So if I said "Great Article!" would I be giving a compliment or an insult?

Going by the last paragraph, I'd say it's a, "great article." I love this movie. It's great to see it get such good coverage here.

Truly fantastic work here Mike. When I watched the film I thought to myself someone ought to write an essay just about the compositions in the first hour, and it's just too bad I'm nowhere near smart or talented enough to do it. Thanks for stepping up to the plate on this.

Thanks much. Most of this essay focuses on a single two-minute shot, too (which I selected virtually at random). You could easily write an entire Bordwell-style book on the subject.

I think my favorite shot in the first half may be when Aoki is pleading with Gondo to save his son, pressing Gondo up against the window as he paces. Gondo is trapped in just a sliver of the screen, reflecting both his moral dilemma and his isolation in - at that point - being unwilling to pay the ransom.

EDIT: No wait! It's when Gondo spends that scene in shadow while the police go over the plan, then he comes out of the shadows to aid them. Ah, never mind. It's impossible to pick a favorite shot.

Every one of those screenshots is composed like a painting. Just the ability to have everything in mind (both in terms of composition and performance) and to apply that sort of artistry to every single moment is completely awe-inspiring to me.

As great as Kurosawa's sense of composition is in this film, I think it's even better in Sanjuro, which has more moving parts (the cluster of young samurai who go from having total disdain for Mifune's ronin to following his every instruction) and more dynamic action.

Good job, Mike. Even when I don't agree with you, which seems to be more than the other writers on this site, I always enjoy what you have to say. That sounds so negative, but it's not! :D

In a sense that's the highest compliment you could pay me. Thanks!

I really wish you still had a column along the lines of Scenic Routes. I know that you guys have resisted just porting all of your old feautres from AVC over here, but that and My Year of Flops were my two most anticipated features back in the day. But this will do for now!

Mike still writes Scenic Routes for The A.V. Club, though. He just did one on Life of Brian.

I did not know that! Thank you!

I'll be writing two Scenic Routes myself this year in the comments of the AV Club, I'll let you know when they're up (-: Mike D has absolutely inspired me to work on them.

Let me know for sure! I love in depth analysis like that. And you seem like somebody I would read! :D

THIS is what I was waiting for! Good God, Mike, you really nailed this one. I definitely do NOT have the chops to go over the aspects I technically appreciate in Kurosawa's work, but this piece was really comprehensive and a joy to read. I getting a little tired of these "auteur" moves by the Wes Andersons of the world and hyperbolic ranting about that goddamn True Detective tracking shot. Taking the time to appreciate the subtle cinematography in these types of films is what makes this site a step above. Thanks for the effort. It is sorely appreciated.

I was wondering: the film's title is "Tengoku to jigoku" ("Heaven and Hell"). Does this phrase have the same meaning as "high and low" in a Japanese context, in order for the title to be evocative of the film's themes?

I'll take a crack at this with the caveat that my Japanese is terrible. The "ten" in the title means sky, or heaven (Chinese "tian"), while the "ji" means earth or ground (Chinese "di"). So the distinction between high and low is implicit at the very least. "Tengoku" and "jigoku" are Buddhist terms for heaven and hell -- same as in Christianity, heaven conventionally understood as celestial and hell understood as being underground.

Bonus: the two "goku" while pronounced similarly are actually two different kanji. In "tengoku" the kanji means state or country ("Heavenly Kingdom" in the Chinese context) , while in "jigoku," the "goku" means a prison.

Please excuse the pedantry.

Thank you Dissolve staff for selecting this film. It's been fascinating. Great analysis Mike!

There is no such thing as "pedantry" when it comes to answering a question thoroughly and sincerely. Thanks!

Reposting a comment I made over at the forum earlier: Something I began thinking about last night. I think one of Mifune's great skills is his body acting, the way he carries himself and moves is always expertly controlled for the character he's playing. Compare him in this, where you actually SEE the world on his shoulders to his loping wolf in Seven Samurai or his brash jerk in Rashomon (which is hiding the coward he knows he really is). He uses everything he can control about himself to commit to a performance.

Also, there's the way he absently scratches his beard in Yojimbo and Sanjuro that is perfectly disarming, making him appear to be far less formidable than he is, which is a great way to get the drop on people by making them underestimate you.

Hmm... I myself am cultivating a 6-month old goatee and find myself absent mindedly stroking my beard. Hopefully enough people will have seen those two films and actually be disarmed by my presence. In either case, the true worth of a review like this is that it engages the viewer to look again with a more appreciative eye, something certainly rewarded with Kurosawa.

That is exactly what I like best about Mifune. I am always drawn to body acting, as you put it. The most notable thing about Mifune in my mind is he tends to pick a distinctive gesture for each character. Sanjuro's shoulder shake and Red Beard's double-sided beard rub come to mind most readily, but really every character has one. It makes him a joy to watch.

As always Mike you really nail the intricacies of style and visual storytelling. I think a lot about Howard Hawks when I think of this kind of directing, which doesn't usually rely on attention grabbing shots but always perfectly composes and frames a shot. As they say about him in Targets "He really knew how to tell a story."

Though I'll admit being a sucker for Great Directing. I can often overlook a lot of flaws if a film is gorgeous and a really long take will usually get a reaction out of me though it is especially impressive when a director knows when to employ said tricks (for example, I personally think True Detective used that shot at the exact right moment whereas the next episode was much more subtly told).

But that only goes so far. As my one friend said about Prometheus, which was really kind of beautiful looking, "Even the most polished piece of turd in the world is still just a polished piece of turd."

I've been feeling frustrated that I didn't manage to get my hands on a copy of High and Low in time for MOTW, but upon reflection, it's probably better this way. I think I'm better equipped to watch it having read these fantastic essays (especially Tasha's and Mike's) than I would have been watching it totally blind. (I expect to watch it in the next couple of days, so these essays and the comments discussions will still be fresh.) And, not that I wasn't looking forward to it anyway, I feel so excited about the prospect of being able to finally watch it myself, and to look for all these cool things people have pointed out.

It's on Hulu, but maybe you already know that.

Netflix has it, they're just being slow about it. It's finally in the mail.

As a rule, if I can get it through Netflix, I will, since I already pay them a chunk of money each month, and it's a sunk cost. If it takes awhile, that's fine; this is a hobby, not an educational or professional obligation, so it's not urgent.

When I was watching it, I felt that excitement as I realized what Kurosawa was doing and I nearly cried. It's a pretty special feeling. This movie really is a masterpiece of directing and I'm so glad it was featured here.

I am kind of wishing I had waited so I could have watched it with these things in mind. I'm leaning toward a rewatch with the commentary track later in the week. Fortunately for me I own it.

The Criterion disc has a great commentary.

That's what I have. I have gotten into the habit of buying a couple Kurosawas a year during Barnes & Nobles Criterion sale. Though I think I scored High and Low when Borders went out of business.

Poor, pathetic Aoki is always hanging around in the first half, sadly clinging to that sweater. He's almost always a background figure, but Kurosawa never allows us to forget he's there. He's a constant reminder to ourselves and Gondo of what's at stake. When he eventually cracks, it's a huge dramatic moment with Gondo being cornered in a tiny sliver of the frame as Aoki pleads with him.

It's interesting that as the film moves from Heaven to Hell, Aoki goes from being a meek and sad creature to a more active participant in events. It's like his status in Heaven is next to nothing, but in Hell he's a more prestigious figure.

This has been the best discussion/essays of a MOTW yet

It undermines the sophistication of the piece somewhat to refer to Detective Bos'n as "standing bald dude." He's nearly as important a character as Tokura.

I think a great topic for a "Conversation" article on this site would be what separates good Great Directing from bad Great Directing. Same with Great Acting.

Gooooooooood stuff here. Kurosawa is always so good at composition, placing and moving things in the frame. The climactic scene of Seven Samurai, with

SPOILERS AS IF WE HAVEN'T ALL SEEN IT

Toshiro Mifune gut shot, chasing the shooter across the building and across the frame, and then running him through against a wall and the right edge of the frame, is about as pure a moment of filmmaking genius (the combination of action and its visualization) as there's ever been.

I haven't had a chance to rewatch High and Low yet so I haven't had much feedback to contribute to these great essays, but having recently seen Seven Samurai again I can certainly amen this. What a miracle of a movie-- a three-and-a-half hour movie filled with the sort of small perfections you'd expect in a much smaller and tighter film.

One sequence that I noted particularly this time was the introduction of Takashi Shimura, Isao Kimura, and Toshiro Mifune in the scene where Kambei disguises himself as a priest to root out a thief in a barn. For fifteen long-seeming minutes we've been with the peasants in their despair and frustration at the impossibility of their task, our knowledge of their desperation painfully clear. Then the flurry of excitement comes on like a breeze. We see Kambei emerge from a mob to cut his top-knot, as the bewildered peasants and the young samurai mill and whisper, and as they pull back from the barn the woman runs out with the rice and starts to run to the child crying but in mid-movement hurries on to deliver the bowl. As we come back to the head-shaving we get our first glimpse of Mifune squatting at the stream, shouldering the peasants away with a surly glance back-- so after the opening drought we have three of the title characters appearing within seconds.

And of course we don't see the fight (it's amazing how sparing with violence Kurosawa is for an "action" director-- until the final assault of the bandits all the killing is swift and brutal and efficient), just its slow-motion aftermath, with that wonderful shot of Kambei bringing out the child as the thief wobbles in the foreground, facing us, his eyes already dead. Then Kambei walks into the background and away as Mifune comes forward to poke the body and then to clown and preen, bringing the crowd rushing forward. Every shot is just amazingly staged and framed, and I mean the movie's full of that shit, it's just incredible.

This, Ikiru and Seven Samurai are my favorite films. Very few directors understand the medium as thoroughly as Kurosawa did.