60 years The Bad Sleep Well
On September 15, 1960, Akira Kurosawa's film "Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru 悪い奴ほどよく眠る (The Bad Sleep Well)" was released on the screens of Japanese cinemas.
A year after the premiere in Japan, the film "The Bad Sleep Well" participated in the Berlin International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the main prize - the Golden Bear. The Jury of the Film Festival, chaired by British film producer James Quinn, awarded this award to Michelangelo Antonioni's "La Notte". Akira Kurosawa's film had no other achievements at international film festivals, but film critics around the world appreciated it with enthusiasm.
Interestingly, despite the overall rave reviews, film critics were divided over whether "The Bad Sleep Well" was a version of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" or not. Most film critics believe that yes, it is. And this opinion is reflected in Wikipedia, and on IMDB, and many other places. This point of view is reinforced by the fact that Kurosawa has created several more film masterpieces, based on Shakespearean tragedies, for example, "Kumonosu-jô 蜘蛛巣城 (Throne of Blood)" by "Macbeth" or "Ran 乱" by "King Lear".
But the Russian historian of foreign literature from Novosibirsk, Viktor Raspopin, does not agree with such a widespread point of view. However, despite this, he writes about Akira Kurosawa's film: "It is excellent, and above all as an artistic document of the impossibility of heroism in the modern world. A fundamentally anti-romantic, a-romantic society, in which business reigns supreme and rules supreme, simply cannot allow the emergence inside some kind of Zorro. Not to mention Hamlet. Any Monte Cristo in this society is doomed. And if physical death is not the worst thing. It is more terrible that he is doomed to rebirth ..."
Akira Kurosawa himself, when asked about the purpose of this film, said: "...“I wanted to make a movie of some social significance, I settled on a film about corruption, in view of the widespread occurrence of bribery, which I have always considered the largest crime ... I thought that by exposing them, I was doing a socially useful thing ... “I don’t think in any other country there is so thick a wall separating people from government officials and agencies.» Yes, Akira Kurosawa did not live in modern Russia, that's why he made such conclusions.
But the idea for the film was given to Kurosawa by his nephew, Mike Y. Inoue, who wanted to become a screenwriter and gave a sketch of the script to his uncle. Kurosawa liked the sketch and suggested that his nephew make some changes. After 6 months, Inoue handed his uncle a script entitled "The Prosperity of Bad People." Kurosawa, along with several co-authors, reworked it even more into the final version ... And Inoue's name did not appear in the credits of the film. It is not known whether the nephew was offended by his uncle or not. But it is known that 30 years later he was the producer of his uncle's film "Yume 夢 (Dreams)", and a year later - another film by Akira Kurosawa - "Hachi-gatsu no rapusodî 八月の狂詩曲 (Rhapsody in August)".
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave Kurosawa's film a very high praise, although not without his traditional barbs and not without emphasizing the superiority of American cinema.: "The Bad Sleep Well" is an aggressive and chilling drama of modern-day Japan, exposing a fringe of "big business" in the forthright manner of an American gangster film. While the conflicts of its intense antagonists—corporate executives all—are in the realm of legal proceedings, they are rooted in corruption and greed, and the devices by which the rivals fight each other are the devices of racketeers....The ostentation of wealth among the tycoons is vulgar and rash to a gross degree. ...It is to Kurosawa's credit that he ... gives to an ordinary tale of greedy and murderous contention a certain basic philosophical tone. ...This is a powerful and interesting picture that Kurosawa has made—a bit tedious and mawkish in the last reels, but exciting enough along the way to satisfy audiences that know the subject." When you read a review by an American named Crowser of a Japanese film, dated January 23, 1963, it’s as if you’re reading about modern Russia. Especially about the "vulgarity and recklessness of the demonstration of wealth by tycoons" fostered by the Russian authorities.
The fact that the film retains its relevance even after 6 decades is emphasized by the fact that the modern cinema audience highly appreciated this creation of Kurosawa. 70% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave the film "The Bad Sleep Well" ratings from 8 to 10. Taking this into account and the above, Akira Kurosawa's film "The Bad Sleep Well" was rated 8,046 by FilmGourmand, making it 653rd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
