RED BEARD: An Opportunity for Akira Kurosawa to Teach Cinema

READ BEARD - TOHO

By 1965 Akira Kurosawa reached the apex of his career. In the preceding fifteen years, between the release of Rashomon (1950) and High and Low (1963), he went from being a promising young director with a penchant for pondering existential questions to an auteur celebrated at festivals and recognised by peers around the world.

This renders Red Beard a pivotal turning point in Kurosawa’s filmmaking journey. Many critics agree on its importance as a film that drew a line under an entire period in his life and some even see it as an apogee dividing Kurosawa’s professional life into two distinct halves. It was the last film he made in black and white and it marked the end of his long collaboration with Toshiro Mifune. Crucially however, Red Beard is seen as Kurosawa’s return to the well of thematic inspiration to re-examine his interests in human morality from a more mature perspective. Thus, it is customary to analyse this film as a descendant of such works as Ikiru, Drunken Angel, or the mostly forgotten The Quiet Duel.

This behaviour is quite common among film directors, especially those who write their movies as well. In fact, it has been aptly summarised by Rainer Werner Fassbinder who was once quoted as saying that ‘every decent director has only one subject, and finally makes the same film over and over again.’ In this regard, Kurosawa was obsessed by a noble pursuit of highlighting the importance of fundamental human kindness and selflessness at a time when societies were becoming more self-centred, rapacious and callous. Adapted from a collection of short stories by Shugoro Yamamoto and augmented by elements lifted from Fyodor Dostoevsky, Red Beard is often read as Kurosawa’s definitive and most mature take on this subject. In fact, it is likely the most didactic in tone out of all of his films handling this thematic subject matter.

However, it is also important to remember that as he rose to international stardom, Kurosawa became a “filmmakers’ filmmaker”. Although many of his works enjoyed mass appeal, he was considerably more appreciated by other directors, critics and more serious cinephiles. He possibly was at least partially aware of his influence over other practitioners of cinema. Therefore, it is even more interesting to see Red Beard as something more than a regurgitative return to his comfort zone. Given Kurosawa’s age (he was fifty-five at the time) and the fact he already considered himself accomplished and successful enough to look for challenges elsewhere, it is perhaps conceivable that Red Beard is an attempt at teaching.

In that spirit, the character of doctor Niide, the titular Red Beard played by Toshiro Mifune, could be read as an avatar for Kurosawa himself, while the young apprentice Noboru Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama) as a stand-in for any young filmmaker dreaming of a career in the film industry. Consequently, the entire movie transforms before the viewer’s eyes. It is no longer a continuator of Kurosawa’s lifelong obsession with exploring the archetype of the good Samaritan, but rather an allegorical lecture about the art of filmmaking delivered from a position of experience and self-appointed authority. It is as though Kurosawa wanted to reach out to young aspiring filmmakers with a somewhat unsolicited but valid piece of advice to guide their artistic pursuits and calibrate their career trajectories.

The nuance of the relationship between Niide and Yasumoto is crucial to understanding this perspective. The latter, initially defiant and opposing to Niide’s worldview, wants to become a doctor to facilitate a luxurious lifestyle. He wants to treat Shoguns and become a rich man, while his stay at Red Beard’s clinic offers him a completely different outlook. He learns that what he sees as a career choice is a calling defined by a need to help people. This translates to Kurosawa teaching those who look up to him for advice that making movies should not be driven by a desire to become successful or rich. Instead, they should make films out of an innate need to express themselves. What is more, their artistic pursuits should be guided by an inner sense of discipline, self-improvement and selflessness rather than a need for any kind of gratification, monetary or otherwise.

This analogy extends further and involves the many patients in this epic story as something more than opportunities for young Yasumoto to discover the real meaning of compassion. Red Beard’s example teaches him that a doctor should strive to see patients not as nameless cases but as people with dreams, hopes, traumas and troves of life experience. Similarly, Kurosawa reminds his audience that a filmmaker should treat stories in much the same way. They are not commodities or products to be used carelessly, but human emotions, hopes and dreams distilled by a writer and transcribed into text. Stories should be treated with respect and compassion. In fact, the relationship between a filmmaker and a story is just as symbiotic as the one between a doctor and a patient. If it is built upon mutual honesty and understanding, both parties will benefit. The patient will get better and the doctor will increase his level of professional expertise. Analogously, if the filmmaker approaches his work with a clean conscience, the story he tells will resonate stronger with the viewer. In turn, he will be rewarded with increased resolve and artistic skill to tackle his next project with. External recognition will come naturally and be much more enduring and fulfilling in the long run. It will be earnt, not won.

This meta perspective on Red Beard is even more fascinating if one considers where Kurosawa’s career went afterwards. He tried his luck in America and suffice it to say he wasn’t successful at all. In fact, this departure was devastating to him, both professionally and personally. Although these observations were valid, whether read organically or allegorically as outlined above, Kurosawa may have not been ready yet to assume a position of professorial authority at that time without it being tainted by an undertone of hubris. It is true he had climbed to the peak of his ability, but it is equally possible, at least in 1965, he didn’t have the necessary optics to engage in substantive preaching.

Therefore, important as it was, Red Beard would have been a more fitting film for him to make three decades later as a way of looking over his entire legacy and a lifetime of filmmaking. In a way, although it is most often associated with his thematic siblings like Ikiru and Drunken Angel, its allegorical dimension rooted in the desire to teach makes Red Beard more at home in the company of Kurosawa’s final works, such as Dreams and Madadayo. Nevertheless, it is a phenomenal example of introspective filmmaking and an opportunity to peek behind the curtain and admire the intricate machinery of Akira Kurosawa’s uniquely talented mind that any self-ascribed cineaste should consider watching.