TheToad03 A Mere Chick!
On Humility and Comparisons.
Hello Hello Hellooo!
This is the third post in the Toad series - it is a series of posts of me attempting to Illustrate, Japanese movie director Akira Kurosawa’s autobiography1.
Last week, I had written about Kurosawa-san’s idea of why his autobiography was actually superflous, you can read more here:
Kurosawa-san’s Role-models
In that post, I had also teased about his role models - the Directors John Ford and Jean Renoir. Kurosawa-san says:
Recently I read the autobiography of the French film director Jean Renoir. I once had the occasion to meet him, and even to be invited to dinner with him, over which we talked of many things. The impression I had of him from this encounter was that he was not at all the type of person to sit down and write his autobiography. So for me to hear that he had ventured to do so was like having an explosion go off under me.(emphasis, added)
He goes onto say that his idea of actually writing a memoir was prompted by Jean Renoir’s foreword in his autobiography2, and that he would like to grow old in the same way Renoir did.
Similarly, he refers to the American director John Ford and regrets that he left no autobiography.
Now, I had not heard of either of these gentlemen until I read the book. And both were new names to me.
But being a Car Nut Aficionado, I immediately latched onto the “Ford” part. Heck, I thought this man might be a brother or cousin of Henry Ford. Now, you probably know what is coming…
John Ford:
Yup. ‘Model’ed on the Ford-T era. Which matched the Silent-movie era.
It didn’t quite matter, that John Ford3 is not related to the car maker - apparently his actual name - but nevertheless, the period held - he was an acclaimed director who started around the time Kurosawa was born (1910s) in Silent Movies and then kept making movies well into when the “Talkies” started.
I haven’t watched any of his movies - but he apparently directed The Grapes of Wrath - on the book by John Steinbeck4. Maybe I will look up the movie sometime. Have you read it perhaps? What do you think of it?
Jean Renoir:
Jean Renoir on the other hand is someone I am not familiar with - and I can’t quite put much to relate to him other than that his name sounds suspiciously similar to the French car-maker Renault5 . Somewhere in his bio6 it says he inspired Satyajit Ray, the Indian film director - that might be fun to look at, but maybe for another letter.
So anyway, Renoir, I naturally made into another car. This one. With the ‘e’ more resembling French maker Citroen’s7 logo than Renault’s8.
But, it fit the type of car-shape coming out of France during that time - late 40s-60s. Boxy, quirky9.
Kurosawa-San himself:
None of this would have come as images to my head had Kurosawa not said this thing:
Of course, compared to these two illustrious masters, Renoir and Ford, I am no more than a little chick. But if many people are saying they want to know what sort of person I am, it is probably my duty to write some- thing for them.
And thus:
Humility.
Now, Kurosawa-san might not consider it humility - and to some it might seem false humility, but to my mind, it presents a sense of grounding of self - to kind of self-check the swollen head occurrence.
I think that a self-check of our Egos is not a bad thing.
What do you think?
I hope you enjoyed reading this edition of TheToad.
Until Next time,
Cya!
Jean Renoir: My Life and My Films.
For more on what Kurosawa says, I would urge you to read the book. It feels like I would be doing a disservice by just quoting that one paragraph.
Or: is thereabouts in the same universe - Ren - close enough!
I also like how that friendly bear probably doesn’t (need to) have any shoes on and his bottom paws are probably curled in the sand.
Well, nice to meet ya