I watched Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well (1960), and I couldn't help but wonder about one particular shot. It's about the most Freudian concept conceivable: a maid, who is a minor character, vigorously polishes a crutch at an erect angle, and as Iwabuchi, the villainous CEO character, descends the stairs and walks off to the left, he pauses and the camera frames him in a highly suggestive position for a few sections, while the maid continues to polish.
What's the point of this shot? It doesn't seem to have much congruence with anything else in the film, and I hadn't really thought Kurosawa was ever much interested in investigating gender as a theme. What is it trying to suggest about Iwabuchi as a character? Is it symbolic of his phallic power? Or - on a more specific level - is it suggesting anything about his relation to this random maid?
Any ideas? It feels weirdly conspicuous. I'd expect this sort of image of Hitchcock, not of Kurosawa.
Submitted August 09, 2020 at 04:22AM by FaerieStories https://ift.tt/2F2RUVv
