FILM / Director's Cut: Jennifer Lynch on a moment of silent magic in Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
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Your support makes all the difference.In Akira Kurosawa's Dreams there's a sequence called 'The Crows' in which Van Gogh (Martin Scorsese) meets a young Japanese boy. At the end of it, the boy runs after Van Gogh - I don't know how Kurosawa did this technically - 'through' his paintings. He sees Van Gogh going along a path up a hill separated by two wheat fields, with his canvases on his back, and out of nowhere there's this rush of crows as he disappears. It's a recreation of Van Gogh's last painting before his suicide.
Then there's a dissolve out to the painting in a museum with the Japanese boy standing in front of it with his hat on and his own little canvas - you see him from the back, over his shoulder. Without any music or sound effects, he simply takes his hat off and holds it to his heart. And there's a fade to black. I thought: here's a guy who understands 100 per cent the power of the image. He didn't score that scene or have the boy say, 'Wow, what a great painting'. I've never felt like that in a film, ever. It was the grace with which he treated the boy's innocence and curiosity and invited us into the paintings - such a silent, beautiful appreciation of an artist's work.
Too many movies made today are dominated by money and special effects. They're a roller-coaster ride - like installing hydraulic seats in cinemas to move you around. But the image alone should move you. That scene in Dreams was a jewel in a sea of cubic zirconas.
Jennifer Lynch's first film, 'Boxing Helena', plays around the country.
(Photograph omitted)
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