Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [58]
Naturally, I didn’t know my examiners. But our conversation was most enjoyable, covering everything from painting to music. Since it was a film-company examination, we of course talked about movies, too. I’ve forgotten exactly what we said, but some years later Yama-san wrote a magazine article about me in which he said I liked the Japanese painters Tessai and Sotatsu as well as Van Gogh and the music of Haydn. When I saw this article, I remembered talking about these four artists during that oral examination. Anyway, we talked a lot.
Suddenly I noticed that it was getting dark outside, so I excused myself, reminding them that a great number of applicants were still waiting for their oral examinations. Yama-san said, “Oh, that’s right,” and bowed to me with a friendly smile. He even advised me that if I was going home in the direction of Shibuya, there was a bus that stopped right in front of the studio. I got on this bus and stared out the window all the way to Shibuya, but I never saw anything that looked like the ocean.
About a month later I received notification of a third examination from P.C.L. This was to be the last test, so it involved meeting the studio head and the managing director. At this interview the executive secretary began asking me a lot of questions about my family, and something in his manner and tone irritated me. Suddenly I couldn’t contain myself any longer and burst out with “Is this an interrogation?” The studio head (at that time it was Mori Iwao) stepped in and tried to mollify me, so I was sure this meant I would not be accepted for the job.
Nevertheless, a week later I received the job offer. But that executive secretary at the final examination had really put me off, and seeing all the actresses with their thick pancake makeup that same day had made me feel sick. I showed the offer of employment to my father and explained to him that although I had been accepted I was not actually eager to take the job. My father responded that if I found I didn’t like the work, I could always quit. He said anything I tried would be worth the experience, so I should give it a month or even a week just to see what it was like. That seemed to me to be a valid idea, so I joined P.C.L.
Although I had understood that only five people were to be hired, the day I joined the company I found myself among some twenty new employees. I thought this was very strange until it was explained that tests had been given on other days for the hiring of five camera assistants, five recording assistants and five administrative assistants, along with the five assistant directors. The monthly salary for all but the administrative assistants was to be 28 yen (in today’s money, very roughly $560). The administrative assistants were to receive 30 yen (about $600) a month, because their opportunities for advancement were fewer. That same executive secretary I had taken a dislike to at my last interview explained this.
(The executive secretary in later years became managing director. While he held the position, one of the assistant directors who had entered with me was crushed by a falling light. Six of his ribs were broken, and the shock caused a torsion of his intestines which later resulted in the further complication of appendicitis. When the appendicitis complication was revealed, our executive secretary came forth with the extraordinary statement that the broken ribs from the falling light were the company’s responsibility, but the appendicitis wasn’t. After the Pacific War, when the company labor union was formed, he was voted the most hated executive in the studio.)
With the first duties I was assigned as a new assistant director, I made up my mind to quit. My father had said that anything I tried would be worth the experience, but everything I