Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [25]
They were mostly American and European movies. There was a theater on Kagurazaka hill called the Ushigomekan that showed nothing but foreign films. Here I saw a lot of action serials and William S. Hart movies. Among the serials I remember especially The Tiger’s Footprints, Hurricane Hutch, The Iron Claw and The Midnight Man.
The William S. Hart movies had a masculine touch like that of later films directed by John Ford, and more of them seemed to be set in Alaska than in the Wild West. An image remains emblazoned in my mind of William S. Hart’s face. He holds up a pistol in each hand, his leather armbands decorated with gold, and he wears a broad-brimmed hat as he sits astride his horse. Or he rides through the snowy Alaskan woods wearing a fur hat and fur clothing. What remains of these films in my heart is that reliable manly spirit and the smell of male sweat.
It’s possible that I had already seen some Chaplin films, but since I don’t remember doing Chaplin imitations at this age, it may not have been until later. Something else that may have taken place around this time or a little later remains an indelible movie memory. It happened when my oldest sister took me to the Asakusa district of Tokyo to see a movie about an expedition to the South Pole.
The leader of the sled dogs falls ill, and the exploration party has to leave him behind and drive on with the rest of the team. But the lead dog follows them, staggering, on the verge of death, and resumes his place at the head of the team. Seeing the faltering legs of this lead dog, I felt as if my heart would break. His eyelids were stuck together with pus; his tongue hung lolling from his mouth as he panted in pain for breath. It was a pathetic, gruesome and noble face. My eyes overflowed so with tears that I could hardly see.
On the blurry screen, one of the expedition members led the dog away across a slope. Finally he must have killed the beast, because a rifle report sounded loudly enough to frighten the other dogs and make them jump out of line. I burst out crying. My sister tried to comfort me, but it was no use. She gave up and took me out of the movie theater. But I kept on crying. I cried in the streetcar all the way home; I cried after I got inside the house. Even when my sister said she’d never take me to the movies again, I kept on crying. To this day I can’t forget that dog’s face, and whenever I think of it, I am overcome with reverence.
At this time of my life I did not have a great deal of enthusiasm for Japanese movies, in comparison with foreign pictures. But my interests were still those of a child.
My father didn’t just take us to the movies. He quite often took us to listen to storytellers in the music halls around Kagurazaka. The ones I remember are Kosan, Kokatsu and Enyu. Enyu was probably too subtle for my childish mind to find entertaining. I enjoyed Kokatsu’s introductions, but Kosan, who was called a master of the storytelling art, was one I really liked. I can’t forget two of his routines, Yonaki udon (Nighttime Noodles) and Uma no dengaku (The Horse in Miso Sauce). Kosan would pantomime the noodle vendor pulling his cart and lifting his voice in a whining refrain, and I remember how quickly I was swept into the mood of a frosty winter evening.
I never heard anyone but Kosan tell the Horse in Miso Sauce story. A pack-horse driver stops at a roadside teahouse to have some saké. He leaves his horse, which is carrying a load of miso salted-bean paste, tethered outside. But while he drinks, the horse gets loose and wanders off, and he sets out to look for it. As he asks everyone he comes across, his speech becomes sloppier and more hurried. Finally he asks a drunk by the road if he has “seen my horse with miso on it.” The drunk replies, “What? I’ve never even heard of horse cooked that way, much