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Molly Cowan-Johnson.
AnonymousOnce the samurai reach the village, we get more of a sense of village life.
Because of the townspeoples' filial piety, all of its ultimate decisions are made by a blind old patriarch known as the Grandad. When we first meet this character, he tells of a previous time when the samurai were in power, idolizing these brave defenders of right. We see the town alarm that is just a hammer and a piece of wood. We see the father-daughter dynamic, as Manzo tells his daughter Shino that she must cut her long beautiful hair and pose as a boy, a shame as great if not greater than a samurai cutting his topknot. Incidentally, the townspeople disapprove of Manzo's actions because he is thinking about his needs over those of the village. And in Kikuchiyo's anti-samurai rant, we learn about the darkside of the heroized warriors and their tragic taking advantage of farmers. Just more details we can use to illustrate the period.
Incidentally, I'd seen this movie years ago and before watching it this time, I wondered if the acting in the film would be too overwrought for students to take seriously. Shino wails and beats her breast when she is asked to cut her hair. Kikuchiyo screams and spits and rails. Even laughing at the jokes seems to go on too long. But after this viewing, I think the acting works only because the cinematography is so grand as well. In every scene, in every shot, the visuals match the power of the performances. Yohei and the rest of the villagers would seem to be overacting in any other setting, but against a brilliantly composed deep focus wide shot of the town, it seems to be just right.
AnonymousI know exactly what you mean. When Kikuchiyo, a character who has been little more than a clown and a drunkard for the whole movie, bursts out with this heartfelt monologue in an off-kilter helmet and armor that doesn't fit, it should be over the top. But instead, thanks to Kurosawa's beautiful trading off between close-ups on him and reaction shots of the other samurai (and of course due to Mifune's incredible performance), it is appropriate for the situation.
Speaking of, even though every shot is breathtaking, they are not "art for art's sake." Every scene drives the story. It's as if he figures out what he needs to explain to move the story along, and then makes it as beautiful as he can.
So we haven't talked about the love story at all, between Shino and the rich kid Katsushiro. At first it's just a kind of puppy love romp but as they grow fonder their relationship raises some issues that might be valuable to discuss with students. Shino is a peasant farmer and Katsushiro is rather wealthy. She could marry above her station but it wouldn't be right for him to marry down. I see all sorts of Language Arts parallels to stories we teach. And if he wouldn't marry her, he could take her as a concubine but we get the sense he probably couldn't afford to support her. So if they were to, ahem, consummate their relationship she would in effect be ruined for any other man in this society.
That's what makes Shino's panting, supine, almost accusatorily seductive pose in the flowers so shocking! Remember a kiss couldn't be shown on Japanese movies until well into the American occupation after WWII because it was seen as something that should be confined to the bedroom.
I think it could be used as evidence that certain narrative structures transcend cultures.
Also, sociocultural issues as a way of understanding society and/or culture.
thoughts?
m@x
AnonymousI think the love story's okay, but the guy is kind of a wuss. It's interesting, did you notice that there aren't a lot of point-of-view shots in the movie? Not like in a Hitchcock or something. But the character who has the most P.O.V.'s is Katsushiro, the young lover. Is Kurosawa trying to make us sympathize with this character over all the others? Or is this character representative of some sort of model of virtue in Japanese medieval culture?
I also like how the director is able to change the speed of the action on a dime. He's always moderating the pace to adjust the emotional weight of a scene. When the samurai charge off on their raid of the bandit-town, there's that weird moment with Rikichi's doomed wife. Did you notice the Noh flute? And almost as soon as I remembered I noticed her movements, slow and deliberate, where the slight turning of the head could speak volumes.
AnonymousYou wanna talk music? I counted five, count 'em, FIVE leitmotifs in the movie: bandits, peasants, samurai, Kikuchiyo, and Shino. They waft in and out, always furthering the story. Sometimes, like right after the mock duel where Kyuzo kills that other samurai, they'll be in a minor key. It's like the Brady Bunch. Bwanh-bwanh-bwadaaaanh.
By the way, just who are the bandits supposed to represent? I mean, I guess they're supposed to be warlords, but they seem more like ronin who have just decided to band together and live off the fat of the land without their lords, a sort of outlaw class. And at the end, during the final battle, they start to become human, when in so many adventure films the bad guys are just this faceless evil mass that needs to be killed. We eventually see they are as wretched as the farmers. Every actor, from bit player to star to extra standing in the third row, is in character and acting their hearts out.
So maybe they're more like the cast-offs of the warlord society. Ignoble samurai.
hmmm,
m@x
AnonymousYet at the end, the fallen samurai lie in the same graveyard with their fallen farmer comrades. You ask who the bandits represent I wonder who the peasants represent. Perhaps in 1950s Japan the average moviegoer would watch this story of a group of average farmers working together to reconstruct their lives after being defeated by foreign invaders and seen themselves? But then Kurosawa plays a dirty trick and shows us that the peasants are exactly as Kikuchiyo says they are. That they have secretly been hoarding all along. So what's he saying? Is it pity or contempt?
Who can say? I'm off to bed.
AnonymousBook C-SPAN 2, just had a conference from Cambridge, Mass. on:"Mao:the Unknown Story".
The show was moderated by Harvard University, Center for Human Rights Policy Director--Michael Igntieff. Co-authors:Jung Change and Jon Holliday, both spoke and fielded questions from the audience. A number of interesting topics were discussed. Jon spoke of paradox in China. As PERSONAL freedom seems to be increasing, POLITICAL control is tightening(for instance, it bothers him that western counties have sold China the technology needed to control the internet in China).
Jung Chang spoke to the fact that the selection of leaders in China is completely secret.
This book has of course been strictly banned in China. Any foreign magazines carrying reviews of the book were either not allowed in the country, or like the London Economist Review Magazine, was sold with the page of the review of the book ripped out.
Jung spoke of being raised in a country where Mao ruled through a 'cult of personality", using a combination of terror, deprivation of information and leader worship to keep firm control. She remembers a song that she and other children sang:"mother's close, father's close, but neither is as close as Chairman Mao". She said that this combination of brainwashing and fear kept them under his power.
There was some talk of how (as we learned about in our last class session) the communists didn't really do much as far as fighting the Japanese.
A piece of info. I had never heard, was that Chiang Kai Shek didn't destroy the Red Army in exchange for his sons saftey--who was being held hostage by Stalin in Russia!
clay dubeI just wanted to cheer the two of you for your lively debate, please take on other movies as well. I think the he said, she said back and forth would work with students as well. One could readily offer them multiple reviews of the same film, including reviews with their origins in languages other than English (see Asia Pacific Arts http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu for some of this on Chinese, Korean, and Japanese films).
AnonymousI am responding to a previous post about Shall We Dance. I had seen the movie a long time ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. I found it interesting how the repressed businessman was experiencing frustration with his life (mid-life crisis?) and then sees the beautiful dance teacher and decides to take lessons. What really intrigued me was that it was not the typically hollywood story where the dance teacher and the businessman fall in love at the end and live happily ever after.
I really enjoyed this film. Then I heard there was going to be a remake with Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere. Yuck! I haven't seen it but I'm sure the hollywood version would not give this story justice. The actor in the Japanese version plays the awkward and shy businessman with so much vulnerablility that you see that it's more than learning to dance that is happening with him. Richard Gere? He's not shy, vulnerable or any of the above.
Sometimes when hollywood finds a foreign film and remakes it it works. "The Ring" for example, was a huge success in the U.S. although many have told me the Japanese version is better.
Sometimes when hollywood remakes a foreign film it's awful. La Femme Nikita was an awesome French film that turned into a ho-hum melodramatic drama called "Point of No Return".
See the Japanese version of Shall we Dance, you will not be disappointed!!
AnonymousI also haven't seen the American remake of this film. I just assumed that there was no way that it could even come close to the original.
I saw the original a long time ago and I really enjoyed it. I thought of the movie just recently in one of our class lectures. The lecturer mentioned the Japanese work ethic that dictates that men stay at work for at least 10 hours a day (even if they are not really doing any work) and after that go out with their co-workers for drinks. This remained me of the film and how it appeared that the main character was only home to sleep and then even that seemed only to be 5-6 hours.
Little did I know that the enjoyable film taught me about Japanese gender and corporate culture.
AnonymousFound an interesting article on "Memoirs of a Geisha." The actresses went to "geisha boot camp" for six weeks before they started filming.
Some of the facets of being a geisha:
To play the shamisen instrument, they have to pluck thin silk wires that are painful on the fingertips. They press their fingers into bowls of ice to numb the nerves, eventually their hands become callused.
They wear thick-platformed sandals that lift them several inches off the ground, and the footwear is cantilevered beneath the toes that results in a concave area that complicates the balance. The sandals virtually hobble you.
The Geisha wore their hair pulled into tight buns. The hair was pulled so tightly that they went bald in the center of their heads. They had to sleep on blocks, because the hair cannot be undone on a nightly basis. Nowadays they use wigs.
The ribage is cinched by an obi. The middrift is wrapped very tightly with cords that cut into you. The obi is very heavy and you can only sit in a certain way.
Todays geishas are not expected to sell their virginity. When their career is over they go on to teach or marry, and lead sociable lives.
Interesting!
AnonymousAs of Sunday 1/26, the Chinese government has not approved the release of "Memoirs of a Geisha." It seems Chinese officials are worried that the sight of ethnic Chinese actresses portraying Japanese geishas may spark a public backlash. "many people in mainland China are still upset over Japan's World War II-era military atrocities." Illegal copies of the movie, are of course, already available.
AnonymousI agree. The story left me feeling a bit unsettled inside. Too much build up with lots of holes after Sayuri came to America. I haven't seen the movie, but since movies aren't usually as good as the novels they are based upon, I'm afraid I'll be even more disappointed.
I did enjoy the language the geisha used. Their polite way of speaking was amusing.
i need to read Liza Dalby's book.
AnonymousI'm reading "Memoirs" right now. I don't know much about the book or the author. Can anyone enlighten me about its past? Obviously the movie is in theatres now, but I refuse to see it until I have finished the book.
I guess I am asking for insight about geisha life and how they were treated by other women in Japanese society. Were the geisha respected by other women? Did these women have children while working as geishas? I have so much to learn here.
jem
AnonymousI'm doing a book review project for extra credit. Its for high school students
Its at http://ecr.lausd.k12.ca.us/staff/jdelarme/Book%20Review%20Assignment.htm
As for as books about Asia, I'm including these books I've been recommend/ or I have read
Bonesetter's Daughter
Botchan
Dragon Empress
Emperor of China
Family
Hiroshima
Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood
Red Star Over China
Son of the Revolution
Soong Dynasty
Still Life With Rice
Vietcong Memoir
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
Wild Swans
clay dubeLiza Dalby, the American who became a geisha as part of her doctoral dissertation fieldwork, published Geisha in 1998. It is currently on sale for $10 at the UC Press website. Check out the site for reviews.