part II: Star Wars

Now that we have examined the overall picture and scope of Kurosawa's influence and its relation to Lucas' technique, we should look at specific examples within the Star Wars films that derive imagery from Kurosawa. Because although it is true that Lucas' films, specifically the Star Wars ones, do not share very many fundamental techniques, there is still an explicit and continual influence of Kurosawa. Once Lucas returned for the prequels, he brought with him an even greater plethora of references to the Japanese master, perhaps as a result of watching, studying and absorbing his work during Lucas' twenty-year retirement. For starters, Lucas almost exclusively used the two-camera set-up, just as Kurosawa did in his later, seminal period. Phantom Menace is also unique in that it also contains many other techniques of Kurosawa's, for it is perhaps the most overtly Kurosawa-influenced film of Lucas' filmography--fitting since it also based its plot on Hidden Fortress, and follows it much more closely than Star Wars. Aside from the hugely significant lack of telephoto photography, Phantom Menace is otherwise visually composed so similarly to any of Kurosawa's later pictures, circa Ran , that it almost feels as if Kurosawa himself might have arrived at a film of similar compositional integrity--emphasis is placed on the master shot, the action is driven by editing and movement through the frame rather than crane shots or dollying as most modern films do, and there is a sense of stillness of staticness to the movie, with an emphasis on composition. There is a synthesis of many of the qualities of Kurosawa's later work, although told without the stylized telephoto photography and instead through more traditional normal and wide-angle coverage--in fact, there is a jarring lack of telephoto shots in the prequel trilogy overall, except in close-up use which of course is where telephoto coverage is traditionally used (since the shallow depth of field isolates characters for the audience).

Perhaps it was because Lucas was away from the camera for so long that he had yet to develop--or re-develop--his own style, instead emulating that which he had studied and admired for so many years. With Attack of the Clones, this emulation would be left behind--compositional emphasis and a feeling of staticness was replaced with camera movement and more dynamic and modern technique, which many upheld as a sign that Lucas was stretching his directorial wings. Indeed, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith exhibit stylistic devices that one imagines Lucas would never have used in Phantom Menace, from the hand-held combat camerawork of Attack of the Clones to the dynamic and in-your-face digital cinematography displayed through the opening action sequence of Revenge of the Sith (a good example being the opening, Lord-of-the-Rings-inspired fly-by, or the shot of the separatist cruiser crash-landing which sees the craft rocketing from a distance and finally settling just a few feet from the lens). The deliberately rigid formality in performance of Phantom Meance also became replaced by more expressive emoting. However, although Lucas left behind the more overt Kurosawa references in Phantom Menace , many specific visuals still were derived from him. As a final piece of closure we shall now look at some of those.

Star Wars was first written as a remake of Hidden Fortress--by the time Lucas got to the final draft the film had deviated quite considerably and emerged as its own unique creation; however, a number of explicit links still remained, and in some cases Lucas emulated specific shots. This extends to some instances in the sequels as well.

The original Darth Vader, General Hyoe Tadokoro:

The original droids:

Both films have a similar ending ceremony:

The cantina brawl is of course sourced from Yojimbo:

This trick of hiding under the floor comes from Sanjuro:

CONTINUE TO PART III