Scene Analysis: The Seven Samurai (1954)

The Scene-

The scene happens around the twenty-eigth minute of the film, occurring right after Samurai Kambei initially declines Samurai Katsushiro request to be Kambei’s disciple and the brief encounter with Samurai Kikuchiyo.  The scene occurs in a cheap roadside inn, with Kambei, Katsushiro, a farmer named Rikichi, and a group of farmers and laborers.  A discussion is already taking place between Kambei and Katsushiro on how the villagers could protect themselves from the bandits, how may Samurai it would take to do this and if Kambei would even take part. 

It was in this scene that a pivotal moment occurred, when a laborer showed Kambei a bowl of white rice and said,

“Yes, look at it. It’s for you. Go on. But do you know what they eat, those farmers? They eat millet. They’re giving you their rice and eating millet themselves. They are giving you everything they have.”*

It was at this moment that Kambei symbolically took the rice and agreed to participate, by saying, “I understand. I accept your sacrifice.”*

Structural Elements-

Mise-en-scène: The scene takes place in a roadside inn inside a room with small benches and bamboo bars over the windows.  It is in here that Kambei must contemplate what to do in the situation with the farmers and the bandits. He occasionally glances out of the bars and looks over the people walking near by, while discussing possible strategies.  It is in this setting that Kambei has been 'caged' with his decision to help the people of the village or to leave them be.  The present farmers in the room do little more than sit and bow their heads adding a visual to the burden of Kambei.

Camera Movement: Though the scene is short at roughly four minutes and fourteen seconds the camera movement is abundant.  With use of medium shots, use of back view, low angle medium close ups, three-quarter front view, panning, high angle medium shots.  These shots were done to show Kambei in a dominant stance and the farmers is a submissive view.  Maybe this was done to show how a Samurai outranks the farmer peasants, a nod to class system of medieval Japan.  Or possibly to show Kambei as a guiding hero to the tired and hungry.

Lighting:  The movie is in black and white, so lighting and shadowing are used heavy to convey the emotion of the scene.  The inn itself is dark and there is not much light entering through the bamboo bars.  The brightness object might have been the bowl of white rice that almost seemed to glow as Kambei accepted the job.  

Conclusion: Altogether this was a very important scene in the movie.  It ties into the basis of the plot, that bandits were taking the farmers harvest of rice and barley and the only thing they had left to offer, the Samurai, was their own food. (Which had failed before.) Kambei, instantly accepted the offering after hearing this.  The white rice acts as a sealing contract between the farmers and Samurai Kambei.  

* these quotes came from one of my source books, they appear differently in the subtitles of the film.

Richie, Donald. (1970). The Seven Samurai a film by Akira Kurosawa. Simon and Schuster, New York