Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [60]
Management theory at P.C.L. regarded the assistant directors as cadets who would later become managers and directors. They were therefore required to gain a thorough mastery of every field necessary to the production of a film. We had to help in the developing laboratory, carry a bag of nails, a hammer and a level from our belts and help with scriptwriting and editing as well. We even had to appear as extras in place of actors and do the accounts for location shooting.
The president of the company went to America to observe how movies were made in Hollywood, and he came back very deeply impressed by the importance of the chief assistant director on a given film and the vigor with which he did his job. In consequence of this, he had a huge sign put up in the middle of the studio saying “Chief assistant directors’ orders are to be obeyed as the President’s orders.” This of course elicited a great deal of resistance and resentment from every division of the company. In order to keep the situation under control, we really had to push. A chief assistant director often found himself having to say, “If you have a complaint, meet me behind the developing laboratory.” This led to hand-to-hand combat with camera people, lighting technicians, prop crew and set designers.
But even if some of this was a little extreme, I don’t think the basic idea of the assistant director as a management cadet was a bad one, nor was the method of training these cadets in error. Today’s assistant directors are in trouble when they get to direct for the first time. Unless you know every aspect and phase of the film-production process, you can’t be a movie director. A movie director is like a front-line commanding officer. He needs a thorough knowledge of every branch of the service, and if he doesn’t command each division, he cannot command the whole.
A Long Story: Part I
IN AUGUST of 1974 I received word that Yama-san—my teacher, Yamamoto Kajirō—was confined to his bed and that his prospects for recovery were not good. I was just about to leave for the Soviet Union to begin making my film Dersu Uzala. I knew the shooting would take more than a year. If something happened to Yama-san during that time, I would not be able to come back to Japan. It was with this anxious knowledge that I went to visit his home.
The house was on a hill in the northern part of the Tokyo suburb of Seijo. A sloping concrete path led from the front gate up to the entrance. In a strip along the middle of this pathway Yama-san’s wife had diligently planted a long, narrow flower bed. For me, in the somber mood I found myself, the blossoms’ colors were too intense.
Yama-san on his sickbed had lost so much weight that his unusually large nose looked even larger. I expressed my regrets over his illness and spoke the usual phrases wishing him a speedy recovery, and he replied in a thin little polite voice, “Thank you for coming when I know you are so busy.” But he followed right along with “How is the Russian assistant director?” When I answered, “He’s a good man. He writes down everything I say,” he let out a cheerful laugh. “An A.D. who does nothing but write is no good,” he said. I had been thinking just that myself, but I was worried about having said such a thing now and given Yama-san cause for concern. I lied a little: “It’s all right. He’s a little bit too nice a person, but he does his work well.” “If that’s true, it’ll be all right, then,” said Yama-san, and changed the subject to sukiyaki.
He told me about a restaurant where you could get sukiyaki that tasted just as good as in the old days. He urged me to try it and gave me careful directions for getting there. Then he talked about the restaurant we used to go to together in the old days and the flavor of the food there. He said he now had no appetite at all, so I couldn’t help marveling at the characteristic enthusiasm he showed