Nitrate Stock @ #NYFF53, Day Two: Akira Kurosawa's RAN!

Ahoy Stockahz! Welcome back to my coverage of the 53rd Annual New York Film Fest: Hurricane Edition! It was indeed a blustery day out there yesterday, and today promises only even more bluster, which Lincoln Center is well used to but not of the natural weather variety. I was lucky enough to enjoy the privilege of a second visit to the Film Society's yearly celebration of the best of cinema old and new. Last night I got to witness the unveiling of a brand new DCP resto of Akira Kurosawa's last masterpiece; 1985's King Lear-inspired RAN.

Kurosawa first broke into the film industry as an assistant director, after a few unsuccessful years spent pursuing a career as a painter. He graduated to the bullhorn in the thick of WW2, his debut feature SANSHIRO SUGATA a pleasant passage of an hour and a half. It wasn't until he faced the slightly different censorship of the postwar occupying forces that he strove for something greater, and struggled against their scissors. DRUNKEN ANGEL was ostensibly a gangster flick with nothing more than commercial expectations. AK didn't feel quite the same way, choosing to depict the slums and other decrepit living conditions the Japanese people faced in the wake of defeat, a big no-no to the victorious Allied Forces. But not only did this establish what would become a lifelong pattern of bucking the system that employed him, it also provided early evidence of the themes and targets that would continually recur throughout his CV, most prominently gangsters, both the black marketeers that thrived once the conflict was decided and those within the so-called establishment; corrupt fascist governments and corporations alike.

Which brings us to the man's last great achievement, one that so towers on the cinematic skyline still that it's become a metaphor for late-career achievement, referenced for films as diverse as Ridley Scott's PROMETHEUS and Clint Eastwood's AMERICAN SNIPER. Debate away. Kurosawa had been fascinated by the story of fuedal lord Mori Motonari, and while piecing together the narrative Kurosawa was struck by how similar the tale was to Shakespeare's KING LEAR. He interwove elements from both stories and came up with what would be his last Top This! to the cinematic world.

After years of commercial succes and critical drubbing in his homeland of Japan, he suffered a serious blow when the project he'd been developing with his hero, one John Ford, found itself in turnaround when the American director fell ill. As replacement the studio chose journeyman Richard Fleischer, a fave of mine to be sure but understandably NOT John Ford. Kurosawa backed out, and after some commercial failures in Japan and no future prospects, he attempted suicide. Thankfully for his family and future generations of film lovers he found his greatest failure in the latter aspiration. Even more thankfully, successful acolytes Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas helped finance his big comeback, a film Kurosawa referred to as his warm up for RAN, a masterpiece in its own right titled KAGEMUSHA.

So in KAGEMUSHA's wake, feeling firmly on solid footing again, and having acquired financing from French producer Serge Silberman, he embraced the task of bringing his last epic vision to the big screen. And it is quite the epic vision. But it doesn't match up with his canon neatly, I think. It's not an indictment of gangsterism, not quite a search for the soul of his country. It is a tale of an older, wizened master betrayed, and I can't help but believe the film is basically his "autobiography" post the TORA! TORA! TORA! debacle. Kurosawa may have ostensibly been making a film that intermingled the Mori Motonari tale with LEAR, but he was really telling his story, which every great auteur cannot help but do. Even if you know nothing about his backstory, the film will probably leave you awestruck, as it did me when I first saw it as a teenager back in the 80's. Which means it's a great film on its own legs. However, knowing the context not merely of the source material but its maker's circumstances, it just deepens the yellows and reds and blues, and adds lines to the aged face of its anti-hero.

My thanks to the cats up at the Film Society, in particular Austin Kennedy, publicist extraordinaire, and George Nicholis and Stephanie Friedman at the publicity firm of PMK-BNC. I'll be back on Sunday for the sprkling B&W restoration of Luchino Visconti's ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS. Stick with me Stockahz! I'll be text and video-posting, so be sure to check in with me on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Vine and my parole officer and whatever else access I might be able to provide. See ya then!

- Joe Walsh