Tatsuya Nakadai Retrospective
at Film Forum
June 20-July 17
The essential question for samurai movie buffs is “Toshiro Mifune or Tatsuya Nakadai,” and while it’s easy to pick Mifune, the right answer has to be Nakadai.
Nakadai, whose film career started with an eensy-weensy role in Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, has a subtlety and depth to match his undeniable cool. Unlike Mifune’s gruff and tough antiheroes, Nakadai’s characters relied on a delicacy that made his onscreen presence both obsessed and engrossing. His wide-eyed gunslinger in Yojimbo and his triumphantly single-minded ronin in Sword of Doom are both so transfixing because they’re both possessed in their single-minded madness.
While Nakadai’s body language is alternately stoic and fluid, it’s his eyes that betray his inner turmoil. Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan and Harakiri both perfectly encapsulate the hypnotic and unsettling charms of his wary leer. Hidden motivations and unseen powers motivate him in his most famous roles, from the secret that gnaws at his character in the former to the pent-up rage that he unleashes all at once in the latter’s awesome climax.
Thankfully, there are no hidden agendas or blatant prejudices inherent in the selection of titles at the Film Forum’s comprehensive collection of Nakadai vehicles. The line-up features plenty of obscure and hard-to-find titles, like Kihachi Okamoto’s Age of Assassins and Kon Ichikawa’s I Am a Cat, an adaptation of the novel by the celebrated Natsume Soseki. It also features canonical Nakadai performances, like Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another, Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, and Kobayashi’s The Human Condition, the long unavailable nine-hour epic that propelled Nakadai to prominence.
Better still, on June 24 Nakadai will be at the Film Forum for a talk with Michael Jeck. The evening is a great opportunity for Mifune and Nakadai fans alike to celebrate a performer whose blade could never beat his gaze.
at Film Forum
June 20-July 17
The essential question for samurai movie buffs is “Toshiro Mifune or Tatsuya Nakadai,” and while it’s easy to pick Mifune, the right answer has to be Nakadai.
Nakadai, whose film career started with an eensy-weensy role in Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, has a subtlety and depth to match his undeniable cool. Unlike Mifune’s gruff and tough antiheroes, Nakadai’s characters relied on a delicacy that made his onscreen presence both obsessed and engrossing. His wide-eyed gunslinger in Yojimbo and his triumphantly single-minded ronin in Sword of Doom are both so transfixing because they’re both possessed in their single-minded madness.
While Nakadai’s body language is alternately stoic and fluid, it’s his eyes that betray his inner turmoil. Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan and Harakiri both perfectly encapsulate the hypnotic and unsettling charms of his wary leer. Hidden motivations and unseen powers motivate him in his most famous roles, from the secret that gnaws at his character in the former to the pent-up rage that he unleashes all at once in the latter’s awesome climax.
Thankfully, there are no hidden agendas or blatant prejudices inherent in the selection of titles at the Film Forum’s comprehensive collection of Nakadai vehicles. The line-up features plenty of obscure and hard-to-find titles, like Kihachi Okamoto’s Age of Assassins and Kon Ichikawa’s I Am a Cat, an adaptation of the novel by the celebrated Natsume Soseki. It also features canonical Nakadai performances, like Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another, Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, and Kobayashi’s The Human Condition, the long unavailable nine-hour epic that propelled Nakadai to prominence.
Better still, on June 24 Nakadai will be at the Film Forum for a talk with Michael Jeck. The evening is a great opportunity for Mifune and Nakadai fans alike to celebrate a performer whose blade could never beat his gaze.
