1954 Movie The Seven Samurai example essay topic

Nowadays, in the times when the nations of the world try to find their own unique features, and differentiate each other on the global arena, it is oftentimes only the culture that unites the people of different states. Seemingly very different from the first sight, the American and Japanese cultures are very similar and close to each other in their essence. Through the long history of the US Japan relationships there were both: the rises and the falls, wise mutual agreements and great misunderstandings; however, we must note that the impact of Japanese culture on the development and progress of the United States cannot be undervalued in any case. When filming Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest Japanese film directors, never expected or anticipated that his work will shape the future of the world cinematography and have a particular impact on such (from the first sight only, however) an American genre of cinema as western movie. The 1954 movie The Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa, and its 1960 remake The Magnificent Seven, directed by John Sturges have many similarities; for example, the plot of both movies entails farmers hiring mercenaries to help fend off bandits that annually pillage their farms, leaving the farmers with barely enough food to survive. The two movies, however, have differences like the characterization of the bandits in The Magnificent Seven as opposed to The Seven Samurai (Desser).

One of the greatest resemblances between the Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven is the theme and plot. In the Magnificent Seven Calvert and his people in fact stop in the settlement and speak to the peasants, and in Seven Samurai the gangsters ride by and are told by a peasant about returning when the crop is ripe. The peasants then call a council and come to a solution to hire mercenaries, in Seven Samurai the peasants use crop and in Magnificent Seven the peasants offer twenty dollars to heroes for freeing them from bandits. In both movies the farmers are turned down many times before they find the first mercenary, and how they find the first mercenary is similar in the sense of the courage they show. In the Seven Samurai the main character Kan bei disguises himself as a monk and saves a child taken hostage. Magnificent Seven shows the main character Chris and his new found partner Vin in a violent confrontation with thugs who are trying to prevent a man from being buried.

The main character in both movies feels sympathy for the farmers and accepts the job even though it doesn't pay much and the main character helps the farmers find six other mercenaries. In Seven Samurai they come in contact with Katsushiro, a young and inexperienced samurai, and Kikuchiyo, a samurai who has jumped castes. In Magnificent Seven Chico plays both of these roles, a young inexperienced gunslinger who used to be a farmer. In both movies the main character finds an old friend: Shichiroji (Seven Samurai), Harry (Magnificent Seven), and a quiet, older and tremendously experienced samurai / gunslinger : Kyu zo (SS), O'Reilly (MS). Once six mercenaries are acquired they set off to the village and Chico / Kikuchiyo follows behind until the mercenaries decide to let him join. Once the mercenaries arrive, in both movies, all the farmers are hiding because they think the samurai / gunslingers are just as bad as the bandits and they hid all their women in fear that they would "seduce" them.

As time progresses though the farmers begin to trust the samurai / gunslingers and are trained how to fight. Unlike in the Seven Samurai the bandits in the Magnificent Seven actually talked with the gunslingers and tried to persuade them to join their group, but to no avail, and the battle was started. The fighting in both the movies is pretty much the same with little battles occurring over a three-day period until the final battle. In Magnificent Seven one of the farmers, having doubts about winning, let the bandits in the village when the gunslingers were out and when they returned they were forced to leave the village by the bandits, but they decided to go back and fight for the farmers despite their deception.

In Seven Samurai only two samurai survived, and in Magnificent Seven three gunslingers actually survived but only two left the village because Chico decided to stay and become a farmer again. The main similarities between these two movies was the plot and the main characters were basically the same, but the main difference was the bandits were shown with a more detailed personalities in the Magnificent Seven unlike in Seven Samurai where the bandits are rarely seen and almost never speak. Even though the most famous example of a Japanese movie, which affected the American cinema, is the Seven Samurai, there were several other motion pictures made in Japan that resemble classic Hollywood westerns. Personally, I enjoy the westerns starring Clint Eastwood the most. One of my favorites is the A Fistful of Dollars, a so-called spaghetti western, filmed by Italian director Sergio Leone. Shot in 1964, the movie was based on Akira Kurosawas Yojimbo of 1961.

This was the second coming of Japanese authors idea to the American viewer, which accepted the essence of somewhat meaningless samurais behavior and serenity of his thoughts on the journey called life. Both, the Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars talk about a stranger playing rival gangs against each other. Just like the personage of To shiro Mif une in Yojimbo, the character of Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars is most of the times speechless. It seems to the reader that the main action of the movie is happening in the own imaginary world of the character, inside his head.

The behavior of the personage is quite strange to the viewer because oftentimes the reaction is rather inadequate. In the times of extreme psychological pressure Clad, the character of Clint Eastwood, does not seem to overreact in any manner. This type of behavior is present in all of Kurosawas movies and innate to every true samurai. The Japanese culture is formed in such a way that mental calmness is a capstone of it. Apparently that kind of approach is very appealing to the American viewer and the example of A Fistful of Dollars once again proves that the demand for such movies was quite high at the end of the sixtieth and the beginning of seventieth of the last century (Silver). Another similarity of the A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo is the unusual emphasis on the sound accompaniment in both of the movies.

As said before, both films are amazingly speechless, and in order for the director to deliver the atmosphere of the film he uses riveting tunes. With the help of Ennio Morricone, the composer of the music scores, the Fistful of Dollars and its sequences: For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) have been fairly accepted as the classic movies of western genre throughout the world. However, not only the second half of the last century brought up to the viewer great remakes of samurai movies. The A Fistful of Dollars has been remade and showed in the movie theaters across the world several years ago as Last Man Standing starring Bruce Willis.

The latest example of going back to samurai traditions in the movie making is the heavily anticipated movie of Quentin Tarantino Kill Bill. Though the main character role is now given away to a female, the movie does not lose its alikeness to samurai pictures of Japanese film directors. The main theme of the movie is very much alike to standard samurai stories of seeking the revenge for the betrayal. Once again, just like in American Yakuza, Uma Thurman is after the boss named Bill who left her character dying at her own wedding ceremony (Kill Bill review). For Tarantino everything Oriental began when Bruce Willis unleashed a samurai kat ana in Pulp Fiction. Kill Bill is another proof of directors passion for the culture and art of Asian countries, from billboard anime to history of samurais and yauza.

The modern development of cinema will definitely bring us many interesting insights into classical samurai themes with interesting remakes, or even new movies, touching the history and eastern approach to living and dying for universal goal of fairness. Reference: Desser, David. The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa. Mich. : UMI Research Press, 1983.

Silver, Alain. The Samurai Film. New York: A.S. Barnes, 1977. Tarantino Kill Bill Review. November 19, 2003. web.