This comment flows out from previous ones.
In cinematic terms, the trilogy looks to both East and West. West: the Hollywood western feel and tone of romantic adventure in a lawless land. Usually in a western this is rooted in landscape, the vast expanse of sky and desert that crystallizes being, which reflects Western notions of god. By contrast here, the landscape is fluid and dynamic: a recurring and important motif is transient bodies of water, and often bridges, human effort to ford time.
This is how each film ends, With these evocative shots of running waters as lovers part with the tides. The last shot leaves Musashi on a boat and we're unsure where the tides bring him next. Oh, a lot of the film is otherwise steeped in studio-lot artifice, you will often see for instance painted skies and sunsets.
The underlying visual inspiration is Japanese ukiyo-e. Buddhist- inspired in its original context, images (often of water or bridges) reflected this floating world of sorrows and melancholy yearning. We see this in Musashi's own journey of mastering self, reaching here the almost ascetic contentment of working the land.
Mizoguchi was more somberly portraying this floating world at the time. Later jidaigeki would more bitterly question the heroism and samurai devotion. Here it is a rustic, straightforward rendition in keeping with public perception of Musashi as a straight soul; so are the images, so is the drama. Handcarving, folk instead of high art. The iconography has been given specific care to emulate idyllic perceptions of Musashi's time.
So, a heroic story of romanticized legend, acted by a great Mifune, who like Musashi, had an intuitive rather than studied grasp of life. Told by referencing artistic tradition of that time which is romanticized by the same step, which is (roughly) the same distance in time to us.
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The trilogy doesn't mine in a cinematic way Musashi's rich ideas about the 'Way', expressed in writing near the end of his life and passed on to a student. Musashi of course wrote on swordsmanship. Roughly speaking, his teaching is layered in the following way: realizing the many crafts as one, right technique, right strategy, refutation of flawed strategy, void as principle. (meant in the Buddhist way)
Musashi did not intend to establish a rigidly complicated system of study, but rather quickly sketch a practical handbook for the continuation of his school. He was not a learned scholar, nor from the Buddhist standpoint a spiritual master. His writings are not artistic. When he says 'cut the opponent with a void spirit', it is not metaphor, poetry or metaphysics. He is trying to distill an experiential state of mind.
The specifics of fighting do not interest us here, an abstract look at first principles should. The idea is that fighting before we even get to blows is two viewers coming together, establishing a situation. Referred to in the books as strategy, what Musashi is talking about is ways to manipulate the psychology of the situation.
Some it is makes amazing common sense, for instance approach the other feigning a lazy or weak demeanor then close the gap in the last steps with an explosive burst, what he calls 'getting someone drunk'. There are all sorts of this if you read carefully; 'passing on' mental states, creating mental states in the other, picturing yourself as the other, all to control and direct perception.
It seems what rules in these and other instances is the enigmatic 'twofold gaze', perception and sight. What can this be? Musashi does not explain, but I think it's this; grasping the difference and, ultimately, the inseparability of seeing and perception as the whole stageplay carried on in the mind's eye. Actually experience this. This is a bit like: sight is the calm lake before you while perception, the fact that a self is actively engaged in perceiving, a self which can experience fear or arrogance, is constantly throwing pebbles in that lake, distorting the surface.
We have similar notions in the West of how the latter bends the first. But Musashi is worth studying for the purely intuitive immediacy of the imports, it was after all something he learned as a matter of life and death.
This is observing dynamics instead of trying to decipher intent, theorizing. Fixing the eyes but not stopping the mind coming and going, cultivating an inquisitive and broad spirit. The idea is that none of this is an idea, but something that can be practiced and observed. That's also the Tao. The practice of perceiving the inner self of things through the outside form.
