As I’ve noted elsewhere, we seem to be experiencing a rush of great DVD releases. This flowering, this elevation, of DVD content may be a coincidence, or it may be the last gasp of DVD before Blu-Ray or HD-DVD take over. Or it may just be “fall,” when, traditionally, the movie industry “gets serious.” But whatever the reason, DVD collectors are grateful for such recent notable titles as the box sets of Rohmer and Malle, Powell’s  A Canterbury Tale, the  Mr. Moto set, and the box of Jayne Mansfield movies. Also among them was  Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier, the latest version of a film that continues to reveal new facets and spark interesting commentary. It can be endlessly watched and endlessly debated.

 

Another similarly rich movie is  Seven Samurai, coming out from Criterion in a new three disc set Tuesday, September 5 (and retailing for $49.95). Thanks to the new commentary track and the two big supplements, I learned this time around that the movie  should be called  Seven Ronin. It seems, if I understand the chat correctly, that the seven warriors coming to the aid of a small village annually raided by brigands, are masterless samurai, i.e., ronin. In fact, according to one of the experts on the disc, the real samurai, which made up five per cent of the population in the 16th century when  Seven Samurai is set, were often merely bureaucrats filing paperwork for their bosses.

 

 

But that is just one nugget amongst many. And the film is well worth seeing again anyway because  Seven Samurai is one of the great works of cinematic “existential humanism,” perhaps the best “philosophy” for making great, high art films, and most post war European films fall broadly into this category (you might also call it the Janus Films philosophy). Kurosawa’s innovation is to marry it to an action film, and his ability to elicit beautiful movement from his camera, from his cast, and, more theoretically, from his narrative, serve to, so to speak, embed his views, rather than make them the point of a given scene.

 

 

I’ve just re-listened to the Michael Jeck audio commentary track, often heralded as the gold standard of audio commentary tracks, and which also appears on the original DVD, which bore spine number 2, and which also shares with the new set the movie’s theatrical trailer. Also included then but now missing were an essay by David Ehrenstein and, for those lucky enough to get the earliest pressings of the disc, a restoration demonstration that was later removed.

I’ve also listened to the new commentary track recorded for the new release, still labeled CC No. 2 so it supersedes the old disc. The new commentary is an edited group effort that begins with Stephen Prince, and proceeds through David Desser, Tony Rayns, Donald Richie (who emphasizes the influence of Soviet cinema on AK), and Joan Mellen. The set also comes with a 60-page booklet that includes essays by Kenneth Turan, Peter Cowie, Philip Kemp, Peggy Chiao, Alain Silver, Stuart Galbraith IV, Toshiro Mifune, Sidney Lumet, and Arthur Penn.

 

 

This is a three disc set and the first disc, which has the first half of the movie, also features a suite of trailers and teasers, and a production stills and poster gallery, combining to present about 40 images. The second disc, besides offering the second half of the film, features the 55-minute episode on  Seven Samurai from the Japanese television series  It’s Wonderful to Create (segments of this series also appear on other Criterions). From it, we learn that there was a first scene that was stuck from the film in which the brigands attack an earlier, different village, and then the doc runs through the script writing process, the film’s music, problems in shooting the “burning water mill” sequence, and other cruxes. It’s highly entertaining and informative, with many alum of the production telling funny anecdotes. It’s also filled with shots of the much-worked over script and costume test footage.

 

Finally, disc three has two big supplements.  My Life in Cinema is a two-hour TV interview with Kurosawa from 1993, probably arranged to help promote his then recent and it turns out last film  Madadayo. It’s conducted by fellow helmer Nagisa Oshima, a wholly different kind of director, but who acts with deference towards his elder. It’s a good nuts and bolts interview, talking about AK’s background and how he does what he does. Oshima begins by asking about Kurosawa’s ethnic background (the director was unusually tall), and Kurosawa avers that there may have been some Russian interbreeding way back in his family’s past (which makes an interesting connection with Richie’s points).

The second is  Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences. This is an original documentary, made by Criterion. It’s divided into three parts. The first covers the history of the samurai in Japanese culture. The second part covers earlier samurai films, with clips from early silent films featuring rather stagy, balletic sword fights. The final part covers the innovations to the genre that Kurosawa wrought. This effort provides a good grounding in all that goes into the samurai legend, thanks to the various commentaries, who make up the same scholars doing the commentary, with one exception, and should inspire newer fans to get caught up via such books as Alain Silver’s  The Samurai Film, along with books by the scholars summoned to commentate.

Criterion has a new, softer look and a new logo, introduced a few movies back, but this is the release that is probably going to introduce it to the consumer. This set will be a bestseller.

 

 

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