At first glance, one of the more fertile types of relations has to be what I call the “father-son” relationship, as exemplified by Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, or John Ford and John Wayne. Kurosawa and Mifune made 16 films together, which would change cinema’s face forever. Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Ikiru are monuments of world cinema and although both men had prolific careers independently, their work would never be as awe-inspiring again as during their extraordinary collaboration. Kurosawa nurtured Mifune’s talent by writing diverse and challenging parts for him, molding him into the cinematic giant he would become. When the actor, a heavy drinker like Kurosawa, would race around drunk in his sports car after shooting for the day was done, it was Kurosawa who had to stop him and send him to bed. After the separation, the director, by now a sort of éminence grise, would comment on Mifune with a blend of admiring chagrin and disillusioned longing, while his once favorite actor would wait for nothing more than a final
“Bogart felt the most comfortable with Huston in the director’s chair because he pushed him to go beyond himself (and also because both men had a strong inclination towards booze), but he couldn’t bear the director’s time consuming work method that kept him from home, once calling Huston a “bastard,” who had been “dicking around” long enough” approval from Kurosawa. Like two magnets with positive charges, father figure and prodigal son gravitated towards each other but were always driven apart before they could reach the other. There are myriad parallels between John Ford and John Wayne. Fittingly, Ford was a direct influence on Kurosawa’s work. Therefore, it is not surprising that he had a son figure as well; he discovered Wayne at a young age, made him into a superstar, and would later be reliant on him as his protégé to produce his best work. The 21 films they made together included game changing classics like Stagecoach and The Searchers, and just like Mifune, Wayne would embody the