FILM CRITICS PERSONAL REVIEW -
Released in 1954, the SEVEN SAMURAI feature film wasn't only a big hit in Japan, but the production methods of directing the film revolutionized the entire film industry in the U.S. Akira Kurosawa directed the film, which was at the time, the most expensive film to produce in Japan. Not only did his work of laying out a format of using triangular screenplay methods to formatting scenes with multiple running cameras change the way of capturing action scenes, but the story writing introduced American screenwriting to script movies using the same plot and team formation used in this epic film.
A major American Western film, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN [1960], used a direct copy of the plot formula used to script Seven Samurai. The writing formula worked so well, that many future films began to follow the same formula, building teams of characters to help accomplish the same goal, to save a certain faction of innocent by-standers, preserving the love between two romantic characters, all to accomplish the impossible, while possibly losing members along the way. Kurosawa's formula has been successfully used for many years, following the release of Seven Samurai, a major feat that I am sure he would be proud of today.
This Japanese feature helped launch the career of Toshiro Mifune, who went on to star in a myriad of Japanese Samurai and Ronin films that made him a huge name in the mid-1950's and late 1960's. Mifune had a memorable talent to play a serious character role while establishing the skill of using swords and close hand-to-hand combat. He would eventually break the barrier between the filming landscapes and land roles in America, always playing roles that kept him true to his Japanese heritage.
I recently watched Seven Samurai for the first time and even though the feature was filmed in black and white, there was something edgy and gritty about the film. It got me to re-think the final essay I wrote in college concerning filming formats and the use of film etiquette on set. Where in my youth I was inspired by the film techniques of Richard Franklin which helped him produce ROAD GAMES [1981], but now in my long life of critiquing films, I would have easily chosen Seven Samurai as my final essay to showcase my desire to produce films and influence other indie filmmakers in their immediate dream of becoming successful indie film directors, using filming techniques never seen before in the ever changing genre of indie film productions.
If you're just stepping into making indie films, you should know that all future Indie film directors and cinematographers should watch Seven Samurai, take notes for its reference potential in film pre-production planning and one must also admire the lighting difficulties that obviously occurred during many of the indoor and night scenes within the film. In the past few years I realigned my filming methods and embarked on a new quest to re-evaluate the type of film formats I plan to used in future productions.
Ride Easy, My Friends...and good luck on your future indie filmmaking!
