Storytelling and Seven Samurai

Digging into the Kurosawa classic

Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about movies. I mean, I watch them and even manage to do so without talking or texting or kicking the seat in front of me, which shouldn’t be grounds for praise but means I’m better behaved than about half of today’s moviegoers. But I don’t know anything about film technique, and perilously little about movie history – there are huge, embarrassing gaps in what I’ve seen.

So if you want smart movie reviews, you’re in the wrong place. Read A.O. Scott. Or my pal Will Leitch and his pal Tim Grierson. Or get happily lost in Roger Ebert’s archives.

But I do know a bit about storytelling and creating character, and I’m always trying to get better at those things. And so that’s the perspective I’m going to take in occasional posts about movies. (I’ve taken old posts about Alien, Oz the Great and Powerful and The Adjustment Bureau and retitled them to match this one – you can find them by clicking #movies below.)

I don’t know if this will work or not, but what the heck, let’s try it.

Today’s movie: Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

Let’s start with movie history. (Since we’ve already established this isn’t what I’m good at, I’ll be brief.) Kurosawa’s epic, set in 1587 Japan, is famous or should be for a host of reasons: It’s the blueprint for tons of assemble-the-crew capers, was remade as the Yul Brynner western The Magnificent Seven, was a big influence on Star Wars (you’ll get premonitions of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn and Yoda), and was revolutionary for the messy, improvised chaos of its battle scenes. This was even more true in Japan, where Kurosawa was deliberately undermining a tradition of stylized, choreographed fight scenes.

Indulge me for one more paragraph outside my expertise: The movie’s a more satisfying experience if you understand some aspects of Japanese culture, which I didn’t when I first saw it. Read Philip Kemp’s essay and you’ll have a better understanding of 16th-century Japan’s feudal caste system, the tensions and occasional explosions between peasants and samurai, and just why the crowd is so amazed to see the samurai leader Kambei allowing his topknot to be shaved off.

OK. Here’s what jumped out at me, in terms of storytelling and character:

1) Similarity is the enemy. Seven samurai is a lot of similar heroes to keep track of, so Kurosawa wisely makes them quite different. As the elder and the leader, Kambei is obviously different than the young apprentice, Katsushiro. And of course Toshiro Mifune’s volcanic Kikuchiyo threatens to walk away with every scene he’s in. But also note how different the joking and rotund Gorobei is from Kyuzo, the angular and laconic master swordsman. A lesser storyteller would have let these samurai in the middle blur together.

Kikuchiyo’s role, in fact, was substantially changed because as the filmmaker himself noted, “six sober samurai were a bore.” This is a basic lesson of ensemble casting in the movies, but it’s important to keep in mind for every medium. Characters should be rich and complex, but the reader will engage with them much more readily when there are obvious differences – whether it’s appearance, manner, speech patterns or something else. Those differences give the reader something to grab onto until they get their bearings and are willing to follow you deeper into character, plot and setting.

2) Character emerges from details, which can speak for themselves. In idle moments of Seven Samurai we see Kambei rub his head, where the topknot emblematic of his status as a samurai was shaved away. Kurosawa never stops to have a character remark on this, but the repetition registers with us, and eventually we come to our own conclusions about what it means.

At the beginning, Kambei’s willingness to lose his topknot to save the life of a child tells us something critical about the character and his view of his society. (Again, it’s helpful to know the cultural context.) The way his hand returns to his head tells us something else about him. Is it that he regrets being symbolically shorn of his status? That he’s bemused to find himself stripped of that status while defending peasants? That he hopes his defense of the village will allow him to renew his claim to that status? We’re never told for sure (which is fine), but we know the gesture’s important.

Ditto for other moments, whether big or little. There’s Kikuchiyo’s massive sword, which first strikes us as comically oversized but comes to seem right for the character’s enormous personality. There’s the aura of danger that surrounds Kyuzo even when (especially when) he’s motionless. There’s the way young, overeager Katsushiro oscillates between frantic attention and exhaustion during the more-experienced samurai’s conversations and planning sessions.

3) Characters unlock themes. The best storytelling is personal but works on a broader canvas – heroes are transformative, and bear the burden of that transformation. This is a resonant chord in Seven Samurai: the samurai defend the peasants against bandits, but the peasants also have a history of killing wounded samurai for their gear, and since the samurai code forbids getting paid for menial labor, samurai often slide into banditry. (Sorry, more cultural context.) There’s a seasick tension within the movie among the samurai, the peasants and the bandits, their actions and their obligations.

We learn this not as some kind of social treatise, but through character and storytelling. There’s Kambei allowing his topknot to be shorn. There’s our first sight of the samurai Heihachi chopping wood (with Gorobei cheerfully accepting this violation of the samurai code). And most importantly of all there’s Kikuchiyo, who we learn is actually a peasant’s son with stolen credentials. It’s Kikuchiyo who discovers the peasants’ cache of purloined samurai gear, and who delivers an explosive rant about how peasants have suffered at the hands of samurai, thus tipping off the others to the truth about his own parentage. The themes are interesting, but they’re driven by the characters who embody them, or resist them, or are consumed by them.

4) The audience needs someone to identify with… No one who watches Seven Samurai is a battle-hardened ronin, or a subsistence farmer on the verge of ruin. But nearly everyone understands being young and eager and wanting desperately to earn respect and acceptance from one’s betters. The apprentice Katsushiro is the audience’s eyes and ears, learning about the other samurai, falling in love with the villager Shiro, and discovering the bandit scouts.

This seems obvious, but lots of stories flub it, leaving the viewer/reader floundering for someone to identify with and forcing the story to work a lot harder.

5) …but the audience also appreciates a good badass. Toshiro Mifune is a force of nature as Kikuchiyo, his rage and pain and lust and humor all but boiling out of the TV. Kurosawa appreciates him as much as the audience does, which is great – if you’ve got a character like this, give that character room to roam. We may identify with the tortured protagonist, but we love a secondary character whose solution to a Gordian knot of a problem is applying a really big sword.

6) Beauty, tension and pace are your tools too. Seven Samurai is full of jaw-dropping shots: a rejected Kikuchiyo squatting in a road beneath his sword, Katsushiro reclining in a field of flowers, Kambei coolly nocking an arrow and drawing back his bowstring. Don’t assume such striking compositions are reserved for movies – or that only filmmakers can accelerate or slow down the pacing or ratchet up the tension. Think visually, and figure out the writer’s equivalent of jump cuts or pregnant pauses. Is there a bit of description in your head that will surprise, delight or frighten the reader? Can you get a different effect by writing long, languid sentences or brisk, choppy ones? Can you make the reader take a deep breath by putting a line break in the middle of a scene even if there’s no chronological gap?

It’s a challenge, but try it – and keep your eyes and ears open for lessons about storytelling and character, whether you’re reading or listening to music or at the movies.