Meditations on Mortality and Cinema: Kurosawa, Scorsese, and Friedkin
Meditations on Mortality and Cinema: Kurosawa, Scorsese, and Friedkin
A bittersweet cinematic awakening awaits many directors as they approach the end of their lives
One of the most vital voices of the American New Wave died this week: William Friedkin, director of such classics as THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971), THE EXORCIST (1973), and SORCERER (1977). He’s been and will continue to be lionized elsewhere by colleagues and cinephiles far better equipped than I to assess his life and legacy. For my part, I will observe that news of his death immediately reminded me of a passage from his autobiography, THE FRIEDKIN CONNECTION: A MEMOIR. I’ve shared his words here - preceded by similar sentiments from two other legendary directors, Akira Kurosawa and Martin Scorsese. This triptych on mortality and cinema speaks to both youth and age, to arrogance and wisdom, to the beautiful, bittersweet awakening that comes from being at the end of a life rather than its beginning.
AKIRA KUROSAWA
A birthday letter sent from Kurosowa to Ingmar Bergman on the occasion of Bergman’s seventieth birthday:
Dear Mr. Bergman,
Please let me congratulate you upon your seventieth birthday.
Your work deeply touches my heart every time I see it and I have learned a lot from your works and have been encouraged by them. I would like you to stay in good health to create more wonderful movies for us.
In Japan, there was a great artist called Tessai Tomioka who lived in the Meiji Era [the late 19th century]. This artist painted many excellent pictures while he was still young, and when he reached the age of eighty, he suddenly started painting pictures which were much superior to the previous ones, as if he were in magnificent bloom. Every time I see his paintings, I fully realize that a human is not really capable of creating really good works until he reaches eighty.
A human is born a baby, becomes a boy, goes through youth, the prime of life and finally returns to being a baby before he closes his life. This is, in my opinion, the most ideal way of life.
I believe you would agree that a human becomes capable of producing pure works, without any restrictions, in the days of his second babyhood.
I am now seventy-seven (77) years old and am convinced that my real work is just beginning.
Let us hold out together for the sake of movies.
With the warmest regards,Akira Kurosawa
MARTIN SCORSESE
Taken from a May 2023 interview with Deadline about his new film KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON:
DEADLINE: You’re 80. Do you still have that fire to get right back behind the camera and get the next one going?
SCORSESE: Got to. Got to. Yeah. I wish I could take a break for eight weeks and make a film at the same time [laughs]. The whole world has opened up to me, but it’s too late. It’s too late.
DEADLINE: What do you mean by that?
SCORSESE: I’m old. I read stuff. I see things. I want to tell stories, and there’s no more time. Kurosawa, when he got his Oscar, when George [Lucas] and Steven [Spielberg] gave it to him, he said, “I’m only now beginning to see the possibility of what cinema could be, and it’s too late.” He was 83. At the time, I said, “What does he mean?” Now I know what he means.
WILLIAM FRIEDKIN
Taken from Friedkin’s autobiography, the following are the final two paragraphs of the work:
Just when you learn how to do it, you're too old. Except in your dreams. Lately I've been remaking my movies, reshooting scenes in greater detail than I did originally. Several times in the middle of the night I awake and think, Well that was a dream, and it's over. Then I fall back to sleep but the work continues. At this rate I'll be shooting forever. The scenes aren't from one film, they're from many, but somehow they seem to connect, to make dream sense. I'm relaxed and in control. No anxiety, no sense of dread.
I haven't made my Citizen Kane, but there's more work to do. I don't know how much but I'm loving it. Perhaps I'll fail again. Maybe next time I'll fail better.
Akira Kurosawa was 77 when he wrote to Ingmar Bergman; he directed three more films before he died at 88. Martin Scorsese was 80 for the interview shared here. William Friedkin was 77 when he wrote his biography; he died at 87 having only directed one more film, THE CAINE MUTINY COURT-MARTIAL, which will premiere in September at the Venice International Film Festival.
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Thank you so much for sharing these three gems. My actual writing partner is 71, so far we’ve been working together for seven years, we created two series and another one is in the pipeline and I still have to hear that he’s “too old”. Unbelievable and humiliating.