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À Espera do Tempo
Reunião de textos escritos e ilustrados por Teruyo Nogami sobre o trabalho que exerceu ao lado do cineasta Akira Kurosawa como continuísta e diretora associada por aproximadamente meio século. De Rashomon até Madadayo, Nogami manteve uma espécie de diário em que registrava curiosidades sobre as filmagens, os bastidores e as locações, entre outras coisas. Seus relatos em primeira pessoa, sempre acompanhados por desenhos das “cenas” mais marcantes, eram confeccionados durante as folgas entre as filmagens, enquanto a equipe esperava pelo tempo perfeito para o trabalho.
Seis anos depois da morte de Kurosawa, a autora decidiu reunir em livro todo esse material, além de alguns textos já publicados em revistas de cinema e relatos novos. À espera do tempo – Filmando com Kurosawa, que a Cosac Naify lança em parceria com a Mostra Internacional de Cinema, publicado agora numa tradução diretamente do japonês possibilita o conhecimento não só da obra e personalidade do cineasta, mas principalmente do processo criativo e produtivo de um dos maiores gênios do cinema.
Seis anos depois da morte de Kurosawa, a autora decidiu reunir em livro todo esse material, além de alguns textos já publicados em revistas de cinema e relatos novos. À espera do tempo – Filmando com Kurosawa, que a Cosac Naify lança em parceria com a Mostra Internacional de Cinema, publicado agora numa tradução diretamente do japonês possibilita o conhecimento não só da obra e personalidade do cineasta, mas principalmente do processo criativo e produtivo de um dos maiores gênios do cinema.
- GenresFilmNonfictionArtJapan
320 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 30, 2016
I was recently screening Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon for my Japanese Cinema class, so I decided to read Teruyo Nogami's memoir Waiting On The Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa (2006). I knew that Nogami had worked on many Kurosawa films from Rashomon up until his last film, Madadayo. However, I was unaware of her connection with Mansaku Itami (father of one my favorite contemporary filmmakers Juzo Itami). Itami was Kogami's first mentor and she helped raise Juzo. In fact I was interested to learn that noted chambara and jidaigeki director Daisuke Ito was his best friend and both were from Matsuyama-a formidable cultural friendship much like that of his son Juzo and his best friend the Nobel Prize winning author Kenzubaro Oe. The first chapter focuses on this connection, "Mansaku Itami, My First Mentor." There is a lot of interesting information about how films were made in the postwar era in the second chapter, "Life in Miniature: At the Daiei Kyoto Studios." The third chapter proved to be a timely read for me since it concerns Rashomon, "Smiled on by Lady Luck: Rashomon." There's another interesting connection between Itami and Kogami that arises when Kogami tells how Itami also served as a mentor for Rashomon screenplay writer Shinobu Hashimoto, whom she would work with on that film. There are several facts that I was either unaware of or forgot: there were two fires that took place while they were editing the film, the film was entered in the Venice film festival without Kurosawa's knowledge-thus it's reception saved his reputation and revived his career since the film was so poorly received in Japan at first. "Toho Paradise" follows and Nogami tells how she moved to Toho after Rashomon and immediately worked with another great postwar director, Kon Ichikawa (probably best known for The Burmese Harp). In this chapter she discusses some of the jobs of the director's assistants and how they worked-using mostly examples from Kurosawa films. In "The Past Won't Return: remembering Dersu Uzala" she reminisces about the difficult 1972 shoot with cooperation of the Russian government that was a hardship in conditions of the location as well as working through a difficult shoot where Kurosawa was drinking heavily and border-lining on being outright abusive to his staff. In retrospect she feels that she could have been more understanding of him. Kogami discusses Kurosawa's issues with getting animals to perform for film in Chapter Six: "Kurosawa and Animals." The animals are a tiger for Dersu Uzala, horses in Kagemusha, and crows in Dreams. The next chapter, Seven: "Kurosawa and Music," examines Kurosawa's relationship with composers: Fumio Hayasaka, Masaru Sato, and Toru Takemitsu. In Chapter Eight: "Sentimental Recollections," Nogami remembers cinema's great that have passed away, for example: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, and Juzo Itami. In an interesting side note, she reveals that Mikio Naruse's Hideko the Bus Conductress was banned during the war for fear of showing the Malays decrepit-looking bus, which would have stained Japanese honor. It is followed by Chapter Nine, "Observing the Kurosawa Group," looks at several peopel associated with Kurosawa and the two most interesting sections for me were: "What Really Happened with Shintaro Katsu on Kagemusha" and "Kurosawa and Mifune after Red Beard." The last chapter was devoted to discussions of Kurosawa's meetings, appreciations, and relationships with world directors: John Ford, Laurence Olivier, Jean Renoir, Jean-Luc Goddard and John Milius, Werner Herzog, Martin Scorcese, William Friedkin, Sidney Lumet, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, John Cassavetes and Jim Jarmusch. This book is certainly of interest to Kurosawa fans, but perhaps indispensable to fans of the golden years of Japanese cinema. There is some repetition in the book since it was culled from a number of sources, but very entertaining and enlightening.
November 11, 2016
Admito que li sem nunca ter visto um filme de Kurosawa na íntegra. E foi bem legal a experiência, porque todos os filmes que vi depois foram acompanhados de memórias da Teruyo e me deram um panorama do mercado cinematográfico japonês.
Recomendo para fãs de cinema e para fãs de Kurosawa... também para quem tem curiosidade de saber como eram as filmagens nas décadas passadas, antes da fase digital que vivemos hoje.
Livro delicado com memórias muito preciosas e envolventes. :)
Recomendo para fãs de cinema e para fãs de Kurosawa... também para quem tem curiosidade de saber como eram as filmagens nas décadas passadas, antes da fase digital que vivemos hoje.
Livro delicado com memórias muito preciosas e envolventes. :)
November 30, 2012
Gostei bastante, principalmente ao saber que na verdade, o livro é o ajuntamento de muitos artigos publicados em diferentes veículos, o que cerrou o meu "senão" em relação às repetições. As informações aqui são valiosíssimas, um livro obrigatório para todos os fãs de Kurosawa e do cinema japonês.
May 5, 2021
This is less a full-fledged memoir than it is a loosely tied-together collection of different memories -- which makes sense, because the book is based on a series of different articles written for Japanese movie magazines. This means that the order is only roughly chronological, at best, and there is some repetition of material (for example, the shooting of one particular scene from "Rashomon" is described twice, in two different chapters).
Nevertheless, but there are interesting anecdotes and details of how the wartime and post-war Japanese film industry and its creators could pull off some of the things they did (the difficulties in getting just the right light, saving film costs by preselecting the dailies, how to burn down a castle, and how to train ants) and the personalities, quirks, and conflicts of Kurosawa and his various collaborators. The little black-and-white sketches by Nogami are also a nice touch.*
I'd recommend this for already knowledgeable fans of Japanese film as background color, but since there's a LOTS of references to Japanese filmmakers, actors, and writers that, I suspect, would be lost on the casual movie fan.
*My copy, which I picked up at a used-book store, turned out to be inscribed by Nogami herself, and included a color(!) drawing of composer Toru Takemitsu playing the piano.
Nevertheless, but there are interesting anecdotes and details of how the wartime and post-war Japanese film industry and its creators could pull off some of the things they did (the difficulties in getting just the right light, saving film costs by preselecting the dailies, how to burn down a castle, and how to train ants) and the personalities, quirks, and conflicts of Kurosawa and his various collaborators. The little black-and-white sketches by Nogami are also a nice touch.*
I'd recommend this for already knowledgeable fans of Japanese film as background color, but since there's a LOTS of references to Japanese filmmakers, actors, and writers that, I suspect, would be lost on the casual movie fan.
*My copy, which I picked up at a used-book store, turned out to be inscribed by Nogami herself, and included a color(!) drawing of composer Toru Takemitsu playing the piano.
February 28, 2022
Nogami Teruyo was the script supervisor and loyal assistant of Kurosawa Akira (1910-1998). This extraordinary women was at his side from the filming of Rashomon on to the very last. She wrote some of her personal memories down after Kurosawa's death for the Japanese magazine Cinema Club - she could not have done this while Kurosawa was still alive, as he would have told her, she says, "You've got it all wrong!"
That was in the mid-nineties, and the Japanese pieces were published in book form in 2000. Thanks to an initiative of Donald Richie (who also wrote an introduction) this English translation by Juliet Winters Carpenter was published two years ago by Stone Bridge Press. As is usual for Stone Bridge, it is a beautiful book, with illustrations by the author.
To be sure, this is not a biography or a full analysis of Kurosawa's films. It is an intimate human record in which we get glimpses of the genius director and the way he worked. After a first chapter on Itami Mansaku, a director Nogami Teruyo never met but corresponded with as a schoolgirl and who inspired love for film in her (later Ms Nogami would take care of one the sons, Itami Juzo, when he was a young boy) and a chapter on the Daiei Kyoto studios where she started working just after the war, the story about Kurosawa kicks in with Rashomon (1951).
We see the then 40-year old director energetically working with his team. At that time, he was already the perfectionist he would always be. The most interesting episode is how they used to carry around mirrors to reflect the sun while filming in the woods - indeed, the contrasts between black and white in Rashomon are perfect. Fascinating is also the episode about the sudden fire in the Daiei studios where quick action miraculously saved the negatives of Rashomon.
What we get from this book is how different film making was before the invention of CGI. That was "waiting on the weather" - not only waiting hours and hours for sunshine, but also waiting for a particular cloud to move into just the right spot above the roof of a building. When filming the village in The Seven Samurai in the setting sun with the seven samurai in profile in the foreground, the cameraman waited just a few seconds too long, so they had to do it all over again the next day. The ants marching in formation over the ground in Rhapsody in August were real ants and a lot of "ant study" went into that scene. The same is true for the crows that fly up at the end of the Van Gogh episode in Dreams. The film team had to catch actual crows, put them in small cages and open the cages at just the right moment. No wonder Kurosawa took months, and even years, making his films, while Miike Takashi finishes off one flick a week...
Kurosawa ruled his team like an "emperor," and could have fits of terrible anger. He and the people around him had an especially hard time when filming Dersu Urzala under the most primitive circumstances in Siberia. In the course of the filming, Kurosawa went from one bottle of vodka a day, to two bottles. Kurosawa worked well with people who had lesser egos, such as Mifune Toshiro, who despite his macho roles was a rather shy man - a pity Kurosawa dropped him after filming Red Beard, just because he had enough of his style of acting.
Katsu Shintaro originally was to be the lead actor in Kagemusha, but the swaggering, rough-and ready actor immediately clashed with the precise and perfectionist Kurosawa - their relation just lasted one day, the second morning Katsu left in a huff and was replaced with Nakadai Tatsuya. This episode reads like slapstick, but the quarrels with Takemitsu Toru were more serious. Takemitsu, who wrote the music for Ran, was Japan's most important composer of the twentieth century and of course had a great sense of artistic integrity. He did not allow Kurosawa (who, as "emperor" wanted to have his say in every small detail!) to meddle with the music he made. Takemitsu got his way but with much difficulty and never worked with Kurosawa again. On the contrary, he made a pointed remark about the group around Kurosawa who just acted as yes-men and never dared to differ in opinion (in this, he also included Nogami Teruyo): "It's all the fault of the people around Kurosawa!"
But Nogami certainly is no flatterer, she openly shows us the great director in his many moods, also the nasty ones. Her book is a treasure of stories and in the end we only would like to have had more.
That was in the mid-nineties, and the Japanese pieces were published in book form in 2000. Thanks to an initiative of Donald Richie (who also wrote an introduction) this English translation by Juliet Winters Carpenter was published two years ago by Stone Bridge Press. As is usual for Stone Bridge, it is a beautiful book, with illustrations by the author.
To be sure, this is not a biography or a full analysis of Kurosawa's films. It is an intimate human record in which we get glimpses of the genius director and the way he worked. After a first chapter on Itami Mansaku, a director Nogami Teruyo never met but corresponded with as a schoolgirl and who inspired love for film in her (later Ms Nogami would take care of one the sons, Itami Juzo, when he was a young boy) and a chapter on the Daiei Kyoto studios where she started working just after the war, the story about Kurosawa kicks in with Rashomon (1951).
We see the then 40-year old director energetically working with his team. At that time, he was already the perfectionist he would always be. The most interesting episode is how they used to carry around mirrors to reflect the sun while filming in the woods - indeed, the contrasts between black and white in Rashomon are perfect. Fascinating is also the episode about the sudden fire in the Daiei studios where quick action miraculously saved the negatives of Rashomon.
What we get from this book is how different film making was before the invention of CGI. That was "waiting on the weather" - not only waiting hours and hours for sunshine, but also waiting for a particular cloud to move into just the right spot above the roof of a building. When filming the village in The Seven Samurai in the setting sun with the seven samurai in profile in the foreground, the cameraman waited just a few seconds too long, so they had to do it all over again the next day. The ants marching in formation over the ground in Rhapsody in August were real ants and a lot of "ant study" went into that scene. The same is true for the crows that fly up at the end of the Van Gogh episode in Dreams. The film team had to catch actual crows, put them in small cages and open the cages at just the right moment. No wonder Kurosawa took months, and even years, making his films, while Miike Takashi finishes off one flick a week...
Kurosawa ruled his team like an "emperor," and could have fits of terrible anger. He and the people around him had an especially hard time when filming Dersu Urzala under the most primitive circumstances in Siberia. In the course of the filming, Kurosawa went from one bottle of vodka a day, to two bottles. Kurosawa worked well with people who had lesser egos, such as Mifune Toshiro, who despite his macho roles was a rather shy man - a pity Kurosawa dropped him after filming Red Beard, just because he had enough of his style of acting.
Katsu Shintaro originally was to be the lead actor in Kagemusha, but the swaggering, rough-and ready actor immediately clashed with the precise and perfectionist Kurosawa - their relation just lasted one day, the second morning Katsu left in a huff and was replaced with Nakadai Tatsuya. This episode reads like slapstick, but the quarrels with Takemitsu Toru were more serious. Takemitsu, who wrote the music for Ran, was Japan's most important composer of the twentieth century and of course had a great sense of artistic integrity. He did not allow Kurosawa (who, as "emperor" wanted to have his say in every small detail!) to meddle with the music he made. Takemitsu got his way but with much difficulty and never worked with Kurosawa again. On the contrary, he made a pointed remark about the group around Kurosawa who just acted as yes-men and never dared to differ in opinion (in this, he also included Nogami Teruyo): "It's all the fault of the people around Kurosawa!"
But Nogami certainly is no flatterer, she openly shows us the great director in his many moods, also the nasty ones. Her book is a treasure of stories and in the end we only would like to have had more.
June 17, 2016
I've heard of this famous director, but not yet seen any of his work. Nogami served as a script girl on a dozen or so of his pictures. The book would probably mean more if all the names she dropped--movies and actors--were familiar ones. As it was, they were just a collection of syllables, unless they appeared in enough of her anecdotes for me to form a picture of the person.
However, I mined a treasure or two from Nogami's memoir.
First, there was Kazuo Hasegawa, an actor who oozed sex appeal. One sidelong look from him melted the women, yes it did. One time, the company descended on a fishing village. All the villagers let their work slide for a day, to watch the movie-making. Hasegawa, on a boat in the little bay, came out and "bestowed flirtatious glances on the fishermen's wives. When he swept the starboard boats with his gaze, rapturous cries rose up from that side, and when he did the same on the port side, identical cries could be heard from there."
Turning to the crew, he said "'Well, whichever way I face, I guess I can't pee here!'"
Nogami's tales of working with animals delighted me. Tigers, horses, ants . . . Yes, ants. How do you get ants to follow your script? First, collect 50,000 of them with a vacuum. Next, kill 30,000 to crush them and make a pheromone trail for the others to follow up a tree, just as the script demands. Does it work? Read Nogami for yourself.
However, I mined a treasure or two from Nogami's memoir.
First, there was Kazuo Hasegawa, an actor who oozed sex appeal. One sidelong look from him melted the women, yes it did. One time, the company descended on a fishing village. All the villagers let their work slide for a day, to watch the movie-making. Hasegawa, on a boat in the little bay, came out and "bestowed flirtatious glances on the fishermen's wives. When he swept the starboard boats with his gaze, rapturous cries rose up from that side, and when he did the same on the port side, identical cries could be heard from there."
Turning to the crew, he said "'Well, whichever way I face, I guess I can't pee here!'"
Nogami's tales of working with animals delighted me. Tigers, horses, ants . . . Yes, ants. How do you get ants to follow your script? First, collect 50,000 of them with a vacuum. Next, kill 30,000 to crush them and make a pheromone trail for the others to follow up a tree, just as the script demands. Does it work? Read Nogami for yourself.
August 7, 2007
After slogging through the Emperor and the Wolf, I decided to try again to satisfy my fever for getting inside Kurosawa's head. This book is written by his longtime script supervisor, starting back with Rashomon in 1950. Nogami jumps around in time a fair bit, but overall it is an enjoyable light read. There isn't much detail to her observations, but now well into her 80's it does provide depth of perspective.
Most interestingly were to chapters devoted to the (unknown to me) father-son directors Mansaku Itami and Juzo Itami.
Most interestingly were to chapters devoted to the (unknown to me) father-son directors Mansaku Itami and Juzo Itami.
March 25, 2010
Excellent personal view of famed director Akira Kurosawa from his long-time script supervisor. Anecdotes, personal insights into Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, and other notables of Japanese film. A little repetitive in places (it's taken from several different magazine articles), but especially toward the end, it's quite remarkable.
March 27, 2010
This was an interesting read. Composed of essays that were originally published individually, it occasionally covered the same ground in multiple places, but the stories were very interesting. This purports to be about Kurossawa, and it does spend a great deal of time on him, but it is also a larger picture of film-making and "movie magic" behind the scenes.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews