As I watched Yojimbo the other day, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen its style of humor somewhere before. It wasn’t until I was driving home after class that it hit me: it’s the exact same style of humor as is in the movie Army of Darkness.
What’s interesting about this style of humor is that it is more than just scene after scene of severed limbs and pools of blood. Like most films, they both feature a core-group of characters that the viewer is supposed to care about. Were this not the case, there would be no one (save perhaps the protagonist) with whom the audience could really connect.
In both films, the ability to elicit a humorous response from the violence hinges on the director’s ability to convince the audience that those being killed are utterly devoid of value.
In Yojimbo this is accomplished by depicting the members of both gangs as ruthless thugs. The rank-and-file gang members don’t have families to mourn them. They’re greedy. They kidnap. They kill innocent people. And they seem to have a darn good time in the process.
In Army of Darkness this is accomplished by, well, Zombies. Let’s be honest: nobody likes a Zombie.
It’s nice being the only guy in town with a gun.
There are other similarities as well. Both films take place in a desolate frontier setting. They both pit firearms against traditional melee weapons. They both feature a Lone Wolf protagonist who is compelled, somewhat against his will, to intervene and help the innocent. (In Army of Darkness, the hero is played by Bruce Campbell, the man with the single greatest autobiography title in the history of the written word.) And in both films the opposition is ultimately overcome, allowing the protagonist to head off on his own toward his next ordeal.
One thing I find fascinating is the unintentional manner in which these similarities arose. To my knowledge, Sam Rami wasn’t making a deliberate attempt to invoke Kurosawa’s style. Army of Darkness (like its predecessor Evil Dead II) was in many ways a spoof of zombie slasher genre; the orginial Evil Dead included. To the extent that it featured gore, it was usually done so in the name of increasing a scene’s comedic effect. Yet by placing himself outside of and somewhat in opposition to his genre, a B-movie director comes in many ways to occupy the same space as one of the most revered figures in modern filmmaking.
Pretty cool if you ask me.