Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [68]
No matter how much paper I had, I could never finish writing down everything I learned from Yama-san. I will have to wrap it up with one last item: what he taught me about motion-picture sound. He himself approached sound with an attitude of discretion, employing a delicate sensibility in the use of both natural sound and music. Therefore, he was most to be feared during the process of dubbing—recording the sound track on the edited film, the last step in completion of a film. My pet theory—that cinematic strength derives from the multiplier effect of sound and visual image being brought together—was born from the experience of Yama-san’s dubbing work.
For us assistant directors, the dubbing process was particularly painful. Shooting was over and we were all exhausted, but usually we had the release date hanging over our heads. Since we generally had no leeway at all, our sleepless nights continued, and because the work of putting in the sound demanded such delicacy and refinement, our nerves were worn to a frazzle by the time we finished.
Yet on the other hand there were rewards. Frequently we had the natural sound recorded as the film was shot, and sometimes adding another kind of sound on top of this would create unexpected new effects. So the dubbing process came to have its own special attractions and pleasures. Depending on how the sound is put in, the visual image may strike the viewer in many different ways. Such effects the director calculates, but assistant directors rarely have the opportunity to set foot in this territory. In most instances, the results took us assistant directors by surprise. Yama-san seemed to enjoy surprising us, so he took care not to let us know what he was doing. Then he would gleefully surprise us with an extraordinary combination of sound effects and music. The sound powerfully altered the visual image to create a whole new impression, and at these moments we forgot all our pain and exhaustion in the excitement of it.
It was still the very beginning of the sound-film era in Japan. I don’t believe many other directors had thought about the relationship between sound and image so deeply as to realize that they were mutual multipliers. I think Yama-san wanted to teach me what he knew, because he had me do the dubbing on Tōjurō’s Love.
When he looked at my handiwork in the private screening room, he instructed me to do it all over again. This was a shock for me. It was as if I were disgraced in public. To redo it would take enormous time and effort, and I could hardly face the people who assisted on dubbing. On top of all this, I still didn’t understand exactly what was wrong with what I had done. I went through it reel by reel, over and over again, searching for what I thought might be the bad places. Finally I found them, redubbed them and presented the film to Yama-san again. When the screening was over, all he said was “O.K.” At that moment I hated him. “Makes me do everything and then says whatever he wants,” I thought. But the feeling lasted only a brief instant.
At the party celebrating completion of Tōjurō’s Love, Mrs. Yamamoto came and spoke to me. “My husband was very happy. He said Kurosawa can write scripts, handle the directing, do the editing and now the dubbing—he’ll be all right.” My eyes suddenly got very hot. Yama-san was the best kind of teacher. Yama-san, I promise you I’ll try a little harder, a little longer. This is the memorial speech I offer up to Yama-san.
Congenital Defects
I AM SHORT-TEMPERED and obstinate. These defects are still pronounced, and when I was an assistant director they gave rise to some very serious problems. I recall one occasion when we were particularly pressed for time on the shooting of a film. For more than a week we had not had a full half-hour for lunch, and what made it worse was that we had to make do with the box lunches the company provided.