There’s few people doing finer video essays online than Tony Zhou and his Every Frame a Painting pieces (see them all here). In his latest work, he explores one of his favorite directors, Akira Kurosawa, specifically when it comes to his composition of movement in a variety of areas. He asks, “Can movement tell a story? Sure, if you’re as gifted as Akira Kurosawa. More than any other filmmaker, he had an innate understanding of movement and how to capture it onscreen. Join me today in studying the master, possibly the greatest composer of motion in film history.”
After introducing the basics of how movement is conveyed, he explores a specific scene from Seven Samurai and how Kurosawa’s compositions tell an entire story unto themselves. This is juxtaposed with the flat dialogue scenes in The Avengers, which do very little to dynamically relay anything through visuals. He then jumps through the many ways the director conveys feelings through movement, concluding, “If you combine the right motion and the right emotion, you get something cinematic.” Check out the fantastic video essay below, featuring interviews with Sidney Lumet, Robert Altman, and Paul Verhoeven.
See Akira Kurosawa’s 100 favorite films.
Did the video essay help see Kurosawa’s mastery of movement in a new light?