The movie Jon Favreau called a “masterpiece”
Hollywood has regularly shown itself to be cyclical in a variety of ways, with one of Jon Favreau‘s favourite movies displaying just how far and wide that sentiment stretches across the industry.
When the actor and filmmaker made his breakthrough first as the writer of Swingers and then the writer and director of Made – in which he co-starred with Vince Vaughn on both occasions – nobody could have predicted the seismic influence he would end up having on mainstream cinema when his small-scale independent debuts as a creative arrived on the scene.
In fact, that remained true even when he was welcomed into the studio system, with Christmastime classic Elf and whimsical fantasy Zathura: A Space Adventure hinting that independent film may have never been his true calling at all. When Iron Man came along, launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe and shifted the blockbuster paradigm forever, that became more apparent than ever.
While 2014’s street-level comedy Chef may have marked a return to his roots, Favreau further embedded himself in the Disney machine by helming the live-action remakes of The Jungle Book and The Lion King before being anointed as the small screen steward of Star Wars through his position as the creator, writer, executive producer, and occasional director of The Mandalorian.
George Lucas’ 1977 original was heavily indebted to and inspired by the work of Akira Kurosawa, with Seven Samurai a particularly important touchstone. It’s fitting, then, that Favreau would name the seminal adventure as one of his favourite features in an interview with Goop, given the fingerprints it left all over his own contributions to a galaxy far, far away.
Calling it “Kurosawa’s masterpiece” and “a real study in storytelling and cinematography”, much like Lucas, Favreau has never been shy in acknowledging the shadow cast by Seven Samurai over his own repeated forays into the sweeping sci-fi sandbox of Star Wars.
The fourth episode of The Mandalorian‘s first season – ‘The Sanctuary’ – is where that DNA is most prevalent, with a small band of villagers being defended from the villains by a troupe of hardened warriors gathered together to ensure their safety. Favreau admitted that both Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven were at the forefront of his thoughts when crafting the story, not that it needed to be signposted.
There’s a reason why Favreau’s series – and Star Wars at large – is often referred to in the broadest terms as samurai Westerns, with Kurosawa’s impact having been felt across the franchise for almost half a century. Lucas was inspired by the maestro’s work, while Favreau was inspired by both Kurosawa and Star Wars, which eventually culminated in the filmmaker being given the opportunity to combine the two in a professional capacity decades down the line.
