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The Bad Sleep Well

Corruption in high places

provides many opportunities,

to improve your sleeping accommodations.

A deep sound

hole in the night ground

is yours for the asking.

Support your local bureaucrat!

Kickback and relax

In a job well down

and up

to suit the hand

that turns the crank,

That winds the rope

that holds the hole thing suspended

in perfect balance

over the pile of luckless

bucket riders

Who were unable to sleep

on a string.

This poem came about because I thought the title was about a well of bad sleep when in fact it is about how bad people have no trouble sleeping. A movie loosely based on Hamlet, but with a very different ending. It is a tragedy of a different kind. It is one of my favorite Kurosawa films so far.

I have been watching as many movies directed by Akira Kurosawa as a I can get my hands on as part of my 101/1001 project. I am trying to watch the movies in chronological order to see Kurosawa’s development as a director as well the main actors in his stock company. Toshiro Mifune and several others are in many of his films in a variety of roles.

I really love the Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress, and his incredible adaptation of  Macbeth, Throne of Blood. Toshiro Mifuni is awe inspiring to watch in all of these. His sheer physical mastery of each character. I can only judge the physical nature of his acting as I am not aware of the nuances of the Japanese language to know if his spoken acting is as skillful. I just know he has a presence and ability to exude his characterizations through is body. I love the way he speaks also, but I cannot tell if he is as subtle and artful in this part of his performance. Japanese culture is also so unfamiliar to me, and often baffling to my American raised bias, but the more I watch the more I pick up on some of the clues to why the characters are responding as they do.  I am now much more able to appreciate some of the performances than when I began. I also suspect the acting and directing is improving as well.