Comments on: Movie-a-Day: June 2007 http://graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu/?p=10 Bob Rehak's Blog about Special Effects, Videogames, Film, and Television Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:18:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 By: Jonathan Gray http://graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu/?p=10&cpage=1#comment-4 Jonathan Gray Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:30:03 +0000 http://acadweb.swarthmore.edu/graphic-engine/?p=6#comment-4 I’m convinced too that Spielberg’s trick of cutting the sound during the fighting in Saving Private Ryan was learnt from Kagemusha, where Kurosawa uses the trick once to great effect (particularly since a field full of Kurosawa warriors is usually a pretty loud sound … second only to a screaming Kurosawa princess).

I don’t really fault them, though — this is how all art works, right? And Lucas and Spielberg have at multiple times acknowledged both specific homages (Lucas has been very open that 3P0, R2, and the whole opening of Star Wars was lifted from Hidden Fortress) and generic debt to Kurosawa. It’s Sergio Leone’s Fistful of Dollars that deserves frowns and scowls for ripping off Yojimbo completely.

What was interesting to me (and here I’m geeking out, yes) was that knowing Hidden Fortress’ role in generating plot points for Star Wars, it was possible to accurately predict quite a few second trilogy Star Wars plot points in the late 90s before they began (namely Anakin being horribly disfigured in a duel with Obi-Wan, and left for dead)

]]> By: Bob Rehak http://graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu/?p=10&cpage=1#comment-3 Bob Rehak Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:45:20 +0000 http://acadweb.swarthmore.edu/graphic-engine/?p=6#comment-3 Thanks, Jon, for your comments. Seven Samurai did indeed take my breath away — which, at three-hours-plus of oxygen deprivation, almost killed me. You’re dead on about Lucas’s steal — of course, stealing is what he does — and I’d add that Steven Spielberg swiped a trick or two for Jaws (there’s a scene early on where the villagers are in the marketplace, looking for samurai to hire, and the camera moves in tight on one face while passersby blur the foreground, just like Roy Scheider nervously scanning the water while beachgoers crisscross the frame in front of him). Have to say I didn’t like The Magnificent Seven (which I watched the next day) nearly as much — though Yul Brenner and James Coburn were both extremely cool.

We’ll have to do an Ernest fest sometime!

]]> By: Jonathan Gray http://graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu/?p=10&cpage=1#comment-2 Jonathan Gray Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:18:34 +0000 http://acadweb.swarthmore.edu/graphic-engine/?p=6#comment-2 Very sexy new blog, Bob. Regarding your movie-a-day diet (which sounds dead cool to me. I am most fond of any media in perverse saturation), and since you gave Seven Samurai an asterix (brilliant film, no? Also fun to see where Lucas got the Battle for Endor from), let me highly recommend a Kurosawa-a-day (or thereabouts: many are 4 hours after all) diet. My roommate and I did it once and were amazed at the breadth, from Dersu Uzala to Ran, Kagemusha to Ikiru, Dreams to Hidden Fortress (the original Star Wars), etc. Much better than an Ernest movie-a-day diet, that’s for sure ;-)

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