Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [77]
In the midst of this I was reading the newspaper one day when an advertisement for a new book caught my eye. It was for a novel called Sugata Sanshirō, and for some reason my interest was terrifically aroused. The advertisement described the content only as the story of a rowdy young judo expert, but I just had a gut feeling that “This is it.” There was no logical explanation for my reaction, but I believed wholeheartedly in my instinct and did not doubt for an instant.
I rushed to see Morita and showed him the ad. “Please buy the rights to this book. It will be a great movie,” I begged. Morita replied happily, “All right, let me read it, too.” But then I said, “It hasn’t come out yet. I haven’t even read it myself,” and Morita gave me a funny look. I hastily tried to reassure him, “It’ll be all right. I’m positive this book will make a good movie.” He laughed, “O.K. If you’re that sure about it, you’re probably right. But just because you tell me a book you haven’t read is sure to be good I can’t go rushing out and buy the rights. When it comes out, you read it right away and if it’s good come back. Then I’ll buy it for you.”
After that I haunted the bookstores in Shibuya. I checked morning, noon and night, three times a day every day, to see when the book would arrive. When it finally appeared, I leaped to buy it. This happened in the evening, and by the time I had returned home and read it it was 10:30 p.m. But I had been right. It was good, and it was exactly the kind of material I was looking for to film. I couldn’t wait until morning.
In the dead of night I set out for Morita’s house in Seijo. A very sleepy Morita came out when I banged on the door of the darkened house. I thrust the book at him and said, “It’s a sure thing. Please buy the rights.” “All right,” he promised, “I’ll see to it first thing in the morning,” and he had a look on his face that very clearly said, “There’s no stopping this fellow.”
The next day producer Tanaka Tomoyuki (now president of the Toho Eiga film production arm of Toho Ltd., and co-producer of my latest film, Kagemusha) was dispatched to visit the author of Sugata Sanshirō, Tomita Tsuneo. He requested the film rights for Toho, but came away without an answer.
Later I heard that the next day two of the other majors, Daiei and Shochiku, had also requested the rights. Both of them had promised to cast a big star in the role of the judo expert, Sugata Sanshirō. But, very fortunately for me, Mrs. Tomita had read about me in the film magazines, and told her husband she thought I showed promise.
So at least in a way I owe the start of my career as a director to the wife of the author of the novel Sugata Sanshirō. But in the course of my work as a film director, whenever my fate has hung in the balance, some kind of guardian angel has always appeared out of nowhere. I myself can’t help being surprised by this strange destiny. This fate nudged me into my first experience as a fledgling movie director.
I wrote the script for Sugata Sanshirō at one sitting. Then I took it to the naval air station on the coast of Chiba Prefecture, where Yama-san was shooting Hawai-Marei oki Kaisen (The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya). My purpose was, of course, to have him look at my script and give me his advice.
When I arrived at the base, I saw a massive aircraft carrier moored with its deck facing the ocean. Zero fighters were landing, taxiing and taking off from it in rapid succession, circling into the sky. The shooting of the film, in other