Talk:John Sturges

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"Samurai sword"?

The paragraph about him meeting Kurosawa and receiving a "samurai sword" is unsourced, so I should just cut the whole paragraph. But "samurai sword" is especially problematic because it's almost certainly inaccurate. Popular western media -- including possibly Sturges himself in interviews -- refer to any single-edged, curved Japanese blade as a "samurai sword" even though probably the vast majority of such swords had no connection whatsoever to the "samurai". The idea that Kurosawa -- himself a descendant of samurai -- would hand over a priceless family heirloom to a fellow director who made a film he liked is unbelievable almost to the point of absurdity, so if he gave him any such item it was probably a sword he purchased for the occasion -- no doubt at great expense, but still not the same as sacrificing his family's heritage to someone who just happened to make a good movie. Finding sources for "samurai sword" is not hard, but finding sources that meet the requirement of WP:EXTRAORDINARY would be pretty damn hard. Given that what almost certainly happened was that Kurosawa presented Sturges with a common, purchasable Japanese sword rather than something that could be accurately called a "samurai sword", what would be great is if we could find a source that actually specified this fact rather than parroting the same, inaccurate phrase "samurai sword". Likely, if this originates in an interview with Sturges, he himself used that phrase and it has just been repeated throughout various media with no fact-checking on what exactly was meant by "samurai sword".

It would violate WP:NOR for me to alter "samurai sword" to read "Japanese sword" in the article on this basis, but it violates WP:EXTRAORDINARY to say Kurosawa presented Sturges with an authentic "samurai sword".

And it violates WP:SLANG to claim that WP:UE and WP:COMMONNAME allow us to use the phrase "samurai sword" even though it is inaccurate and gives the (almost certainly false) impression that Kurosawa, a man of buke stock himself, presented an authentic samurai sword to Sturges.

So the best course of action now is to remove the clause until a reliable source can be located that allows us to include it in its proper context. (Perhaps the original "Sturges interview" I am hypothesizing exists, and stating something like Sturges claimed in an interview that Kurosawa had presented him with a "samurai sword", and that this had been one of the proudest moments of his career.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 17:39, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I do not think this story is "not true". I just think we shouldn't be blindly quoting it per WP:NOTTRUTH. I think that, in all probability, one of the following variants occurred:

1. Kurosawa, knowing his film had been remade as a western, felt very honoured and either he or someone around him (the studio?) bought a decorative sword that no doubt cost a pretty penny, but had been forged at some point after the abolition of the buke class (the "samurai"). "Mass-produced" is the wrong word, but "samurai sword" is worse. He presented this to Sturges at a formal meeting at which the film was shown, but Kurosawa had not made the decision to present the sword to Sturges based on his appreciation of the film (he hadn't seen it yet).
2. Same as 1., but Kurosawa had seen the film independently and was impressed by it; he decided, based on his appreciation of the film, that he should buy the sword as a gift for Sturges, and presented it to him at a formal meeting at which the film was shown (but Kurosawa had of course seen the film some time earlier).
3. Same as 1., but the film was not shown at the meeting; it was an arranged meeting in which Kurosawa presented Sturges with the sword; Kurosawa saw the film at some later date. In this case it would be misleading to say Kurosawa presented Sturges with the sword because he was impressed with the film, because he saw the film after presenting him with the sword.
4. Same as 3., but Kurosawa never saw the film. This is the least likely of these options, and I don't personally believe it to be the case (it's probably easily falsifiable -- I haven't checked) but it doesn't really matter since for the purposes of citing the anecdote in the article space it is the same as 3. (in both, Kurosawa had not actually seen the film until after he gave Sturges the sword).
5. Same as 2., but (as in 3. and 4.) the film was not shown at the meeting.

Other versions of the story are various degrees of implausible: Kurosawa, a descendant of samurai, donated his family's priceless legacy to an American filmmaker because he liked the movie (or just because he appreciated the gesture of remaking his film); Kurosawa happened to have a commemorative sword (with no connection the samurai) on him and gave it to Sturges on the spur of the moment when he attended a private screening of the film with Sturges because he was just that impressed; etc., etc.

I don't think we should cite the anecdote, either here or on the The Magnificent Seven article, until a source can be located that gives more detail. I think it's quite likely that we'll never really know the full story, because, while one of the above five options might have been true, all the sources ultimately go back to a (much later?) interview with Sturges, in which he simply stated that Kurosawa liked the movie and presented him with "a samurai sword" (Sturges's word?) and that this was the proudest moment of his life. If all of it goes back to an interview with Sturges, then I guess finding that interview and citing it, saying Sturges later recalled in an interview with XYZ that Kurosawa, on seeing The Magnificent Seven was so impressed that he presented Sturges with "a samurai sword"; Sturges referred to this as his proudest achievement. or something like that.

But we need the source first; so far the only source that has been located is insufficient for this statement, and indeed for any statement that belongs on Wikipedia since "Film critic Desmond Ryan wrote a retrospective of the film in 2001 in which he wrote that Kurosawa liked the film and gave Sturges a sword" is a violation of WP:INDISCRIMINATE. (One or two random Wikipedia editors believing the point to be "notable" without any qualification for this claim does not overrule WP:INDISCRIMINATE.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:04, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I searched and was unable to locate the original source. However, I did find this interesting comment on an unreliable website (h2g2):[1]

"Kurosawa himself was somewhat ambiguous in his opinion of the film. In 1980 he was quoted in People magazine as saying that 'Gunmen are not samurai'. While not an endorsement, neither is this statement a condemnation of Sturges' film. Studio publicity claims that Kurosawa had sent a katana sword to Sturges shortly after the film's release, expressing his appreciation of the film. There are reasons to doubt this story: the same publicists also claim that Seven Samurai won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1955, even though it didn't; the award went to Samurai, aka Miyamoto Musashi (though Seven Samurai was nominated in the following year's awards - for Art Direction and Costume Design), and years later executive producer Walter Mirisch recalled that the gift was a Kabuki doll."

KateWishing (talk) 16:53, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

@KateWishing: Huh. That's interesting. I think the story about the sword should be cited in this article, with maybe a word or two about Kurosawa potentially having an ambivalent view of the film, with a more detailed discussion reserved for the The Magnificent Seven article. Any thoughts? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:54, 19 May 2015 (UTC)