as "quiet and undemanding" on set as he was for Dodes'ka-den. As an example, she explained how during a nine-minute scene that had to be shot in one take, Junzaburō Ban had trouble memorizing all of his dialogue and caused numerous retakes. Nogami said "the old Kurosawa" would have lost his temper and started yelling, but instead he just gently said "let's try it again." and eventually praised Ban when the shot was finally completed. Nogami also related how Fujiwara was well-known for not being able to memorize his lines. While filming an eight-minute scene with Watanabe, Kurosawa finally had had enough and had Nogami give Fujiwara verbal prompts. Nogami said her voice was hard to remove from the final tape. The drawings that cover the walls of Rokuchan's house were initially drawn by Kurosawa at home. But he decided they were too "grown-up", and had schoolchildren draw them instead. Title The film's title "Dodeska-den" are the playacting "words" uttered by the boy character to mimic the sound of his imaginary trolley car in motion. It is not a commonly used onomatopoeic word in the Japanese vocabulary, but was invented by author Shūgorō Yamamoto in (A City Without Seasons), the original novel on which the film was based. In standard Japanese language, this sound would be described as gatan goton, equivalent to "clickity-clack" in English. Reception Dodes'ka-den was Kurosawa's first film in color. Domestically, it was both a commercial and critical failure upon its initial release. Abroad, however, the film gained an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film in the 44th Academy Awards. Its Japanese reception, among other things, sent Kurosawa into a deep depression, and in 1971 he attempted suicide. Despite continuing to draw mixed responses, Dodes'ka-den received votes from two artists – Sion Sono and the Dardenne brothers – in the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the world's greatest films. Awards The film won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association. Documentary A significant short 36-minute documentary was made by Toho Masterworks concerning this film by Kurosawa: Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create (Toho Masterworks, 2002) See also List of submissions to the 44th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film List of Japanese submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Explanatory notes References Bibliography External links Dodesukaden at the Japanese Movie Database 1970 films 1970 drama