“Happy 59th birthday, Vince Gilligan!
Vince Gilligan explains how he got the idea for "Breaking Bad" (2008-13) & it's similarities to Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru" (1952):
"Gilligan: I'm not sure where the idea for 'Breaking Bad' came from. I remember the exact moment in which the idea hit me. But as to where the idea came from, I'm not quite sure. I suspect it had something to do with the fact that I was - when I came up with the idea for "Breaking Bad," I was about to turn 40 years old. And, perhaps, I was thinking in terms of, you know, an impending midlife crisis. And to that end, I think Walter White, at least in the early seasons of "Breaking Bad," is a man who's suffering from, perhaps, the world's worst midlife crisis. And although - actually, to be accurate, I suppose, in the first episode, he finds out it's more of an end-of-life crisis than a midlife crisis. But maybe that's what was inspiring me.
Interviewer: Well, you know, the implication in "Breaking Bad" is that if you got a medical death sentence that you would have the potential of totally changing your life and your personality and doing things you never would have dreamed of doing before. Have you asked yourself that question, whether - if you got a diagnosis like Walt gets at the beginning of lung cancer if you would become a different person?
Gilligan: I have asked myself that question a lot. I certainly would hope - and I assume I would not do anything illegal like Walt does. But...
Interviewer: Heck, no (laughter).
Gilligan: It's, you know - heck, no (laughter). There's a - but, you know, there's a time-honored - it's a time-honored story, in fact. And in some sense, the Kurosawa movie 'Ikiru' (1952) if I'm pronouncing that right - and my apologies to Japanese-speaking listeners if I'm butchering it.
But there's a wonderful Kurosawa movie from the '50s in which a man - mid-level, very much a Walter-White type or rather Walter White, I suppose, inspired by this man - this man is very much a mid-level, corporate guy who finds out he's dying of cancer. And in the last months of his life, what he chooses to do is a very good thing. It's to build a playground, a small playground in Tokyo for the children in his neighborhood. And this haunting ending of this movie is this man swinging on a swing set in this playground that he's managed to build after a surprisingly hard go of it. And the snow is coming down. And he's singing a Japanese children's song. And it's just haunting and beautiful. And, of course, "Breaking Bad" is anything but that. It's the flip side of that. It's a man doing terrible things once he is freed by this knowledge that he does not have long for this world.
But I think what the two stories share, in a sense, is the idea that, if we find out the exact expiration date on our lives, if we found out when we were going to be checking out, would that free us up to do bold and courageous things? - either good or bad things - hopefully, good things. And I think there's a lot of that involved in "Breaking Bad.""
(‘Breaking Bad: Vince Gilligan on Meth and Morals’, Terry Gross, NPR, 2011)”
@DannyDrinksWine
