Let's hear it for Masaki Kobayashi!

Masaki Kobayashi is gaining ground in my personal list of best film directors.
His "Kaidan" is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen, and Kobayashi handles an all-star cast in that film that includes Tatsuya Nakadai, Kei Sato and Tetsuro Tamba. When I first saw "Seppuku (Harikari)," I remarked that the 1962 film was the best-directed film I had seen.
Last night, I watched "Joi-Uchi: Hairyo Tsuma Shimatsu (Samurai Rebellion)," and my appreciation of Kobayashi has grown some more.
The English translation -- "Samurai Rebellion" -- suggests some large-scale insurrection. Instead, this 1967 classic portrays a family backed into a political and emotional corner.
A clan lord orders Isaburo Sasahara (Toshiro Mifune) to accept into his family an arranged bride for elder son Yogoro (Go Kato). There is a catch: The arranged bride is Ichi (Yoko Tsukasa), the lord's ex-mistress and mother of the only male heir). The young couple marry and fall in love, and that is when the clan officials order Ichi back to the castle to resume her role as lord's concubine.
Family members find themselves caught between clan loyalty and true love.
That brief description cannot do justice to the film. The acting is fabulous. Mifune is obviously one of cinematic history's greatest actors. Kato captures a sense of desperation -- much as he did in Hideo Gosha's "Kedamono no Ken (Sword of the Beast)," when he played gold-panning Jurata Yamane. Tsukasa is also wonderful as the bride caught between two families.
What I really love, however, is Kobayashi's sense of composition.
He uses architecture to frame shots and in one memorable scene he shows that a family meeting has disintegrated into animosity by subtracting cast members from the scene, until three people remain kneeling in despair.
"Joi-Uchi: Hairyo Tsuma Shimatsu (Samurai Rebellion)" reminded me how a great director can take masterful control of each of a film's elements. The result was priceless.
REMINDER: The FRIDAY QUESTION feature will return Friday, May 11.