4. Toshiro Mifune in I Live in Fear
When one asks what five things pop to mind when one hears Akira Kurosawa, it is impossible not to think of Toshiro Mifune. Rashomon, Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, Stray Dog, High and Low, and many, many other collaborations mark this pair as probably the biggest in cinema history, edging the likes of Belmondo and Godard or De Niro and Scorsese in my book. A film of his that is not as renowned is I Live in Fear, one of the many post-war world cinema achievements that slowly asserted that film was evolving into a sociological art form. It is shameful that this, according to IMDB, is Kurosawas first film to not break its budget even upon release. The Second World War and the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were everything but forgotten in Japan, and I Live in Fear developed into an analysis of the national and global concern from a country that already tasted biochemical warfare. Normally, Mifune permeates his dominance on screen. Once he fills the frame, your eyes will always be glued onto him. He owns the room, and as Kurosawa said himself, he could convey in only three feet of film an emotion for which the average Japanese actor would require ten feet. This was no different in Kurosawas post-war drama, but confidence, wisdom, integrity, courage, and honor are few words that defined Mifunes star persona. His role in I Live in Fear is an exception. Mifune plays a paranoid, nervous, fragile and frightened old man whose only solution to evading imminent pulverization was the migration to Brazil. His entire family opposes, since he would sacrifice the family business in doing so, but fear forces even the strongest of men to succumb to insecurity. Not only is his performance singular, but his make-up also hides the very face that enchanted many cinema-goers. Perhaps this may be the reason of the films failure in the Japanese box office.