Ran film: Encyclopedia II - Ran film - Background

Ran film - Background

Kurosawa said that all of the technological progress of the 20th century had only taught people how to kill each other more efficiently, and in this film he shows that forces of violence and destruction, once unleashed, destroy all in their path:[1]

"What I was trying to get at in Ran, and this was there from the script stage, was that the gods or God or whoever it is observing human events is feeling sadness about how human beings destroy each other, and powerlessness to affect human beings' behavior." -- Akira Kurosawa^[2]

Ran is a film that Kurosawa had in mind to film for many years, but the 73 year-old director had fallen out of favour in his own country and found it impossible to find funding for such an epic and costly film. Nevertheless, while he was unable to continue making films in Japan, his reputation in the West had grown and he was able to receive funding from European and American producers such as Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas (who would finance Kagemusha), Stephen Spielberg (Dreams) and Serge Silberman, who allowed the director’s long cherished project to be finally put on the screen.^[3]

• Akira Kurosawa referred to his previous film, Kagemusha (1980), as a "dress rehearsal" for Ran. Kurosawa spent ten years storyboarding every shot in the film as paintings. The resulting collection of images was published with the screenplay.

• Kurosawa's eyesight had deteriorated almost completely by the time principal photography began. He could only frame shots with the help of assistants, who used his storyboard paintings as guidelines.

• In the early part of the film where Hidetora breaks the arrows, is actually based on a historical event with the Mori clan during the Sengoku era. When the aging Lord Mori Motonari is teaching his three gifted son to be united as three arrows. It has become a Japanese proverb in present day as "Strong and sturdy as three arrows".

• The family crest of Ichimonji is sun and moon. The Chinese character of Kurosawa's first name 'Akira' is combined the characters of sun and moon.

• Kurosawa said in an interview that "Hidetora is me." Some movie critics say that Kurosawa describes his loneliness in Ran.^[4]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Background", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki