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"Yojimbo" (1961) watch-along
🕑 Added 2024-08-05 16:15:01 +0000 UTCHey everyone!
If you want a free link to watch this movie:
https://archive.org/details/Yojimbo_201703
***spoilers below
Look, I know very little about the Japanese History (which now I want to get more into so please leave links for podcasts, docs, shows down below) but what 👏🏽 a 👏🏽 film 👏🏽. There is PROB so much I missed but from a creative and technical standpoint I loved it. The score was awesome, such an original screenplay and I saw so many movies influenced by this film. I was hooked and in it from the titles. I loved the expressions of the actors and the commitment to the characters they played. I loved the sets, lighting, blocking (where he placed characters in the frame), camera movement (following characters as they moved), editing choices, and of course the awesome story. It was quirky, unique and witty. I loved the dark humour and I am still trying to figure out Sanjuro, a solo Samurai wandering alone. I still think my fave part is when he throws up the stick and lets it land to choose which way to go. I think there is a lot to think about with the themes in this, but would be deeper with a bit more knowledge of Japanese history.
I can't wait to get to know him a little more in "Sanjuro" (1962)
Let me know all your thoughts down below! I highly recommend watching this! I feel like I am a newb when it comes to Akira Kurosawa so I AM stoked for your insight! No spoilers for his other films though PLEASE!
xx
ames
ps. You will notice that I have hosted this on a 2nd YT channel I have created "Ames' Film Archive". I don't know if I will do any other videos on that channel or not. Like film reviews or try out other style videos. But for now I might try and host my watch a longs on there to protect my main channel from any copy right issues with the blurred boxes in the future?
Comments
Amalia Wolf
I will!!
Castanea
omg please react to more kirusowa
JM63
Fantastic comment! I've gotta check out The Glass Key (I bought Red Harvest a long time ago but never read it and can't find it now) And Kurosawa himself was heavily influenced by John Ford westerns, so it's cool to the see the influence boomerang onto spaghetti westerns
James Rogers
One thought that entered my mind on this re-watch. When Sanjuro says "Guys like that make me sick" I've always assumed he was talking about the cuckold. But since his next action is to reunite that man's family, it occurs to me he might be talking about the dirtbag that took the wife. At any rate, love this film. A great way to start the week.
Robert Livingood
I’m so glad Ames got to this still relatively early on in her AFI adventure. This movie is so great, but also REALLY, REALLY important to the history of cinema. A lot of comments touched on many of the reasons why this film is so significant, I would just add that it’s one of the greatest examples of the power of influence in propelling the whole medium forward. It’s really a perfect case study for following the history of film. Yojimbo was heavily influenced by/or possibly even a reimagining of the early 40s American noir classic, The Glass Key, based on the early 30s Dashiell Hammett novel of the same name, as well as Hammett’s novel Red Harvest. Yojimbo then inspired the Italian remake, Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars which helped to usher in the Spaghetti Western sub-genre and the European take on the American Western which then changed how Hollywood would make westerns, and movies in general. There’s no Tarantino (and all those he influenced) without Leone and there’s no Leone (at least the way we know him) without Kurosawa, and there’s no Kurosawa (again, at least the way we know him) without Noir, and there’s no Noir without 1920s European Expressionism etc etc etc. That we’re still enjoying Yojimbo and all of its reverberations today is both amazing and yet totally logical. Really cool!
