Kurosawa

On one list I'm subbed to there's a 'get to know you' kind of list circulating where one of the questions asked is your favorite movie. That's always been a difficult thing for me to answer; it seems more often than not I think of bodies of work for directors and actors instead of individual films. If pressed, I would probably have to answer Kurosawa films; from some of his early things set in post-war Japan, like Ikiru, to the samurai classics Yojimbo and Seven Samurai, later stuff like Dreams and many more, there is something about his vision and his ability to put that into film that intrigues me.

On that theme, I was watching a 2002 documentary on him tonight and he summed up the correlation between his characters and his personal philosophy: "The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of their lot in life. I believe you must live honestly and develop your abilities to the fullest. People who do this are the real heroes."

And that, in a nutshell, is very close to my own personal philosophy. With that in mind I have always tried to find common ground with people who on the surface don't have much in common with me. But actually sit down and talk to people and you can find wonderful people from all walks of life, all educational levels, all races, all incomes, who live honestly and fully. I used to mentally narrow my vision of the Buddhist concept of 'right livelihood' to the kind of job that a person does. Now I tend to look more at how that person approaches his work and his life.

This brings me back to Kurosawa's Ikiru. When the demoralized bureaucrat realizes he has only a short time left to live, he has an epiphany in which he discovers how to life that life fully. There are movies with better acting and cinematography, but the heart of this movie is beautiful.