time, ending a brief, contemplative, and moving interlude in the film's plot development. Throughout such scenes and many of the film, Kurosawa decentered the characters in favour of the lavishly picturesque landscape. Though the dramatic, character-centered scenes had an ample number of close ups and medium shots, much of the rest of the film consisted of long or extreme long shots. The obscuring of characters into the landscape added the effect of rendering the scope of their lives insignificant in the face of time and place. The scene of Fool chasing the mad King across the sand dunes posed just such an existential question. Furthermore, Akira Kurosawa used his much practiced fusion of traditional Noh motifs and acting behaviour with modern forms to produce a thoroughly dramatic screenplay. Earlier parts of the films exemplified this propensity as Kabuki and Noh-like acting pervaded climactic scenes between characters. The eerie and at times frightening facial expressions and masks, though seldom viewed up close in keeping with Kurosawa's directorial style, heightened the emotional range of the characters without slipping over to the unrealistic or ridiculous. Also the sing-song quality and back and forth manner of the relatively sparse dialogue elevated and lyricised each of the character's commentaries. This was most evident in the central interactions of the Fool and Hidetora. Their conversations closely resembled that present in Noh theatre. Their beautiful and colourful kimonos further connoted aspects of Noh drama. The Fool's song-dances that mocked the King, though having a counterpart in Shakespearean couplets, were evocative of Kabuki-style dance dramas. The simplified and minimalist settings for their exchanges also contributed to the traditional yet dynamic theatrical atmosphere. Perhaps most important of the film's elements was Akira Kurosawa's personal philosophy and how he worked it into the entire film. By choosing to focus on the key Buddhist principles of redemption, forgiveness, and lack of hatred, Kurosawa transformed Shakespeare's tragedy into a profound statement on the human condition. The entire film is tinged by the reality of impermanence, as Hidetora lost within months what he had gained and struggled for over a lifetime. His descent from ultimate power to utter wretchedness over the course of the film starkly demonstrated the futility of life, a concept once unfathomable in his younger, more virile days. His ramblings throughout the countryside as a ghost-like apparition confr...