Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [110]
My prediction came true, and when the picture was finished Muraki and the girl got married. Mrs. Muraki, whose first name is Shinobu, also became a first-rate art director. I had never been an official go-between for a wedding before, but apparently these two were brought together by the terribly hard work I gave them on Stray Dog, so I suppose that without knowing it I had been their matchmaker.
From this little anecdote I think you can guess what the overall mood was during the filming of Stray Dog. The harmonious picnic-like air was most unusual.
I had Honda do mainly second-unit shooting. Every day I told him what I wanted and he would go out into the ruins of post-war Tokyo to film it. There are few men as honest and reliable as Honda. He faithfully brought back exactly the footage I requested, so almost everything he shot was used in the final cut of the film. I’m often told that I captured the atmosphere of post-war Japan very well in Stray Dog, and, if so, I owe a great deal of that success to Honda.
The leads in this film were once again Mifune and Shimura Takashi, and most of the rest of the cast, too, were old friends, so the work proceeded in an almost familial atmosphere. The only problem was Awaji Keiko, a dancer I dragged in from the Shochiku revue stage. This ingenue was spoiled enough to be a full measure of trouble. She was only sixteen years old, had never acted before, and all she really wanted to do was dance. She would fret and fuss no matter what she was asked to do, and in places where she was supposed to cry she would burst out laughing out of pure contrariness.
As time went by and the crew befriended her, it seems Awaji began to find the work more and more interesting. Unfortunately, by that time her job was finished. We all gathered at the studio gate to see her off. Already sitting in the car, she burst into tears. Then she said, “I couldn’t cry when I was supposed to, and now look at me.”
No shooting ever went as smoothly for me as Stray Dog. Even the weather seemed to cooperate. There was a scene when we needed an evening shower. We got out the fire truck and prepared for the rolling of the camera. I had them start the hoses and called for action and camera, and just at that instant a terrific real rainstorm began. We got a great scene.
Another time we were working on an interior set, but we needed a rainstorm outside the windows. Again the heavens obliged, and we were even able to record just the thunder we needed simultaneously.
However, when we had a great deal left to shoot on an open set, a typhoon approached. I was forced to revise many of my plans. We rushed the shooting through with one ear glued to the radio for the storm reports. Second by second the typhoon bore down on us, and the set took on a battleground atmosphere. We wound up the shooting the very evening the storm was scheduled to hit full force. Sure enough, when we went out to look at our open set that night, we found the whole street smashed to bits by the high winds. Gazing out over the rubble of what we had been filming a few hours before gave me a peculiarly clean, rewarding feeling.
At any rate, the filming of Stray Dog went remarkably well, and we finished ahead of schedule. The excellent pace of the shooting and the good feeling of the crew working together can be sensed in the completed film.
I remember how it was on Saturday nights when we boarded a bus to go home for a day off after a full week’s hard work. Everyone was happy. At the time I was living in Komae, far out of the city near the Tamagawa River, so toward the end of the ride I was always left alone. The solitary last rider on the cavernous empty bus, I always felt