Kagemusha

Kagemusha is one of the movies that Akira Kurosawa made in the late years of his career. It is his 26th film and it is perhaps a strange one in his collection. In many respects it is unlike many of his other films. Well, of course it is a samurai film like his other popular titles such as ‘7 Samurai’ and Yojimbo, so it is similar in that regard. However Kagemusha does not fit in because it is a film that is based on revealing more factual history of Japan and providing very little interpretation from the author and director. In this film Kurosawa simply recounts the recorded historical events that led to the fall of the Takeda clan, one of the samurai clans that were vying for the unification and rule of Japan in the 15th century. Did I say that there is no interpretation by Kurosawa in this movie? It is incorrect to say that there was no interpretation at all because the production of films and art is always dependent on the producer’s eye and way of interpreting what we are to see in the artwork. Perhaps the continuing discussion in this piece will clarify my point.

The opening scene is Kagemusha is the most powerful scene in the whole film because of it establishes the plot of the film and reveals the themes using an impressive visual trick. The first scene and frame is a 6 minute long shot of three identical men dressed in identical robes who are sitting in a royal reception room. However the positioning of the men establishes their roles in this story. This opening scene/frame by Kurosawa is unlike any other shot that I have seen in film (please tell me if you can find similar or comparable shots). The camera does not move neither do the characters and, there are no changes in focus or angles. 

The man who is situated in the center sitting on an elevated platform is Shingen Takeda. He sits in front of a large symbol of a large symbol of a flower with four petals and his manner is very authoritative. On the left of the frame sits an identical man whose level of elevation is slightly lower than that of Takeda. This man’s manner has as authoritative as Takeda’s however it the character who is Takeda’s younger brother is only mimicking what Takeda does. The third character is situated to the right of the frame, far from the other two and at the lowest elevation. His manner shows that he is perhaps uncultured and also uninterested in the other two characters. As mentioned above it is a 6 minute long shot with no movement, and this makes it more like a still image. Its lack of movement almost breaks the rules of what is cinema (moving images).Even in the films of Goddard and Truffaut the characters in the long shot maintain movement and change in the composition of the frame by moving to different parts of the frame or the room. This is not the case in this work by Kurosawa, however it surprisingly does not fail in moving the story forward

Through the conversation that transpires in during this long shot we are told that this third character is a thief that was saved by Takeda’s brother, Nobukado, and he has been brought to Takeda and made to wear Takeda’s robes so that he can work as one of Takeda’s doubles. The thief at first protests against serving as a double for Shingen and this causes tension among the three. Shingen forces his authority and commands his brother to train the thief to be one of his doubles. It is clear from the way Shingen commands that he is the central one character that matters in his domain and indeed in Kurosawa’s story. Even the thief accepts this fact and proceeds to serve to the best of his ability as Shingen’s double throughout the story. 

The story that follows after this opening scene is Kurosawa’s retelling of the historical legend of the fall of the Takeda samurai clan on the road of the creation of a unified Japan. The audio commentary by Stephen Prince that is included in the DVD says that it was recorded in history that there was a Takeda warlord called Shingen and he utilized doubles, one of whom was his brother. It is recorded that one of Shingen’s doubles did continue to stand in for him until three years after his death. All the characters and major events in the film appear in historical texts and there is very little difference in the way they are described by Kurosawa or the historical records. Of course the visuals in the film are all Kurosawa’s interpretation of what is described in the historical texts. However unlike in his other samurai films Kurosawa does not challenge the historical memory of the samurai. In his other films he focuses on reversing the social order of the samurai by showing the cowardice, corruption and false pride of the samurai class by contrasting it with the humility, courage and honor of a person in a lower class. In Kagemusha does not challenge the view that the samurai were the strong and honorable leaders of Japanese society. It may not be a film with a typical Kurosawa samurai story, however this film bears all the cinematic hallmarks of what a Kurosawa film is. Moreover it is one of a few films that Kurosawa made in colour.