You can order Richard's new book from Michael Wiese Productions here.
Dave Watson: When did you first see Seven Samurai?
Richard Pepperman: It opened in New York City in 1956. I got to see the film sometime between 1959-1961. It was an amazing time. Friends and I saw just about all the foreign films that seemed to be opening daily: The Virgin Spring, The 400 Blows, Veridiana, and Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. We would take in three or four films in a weekend. We’d discuss the films over inexpensive foodstuff of that country. After seeing an Eastern European film we’d buy potato knishes from a street vendor and sit in Washington Square Park and excitedly talk about the movie.
DW: Martin Scorsese has talked about that era as well.
RP: I first saw foreign films at the Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village; and following La Strada, my friends and I stopped at an Italian bakery and share bread for our discussions.
DW: Around this time you started working in the industry.
RP: I got my first job in 1964, at 630 9th Avenue in Manhattan –the Film Center Building. The foreign films I saw, inspired me to find work in the film business. These were films that found the extraordinary in the ordinary. Before this time I had little interest in the usual fare playing in our neighborhood Loews. By the way, my entire family thought the theater chain was pronounced “Low-eez.” It took nearly a year and a half for someone to hire me. I had no experience and knew nothing.
DW: That chain was around then? This also sounds like quite a cultural experience for you. There’s something about that age, our mid-teens. I was sixteen when I worked my way through all the classics and discovered that era including Ingmar Bergman. The structure of your book is built around lessons learned from Kurosawa’s classic. How did this come about?
RP: Well (laughing) I can be remarkably slow at times. I spent about two years researching the film and related materials, and organizing a structure around filmmaking disciplines and elements. It was far too complicated, especially because it had little to do with Kurosawa’s chronologically constructed work. Then it came to me! We already had the title, Everything I Know About Filmmaking I Learned Watching Seven Samurai. Learned … learned! And, with that the book took the shape of the film’s chapters. The book also contains more than 300 stills illustrating the moments discussed.
DW: What’s the most enduring lesson of Seven Samurai?
RP: I think the first lesson is in the contemporary qualities of the film—it’s impossible to tell in which decade the film was made. Kurosawa had a deep understanding of cinematic elements in storytelling, that it is likely only the ‘dated’ transitions— the wipe effect especially—that may provide hints of the film’s era.
DW: Much of Kurosawa’s work was and still is.
RP: He was particularly insightful and skillful at breaking a proscenium view of the settings; getting the camera fully into the space of the scene—creating the illusion of a 360 degree location onto the surface of a two-dimensional screen, allowing the audience to be a participant rather than a mere observer. This book is primarily practical in its lessons for filmmakers. Working in post-production for more than 50 years finds me even more impressed with the craft and spirit of Samurai.
DW: Is the story about the strength of the group? Would you see that as the cornerstone theme?
RP: Absolutely, though when you break it down, there were some Samurai who had no leaders; they were called Ronin. There are many themes derived from the context of 16th Century Japan: class structures—farmers, laborers, merchants them sacrificed their lives. The film reveals Kurosawa’s intrigue with factors and incentives that provide male bonding impulses. The seven samurai were willing to come together in the interest of the farmers and their village; and four of them sacrifice their lives.
DW: Those themes cover a lot of ground, and it also seems to be about meaning in lives.
RD: People characterize Kurosawa too quickly and easily. Many critics oversimplify his inspirations from Shakespeare. Both men eagerly questioned universal aspects of our species. Yes! Kurosawa was an admirer of some Hollywood filmmakers—director John Ford is an example. Kurosawa admired the creative freedoms in the west, and so was not at all unhappy when Japan was defeated in the Second World War.
DW: Yet his films have influenced others and stood on their own. When Bill Clinton was elected, Siskel and Ebert had a special where they listed films he should see. One was Ikiru, which my Japanese teacher, Fred Lorish, gave me as a graduation gift at the end of high school. Still sits on my bookshelf today.
RP: That’s a great graduation gift. The biggest criticism of Ikiru had to do with the time Kurosawa takes with the family and friends gathered for the mourning ritual.
DW: That’s it? What about the symbolism of the police officer and the aging bureaucrat? When you tell people the story they think it’s admirable.
RP: We all know we’re going to die; we just don’t know when, where or how. The bureaucrat in Ikiru learns that he is terminally ill with stomach cancer and is then determined to get one project through the ineffective and insurmountable maze of red tape. He sees to it that, before he dies, a playground for the children in an under-privileged neighborhood will be built. This and Seven Samurai touch on themes to do with our desperate longing for meaning and significance in our lives.
DW: What’s next for you?
RP: I get to travel and lecture. I might be going to Hawaii and Australia as a result of good responses to the book. This past August I introduced a screening of Seven Samurai at the Pickford Film Center in Bellingham, Washington. I will be introducing the film via Skype at the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle. I introduced the film for the Wellesley Library’s Classic Flicks program in October. I am on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts’ Film Department, and I presented a simultaneous screening and lecture.
DW: What’s your favorite cinematic moment?
RP: It’s a very brief moment. It last less than two seconds. The moment is from A Walk in the Sun. I saw it when I was 9 years old. An army company has devised a plan to attack a German occupied farmhouse in the Italian countryside. Sergeant Tyne is to blow a whistle as a signal for his men to go over a low stone wall. He is crouched with the whistle hardly held between his lips. His friend Archimbeau is close to him. Tyne’s eyes are closed. He feels ill. As he opens his eyes, and takes the whistle in his left hand, he catches Arch’s gaze. And then the moment: Tyne winks to Arch. The wink hardly alters his expression; and then Arch, in as non-inflected a stare as I’ve ever seen, in as slow a close of an eye that anyone has ever achieved, returns the wink.
Clip: A Walk in the Sun
Dave Watson: When did you first see Seven Samurai?
Richard Pepperman: It opened in New York City in 1956. I got to see the film sometime between 1959-1961. It was an amazing time. Friends and I saw just about all the foreign films that seemed to be opening daily: The Virgin Spring, The 400 Blows, Veridiana, and Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. We would take in three or four films in a weekend. We’d discuss the films over inexpensive foodstuff of that country. After seeing an Eastern European film we’d buy potato knishes from a street vendor and sit in Washington Square Park and excitedly talk about the movie.
DW: Martin Scorsese has talked about that era as well.
RP: I first saw foreign films at the Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village; and following La Strada, my friends and I stopped at an Italian bakery and share bread for our discussions.
DW: Around this time you started working in the industry.
RP: I got my first job in 1964, at 630 9th Avenue in Manhattan –the Film Center Building. The foreign films I saw, inspired me to find work in the film business. These were films that found the extraordinary in the ordinary. Before this time I had little interest in the usual fare playing in our neighborhood Loews. By the way, my entire family thought the theater chain was pronounced “Low-eez.” It took nearly a year and a half for someone to hire me. I had no experience and knew nothing.
DW: That chain was around then? This also sounds like quite a cultural experience for you. There’s something about that age, our mid-teens. I was sixteen when I worked my way through all the classics and discovered that era including Ingmar Bergman. The structure of your book is built around lessons learned from Kurosawa’s classic. How did this come about?
RP: Well (laughing) I can be remarkably slow at times. I spent about two years researching the film and related materials, and organizing a structure around filmmaking disciplines and elements. It was far too complicated, especially because it had little to do with Kurosawa’s chronologically constructed work. Then it came to me! We already had the title, Everything I Know About Filmmaking I Learned Watching Seven Samurai. Learned … learned! And, with that the book took the shape of the film’s chapters. The book also contains more than 300 stills illustrating the moments discussed.
DW: What’s the most enduring lesson of Seven Samurai?
RP: I think the first lesson is in the contemporary qualities of the film—it’s impossible to tell in which decade the film was made. Kurosawa had a deep understanding of cinematic elements in storytelling, that it is likely only the ‘dated’ transitions— the wipe effect especially—that may provide hints of the film’s era.
DW: Much of Kurosawa’s work was and still is.
RP: He was particularly insightful and skillful at breaking a proscenium view of the settings; getting the camera fully into the space of the scene—creating the illusion of a 360 degree location onto the surface of a two-dimensional screen, allowing the audience to be a participant rather than a mere observer. This book is primarily practical in its lessons for filmmakers. Working in post-production for more than 50 years finds me even more impressed with the craft and spirit of Samurai.
DW: Is the story about the strength of the group? Would you see that as the cornerstone theme?
RP: Absolutely, though when you break it down, there were some Samurai who had no leaders; they were called Ronin. There are many themes derived from the context of 16th Century Japan: class structures—farmers, laborers, merchants them sacrificed their lives. The film reveals Kurosawa’s intrigue with factors and incentives that provide male bonding impulses. The seven samurai were willing to come together in the interest of the farmers and their village; and four of them sacrifice their lives.
DW: Those themes cover a lot of ground, and it also seems to be about meaning in lives.
RD: People characterize Kurosawa too quickly and easily. Many critics oversimplify his inspirations from Shakespeare. Both men eagerly questioned universal aspects of our species. Yes! Kurosawa was an admirer of some Hollywood filmmakers—director John Ford is an example. Kurosawa admired the creative freedoms in the west, and so was not at all unhappy when Japan was defeated in the Second World War.
DW: Yet his films have influenced others and stood on their own. When Bill Clinton was elected, Siskel and Ebert had a special where they listed films he should see. One was Ikiru, which my Japanese teacher, Fred Lorish, gave me as a graduation gift at the end of high school. Still sits on my bookshelf today.
RP: That’s a great graduation gift. The biggest criticism of Ikiru had to do with the time Kurosawa takes with the family and friends gathered for the mourning ritual.
DW: That’s it? What about the symbolism of the police officer and the aging bureaucrat? When you tell people the story they think it’s admirable.
RP: We all know we’re going to die; we just don’t know when, where or how. The bureaucrat in Ikiru learns that he is terminally ill with stomach cancer and is then determined to get one project through the ineffective and insurmountable maze of red tape. He sees to it that, before he dies, a playground for the children in an under-privileged neighborhood will be built. This and Seven Samurai touch on themes to do with our desperate longing for meaning and significance in our lives.
DW: What’s next for you?
RP: I get to travel and lecture. I might be going to Hawaii and Australia as a result of good responses to the book. This past August I introduced a screening of Seven Samurai at the Pickford Film Center in Bellingham, Washington. I will be introducing the film via Skype at the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle. I introduced the film for the Wellesley Library’s Classic Flicks program in October. I am on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts’ Film Department, and I presented a simultaneous screening and lecture.
DW: What’s your favorite cinematic moment?
RP: It’s a very brief moment. It last less than two seconds. The moment is from A Walk in the Sun. I saw it when I was 9 years old. An army company has devised a plan to attack a German occupied farmhouse in the Italian countryside. Sergeant Tyne is to blow a whistle as a signal for his men to go over a low stone wall. He is crouched with the whistle hardly held between his lips. His friend Archimbeau is close to him. Tyne’s eyes are closed. He feels ill. As he opens his eyes, and takes the whistle in his left hand, he catches Arch’s gaze. And then the moment: Tyne winks to Arch. The wink hardly alters his expression; and then Arch, in as non-inflected a stare as I’ve ever seen, in as slow a close of an eye that anyone has ever achieved, returns the wink.
Clip: A Walk in the Sun
