Anniversary of the High and Low
On March 1, 1963, Akira Kurosawa's film "Tengoku to jigoku 天国と地獄 (High and Low)" was released in Japanese cinemas.
The literary basis for the script of the film "High and Low" was the story "King's Ransom", which was included in the series of police procedural novels and stories "87th Precinct". It is curious that the author of the novel "King's Ransom" is most often called Evan Hunter, and the author of the series "87th Precinct" is Ed McBain. In fact, there is no contradiction here, since both "Evan Hunter" and "Ed McBain" are pseudonyms of the American writer of Italian origin Salvatore Lombino.
The novels and short stories that later formed the "87th Precinct" series began to be published in 1956. "King's Ransom" was published in 1959. And on September 25, 1961, the first episode of the television series "87th Precinct" was released on NBC. The episode, which was a film adaptation of the story "King's Ransom", aired on February 19, 1962. The role of the protagonist's wife in this episode was played by the future First Lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan.
The NBC television series caught the eye of Akira Kurosawa and came in handy. The fact is that, firstly, in 1961-1962, Kurosawa made two films about the samurai of medieval Japan - "Yôjinbô 用心棒 The Bodyguard" and "Tsubaki Sanjûrô 椿三十郎: Sanjuro" - and the samurai theme became boring to him. Kurosawa wanted to make a film with contemporary material. Secondly, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Japan was literally swept by a wave of kidnapping, and Kurosawa was extremely worried about this problem. In his opinion, one of the main reasons for the high frequency of such crimes was the weak punishment provided for their commission by criminal law. Most often, the kidnappers were sentenced to a year's imprisonment, and only in exceptional cases the sentence was 10 years. Kurosawa wanted to draw the attention of Japanese legislators to this issue.
Akira Kurosawa bought the film rights from the author of "King's Ransom" for $5,000 (the equivalent of $50,000 today) and, together with his team of screenwriters, created a script for the future film based on it. Kurosawa supplemented and deepened the main plot laid down by the story with moral and social aspects, in particular, the themes of drug addiction, corporate corruption, and the growing class gap in Japanese society.
Upon the release of the film "High and Low" on the screens of Japanese cinemas, he was very popular with the audience. However, he did not have an immediate impact on the Japanese authorities, in particular, the legislature. Moreover, less than a month after the film's premiere, on March 31, 1963, a 4-year-old boy, Yoshiten MURAKOSHI, was kidnapped in one of the districts of Tokyo, who was later found murdered (the so-called "Yoshinobu-chan Incident"). Kurosawa was accused of allegedly instigating this crime with his film. There were even threats to kidnap the director's daughter, Kazuko Kurosawa.
However, a year later, in 1964, the Penal Code of Japan was nevertheless amended, providing for tougher penalties for kidnapping, up to life imprisonment and even the death penalty. And two years later Tamotsu Koharu, the kidnapper and murderer of Yoshi Murakoshi, was sentenced to death. After that, the number of kidnappings in Japan began to decline. And a certain role in this was played by Akira Kurosawa's film.
On August 27, 1963, the film was presented to guests and participants of the Venice International Film Festival. The film was nominated for the main award of the festival - the Golden Lion. However, the jury of the film festival, chaired by the Italian writer Arturo Lanocita, gave preference to the Italian political drama "Le mani sulla città (Hands over the City)" directed by Francesco Rosi. A little later, in early 1964, Akira Kurosawa's film was nominated for the American Golden Globe Award. But the Hollywood Foreign Press Association also made its choice in favor of another picture - "Mélodie en sous-sol (Any Number Can Win)" by Henri Verneuil with Jean Gabin and Alain Delon in the lead roles. Due to the lack of wins at international film forums, the authors of the Beyond the Canon blog included Akira Kurosawa's film in their list of underrated films.
However, the film received very high ratings from critics. So, the columnist of the influential American newspaper The Washington Post, Paul Attanasio, in his review noted that
""High and Low" illuminates its world with a wholeness and complexity you rarely see in film."
And another well-known film critic on the pages of the equally influential edition of The New York Times, Anthony Scott, called the film
"One of the best detective thrillers ever filmed".
Such characteristics of the film are all the more valuable because their authors had the opportunity to compare the picture of Kurosawa with the domestic original, even in the form of an episode of a television series. It's no coincidence that great filmmaker Martin Scorsese included Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low" in his list of 39 non-American films from which young American filmmakers should learn.
Russian film critics gave the film an equally high rating (the film was not shown in the Soviet Union). So, the famous film critic Yevgeny Nefedov, who rated the picture with 8 points on a 10-point system, noted in his review that the film "High and Low"
"can be safely ranked among the tops of the world screen detective and thriller. It's not even about the exceptional formal skill, thoughtfulness and sophistication of intrigue, the art of causing tension (suspense) thanks to insignificant details, which Alfred Hitchcock would envy: from an artist of such a scale as Akira, you can't expect anything else."
The modern moviegoer, spoiled by a variety of thrillers and detectives, including those devoted to the kidnapping, even after several decades since the release of the film on the screens, appreciated it very highly. 76% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10, and 21% of users rated the film with the highest score - "ten". Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of Akira Kurosawa's film "High and Low" according to FilmGourmand version was 8,543, thanks to which it took the 308th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
