Seven Samurai

I first saw this Akira Kurosawa classic about... oh... 15 years ago. When I saw it (I would have been 12), the first thought I had was "Gosh, it must be cool to be a Samurai." The second thought I had was "Gosh, this movie is long."

I recently borrowed it from the library here in Vancouver, popped it into my dvd player, and watched it again. And, yes, it is long. 3 and a half hours long.

No matter how good this movie is (and it is GREAT!!!), I think that it would never get made in today's market. With short attention spans getting shorter and shorter, movies that go on for more than 2 hours had better damn well be jam packed with story (like Lord of the Rings), but not TOO much story (Like Return of the King).

Seven Samurai does not meet this criteria. It has a cracking story, but it moves glacially, as is Kurosawa's wont. It does have subplots, but some of them don't resolve themselves and others are bare-boned at best.

And yet, the artistry in this film is majestic, the shots are beautifully composed, and the story-telling itself is very well done.

But it's just too long for today's market, and I can imagine that if any of us VFS students submitted this for workshop, it would be torn apart.

How sad.