Spotlight: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

[Michael Badzik]

Aaron Gerow noted:

>After _Do-re-mi-fa_, he made the notorious _Sweet Home_, a horror 
>film produced by Itami Juzo.  He and Itami had a fight over the 
>completed film (Itami wanted to show all the gore and Kurosawa didn't), 
>which eventually went to court.

Thanks for pointing this out. I assume Kurosawa lost, because it seemed 
to me upon watching  _Sweet Home_ that all of the intelligence of the 
first part - forcing the audience to wonder just what sort of "reality" it 
is that they are watching, the humor that one is just a little wary of 
giving in to - was crushed under the weight of the mundane explicitness 
in the gore-fest at the end. But then I am not exactly an aficionado of 
this genre, and would be interested in hearing the thoughts of others. 
And does anyone know if the fight was over the editing of scenes already 
filmed, or was Kurosawa forced to shoot scenes that he didn(IU(Jt want to 
(if it was just editing, perhaps there is a slim chance that we may 
someday see a (IR(Jdirector(IU(Js cut(IS(J version)?

>The _Katte ni shiyagare!!_ series, of course, bears the same title as the 
>Japanese title of Godard's _Breathless_ (Godard is a crucial intertext 
>for Kurosawa).

Ah, another data point for my inquiry into the effect of the Nouvelle 
Vague on Japanese filmmakers! 

And a belated thank you to Jaqui for the comments on this same 
question, and to Markus for causing me a week(IU(Js worth of distraction as 
I considered what sort of brilliant non-auteur program I could come up 
with, were I programming film festivals.


Michael Badzik
mike at vena.com