[Movies] Yojimbo (1961)

There's a weird void in my film history where I realize I have not seen all or even most of Akira Kurosawa's movies. Like many other movie enthusiasts, I'm generally familiar with his work and I have a decent memory library of different clips of various movies but for one reason or another I haven't had a chance to start ticking these items off my bucket list.

Our recent efforts to play the samurai RPG Blood & Honor led to a desire to refresh our memories of various samurai movies and TV shows. To hit two birds with one stone we sort of addressed both by sitting down to watch Yojimbo. It seemed as good a place to start as any - it offered both serious samurai period drama and mix of light humor as well.

So how was my jidaigeki experience? It was totally awesome and it was everything I had hoped for and more. And this only reaffirms for me that I need to make time to watch the rest of Kurosawa's movies sooner rather than later.

[Movies] The Death of Ingmar Bergman

#5 - Ingmar Bergman - The Seventh Seal

The great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman died last July 30, 2007, much to the loss of the global film community. While he was a giant in his field, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that most people these days have no idea who he is. The video clip above from one of his most famous works, The Seventh Seal, shows us one of the many images that have become commonplace in our cultural history - the image of Death playing a man for his life over chess.

I have to admit that on a personal level, I regret his passing in many other ways. While I've always known him to be a great creator of stunning films unlike anything the world had seen at the time, I admit the sad truth that I have never actually seen any of his movies. Yes, it's true! My knowledge of Ingmar Bergman has been limited to the world of trivia factoids and general information but not from firsthand viewing of his masterpieces.

With his tragic passing, in some ways the era has ended and now I find myself pressured to find his films somehow. He has suffered the same fate that Akira Kurosawa has suffered in my life. At least with Kurosawa, some of his movies lay in waiting as inherited from my father's movie collection. I promise to make the time to watch them soon enough.

So now the web is filled with mixed entries about Bergman's death, those who know who he was have done their best to pay tribute to him while others attempt to explain his relevance to the largely ignorant world.

I mourn his passing and the fact that he will no longer contribute to the filming industry with his unique genius. All that there is left to do is to pay homage to his genius and endeavor harder to finally getting around to seeing his movies, now relegated to another item on my to-do list.