Asif Kapadia: “cinema will outlive streaming”
The power of cinema in culture and the arts is its ability to adapt to the progressive technological changes made alongside it. The medium catches onto these developments effortlessly, ensuring its properties and execution keep up with alternative methods of spectatorship, such as streaming over the theatre experience. However, one filmmaker who remains on the side of watching films on the big screen is Asif Kapadia, the British filmmaker known for his trilogy of narratively driven documentaries Senna, Amy and Diego Maradona.
Kapadia has recently partnered up with Ian Haydn Smith, author of Selling the Movie and Cult Filmmakers, to work on the BFI’s programme to celebrate the work of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Kapadia and Smith will showcase the artist’s most remarkable and lesser-known works to share his genius and artistry with others. These titles include the masterpiece Seven Samurai, the Shakespearean adaptation Ran, and Kurosawa’s international breakthrough Rashomon.
I had the brilliant opportunity to sit down and discuss Kurosawa’s work with these two talented figures, delving into how cinema has changed since his time and how his artistry remains influential. One objective that the Amy director held as a sacred value was the opportunity to present Kurosawa’s art the way it was supposed to: on the big screen. This format, which is at threat of dying out due to the influx of streaming websites offered in audiences’ own homes, allows for every sharp detail, vibrant use of colour, and choreographed movement to be displayed and processed magnificently.
Kapadia shares how this method of consuming film is the only one that works for him, as streaming services accessible to smartphones and tablets subtract from his spectator experience. “It’s just like seeing stuff big. That’s what we do. We want to see movies on the big screen. You know, I’m never going to be able to switch,” he exclusively told Far Out. “I fall asleep; I’m on my phone. I’m doing messages, I’m commenting on, I don’t, I don’t care what anyone says. It’s not the same watching something on your TV or your phone.”
The award-winning director then poses a strong stance for the experience of watching movies on the big screen with surround sound and in the company of fellow film enthusiasts as one group. “You know? Yeah. Cinema will outlast streamers,” Kapadaia proclaims.
He adds: “Right. And so seeing these great movies and having the opportunity to wait 20 years wherever it is, and then you finally get the chance, take the chance to see them as they’re intended.”
Kapadia identifies why this experience is so vital in cinema and its status in culture and the arts, addressing its emphasis on how creativity flows from one brilliant mind to the next, almost like a circle of life. “You realise nothing is original. Everything was done before,” he shares. “And (Kurosawa is) one of those filmmakers that created the sets of rules that every other director was inspired by.”
“And because of my age and because of my generation, and because of my kind of cinema education, I realised that I, actually, was inspired by the filmmakers who ripped off Kurosawa,” Kapadia reveals as a personal experience which illustrates this flowing exchange of artistic inspiration and approach. “I learned about Kurosawa by watching American Action films and then realising, ‘oh, someone else done exactly that scene and that line of dialogue and that concept and that idea came from Kurosawa.'”
Kurosawa is a compelling cinematic figure who combined cinema’s sole purposes of creating art, entertainment and history in one unified and incubated operation. His filmmaking approach showcased an understanding of film’s potential and influence on his audience.
This objective approach is a factor Kapadia then picks up on, as he explained: “And so that’s what’s interesting for me is to unravel kind of how you kind of get your film history and your film knowledge if you’re not kind of starting at the beginning, which very few people do.”
Kapadia’s latest film project is Creature, a cinematic capture of Akram Khan’s ballet that had an initial premiere at the BFI last year. The film is due for a theatrical release on Friday, February 24th.
Kapadia and Smith’s programme on Kurosawa will be running at the BFI until Tuesday, February 28th.
