Film Images: Notes and Commentary
Included on this page are images from films that demonstrate particular characteristics of film art.
Errol Flynn:
Magnificent acting under the direction of Raoul Walsh in Uncertain Glory (1944), the story of a criminal trapped in a town suffering from Nazi occupation. The Nazis will execute 100 in the town unless a resistance leader comes forward to confess. Rather than escape, Flynn’s character chooses to confess rather than try to escape. In explaining his choice to his friend, he says, “There comes a time in every man’s life when he finds something greater than himself, something he is willing to die for, almost happily.” One can literally see him finding that something in a glassy-eyed vision of the beyond. And today, films like this have not lost their significance, as hundreds of thousands fight for freedom in Ukraine.
Akira Kurosawa’s Ran:
Akira Kurosawa’s Ran is based on Shakespeare’s King Lear. Instead of three daughters, the King (Lord Hidetora Ichimonji) has three sons.
As in Lear, the story concerns a King who reacts strongly to a perceived insult from his third child, shown here in the blue robe. The entire film is a study in minutely planned geometric images that reflect the emotional conditions of the characters and the direction of the narrative. Note how the other sons and the father (King) are all on the left side, standing in opposition to Son 3, anticipating the father/son break up soon to come.
Sons 1 and 2 remain apart from Son 3. As in Lear, false declarations of love and respect for the King are made by the two older children. Kurosawa contrasts the quiet beauty of the hillside with human emotional turmoil and political plotting.
The King sits down to make an announcement.
Kurosawa changes the point of view, giving the scene a mystical, painting-like quality. Since the announcement concerns the future of the kingdom, the three sons are now aligned in a row to the King’s left. Mist rising in the background adds to the sense of anticipation.
The King begins a demonstration, handing out arrows to his sons. He asks them to break a single arrow, which they can easily do. To symbolically demonstrate to them how his kingdom will be stronger, once it is divided into three parts among his sons, he asks them to break three arrows at once.
The first two Sons fail to break the three arrows, but Son 3 puts the arrows on his knee and breaks them. Knowing that the other sons are merely power-hungry and that the 3-way union will never work, he then rebukes his father for spouting nonsense. The King is taken aback. “What madness have I spoken?” he asks. Note how the arrows, Son 3 and the King define a line of opposition, while Sons 1 and 2 define a separate physical and emotional space.
In Lear, Shakespeare supplies Lear’s daughter with some rather blunt, but nonetheless true, assessments of parent/child relations: parents and children are different people after all and a mature perspective on the world acknowledges this. Son 3 expresses the same sentiments. Again, faces, arrows, and bodies are aligned to express the narrative content.
The King denounces his son and cuts him out of the proposed division of the kingdom. As in Lear, one of the King’s faithful subjects requests that the King reconsider his rash judgment. But the King refuses.
The scene closes with a single, beautiful shot of a cloud rising through the hilltops. The main elements of the narrative are now set and the story will now rise like mist toward its inevitable conclusion. The symbolic closure to the episode underscores the insignificance of human struggles in the vast sweep of nature.