Something Like an Autobiography (16 page)

At the age of nineteen, in 1929, I became dissatisfied with my life of painting landscapes and still-lifes when so much was going on in the world around me. I decided to join the Proletarian Artists’ League. When I informed my brother of my intentions, he said, “That’s fine. But the proletarian movement is like influenza now. The fever is going to die down very quickly.” I felt slightly irked by his comment.

At the time my brother had taken a great step. He was no longer simply writing program notes for films as a great fan of the movies, he had become a professional silent-film narrator. The narrators not only recounted the plot of the films, they enhanced the emotional content by performing the voices and sound effects and providing evocative descriptions of the events and images on the screen—much like the narrators of the Bunraku puppet theater. The most popular narrators were stars in their own right, solely responsible for the patronage of a particular theater. Under the leadership of the famous narrator Tokugawa Musei, a completely new movement was under way. He and a group of like-minded narrators stressed high-quality narration of well-directed foreign films. My brother joined them and,
although it was a third-run theater, took a job as the chief narrator at a movie house in the suburb of Nakano.

I thought that my brother, having succeeded in life, had become snobbish about politics and was speaking lightly about something I took very seriously. But, as it turned out, my proletarian feelings subsided exactly as my brother had predicted. I was reluctant to admit that he was right, however, and stuck with the movement for several years. With my head crammed full of art, literature, theater, music and film knowledge, I continued to wander, vainly looking for a place to make use of it.

IN 1930
I turned twenty years old and I received a notice to appear for my Army physical prior to conscription. The physical was to be administered at the primary school in Ushigome.

I stood at attention before the officer, who said to me, “Are you the son of Kurosawa Yutaka, who graduated from the Toyama Academy and taught school as an Army officer?” “Yes, sir,” I replied. “Is your father well?” he asked. “Yes, sir.” “I was a student of your father’s. Please give him my regards.” “Yes, sir.” “What do you want to do?” the officer asked me. “I’m a painter, sir,” I replied. (I did not say “proletarian artist.”) “I see,” said the officer. “There are other ways to serve the country besides military service. Go to it.” “Yes, sir,” I replied. “But you seem to be very weak,” the officer continued. “And your posture is bad. You should do body-building exercises, too. This kind of exercise will stretch your back and correct that poor posture.” He stood up and proceeded to demonstrate a whole series of exercises for me. Apparently I still looked like a weakling at that age. Well, maybe the officer had been sitting at his desk too long and needed to stretch.

At the end of my conscription physical I was called before a warrant officer who sat at a desk piled high with forms. This man studied me with a fierce glower and said, “You have nothing to do with military service.” So it was in fact. I was not even called up until the eve of Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War. This occurred after the city of
Tokyo had already been turned into a burned-out wasteland by the American air raids, and after I had become a film director. Since it represents my only immediate contact with military service, I might as well describe it here.

At that point most of the people who were being drafted were either physically disabled or had suffered nervous breakdowns. We were all supposed to have our “service bags” (containing the essentials for going into military service) with us for the roll call. There was an inspection of these service bags, and as the inspecting officer looked at mine, he said, “This man’s got everything.” This was to be expected, because my bag had been assembled by my assistant director, who had already done his military service. I stood there at attention pondering this truth, and the inspecting officer whispered to me, “Salute! Salute!” I hastily pulled myself together and saluted him. He returned the salute and passed on to the next man in line. I was distressed that he would praise the good order of my service bag and then scold me in the next breath. But as I was thinking this, I heard him bellowing, “What’s happened to your service bag?” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the inspector glaring at the man standing next to me. The man was carrying a pair of torn undershorts that he had knotted up, with a knot forming a kind of rabbit tail right at the seat of the pants. He stared blankly at the inspector and said, “What’s a service bag?” The military-police officer who was right behind the inspector rushed forward and hit the rabbit-tail man.

Just at that moment the air-raid sirens began to shriek. It was the beginning of the saturation bombing of Yokohama. It was also the end of my association with military service.

But I often wonder what would have happened if I had actually been drafted. I had failed military training in middle school, and I had no certificate of officer’s competence. There would have been no way for me to stay afloat in the Army. On top of that, if I had ever run into that Army officer who had been attached to Keika Middle School, it would surely have been the end for me. Even thinking about it now makes me shudder. I have that officer who administered the Army physical to thank for sparing me. Or maybe I should say I have my father to thank.

I FIRST BEGAN
commuting to the Proletarian Art Research Institute in Shiina-chō, Toshima Ward in 1928. I showed my paintings and posters in their exhibitions. But the Proletarian Artists’ League, which I joined in 1929, had a brand of realism that was much closer, in my view, to naturalism, and pretty far from the intensity of realism in the work of Courbet. There were some excellent painters in this group, but in general, rather than an artistic movement with its roots in the essentials of painting, it was a practice of putting unfulfilled political ideals directly onto the canvas—a “leftist tendency” movement, as not only paintings but films of this type came to be called. I gradually came to have deeper and deeper doubts about this movement, and in the end I lost the passion for painting.

Around this time I had become so disillusioned with the Proletarian Artists’ League that I was entering into more direct, illegal political action. The proletarian newspapers had gone underground; their slogans were written in the Western alphabet, and they were further disguised by patterns and designs surrounding them. I became a member of the lower ranks of one of these organizations. Carrying out such activities made me likely to be arrested. I had already experienced the “pigpen” (jail) as a member of the Proletarian Artists’ League, but if I got caught this time, I would not get out so easily as I had on those occasions.