In 2022, Oliver Hermanus directed a film – Living. Scripted by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro and starring the British character actor Bill Nighy, it is set in post-war England and revolves around a public servant diagnosed with a terminal illness. He seeks to correct a frustrated life of quiet despair by a final redemptive act - building a children's playground in a poor neighbourhood which has been thwarted repeatedly by a sclerotic bureaucracy schooled in saying 'no'.
The film is a remake of the 1952 film Ikiru directed by Akira Kurosawa, which was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. The remake that speaks to a pitiful lack of originality and creativity in many arts today is a pale imitation of the original regarded rightfully as one of Kurosawa's seminal works.
Ikiru features an extraordinary death scene which director Hermanus restages. The original sets a benchmark in portraying cinematic death. Leaving aside the comic book bang-bang shoot’em upblood and gore of action thrillers, film depiction of dying is difficult. Prurient lingering, overly graphic footage or cowardly disavowal is hard to avoid. The choice between bathos and pathos is delicate. The same holds true for sex scenes in films.
There are a few interesting death scenes in films. Ridley Scott's ending of his 1982 Bladerunner – the Tears in Rain sequence – is noteworthy. It is a short monologue spoken by replicant Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer): "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die."
The frequently referenced speech speaks to a surprisingly insightful exploration of what it means to die. Everything that an individual has seen or experienced is expunged as if it never happened. The universality of the words on death, our common fate, is haunting. Written by David Peoples, Hauer altered the dialogue to create the moving death soliloquy.
Its power is enhanced by the framing and symbols within the sequence. Batty saves Deckard (Harrison Ford) who intends to kill him. Batty's words as he rescues Deckard in an act of grace are telling: "Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave."
It captures the terror of death which affects all of us. Batty also appears to be holding a white dove. The literary reference to Wagner is intriguing. His hand is pierced by a nail. The crucifixion allusions are potent.
At the other extreme is the hilarious death scene in Blake Edwards' otherwise execrable and unfunny 1968 comedy The Party designed around Sellers' improvisational talents. In the sequence known as the Bugler Who Wouldn’t Die, Hrundi V Bakshi (portrayed by Sellers in blackface makeup which would raise politically correct hackles today) takes forever to die after repeatedly being shot and after the director yells "cut" in an effort to get more screen time to display his thespian virtuosity. Hrundi also accidentally blows up an enormous fort set rigged with explosives, ruining the film. It is humorous but not weighty.
In his magisterial trilogy, Bengali film director Satyajit Ray created several powerful death scenes. They all involve the death of the family of the central character – Apu. The death of Durga, his sister, is framed conventionally by a violent storm. The deaths of his parents are entirely on another plane. The boy's ill mother, Sarbajaya, is in her garden as night falls. The background fades until only fireflies can be seen. Then, they too fade into the black signifying her death. As Apu's father Harihar lies dying, there is a loud clap. The camera captures pigeons taking flight as he gasps his final breath, releasing his spirit.
In Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, the death of protagonist Watanabe Kenji (played magnificently by Shimura Takashi) is magical. He sits on a swing in the park, which the dying bureaucrat fought to build. It is snowing. Watanabe peacefully contemplates the playground which is his final achievement. The swing is then filmed moving backward and forward empty signalling his death. The soundtrack – Kenji whistling a mournful traditional song –continues to play.
The death completes a cycle. The initial images in Ikiru is a close-up of an X-ray photo of Watanabe's stomach cancer and his stunned face as he realises his fate. The final sequence shows him also alone, without family or friends, without recognition or reward, but at peace with himself.
Living is preparation for death. Hamlet recognised the need to be ready for the end, which comes when it chooses or is chosen. Ikiru ironically means to live.
Feuilleton is historically a part of a European newspaper or magazine devoted to material designed to entertain the general reader. Extraneus, in Latin ‘an outsider’, is a former financier and author. A reasonable club cricketer, he took up a career in money markets because he wasn't good enough to be a professional cricketer, needed to make a living and no one offered him a job as a cricket commentator or allowed him to pursue his other passions.
