Kurosawa’s private interests were no less varied than his professional skills–a painter, a mountaineer, a knowledgeable amateur of classical music, a passionate drinker of whiskey, a devourer of cultural experience. He was an ardent student of Japan’s traditional art forms–Noh, kendo, haiku, ceramics–and a thorough scholar of Japan’s history
One can see with Kurosawa how his side-interests would feed into his cinematic work. Artists have to absorb, absorb, absorb.
In this, Kurosawa-tenno was really something of an emperor among directors, seemingly born for the role. A single defining trait as a great film craftsman would be impossible to pinpoint — Kurosawa was one of the all-time greats at blocking, one of the all time greats at pulling powerful performances from actors. At shooting in color, at shooting in black and white; at vertical compositions in Academy ratio and at perfectly balanced framings in anamorphic widescreen. At quick cutting, at holding a long take, at movement, at stillness. At using score, at sourcing music, at choosing and mixing sound. At deeply researched period pieces, at portraits of modern life; at using complex sets, at finding stunning locations. At wrangling even the weather itself, his constant bane and frequent boon — his scenes are set by wind-whipping grass, muddy cloudbursts, volcanic steam and eldritch ice-mists, heatstruck streets and frostbitten hinterlands, lung-spasmingly brisk autumn air. What he couldn’t find, he made. What he couldn’t make, he waited for.
Not to mention he wrote or cowrote every one of his movie’s screenplays. The list of required skills for a director is endless, but Kurosawa is maybe the closest to filling every bubble.
From then on, I always played center forward even though most of the Black-Yellow team was faster or technically more gifted. But I had a quicker apprehension of movements in space and always had an instinctive nose for goal. That often drew the opposing defenders to me, which created space for my teammates. I could read situations, and those were the kind of players who always impressed me most, someone like the 1980s Italian defender Franco Baresi, who could intuit the collective intentions of the opposing forward line; no one matched the depth of his understanding of the game. As a forward, the Bayern Munich player Thomas Müller is the same species; he seems able to ghost into the area unopposed; he identified space like no one else, and no one seemed able to track his movements.
– Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog seems a man who can offer an insight on any topic. From the joys of living in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, to Franco Baresi’s masterful reading of the game.
I like printing. I get a real kick out of it. I mean sometimes when I’m feeding the press, I forget that’s nothing but an old broken-down machine. I think to myself, that’s a black monster who’s going to snap off my fingers if I don’t keep him tame. You know what I mean?
MR. HEALY
I often have the same image myself.
THE BOY
When I go out on deliveries, I always wear my apron because I want everybody in the street to know I’m a printer.
MR. HEALY
Boy, I never met a linotyper who liked his job.
THE BOY
They like their job on payday, I bet you.
MR. HEALY
They sit all day, plunking keys. There’s no craft to it. There’s no pride.
THE BOY
Nowadays, I don’t know you have to be so proud. Mister Healy, I just figure there ain’t much future in being a compositor. I mean, what’s wrong with linotyping? If the didn’t have linotype machines, how would they print all the books in the thousands and thousands of copies?
MR. HEALY
Are there so many good books around? Are the authors any more clever?
THE BOY
How are you going to set up daily newspapers? You can’t supply the public demand for printed matter by hand setting.
MR. HEALY
Are the people any wiser than they were a hundred years ago? Are they happier? This is the great American disease, boy! This passion for machines. Everybody is always inventing labor-saving devices. What’s wrong with labor? A man’s work is the sweetest thing he owns. It would do us a lot better to invent some labor-making devices. We’ve gone mad, boy, with this mad chase for comfort, and it’s sure we’re losing the very juice of living. It’s a sad business, boy, when they sit a row of printers down in a line, and the machine clacks, and the mats flip, and when it comes out, the printer has about as much joy of creation as the delivery boy. There’s no joy in this kind of life, boy–no joy. It’s a very hard hundred dollars a week, I’ll tell you that!
Intriguing contrast in this scene. Mr. Healy doesn’t view The Boy’s work as craft, but the boy does. He take genuine pride in his work.
In a way both Mr. Healy and The Boy are both right. Reminds me of when Spike Lee mentioned drama is created when two opposing perspectives are right (paraphrasing).
I disagree with Mr. Healy though. We’re not inventing enough laborsaving devices…
Roald Dahl has a rare talent to be able to just invent these stories that have details and ideas in them that stick in people’s minds for decades and decades – that they never forget.
– Wes Anderson
They need to no question, release this collection on Blu-Ray.
For the first time in his life he was throwing himself into something with genuine enthusiasm. And the progress he made was remarkable.
pp139
2.
Was it not possible that the process he had gone through in order to acquire yoga powers had completely changed his outlook on life?
Certainly it was possible.
pp154
3.
John Winston told me everything he knew. He showed me the original dark-blue notebook written by Dr. John Cartwright in Bombay in 1934 about Imhrat Khan, and I copied it out word for word.
“Henry always carried it with him,” John Winston said.
“In the end, he knew the whole thing by heart.“
pp168
It could be an early morning thought hallucination, but The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar suggests the idea that focusing on one thing, over an extended period of time, with sustained enthusiasm, can impact many lives.
What begins as Henry’s single focus then expands to other opportunities. First Henry aims to master concentrating only on the image of his face for five and a half minutes. He masters it. Then he moves to mastering visualizing the reverse side of a playing card within twenty seconds. This then develops to strategic gambling, establishing a non-profit, and leaving behind a clandestine legacy of generosity.
Ohtani makes me believe that many of the stories of the heroes of old, of Greek myth, or Mesopotamian myth, Arab or African myth, or whatever myth, that such men did walk the earth
– David Bentley Hart
Damn. Some men have it all. Ohtani is baseball’s George Clooney.
And lets admit it. It’s annoying. He’s tall. And handsome. And suave. And you know, its just, he makes the rest of us feel just slightly less human.
– David Bentley Hart
And Ohtani’s underrated, but awe inspiring skill:
The thing that amazes me most when I’m watching him is not necessarily the massively soaring home runs, or the one hundred and one mile per hour fastball on the corner. It’s actually watching him run the bases, because he does it like a gazelle. He’s moving as fast as some of the fastest runners in the game, but he looks like he’s just taking long, easy, loping strides when he does it. He’ll steal without a slide half the time, because he doesn’t have to slide. He’s an amazing specimen. And happily plays the only game in the world worthy of his skills.
– David Bentley Hart
I echo that last statement. Once, I watched Ohtani stretch out a double and his helmet flew off while he was running. I couldn’t help but smile. I thought “man this guy is having fun”.
This excerpt begins at 12:40. Watch the interview in full from the C.S. Lewis foundation below.
How a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary lit the path…
The first time I visited Oliver Sacks on Wards Island northeast of Manhattan, I had mislaid the house number but knew the name of the street. It was evening, wintertime; the slightly sloping street was icy. I parked and tiptoed along the icy pavement looking into every lit-up home. None of the windows had curtains. Through one window I saw a man sprawled on a sofa with one of the hefty volumes of the OED propped on his chest. I knew that had to be him, and so it was. Our first subject was the dictionary; for him as well, it was the books of books.
My work, come to think about it, does seem often to consist of filming scenes I’ve experienced myself that I want to bring back, scenes I’d like to live through and scenes I’d be afraid to live or relive. With that system, which is worth what it’s worth, once the theme is chosen, the script almost writes itself, and I don’t fuss too much over whatever significance comes out of it.
François Truffaut
From: Interview by Serge Daney, Jean Narboni, and Serge Toubiana, Cahiers du Cinéma, no. 316, October 1980
Floodlights and Goalposts 