"Money is an iron"
What a phenomenal flick.
I forgot how perfect the script is! Since all the most memorable moments happen in the second half, it feels easy to forget about this tour de force opening act, and the clip it goes at. It goes like the clappers! Not a shot wasted, not a line out of place.
It starts as a genre piece, then morphs into parable, all without ever feeling preachy or didactic.
The shot panning back…
Toshiro Mifune is great. Chieko Naniwa is incredible as the forest spirit. Isuzu Yamada is phenomenal as Lady Washizu.
Their performances feel theatrical, but as the stakes rise, it's as if the story rises to meet them.
The starkness of the landscape at the base of Mt Fuji works so well with the scheming, toiling mind of Washizu. Some of the camera movement is so dynamic, and the crowd scenes are brilliant. Nothing better than loads of bodies in space.
Gotta be one my top 3 Kurosawa Shakespeare adaptations
👑 - I am going into battle and I wamt your sexiest tennis film
🧙♂️- my tennis films are too sexy for you traveller, you cannot handle my tennis films
GENA ROWLANDS
An immense film. This is the first film directed by John Cassavetes I have watched. I had such a clear idea as to what it would be like, from interviews and people describing them, but really it's like someone describing the feel of a storm.
The assured direction, the beautiful camera work, the intimate truth of the scenes.. all of it comes together so wonderfully to form a titan of a picture.
And the acting is absolutely astounding.…
