Original subtitles

It's fantastic here.

Those people that are there....

I feel I want to film them just as they are...

...by placing the main character among them, in a casual way.

The atmosphere here...

...is an amalgamation of diverse eras and social classes.

It's very interesting.

All those cables there... they're quite beautiful.

After being in Paris for 6 months, I'd completely forgotten about cables.

Back home in Tokyo, they're everywhere you look...

running backwards and forwards.

There was a time when I hated them.

But once I came to realise that there was no getting way from them...

...not only in Tokyo, but in any city in Japan...

...I decided I should start filming them...

It's the contrast that's beautiful.

Thus reminds me so much of Tokyo.

You've met all these people, haven't you?

I don't remember.

Well...

...what about this one?

I don't know him.

It's you yourself.

We look alike.

So now we're sure of one thing.

That's you. Agreed?

I don't know this man.

Could it be me?

Who are you?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa On the back of the images

I shot my first commercial movie here...

...in the Nikkatsu studio.

And just two weeks ago...

...we worked on the sound for my last movie...

...in the post-production studio.

I've got quite a lot of memories of this place.

I've experienced the evolution and transformation of the studio.

Most of the time...

...I'd be shooting outside, rather than in the studios...

...but we always finish up coming to the studio

to complete certain steps in the film.

"The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl"

was commissioned by Nikkatsu.

It belonged to the genre...

...of the porn novel.

I was delighted.

I told myself

...that I was going to get to make...

one of the top films in the system,

even believing that it would be like nothing done before.

What it might lead to!

And perhaps I'd be gaining experience of the system...

...while working as a creator.

I felt real joy...

...when we started making this film...

But then, as you're aware...

Nikkatsu refused to accept my film.

My wishes...

...had not been granted.

When I made...

"The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl"...

...I realized that my way of working...

...was not compatible...

...with the system in the studio.

I just can't believe it!

Who is it?

Isn't... Mr Yoshioka... here?

No.

If I wait for him, will he come?

Who are you talking about?

About Mr Yoshioka.

Who's that?

What's...

Where does the seminar of Mr Hirayama take place?

He's the professor... of psychology.

All these displayed here are the hand-casts...

...of the Nikkatsu studio's top film stars.

Hideki Takahashi, the lead star in...

Seijun Suzuki's "Elegy of Violence".

and then there's Tetsuya Watari, in Suzuki's "The Vagabond of Tokyo".

And there's also...

...the actors in the porno films...

...like Hiroko Isayama.

What strikes me as odd,

is to see Ren Osugi, right down here at the bottom...

...considering that he's a very popular actor.

he starred in a lot of my films...

and even in the series, "Hey, Brother, Suit Yourself."

I knew him before we started working together...

...and he was in my last film.

Odd that Ren Osugi, who rose so far in the "studio system"...

...finds himself at the end of the bottom row.

I think that's very symbolic...

...of what the studio has become today.

I'd completely forgotten about this idea.

I can't believe it's in one of my films.

It's good!

The common point's the woman, isn't it?

It's not the leg, though, is it?

Is there something sexy about it?

When these images are laid out like this...

I'm surprised to have incorporated these ideas...

...which were never actually...

Never really premeditated.

I don't believe at all...

...that I have a special gift...

...for filming women in an erotic way.

I'm actually rather clumsy.

I really don't understand a thing about it.

I know there are directors who are really good at it.

But I'm really awkward filming women.

I just don't manage to find any good ideas.

When I made that second movie Nikkatsu style...

...I was told that it couldn’t be released...

...because it wasn't at all erotic.

It caused quite a scandal.

I really appreciated that I didn't have that talent...

...after making those two films.

Can I keep these photos?

I can be proud of knowing how to do these sorts of films.

I'm really surprised.

I joined the faculty of sociology somewhat by chance,...

It was not due to any particular desire on my part

The thing was that they didn't have a special department devoted to cinema.

But there was a cinema option.

I was engaged to put together...

...a supplementary course.

This was the casual basis on which I signed up.

There would have been round about a hundred students...

at the beginning of the year...

...but many soon dropped out.

There were only ten left...

and I was one of those.

This was the point in time...

when we started to realise...

...that we were the only ones who understood Hasumii.

But he wasn't yet recognised as he is today.

Almost no one understood.

It was only the select few, the aficionados...

...who understood.

You got the impression that we alone were able...

...to spread his words.

It really was a cult.

To see all types of films...

then talk about the films amongst friends...

and then to make films...

To see, to discuss, to make...

It's through these three actions...

that we pass on Mr Hasumi's knowledge.

That's how we started...

to create a new cinema, bit by bit.

And then I was pushed more and more...

by the impulse to film Hasumi.

Let me show you...

Here's the stairway...

Like this...

...the main character climbs the stairs...

Mr Hasumi comes down and gives an order.

I shot the scene like this.

When I was at high school...

I only went to see American films...

...and I loved them.

Thanks to him, after I entered university...

...I started seeing different films...

...that were not simply for entertainment.

One of the directors...

...who impressed me at the time...

...was Theodoros Angelopoulos.

but most of all, it was Godard.

Godard was already very well known...

...and I'd already seen some of his films when I was in high school.

But I believe that it was thanks to Hasumi...

...that I fully understood the importance...

...of the part he played in the history of cinema.

So I started seeing his films...

...over again.

I didn't know what Paris was like.

In one of his films...

...people carrying flags appear all of a sudden.

In "One plus One"...

...there's Anne Wiazemsky in a white dress...

...carrying a sub-machine gun.

I can't describe the scene more precisely than that.

He doesn't film...

...anything that's out of the ordinary...

But through costume, set-design and small details...

...like that flag-raising...

There was one instance where for me, as a Japanese...

...the impression was created, that a warehouse...

...in a seedy quarter of Paris...

...was transformed into the Holy Land in Godard's film.

I was totally amazed...

...by the aesthetic sense and imagination shown in his film.

I had no doubt that I aspired to become like Godard.

Teraoka!

Pleasant dreams! Pleasant dreams!

Spread all around you...

...the flowers of the pretty field flourish.

Sleep soundly right now...

You can sleep without fear...

Until you wake again in the morning.

Pleasant dreams! Pleasant dreams!

The eight-millimetre film club that we had...

...was not officially recognized by the university.

You could say that it was considered a somewhat secondary association.

Officially-recognised clubs were allocated specific rooms...

...next to the attractive brick building where we were earlier.

We were given this room...

...which we shared with other clubs.

I remember it with affection.

It was known as "the common room".

At the time, there were a lot of posters...

...and even graffiti.

The tables and chairs were much dirtier and in greater disarray than these here.

The student protest movement...

...had already been over for quite a while.

A bit later, from the 80s...

...the so-called speculative bubble economy emerged in Japan.

It's known as the Otaku generation...

My generation is older than the Otaku generation...

...and more recent than the Zenkyoto generation.

My generation is an in-between generation.

It was the end of the 1970s...

...and it was called the Shiraké generation.

It was a time of nothing, of emptiness.

Nothing affected us...

...neither pleasure nor pain.

I've always kept a relationship with the friends I met here.

For example, it's here that I met Shuji Asano...

...who's worked in the field of visual effects.

He's worked on all my films since "Pulse".

It's here also that I met my wife...

who's over there.

We've made films together, up until today.

I think of this place as a starting point.

Words of love written together in the sand

Unfeelingly, they're washed out by a wave

The aching of my heart as well

One day...

I'll throw it away on a distant shore

Saying you were too happy, softly you cried

But you're not here any more.

YOU = ME

I'm totally Japanese...

but both my parents...

...happen to be Christians...

...and because of that it's probable that Christian sensibility...

...could be influencing me...

...in some form or another.

I've never sought to pose the question of the existence... of God...

...in the Western sense of the word.

I never wonder if I affirm or if I deny the existence of God...

or even how I might portray God.

The presence of God is very remote from me.

If you want to evoke ancient Japanese culture in a film...

...the sort of culture...

...that existed one or two hundred years ago...

...the ghost, which is a symbol of an ancient past or disappearance...

...is one of the means that is made use of.

If people have that in mind...

...and they're shooting in Kyoto, say, in a Shinto temple...

...or in a Buddhist temple, or a cemetery...

...or even in a traditional house...

...that can always help evoke traditional Japanese culture.

That culture is very present in Tokyo...

...but I hate filming it.

Conversely, I like to film disused rundown buildings.

I have no desire to film anything that makes you think

of that traditional Japanese culture.

In that case, why is it that I have ghosts in my films?

Even I can't answer that.

It's certainly hard to understand.

Well, we do have a lot of them!

I ask myself what it is!

What will come out?

The hand...

It's good when you see an image like this, straight out of the film!

Of course, I frequently film hands...

...but that doesn't mean to say that I consider myself...

...as a film-maker who specialises in hands...

...like Bresson, for example, who frequently films hands.

When I film someone who is picking something up...

...or who is touching something...

...with their hand in close-up...

...their hand becomes part of the frame, naturally.

That sort of thing is something...

...which can be difficult to describe in words.

A kind of presence.

Highlighting the hand...

...is a way of expressing a presence.

The hand has an individuality...

...though it's less than that of the face...

You can say that it's a little more anonymous.

Whose hand is it?

It's not important... It's just a hand.

If we film the face...

...the identification is stronger.

We erase the personality of the character...

...but we mark their presence all the same.

The character exists...

...but as we're not seeing their face...

...we don't know what they're thinking or feeling.

It remains a mystery.

A typical ghost...

...is something you see... but which does not exist.

However, we can show a proof of its existence existence.

When the ghost knocks on the window, a trace remains.

I often think...

..and have thought for a long time, that ghosts exist.

I don't know if they exist...

...but if they do exist, I wonder if it's possible to touch them.

It was in "Pulse" that I mostly treated this.

When the main character touches the ghost saying...

"You don't really exist"...

...he manages to touch her shoulder...

...and that gives him quite a shock.

I've noticed that if we take away the visual depth of a character...

...by creating a sort of flatness...

...it heightens the feeling of incomprehensibility...

...compared to other characters who have visual depth.

And if this character stands in an empty space...

...we understand where he is...

...thanks to the distance that separates him from the background...

...shown by playing with focus.

On the other hand, if it's standing up against a wall...

...if there's no distance between it and the wall...

...it's difficult to clarify...

...and you're led to feel it's on the same plane as the wall.

If there's a patch in the shape of a man...

...we don't know if it IS a man.

"What is that shape there?"

What was there at this place?

"How come it's there?" and so on.

I certainly use that sort of thing as one of the means...

...of evoking something...

...that no longer exists.

And seeing that image on the wall, I think that many Japanese...

...would right away think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

...because we're perhaps too directly involved.

But of course we're well aware that we're now in the present age.

But it's nice to know that foreigners have been similarly sensitive to it.

Personally...

...I have to admit that I didn't think of it that way.

The stain is an exaggerated representation.

Like imagining someone from the impression they leave in a chair.

I think that cinema has on many occasions sought...

...to illustrate the absence of someone or something.

Film makers have worked very hard on this question.

Wishing for eternal beauty...

...the woman dived into the swamp and became a mummy.

She woke up 100 years later, and placed a curse on me.

The terrible curse of eternal love.

Whenever I come over to Paris...

...go to the art museums...

...even though I don't know very much about painting.

When I see those French paintings of the 19th century...

...the ones that were done a little before the era of impressionism...

...the ones in which there remains a certain degree of realism...

It's then that I become aware...

...of what cinema is striving to achieve.

Over 100 years have passed since then...

...and what we do now.

With our advanced digital techniques...

..we can actually recreate images in the style of 19th century painting.

I really think cinema is a 19th century art.

That's what I tell myself when I see the latest Hollywood movies.

The image reaches the height of beauty...

...found in the art of the 19th century.

It's as though no progress has been made since then.

I feel a certain sadness in that regard.

Everyone's aware of the fact...

...that I wasn't the one who started...

...with this representation of women wearing long hair.

It was already to be found...

...in those old Japanese ghost films known as "Kaidan".

It didn't only apply to films...

...but was also used in Kabuki.

It's a typical old way of representing ghosts.

I think it's now universally familiar...

...thanks to "Ring".

That long straight hair...

....falls because she's Japanese...

...so as to cover her face.

It's a representation of ghosts...

...which has existed since the Edo era.

It's enough just to have the wind...

...make the actress's hair dance.

It's an effect that's easy to achieve, and one that I've often used.

But we've reached the point where it's been overused in Japanese horror films.

You could say that it's reached saturation point.

Having long black hair is important for Japanese women...

...and that's not just about something that has anything to do with ghosts.

It's said that when a woman's hair is cut...

...the sadness that causes and the resentment that causes...

...stays in the hair that's been cut.

It's a curse.

And it's also a symbol...

...of femininity itself.

On many occasions I've filmed...

...scenes set in a bus..

As you were saying...

...in that way I can show an isolated character...

...who's getting away from reality...

...to reach a world even more alien to him.

But looking at this scene today...

...which is really a bit too odd...

I can admit that I overdid it. I'm not proud of it.

Maybe if there had been the addition of someone else in the scene.

In hindsight I can now tell myself...

...that the scene should have had more real elements.

When we cut to a close-up of something...

...that we've already shown from a distance...

...we're making a repetition.

It's a way of emphasising the important things...

...out of the visual information that we've already given the viewer.

It's as if we're saying...

"You know very well what's most important..."

And then, at the same time...

...there is some else not revealed out of the assemblage of things seen.

Maybe a few seconds have elapsed between the two views.

And then we don't know what there is out of frame.

As I don't show what happens off-screen...

...the viewer believes in a continuity.

And yet there's this gap a few seconds...

...which gives the impression of something suspicious.

I love that eerie feeling from a concealment.

We're revealing, at the same time, that we're hiding something.

"You shouldn't put too much trust in the cinema..."

"You never know what's going to happen."

This is what I'm suggesting with the lead-up sequence here.

It's certainly true that I've shot a lot of scenes involving falling.

It's not that I have any obsession with falling, in my own life. I don't.

But in cinema...

...when you want to stage an accident...

...or if those sorts of events are important to the story...

...I often use a falling body.

As in reality, it can be traumatic to watch.

I imagine these scenes in spite of myself.

I really don't know why.

The thing is, that it's quite difficult to film a fall...

...but at the same time, it's easier to imagine.

We see things falling, but it can be difficulty to watch...

...either in film...

...or in the real world.

When something moves backwards or forwards horizontally...

...the movement is pleasant to follow.

There are many ways that it can be filmed...

As a means of expression, it's rich.

On the other hand, there are very few ways...

...to film a vertical movement.

Things go through the frame all of a sudden.

We can film something that's actually falling...

...by following it down with the camera...

...however... it's difficult...

...to capture the real sensation of falling...

It's very difficult...

And that's precisely what I want to do.

The woman in the red dress is an actress...

...who is also a stunt-woman.

She really bungee-jumped from up there...

...and she's let herself fall almost to the ground.

I think we shot it times.

Each time, she went down a little bit further...

And the last time to within 2-3 metres, of the ground.

We edited the shots together, and it finished up working well.

The essential thing that made it really effective...

...is the fact that she really did fall from the top...

...even if it was a bungee jump.

The second actress actually saw someone falling.

It's something quite scary, being witness to such a jump.

Even those of us who were filming, had to lower our eyes.

The actress therefore really did avert her gaze.

And we were able to film her with a second camera...

...from the opposite direction...

...while she was still reacting genuinely to that scary sight.

...of the bungee-jump.

She managed to show...

just the right reaction.

It was far more effective than we ever anticipated..

In every film I do, I challenge myself...

...to shoot at least one shot...

...incorporating something very difficult to represent.

This is the case...

...whenever there's a situation where someone is falling...

...and we want to show it, as if it were really happening.

If there are no challenging scenes...

...the whole point of making a film...

...doesn't make sense to me anymore.

I'm very taken with the idea, of coming up with a particular shot...

...that possibly no film-maker has ever done before.

Shooting "The Secret of the Black Room"

When I was writing the script...

...I wasn't attentive enough.

My scenery team made several suggestions...

and when I saw the result, I was surprised.

I told them I still wanted it how I had it.

I've never been able to really work out the exact reason why...

...I come to show in my films, bodies that are attached to something.

...or mechanical devices...

...that constrain bodies.

I believe I may be influenced by a childhood memory.

A European horror film from the early 1960s...

...that I saw when I was about 10

In that film, there were things like that...

...instruments for torturing women.

It was a trend at the time.

I think that it's...

...under the influence of these films...

...that I show these terrible devices...

...that are affixed to the human body.

Apart from that, I can't really see any other reason.

Roger Corman, in one of his early films, "The Chamber of Tortures"...

...had this enormous swinging device.

It was a sort of huge pendulum,

about 10 metres across...

...used for tying and cutting up men.

These types of machines are only made for movies.

Personally...

...I don't manufacture any special machines like that.

I don't keep any stored away. I don't have the taste for them.

These are the things that I imagine for the cinema...

I had finally decided to finish this film...

...with the scene of the boy of the family, playing the piano.

I intended to show this boy playing...

...the whole of Debussy's "Clair de lune".

One of the things that I wanted...

...was to be able to show the spectators...

...that is to say, the family members and their acquaintances...

...to be on the same level as the pianist.

Normally such a room would be sloping.

We look from above, or we raise our eyes towards the performer.

But I didn't want that the spectators would look at the pianist like that.

I wanted that the piano, as well as the spectator...

...would be on the same level as the camera.

And there was something else I wanted...

...which was quite difficult to make happen.

That was to see daylight break through behind the pianist.

There needed to be windows.

It was very difficult to find the right setting...

and while I found myself not knowing what to do...

...I thought of the lobby at the university where I teach

As there is a footpath on the outside...

...we couldn't manufacture a huge device...

...but we did it, as far as possible.

We built a whole system intended to conceal the windows.

It enabled us to light up as if it were the outside.

We've installed outdoor lighting everywhere...

...just like in a studio.

It was an extraordinary achievement.

Thanks to that, we had no more worries about light changes...

...and from then on, we were able to create...

...the effects of rays of sunlight, streaming through the windows.

The boy did a huge amount of practice on the piano.

He could play a bit to start with...

...and he practiced and rehearsed well enough...

...to be able to play the piece through, on the day of the shoot.

On the set, we heard the piece...

...already recorded...

...and he fingered the keyboard, in time with the music.

The effect was as if he was really playing.

We had thus... succeeded in creating...

...the sound sensation as if someone was playing the music live.

This is the scenario of "Creepy".

At first, there's only dialogue.

As we don't know yet, what will happen on set...

...we can't write in everything.

This is the last scene.

This is just a rough sketch...

The car is parked here...

..and there's a table here, and the camera is there.

The camera, the table, the car.

It shows where Nishino's moves are. He's played by Teruyuki Kagawa.

I wrote 1, indicating dialogue 1.

Then dialogue 2.

Then it follows for the other characters.

So there you see it...

It's really not meant to be shown to anyone.

This version, with my notes and diagrams...

I never show it to anyone at all.

All the sketches, the planning, I've drawn myself...

...at a cafe, for example.

And when I'm looking at it on the set...

...if the assistant director come see me...

...I conceal it from him, saying...

"This is just for me, you can't see it."

Then I look at it in secret.

Akiko Ahizawa Chief camerawoman

You're too much baggage.

Sorry, my little Max.

Mr Takakura?

Come on!

Take this.... and kill him.

You've already handled guns, haven't you?

You should shoot exactly here...

...at the base of the neck.

A single shot should suffice.

It will make a terrible noise.

What's wrong?

Your end is here.

Look at you now!

You stupid arsehole!

Enough...

He's dead.

Nobody has the experience of being shot dead...

But Kagawa is an actor who plays it with great finesse.

I hadn't given him any particular direction.

These days on television, we no longer see...

...those old documentaries where you actually saw...

...real people, actually getting shot.

It's not at all the same as you see in Hollywood movies.

I think the first time...

...that a filmmaker showed death like this in a fictional setting...

...was in "Schindler's List".

I think I said to Kagawa...

...as it was... in Schindler...

...to make the death fall quick and undramatised.

I didn't tell him anything.

Neither is there anything written in the script.

It's just indicated that he holds her in his arms.

There's not even... "shout".

I was actually wondering how to handle it...

...when he was holding her in his arms.

And on that day, I must admit...

...my inspiration was very banal.

I asked her...

...if it was possible for her to cry...

...even though that was not in the script.

She said "Sure, will I cry in his arms...

...or turned towards the sky?"

I replied... "Could we try the sky?""

"OK, I'll try."

So we repeated it once with Nishijima.

It wasn't filmed...

...but that was already done.

It surprised everyone.

There are some scenarios where the feelings are described...

...in the actual stage directions.

I'll try to play them according to that, the first time.

If there are no directions...

...then I follow my own instincts.

I don't think, myself...

...that people are immediately conscious of their feelings...

...in real-life situations.

Maybe something is happening...

...but I don't believe it's going on in your head.

So I do the same thing...

When you're acting as well?

Sure.

It's impossible to read the script...

...without imagining the feelings that are involved.

I believe that I think about it subconsciously...

...but not thinking about it on a deep level.

I can go into it more deeply as soon as I start acting.

I believe that I often work like that.

I haven't read many scripts by other people.

I think that in the script that I gave you...

...the situations were easy to understand.

But I hardly wrote anything...

...regarding the feelings of the characters...

...nor the stage directions.

There's just dialogue and nothing else.

It was a difficult role, wasn't it?

No, it was really interesting.

When you write the dialogue...

...how do you conceive the feelings?

I don't think about that, all that much...

But there are times...

...when I'm feeling very sentimental.

...and I write...

...with the emotions I'm feeling.

If I find those sentiments have become too obvious...

...I try to cut them back.

"Damn it, I put an exclamation mark!"

"I've put in too many dramatic pauses!"

I try not to have feelings...

...described.

Why's that?

That's a good question.

There are dialogues that I want spoken...

But what about the sentiments?

What are the sentiments that accompany them?

Even if they come at the moment when I'm writing the screenplay...

...they may not be the right ones.

There are always other possibilities...

...and I also want to rely on the actors.

If I define the feelings...

...the actor is going to follow my instructions.

But I can't rely on what I feel...

...as being right.

There'll be many possibilities...

...and that is what...

...I entrust to the actors.

If I can talk to you...

...quite freely...

There is one thing...

...that I've been wanting to describe...

...I think now, for several years...

And that is... war.

I don't know specifically, in what era...

...or for that matter, what war.

And that's the weakness of my idea.

It could be the Pacific War...

...with Japan as a participant...

...or a fictional war to come...

...or the wars that are happening today...

...with Japanese Self Defense forces...

...in an Islamic country...

...or even a war that had nothing do with any of that.

I still haven't made up my mind.

But I'd really love to portray war.

You may think that Ozu, who I quoted earlier...

...only made movies that had nothing to do with war.

But if I'm asked to say what film of his that I like best...

..I reply without hesitation... "A Hen in the Wind".

It's a film from 1949...

...which he made just before "Late Spring".

He didn't directly show the war in this film...

...but it's a powerful movie which describes...

...how deeply scarred our country was after the war experience.

Ozu had experienced it all himself.

He dealt with the war in his own way, and made a masterpiece.

I think that's a good example.

All the same, it is not another concrete project...

...which would be moving forward.

It's possible that it's just a dream.

Subtitles by FatPlank for KG