Akira Kurosawa Centennial

Seven Samurai

Akira Kurosawa (Japan, 1954)

When
Sat Jul 17, 2010
Where
Pacific Film Archive (PFA)
Time
7:00-9:48 PM
Cost
$5.50 - $9.50
Tags
Movies, Foreign

Description

7:00 Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa (Japan, 1954) Restored Print

(Shichinin no samurai). For “the finest Japanese film ever made” (Donald Richie), and a staple of nearly every top-ten film list ever made, Seven Samurai has a surprisingly familiar plot: a handful of strangers band together to protect helpless farmers from bandits. Then again, it’s because of Seven Samurai that this plot seems so familiar. One of the first non-Western films to reach a wide audience in the United States, it entered the Hollywood consciousness, where it inspired The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Bunch, and others. Often imitated, it’s still unmatched, and seeing it on the big screen shows why: the controlled chaos and limitless roar of the battle scenes, mixed with the minutest details, like a field of flowers glowing in the afternoon sun or mist settling in a forest. And, of course, there’s Toshiro Mifune as the manic seventh samurai, all coiled rage and uncouth rebellion in a performance that is as raw now as it was then.—Jason Sanders

• Written by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni. Photographed by Asakazu Nakai. With Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi. (208 mins, In Japanese with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, From Janus/Criterion Collection)

More Info

Link
http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/filmseries/kurosawa_centennial
Call
510.643.2197
Call
(510) 642-5249 (Box Office)
Email
Contact Form (account required)

Comments

Location

  1. Pacific Film Archive (PFA)
    2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA