Toshiro Mifune

(Dette er en artikkel fra programkatalogen høst 1990)

Toshiro Mifunes filmkarriere startet med en rekke småroller som skurk ved Toho, et av Japans største filmstudioer. Hans gjennombrudd kom etter rollen som gangster i Kurosawas DRUNKEN ANGEL. Kurosawa gjorde ham kjent i vesten med roller i RASHOMON, DE SYV SAMURAIER og BLODETS TRONE.

Mifune er uten tvil mest kjent som selve inkarnasjonen av en samurai i den japanske filmverdenen. Han er like betydningsfull i Kurosawas samuraifilmer som Clint Eastwood er det i Leones spaghettiwesterns.

Mifune har vært usedvanlig aktiv som filmskuespiller. Fra debuten i 1946 til 1970 har han spilt i over 100 filmer. Han har også regissert SAMURAI PIRATE i 1963.

Etter Mifunes suksess i Kurosawas DRUNKEN ANGEL hadde Kurosawa store planer for Mifune under innspillingen av THE QUIET DUEL i 1949:

“On the screenplay I had Taniguchi Senkichi’s collaboration, and for the lead I had Toshiro Mifune. Since his debut Mifune had been playing almost nothing but gangster roles, and I wanted to give him a chance to broaden his artistic horizons. Turning his type-cast image around, I conceived a role for him as an intellectual with sharp reasoning powers. Daiei expressed surprise over this role, and there were many in that company who were frankly worried about it. But Mifune turned in a magnificent performance as the young physician who refuses to marry the woman he loves for fear of infecting her with the Virtually incurable syphilis he contracted from treating a diseased patient during the Pacific War. Even his posture and movements underwent a complete change, and he succeeded so well in conveying the anguish of this pathetic hero that I, too, was surprised.”
(Kurosawa i “Something Like an Autobiography”).

Kurosawa ga Mifune mange muligheter i filmene sine. Det var mer enn et samarbeid mellom en regissør og en skuespiller. De forsto hverandre utmerket og utfylte hverandre. Mifune bidro med ideer til løsning av enkelte scener, men han var også viktig i forarbeidet til hele filmer. Utarbeidingen av RAN var i utgangspunktet Mifunes ide.

Mifune fikk pris for beste hovedrolle i Venezia både i 1961 for YOJIMBO og i 1965 for RØDSKJEGG.

That the Japanese film is known at all in the West is due mainly to the pictures of Akira Kurosawa; that I am known both here and abroad as an actor is also mainly due to him. From Drunken Angel to Red Beard I have worked in almost all of his films, sixteen in all. He taught me practically everything I know, and it was he who first introduced me to myself as an actor.

Kurosawa has this quality, this ability to bring things out of you that you never knew were there. It is enormously difficult work, but each picture with him is a revelation. When you see his films, you find them full realizations of ideas, of emotions, of a philosophy which surprises with its strength, even shocks with its power. You had not expected to be so moved, to find within your own self this depth of understanding.

He is an artist, and he is demanding; a man more full, more whole, both more self-willed and more compassionate than most men are. It is from this understanding, this tact with life, that he draws his films, just as he draws from us, his actors, our best.

I know. I have never as an actor done anything that I am proud of other than with him.

Felles filmografi
Kurosawa og Mifune

1948:     Drunken Angel
1949:     The Quiet Duel
               Stray Dog
1950:     Scandal
               Rashomon
1951:     Idioten
1954:     De syv samuraier
1955:     I Live in Fear
1957:     Blodets trone
               The Lower Depths
1958:     Den skjulte festning
1960:     The Bad Sleep Well
1961:     Yojimbo
1962:     Sanjuro
1963:     High and Low
1965:     Rødskjegg