Shichinin No Samurai

The Ross is celebrating its 30th anniversary with two weeks of classic films. Which means that last night, I had the privilege of seeing Seven Samurai in a movie theatre for the first time. I’ve seen it before on DVD, but watching it on the silver screen was like truly seeing it for the first time.

I didn’t remember it being so warm, so humorous, so moving, so… human. There were details that I never caught before — the way the samurai interact with villager’s children, the frenetic pacing of the rain battles, the doleful expressions on the peasants’ faces (especially Yohei’s).

And of course, there’s nothing quite like seeing Toshirô Mifune’s swagger up there on the screen, larger than life.

Sometimes I wonder if the great films are considered great simply because we think they’re supposed to be considered great, or because they truly are great on some intrinsic level. Walking out of Seven Samurai last night, I honestly felt like I had just seen a great film.