Who is the real hero Akira Kurosawa's film, Seven Samurai? Are the seven samurai the real heroes, or the peasants?
Seeing the samurai as the heroes in the film is instantaneously acceptable: the movie itself was entitled after them; they are the strong ones in the film; and they have affected the plot significantly. Yet after watching the film, why does this fledging critic feel that the samurai, the heroes as they are, did not achieve their goal, their destiny? Was this critic looking at the story in a different perspective instead of the proper one?
A common viewer would simply be amazed with the storyline, the actors, and the unique plot structure that have influenced a number of films. Indeed, Seven Samurai has been influential in the developments of the film industry. We see movies like Ocean's Eleven, Gone in 60 Seconds, Dirty Dozen, and the like. It was even made into a Japanese anime with the same plot structure, only longer, entitled Samurai Seven. Truly, the movie can capture any viewer with its superb production and storyline despite being an old film.
Another look at the film is indeed needed, not for entertainment, but for a deeper understanding of what the story is all about. The story is not about the samurai themselves nor the attacking bandits, but the story of the peasant hero Rikichi. Rikichi is a young farmer who has first voiced out on fighting the bandits. Everyone in the village is in despair, ready to yield to the bandits when they arrive, but Rikichi vows not to surrender anymore. He is different from all the peasant farmers in the village. Later, we see that he lends his house to the samurai, and that his biggest secret is his wife's going with the bandits. It is not clear though whether the wife was forced to go with the bandits or she liked it. The only significant part of knowing the whereabouts of his wife is the death of the first samurai. Indeed, the heroes in the film are not the samurai, but the peasant farmer, especially Rikichi. In the end, even the leader of the samurai, Kambei, said that they did not win the fight but the farmers.
In this light, the critic shall look at the film from the viewpoint of the peasants, i.e. Rikichi. Also, since the movie has been criticized as unique and new during its release, the Proppian analysis shall be applied to prove that there is nothing new with the plot structure.
A Proppian Analysis of Seven Samurai
In analysing the film with a Proppian eye, one must remember that the elements of the dramatis personae may not necessarily follow the exact pattern. Sometimes, the elements are even overlapping one another. The only aim therefore is to prove that there exist elements of the stories that Propp has identified. With this in mind, the Proppian analysis follows:
Initial Situation
A village in the mountains has been ransacked before by a group of 30 bandits. In the beginning of the film, we see the bandits talking about ransacking the village again. But when they realized that they have ransacked it before, they decide to return to the village when the barley has been harvested. A villager happens to overhear the conversation of the bandits and reported that to his people.
Absentation
At this point, no one has gone missing (except the wife of Rikichi, but it is not yet the issue). What seems to be absent at this point is the "normal" day of the villagers; seems like their lives have been devastated further by the news that the bandits would come on harvest time. From this point, the lives of the villagers have been different throughout the film.
Interdiction
Then, while the villagers are whining over what will happen when harvest time comes, Rikichi madly cried that they should fight the bandits. His fellow villagers cowardly withdraw from the idea. Manzo says that it is just crazy talk; i.e. fighting the bandits. All the peasant should do is to endure for when they lose, all of them shall be killed. Rikichi then mentioned something that would be significant later in the film, they have killed weak samurai. He said that they are able to kill weak samurai but they are now scared in killing bandits. His anger may be later on implicitly explained, when we find his wife with the bandits.
Violation of Interdiction
The villagers go to the Elder for a wise suggestion on what should be done. The elder himself suggested that they should fight, which makes Rikichi smile. When asked how they shall fight the bandits without the knowledge of battle, he said that they shall hire samurai. He had seen it before, villages that hired samurai did not burn, and were not burnt by bandits.
Villainy and Lack
Now, the lack is identified: hungry samurai who would accept food as payment for defending the peasants.
Departure
There are four peasants sent to look for these samurai who shall defend them, one of them is Rikichi.
Mediation, Solution, Acquisition & Return
The peasants enter the city to search for samurai, but they are unsuccessful, being turned away by every samurai they requested. Then, they witness a samurai rescue a boy from a thief. And, he did not ask for any payment. When Kambei walks towards another town, a young samurai asks him to be his disciple, Katsushiro. Then, the farmers ask Kambei to help defend their village from the bandits, he accepts. Kambei then helps the farmers to recruit more samurai. They are to recruit Gorobei Katayama, Heihachi, ShichirÅji and Kyuzo. Kambei had initially decided that seven samurai would be necessary, but he plans to leave for the village with only the four because time is running short. A man named Kikuchiyo tails them to the village at a distance; he wants to be accepted as a samurai. Thus, the lack has been discovered-the seven samurai.
Testing & Reaction
However, when they have returned from their journey, nobody has welcomed them. Everyone has been scared at the samurai, like their fear from the bandits. The elder asks for understanding for this behaviour of the villagers. The question why the villagers are scared of the samurai is not yet answered. Yet, they are reminded that they indeed need the samurai when Kikuchiyo sounds the alarm. They have gone out of their houses screaming for help from the samurai. With this, the peasants did not pass the challenge to prove their heroic qualities. None however is expected from these peasants; still, the element of "testing" is present.
Second Lack
When Rikichi is asked about getting a wife, and almost everytime the word wife is mentioned, he gets angry and runs away. This attitude of Rikichi gives a cloud of mystery in his character.
Task
A difficult task is proposed not only to our hero, Rikichi, but to the whole village-the defense of the village. The samurai have to teach the villagers how to handle spears and swords. They also created tall barricades so the bandits on horses would have a hard time looking for an entrance to the village. Evacuation is also suggested which the peasants find difficult to do.
Branding
There is no physical branding whatsoever found in the film, however, there exist a branding on the peasants: when the samurai discovered that these peasants they are trying to help have killed a number of samurai, just like them. They wanted to kill them all after their discovery. Yet, when Kikuchiyo describes to them what drives these peasants to kill, their anger turned to compassion. The peasants have been branded as samurai killers, but still, the samurai help them.
Solution
At this point in the film, the tasks given by the samurai are finished: there are high wooden walls that serve as barricades; the fields have been flooded; and the houses are emptied.
Reconnaissance & Delivery
The bandits have been sighted by the samurai. These bandits also saw that the village has been changed and there are samurai present inside. To be able to use the element of surprise in the forthcoming battle, the samurai needed to kill these scouts. They are successful, and the secret that the village is ready to fight is kept intact.
Second Testing
Another failure of the peasants to show their heroic quality is when the samurai caught a scout of the bandits alive. They kill the caught bandit, with only vengeance in their hearts. This is not a characteristic of the traditional hero; although, they exhibit a natural trait of humans.
Second Departure & Second Mediation
As the captured bandit confessed about their hideout, The samurai think they need to know the place and somehow know their enemy, so Kambei sends three samurai including Rikichi. In this part, we see the wife of Rikichi with the bandits. What is shocking in this revelation is when Rikichi calls for his wife-the wife throws herself into the fire. Is it shame that drove her to kill herself? Or, is she already crazy at that point of her life? It is degrading to think that she has enjoyed the life of the bandits, so she never wants to return to her husband anymore, and that her burning of herself is but an accident. Whatever it is, Heihachi dies from a gunshot while retrieving the maddened Rikichi.
Struggle
The fight between the bandits and the samurai with the villagers begins. The defense has worked well, the bandits are confused and do not know where to attack. At night, the bandits think they can attack the village by climbing up the barricades, only to find out that the peasants are patiently waiting to attack them.
Acquisition
The samurai feel that the bandits are somehow advance than they are for those have muskets. They decide that they should get at least one of the three muskets of the bandits. Kyuzo volunteered and is able to acquire a musket from the base of the enemy.
Complicity
The bandits have helped their enemy unwittingly through attacking the village mindlessly. The villagers, with the help of the samurai, let one bandit on horse to enter the village as they stop the others, then, the villagers inside kills the lone bandit to his surprise. This technique has worked a number of times until the majority of these bandits have been killed.
Claim & Exposure
The arrogance of Kikuchiyo brings a huge setback on the part of the villagers and the samurai. He was jealous of Kyuzo when the latter gets the musket from the enemy's base. So, he abandons his post and retrieves another musket. Though he was successful, Gorobei, one of the samurai, and Yohei, one of the peasants who looked for samurai, are killed. Indeed, Kikuchiyo is not a samurai nor a peasant hero in the film-he is the "false hero" element, as Propp identified.
Victory
Kambei knows that the enemy shall attack with all their might the next day, and he is right. The bandits have attacked fiercely, yet unsuccessful. The samurai are almost done with killing them when the leader of the bandits who escaped and hide in a hut, shoots Kyuzo. Kikuchiyo tries to attack the leader but is also shot by a musket. He was able to kill the bandit leader but with a price of his life.
Transfiguration
The last scene gives away what this fledging critic finds hard to discover-the real hero of the film. The samurai who survived are not given any new appearance, i.e. there is no new clothing, and even their faces are as gloomy as death. However, at the other side of the field, we see the peasants singing happily as they plant the new sprouts in their farm-a very symbolic juxtaposition of exact opposites: the happy peasants and the gloomy samurai; the graves of the dead samurai and the field where new rice and barley shall spring. Even in the last line of Kambei it is revealed, "Victory belongs to those peasants. Not to us."
Conclusion
In conclusion, with this Proppian analysis of Kurosawa's film, the answer is clear-the film is not a unique film as other critics have claimed. The characters, setting, and purpose of the films are new but the plot structure and the functions of the characters are not new, at least in the eyes of a Proppian critic. Also, from the transfiguration element identified by Propp, the heroes indeed are not the samurai but the peasants. From this observation, this fledging Proppian critic recommends that another analysis using the Marxist literary criticism may be done to the analysed film.
References:
Kurosawa, Akira. (1954). Seven Samurai (Film). Sojiro Motoki
Propp, V. (1968). Morphology of the Folktale. (L. Scott, Trans.). Texas: University of Texas Press. (Original work published 1928).
Seeing the samurai as the heroes in the film is instantaneously acceptable: the movie itself was entitled after them; they are the strong ones in the film; and they have affected the plot significantly. Yet after watching the film, why does this fledging critic feel that the samurai, the heroes as they are, did not achieve their goal, their destiny? Was this critic looking at the story in a different perspective instead of the proper one?
A common viewer would simply be amazed with the storyline, the actors, and the unique plot structure that have influenced a number of films. Indeed, Seven Samurai has been influential in the developments of the film industry. We see movies like Ocean's Eleven, Gone in 60 Seconds, Dirty Dozen, and the like. It was even made into a Japanese anime with the same plot structure, only longer, entitled Samurai Seven. Truly, the movie can capture any viewer with its superb production and storyline despite being an old film.
Another look at the film is indeed needed, not for entertainment, but for a deeper understanding of what the story is all about. The story is not about the samurai themselves nor the attacking bandits, but the story of the peasant hero Rikichi. Rikichi is a young farmer who has first voiced out on fighting the bandits. Everyone in the village is in despair, ready to yield to the bandits when they arrive, but Rikichi vows not to surrender anymore. He is different from all the peasant farmers in the village. Later, we see that he lends his house to the samurai, and that his biggest secret is his wife's going with the bandits. It is not clear though whether the wife was forced to go with the bandits or she liked it. The only significant part of knowing the whereabouts of his wife is the death of the first samurai. Indeed, the heroes in the film are not the samurai, but the peasant farmer, especially Rikichi. In the end, even the leader of the samurai, Kambei, said that they did not win the fight but the farmers.
In this light, the critic shall look at the film from the viewpoint of the peasants, i.e. Rikichi. Also, since the movie has been criticized as unique and new during its release, the Proppian analysis shall be applied to prove that there is nothing new with the plot structure.
A Proppian Analysis of Seven Samurai
In analysing the film with a Proppian eye, one must remember that the elements of the dramatis personae may not necessarily follow the exact pattern. Sometimes, the elements are even overlapping one another. The only aim therefore is to prove that there exist elements of the stories that Propp has identified. With this in mind, the Proppian analysis follows:
Initial Situation
A village in the mountains has been ransacked before by a group of 30 bandits. In the beginning of the film, we see the bandits talking about ransacking the village again. But when they realized that they have ransacked it before, they decide to return to the village when the barley has been harvested. A villager happens to overhear the conversation of the bandits and reported that to his people.
Absentation
At this point, no one has gone missing (except the wife of Rikichi, but it is not yet the issue). What seems to be absent at this point is the "normal" day of the villagers; seems like their lives have been devastated further by the news that the bandits would come on harvest time. From this point, the lives of the villagers have been different throughout the film.
Interdiction
Then, while the villagers are whining over what will happen when harvest time comes, Rikichi madly cried that they should fight the bandits. His fellow villagers cowardly withdraw from the idea. Manzo says that it is just crazy talk; i.e. fighting the bandits. All the peasant should do is to endure for when they lose, all of them shall be killed. Rikichi then mentioned something that would be significant later in the film, they have killed weak samurai. He said that they are able to kill weak samurai but they are now scared in killing bandits. His anger may be later on implicitly explained, when we find his wife with the bandits.
Violation of Interdiction
The villagers go to the Elder for a wise suggestion on what should be done. The elder himself suggested that they should fight, which makes Rikichi smile. When asked how they shall fight the bandits without the knowledge of battle, he said that they shall hire samurai. He had seen it before, villages that hired samurai did not burn, and were not burnt by bandits.
Villainy and Lack
Now, the lack is identified: hungry samurai who would accept food as payment for defending the peasants.
Departure
There are four peasants sent to look for these samurai who shall defend them, one of them is Rikichi.
Mediation, Solution, Acquisition & Return
The peasants enter the city to search for samurai, but they are unsuccessful, being turned away by every samurai they requested. Then, they witness a samurai rescue a boy from a thief. And, he did not ask for any payment. When Kambei walks towards another town, a young samurai asks him to be his disciple, Katsushiro. Then, the farmers ask Kambei to help defend their village from the bandits, he accepts. Kambei then helps the farmers to recruit more samurai. They are to recruit Gorobei Katayama, Heihachi, ShichirÅji and Kyuzo. Kambei had initially decided that seven samurai would be necessary, but he plans to leave for the village with only the four because time is running short. A man named Kikuchiyo tails them to the village at a distance; he wants to be accepted as a samurai. Thus, the lack has been discovered-the seven samurai.
Testing & Reaction
However, when they have returned from their journey, nobody has welcomed them. Everyone has been scared at the samurai, like their fear from the bandits. The elder asks for understanding for this behaviour of the villagers. The question why the villagers are scared of the samurai is not yet answered. Yet, they are reminded that they indeed need the samurai when Kikuchiyo sounds the alarm. They have gone out of their houses screaming for help from the samurai. With this, the peasants did not pass the challenge to prove their heroic qualities. None however is expected from these peasants; still, the element of "testing" is present.
Second Lack
When Rikichi is asked about getting a wife, and almost everytime the word wife is mentioned, he gets angry and runs away. This attitude of Rikichi gives a cloud of mystery in his character.
Task
A difficult task is proposed not only to our hero, Rikichi, but to the whole village-the defense of the village. The samurai have to teach the villagers how to handle spears and swords. They also created tall barricades so the bandits on horses would have a hard time looking for an entrance to the village. Evacuation is also suggested which the peasants find difficult to do.
Branding
There is no physical branding whatsoever found in the film, however, there exist a branding on the peasants: when the samurai discovered that these peasants they are trying to help have killed a number of samurai, just like them. They wanted to kill them all after their discovery. Yet, when Kikuchiyo describes to them what drives these peasants to kill, their anger turned to compassion. The peasants have been branded as samurai killers, but still, the samurai help them.
Solution
At this point in the film, the tasks given by the samurai are finished: there are high wooden walls that serve as barricades; the fields have been flooded; and the houses are emptied.
Reconnaissance & Delivery
The bandits have been sighted by the samurai. These bandits also saw that the village has been changed and there are samurai present inside. To be able to use the element of surprise in the forthcoming battle, the samurai needed to kill these scouts. They are successful, and the secret that the village is ready to fight is kept intact.
Second Testing
Another failure of the peasants to show their heroic quality is when the samurai caught a scout of the bandits alive. They kill the caught bandit, with only vengeance in their hearts. This is not a characteristic of the traditional hero; although, they exhibit a natural trait of humans.
Second Departure & Second Mediation
As the captured bandit confessed about their hideout, The samurai think they need to know the place and somehow know their enemy, so Kambei sends three samurai including Rikichi. In this part, we see the wife of Rikichi with the bandits. What is shocking in this revelation is when Rikichi calls for his wife-the wife throws herself into the fire. Is it shame that drove her to kill herself? Or, is she already crazy at that point of her life? It is degrading to think that she has enjoyed the life of the bandits, so she never wants to return to her husband anymore, and that her burning of herself is but an accident. Whatever it is, Heihachi dies from a gunshot while retrieving the maddened Rikichi.
Struggle
The fight between the bandits and the samurai with the villagers begins. The defense has worked well, the bandits are confused and do not know where to attack. At night, the bandits think they can attack the village by climbing up the barricades, only to find out that the peasants are patiently waiting to attack them.
Acquisition
The samurai feel that the bandits are somehow advance than they are for those have muskets. They decide that they should get at least one of the three muskets of the bandits. Kyuzo volunteered and is able to acquire a musket from the base of the enemy.
Complicity
The bandits have helped their enemy unwittingly through attacking the village mindlessly. The villagers, with the help of the samurai, let one bandit on horse to enter the village as they stop the others, then, the villagers inside kills the lone bandit to his surprise. This technique has worked a number of times until the majority of these bandits have been killed.
Claim & Exposure
The arrogance of Kikuchiyo brings a huge setback on the part of the villagers and the samurai. He was jealous of Kyuzo when the latter gets the musket from the enemy's base. So, he abandons his post and retrieves another musket. Though he was successful, Gorobei, one of the samurai, and Yohei, one of the peasants who looked for samurai, are killed. Indeed, Kikuchiyo is not a samurai nor a peasant hero in the film-he is the "false hero" element, as Propp identified.
Victory
Kambei knows that the enemy shall attack with all their might the next day, and he is right. The bandits have attacked fiercely, yet unsuccessful. The samurai are almost done with killing them when the leader of the bandits who escaped and hide in a hut, shoots Kyuzo. Kikuchiyo tries to attack the leader but is also shot by a musket. He was able to kill the bandit leader but with a price of his life.
Transfiguration
The last scene gives away what this fledging critic finds hard to discover-the real hero of the film. The samurai who survived are not given any new appearance, i.e. there is no new clothing, and even their faces are as gloomy as death. However, at the other side of the field, we see the peasants singing happily as they plant the new sprouts in their farm-a very symbolic juxtaposition of exact opposites: the happy peasants and the gloomy samurai; the graves of the dead samurai and the field where new rice and barley shall spring. Even in the last line of Kambei it is revealed, "Victory belongs to those peasants. Not to us."
Conclusion
In conclusion, with this Proppian analysis of Kurosawa's film, the answer is clear-the film is not a unique film as other critics have claimed. The characters, setting, and purpose of the films are new but the plot structure and the functions of the characters are not new, at least in the eyes of a Proppian critic. Also, from the transfiguration element identified by Propp, the heroes indeed are not the samurai but the peasants. From this observation, this fledging Proppian critic recommends that another analysis using the Marxist literary criticism may be done to the analysed film.
References:
Kurosawa, Akira. (1954). Seven Samurai (Film). Sojiro Motoki
Propp, V. (1968). Morphology of the Folktale. (L. Scott, Trans.). Texas: University of Texas Press. (Original work published 1928).
