159 Red Beard

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#76 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Jan 05, 2017 7:45 pm

knives wrote:Sausage, your argument above is largely why I find Dodes ka'den to be the most interesting of Kurosawa's colour films (though I find it is also the best use of colour along with Dreams perhaps because he still had his eyes for the most part). I wouldn't say the film necessarily succeeds, but Kurosawa expresses this complex idea of natural pettiness with occasional human goodness is such a way that at least for me it is impossible to dismiss the film the way I feel comfortable doing to some of the other colour films.
dda1996a wrote:Would you consider The Bad Sleep Well humane though?
SpoilerShow
I love that film, but unlike High and Low which does find hope in its ending, it ends in tragedy with the supposed villain prevailing and Mifune dying.
@knives, do I infer that you haven't seen Ran yet?
What? Of course I have.
It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember the artifice gets in the way of the movie. It's so stylized that the characters feel like vehicles for ideas more than actual people. This broadened, stylized approach works better in an epic than what's supposed to be an intimate portrait of humanity. Kurosawa always had this tendency (his Dostoevskian didacticism is apparent all through his career), but it really overruns things here. It's a weird movie. Seems almost like it wants to be an anime.

I still like it, tho'. Not as much as the three films on either side of it, but more than, say, similar failures like The Idiot or forgettable movies like Scandal and One Wonderful Sunday.

I feel bad that you think Ran and Kagemusha are worth dismissing. I can understand someone not liking them, but I feel they're worth a bit more than dismissal.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#77 Post by knives » Thu Jan 05, 2017 8:03 pm

All of those are reasons I both like and can't accept the film. It's a really interesting use of colour, theatrical almost like Immortal Story though more excessive. I actually find the Dostoyevsky element works in this case. A simple portrait would either be unbearable in its miserablism or come across as a quaint social picture divorced from its subject. Using an epic stylization, to run with your statement, gives the situation this cosmic weight which makes political questions of depicting the poor seem sort of moot. It's contradictory and doesn't succeed, but I enjoy it as a novel solution to a particular set of problems inherit in depicting people different from yourself. I'll also heavily co-sign on the anime thing. There's been so many points in this conversation where I wanted to say cartoony.

As to the dismissal comment that was with almost only Dersu Uzala in mind. It basically avoids all of the things I just complimented Dodes ka'den for and I honestly feel it is Kurosawa's most tone deaf cinema de papa type picture. I'm much more agnostic toward Ran and Kagemusha.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#78 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jan 05, 2017 8:59 pm

ando -- I don't recall Red Beard having any Dostoevsky connection.

I guess one could say "No Regrets" was woman-centered, at least more so than any other AK film -- but one still has to deal with AK's own male gaze. Though women are more central to more Mizoguchi films, I'd say none of those were actually woman-centered -- certainly nowhere to the extent of dozens of Naruse films. I guess my point was that "Red Beard" has a much larger than usual array of genuinely interesting woman (plus girl) characters. I do seem to recall that the "calling down the well" scene exists (initially at least) outside the purview of the main male characters.

The big fight is necessary to shake Noboru fully free of his misconceptions of who is boss was (and where he was coming from).

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#79 Post by knives » Thu Jan 05, 2017 9:45 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:ando -- I don't recall Red Beard having any Dostoevsky connection.
A story of his is the source to the whole whorehouse plot which leads into that action sequence.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#80 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jan 05, 2017 9:50 pm

knives wrote:
Michael Kerpan wrote:ando -- I don't recall Red Beard having any Dostoevsky connection.
A story of his is the source to the whole whorehouse plot which leads into that action sequence.
I wonder what one -- it's not ringing any bells...

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#81 Post by knives » Thu Jan 05, 2017 10:07 pm

I think the name is something like Humiliating Insult or something like that.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#82 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jan 05, 2017 10:39 pm

knives wrote:I think the name is something like Humiliating Insult or something like that.
Found it - The Humiliated and the Insulted (alternatively, vice versa): https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dostoyevsky/d72in/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#83 Post by ando » Fri Jan 06, 2017 12:19 am

Michael Kerpan wrote: I do seem to recall that the "calling down the well" scene exists (initially at least) outside the purview of the main male characters..
Yes, that's part of my point; the audience is not privy to its origins until Noboru and Red Beard are jarred with its announcement. And it's a genuinely spooky effect. But it seems outside of the control of either doctor, alien to the narrative and outside of our sympathy which has been aligned with that of the doctors. It's only after we understand that they're attempting to bring back the spirit of the little boy that the disquieting effect subsides. Of course, after Otoyo joins the cooks in the wailing Red Beard comes out to inform them that the medicine has "left Chobo's body". Felt almost like a dismissal or statement designed to put an end to whatever ritual the women felt moved to perform. Didn't it? Like, OK bitches, you can cut the noise now...

Perhaps I've overstressed the point but why have Noboru linger over them wailing down the well (aside from, Well, it's his story.)?

Image

That amazingly seemless tracking shot of the women wailing into the well, down the well and into the reflection at the bottom is a show stopper.

Image

It"s a beautiful sequence but since we've learned that little Chobo will recover just before the shot I'm at a loss as to what audience reaction the women's reflections is meant to elicit. Is it meant to show up the women as superstitious since all that really exists at the bottom (via their reflections) are their reverbs? It's one of the examples, I imagine, of the existential questions that K is supposed to have posed.

Oh, and yes, the rescue of Otoyo part of the narrative comes from the Dostoevsky novel, The Insulted and Humiliated.
Last edited by ando on Fri Jan 06, 2017 10:38 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#84 Post by dda1996a » Fri Jan 06, 2017 4:19 am

We've talked a lot about the films of his you dislike, but what Kurosawa film do you regard as his best? For me it has always been High and Low, as the moral decision in its first half and it's economic reasoning in the second providing a basis for Kurosawa to create a dazzling two part film. The first a claustrophobic one room moral drama, the second a masterful police investigation, which culminates in such a beautiful ending.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#85 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:34 am

ando wrote:I'm at a loss as to what audience reaction the women's reflections are meant to elicit. Is it meant to show up the women as superstitious since all that really exists at the bottom (via their reflections) are their reverbs? It's one of the examples, I imagine, of the existential questions that K is supposed to have posed.
I'm curious about why Kurosawa wants to put us, the audience, at the bottom of the well . That's the effect of the shot down the well: with the reflections, we seem to be looking up, being called back to the world by the women. I don't have time to unpack it, but it seems important to what's going on here.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#86 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Jan 06, 2017 4:35 pm

ando -- All I can say is that _I_ certainly did not react to this well sequence in the way you did. ;-) (And the calling back of the spirit started _before_ Red Beard noted that the tide had turned).

dda -- Red Beard is MY favorite AK (albeit tied with the "unsuccessful" Idiot).

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#87 Post by ando » Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:36 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:ando -- All I can say is that _I_ certainly did not react to this well sequence in the way you did. ;-) (And the calling back of the spirit started _before_ Red Beard noted that the tide had turned).
Cool. Yes, we've acknowledged that the wailing started before RB announced that the tide had turned but my point was that he felt obliged to give the message about the poison having left Chobo's body so that the women could cease their wailing. His message had far more to do with what the women were doing than with Chobo's recovery, which was a good sign but hardly "a recovery". Perhaps the actions of the women had the effect they intended. Who can say? The answer to that is as oblique as the question posed to us about the source of our own existence, which is what I believe the down-the-well tracking sequence is intended to do [Mr. Sausage]. It's beautifully open-ended.
Last edited by ando on Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#88 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:41 pm

So, Red Beard wasn't squelching the well callers -- he was telling them "good work, mission accomplished". ;-)

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#89 Post by ando » Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:47 pm

But it was not a signal that Chobo had recovered, merely a (positive) diagnosis. Can you imagine a physician giving you that message about a loved one after you asked about their condition? Well, the poison has left his body.

AND???

But, yes, obviously, for the purposes of the narrative it's meant to signal a recovery but it's also clearly meant to stifle their voices, disruptive or not.

Someone mentioned on another board/site that essentially what the doctors are doing at the clinic is palliative care - and I think there's a deeper resonance to that. Red Beard even comments on the fact early in the film to Noboru that theIr treatment does not go to the heart of the problem in the lives of these people; that sickness is a result of some terrible misfortune. I'm not sure if Kurosawa held to this belief throughout his later films (or, in fact, if he believed it then). But, ultimately, I feel the film is sufficiently ambiguous to leave that idea up to the viewer to decide though it certainly puts the onus of responsibility on the community and individual alike.

It's a hefty moral weight for a film to carry but considering Kurosawa's fidelity to the spirit of Dostoevsky's novel, unavoidable. I wonder what prompted his (and his fellow writer's) decision to include the Dostoevsky story into the script. His advice to filmmakers (in Something Like An Autobiography) to study the great literature of the world before attempting to write a screenplay certainly served him well, though I'm not sure if many have the facility or resources to fulfill the vision of the great writers in the cinema (if you want to call it that) of today. Graphic novels seem to be the blueprint for contemorary screenplays.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#90 Post by Sloper » Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:52 am

On the first viewing, I was a little confused by the climax as well: it seemed so much like a deathbed scene, I was sure Chobo was going to die. But then there’s the rather muted news of his recovery, and no real attention paid to the fallout from this. It’s as if the scene is a hybrid of nihilistic tragedy (of the kind we see from Kurosawa in the 80s) and something more optimistic. Throughout the film, we see the clinic dealing with society’s cast-offs, and there’s a recurrent question (articulated most cynically by the Takashi Shimura character) about whether they can really accomplish anything. Is society too badly governed, too individualistic and materialistic, too lacking in empathy, to allow Red Beard to make a significant difference? He is painfully conscious of the limits on what he can do, and it’s significant that at the end, he says that Chobo has vomited the poison, but they’ll have to wait and see if he survives the night; then ‘the poison has left his body’, not ‘we’ve removed the poison’; so yes, it’s largely a palliative, even quite passive role. If Chobo died at the end, that would imply a despairing overall outlook. Chobo would be a small, innocent child killed by poverty, but he’s also a lifeline for Otoyo, a chance for her to build healthy relationships with other people (beyond Masumoto), so such an ending might have indicated a bleak future for her as well. In the event, the film is more optimistic, and the ‘calling down the well’ scene clarifies the source of this optimism.

The central issue is that the clinic does good work, but it’s situated within a callous community; the latter threatens to cancel out the achievements of the former. I think the women who work at the clinic come to represent a sort of microcosm of that community. When they shout at Otoyo shortly after her arrival, Kurosawa makes sure to have Masumoto there as a conspicuous witness – and it’s very striking that he doesn’t intervene or rebuke the women for being so judgemental, much as Red Beard didn’t rebuke him in the early part of the film, but allowed him to figure things out for himself. As the women learn more about Otoyo (and Chobo), as they are exposed to the plight of these poor and abused children, they quickly develop more empathy for them. Their experience in this regard echoes that of Masumoto, and of us, the audience: Masumoto and the servant eavesdrop on the touching conversation between Chobo and Otoyo, and their passive, transformative revelation is similar to the one this film wants us to have, and similarly extreme. One of the problems I have with this film is that its sentimentality is so blunt and over-the-top. For instance, it’s not psychologically plausible (to me) that someone as severely abused as Otoyo would so quickly develop the emotional and moral sensitivity she displays towards Chobo in the washing-line sequence. But I do realise this is integral to what the film is saying.

All that society needs is to see how poor people live, and they will become empathetic; and thanks to their empathy, even the most damaged members of society can be healed, perhaps healed quite easily. People can arrive at this empathy for themselves, without being told to, because it’s a natural reaction to the sight of others’ suffering. The film wants to show how extreme and tragic the problem is, but it also wants to make the solution seem like it’s within our grasp. I agree with a lot of what ando says, and yes I think the shot of the women’s reflections in the well prompts questions about both the efficacy of their efforts to help Chobo, and about ourselves, the deepest levels of our being. Who are we, really, as individuals or as a community? What is at the core of human nature?

Here’s how I read it: there hasn’t literally been any miracle here, so when we look down the well all we see is water, and a reflection of the women, who fall quiet and stare at themselves; but those women stand for the community at large, and their concern for Chobo indicates that there is hope for the future, hence the film lets him live (to underline that sense of hope); the women’s compassion is signified by the single tear that falls into the well, which makes ripples (a little compassion goes a long way – less corny the way Kurosawa says it...), and dissolves and multiplies the image of the women, perhaps emphasising that they represent something beyond themselves. The water imagery is also important given that one of the main services the doctors can provide is giving water to their patients. The tear in the well echoes the tiny amount of water Chobo is able to suck from the damp cloth. Kurosawa likes the idea of a small but powerful redemption: the baby at the end of Rashomon or the modest playground at the end of Ikiru spring to mind.

It’s an incredible film, and like others I’m always amazed at how quickly the three hours go by. Some of the imagery is amazing, especially in the Sahachi flashback. Somehow, though, I’ve never been able to do more than admire it. I think it’s because I find its optimism (as I read it above) profoundly unconvincing, however much I would like to buy into it. This means that I always feel a bit lied to and manipulated by the film. But maybe others see the optimism/pessimism dynamic in different terms? I don’t always mind Kurosawa’s over-egged sentimentality – Ikiru reduces me to tears every time, perhaps because I find the central character’s transformation more believable, and the contrast between his new perspective and the callousness of his peers more poignant.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#91 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sat Jan 07, 2017 10:20 am

Ikiru has always annoyed me -- yet I had no problem "buying" Red Beard. ;-)

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#92 Post by knives » Sat Jan 07, 2017 4:55 pm

Second that sentiment. That sort of Dostoyevsky character works better in this sort of grim already distanced into metaphor setting than that film's more sentimental realism.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#93 Post by ando » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:24 pm

Now before the discussion period ends I've got to make a point about the Noh play influence on the Kurosawa films that I admire, including Red Beard: with outstanding exception, it doesn't work. On a purely aesthetic basis, the Noh play's contempletive presentational style slows the pace of nearly every Kurosawa film to a virtual standstill. And I'm not sure if any film except Ran successfully rebounds from Kurosawa's trademark demonstrative and vigorous narrative pace. I'mean not referring the Noh play's structure, per se. And, to be fair, I'll quote K on its structural use:
Kurosawa, from [i]Something Like An Autobiography [/i] wrote:A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony, with its three or four movements and differing tempos. Or one can use the Noh play with its three part structure: job (introduction), ha (destruction) and kyu (haste). If you devote yourself fullyrics to Noh and gain something from this, it will emerge naturally in your films. The Noh is a truly unique art forms that exists no where else in the world. I think the Kabuki, that imitates it, I'd a sterile flower. But in a screenplay, I think the symphonic structure is the easiest for people of today to understand.
Now, this was written in the early 80s and he does admit to the superiority of the symphonic structure. But, for me, in purely visual terms the Noh influence really serves the narrative best in Ran. By the time he got to that film, fairly late in his career, he could incorporate it without calling attention to its use. In Throne of Blood, Asaji (the Lady Macbeth character) is so enveloped in the Noh style her presence almost seems to come from another film altogether! It's one of the most arresting and distracting aspects of an otherwise magnificent film. The Noh styled sequences are stunningly beautiful but the narrative is forced to rebound from this extremely slow and contempletive moment. I don't feel K is really able to retrieve our full attention until the action sequences commence later in the film.
Last edited by ando on Mon Jan 09, 2017 9:24 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#94 Post by knives » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:34 pm

Your quote isn't showing, but I have to disagree in Kurosawa's favour this time at least slightly. The strange pacing is, I feel, no small part of what separates Kurosawa out from most other action directors including other Japanese ones. Somebody like Gosha or Okamoto can feel rushed in their moment of violence in a way that allows no contemplation in the moment. They may be great at developing the violence and showing its after effects, but in the moment all that exists is the action. By comparison you can at least read the thoughts of the characters as violence goes on in Kurosawa. The scene which closes the first half of this film is a great example of what I mean where the pauses and slow motion dancer like movements allow for a reading of Mifune face about as well as a close up would. I'm not sure if this argument flies as well into the dramatic scenes (though for me at least its telling that his more purely dramatic films are the more successful on average), but at least for Kurosawa the director of action I think what I understand to be the Noh influence (I haven't actually seen a play performed) comes purely as a benefit. A simple rephrasing for brevity: most action scenes feel like a pause in the narrative to achieve an aesthetic or emotional point that may also develop the story after the act while Kurosawa manages to have the action serve narrative and thematic needs as well thanks to pacing. For a western art comparison I'm more cozy with its like everyone else is making a musical while he is developing a ballet.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#95 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:57 pm

Most Noh plays seem to have very little in the way of what we would consider action. By and large, I see/feel little obvious trace of Noh in AK's films. Since most American (and modern Japanese) viewers have little awareness of prior Japanese cinema (or Noh or Kabuki), AK's claim is rather hard to assess. All I can say is that one finds elements of AK's style in the flamboyant fight scenes in some silent films and other elements in the more naturalistic films of Yamanaka.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#96 Post by knives » Mon Jan 09, 2017 9:09 pm

I'll admit I'm a mouse compared to you on this topic, but to bring this a bit more broadly being influenced by doesn't necessarily mean being imitative or even necessarily resembling. It's entirely possible by his comments to assume that he's telling stories well outside the realm of Noh, but applying structural and pacing ideas from Noh onto them resulting in something different. It's almost like how McCartney took baroque structure and even instruments and applied them to rock in order to develop his unique voice. There's nothing about McCartney that would actually fit as an authentic baroque piece, but the influence is still legitimate.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#97 Post by ando » Mon Jan 09, 2017 9:11 pm

(Hadn't finished the post, knives - I'm slower than Noh!)

Now in Red Beard K loses me with Rokusuke's daughter testimony, performed in a very Noh way. K doesn't give it the full treatment of the Asaji sequences; and, in fact, the alternating camera shots reveal the melodramatic ineffectiveness of her appeal style. Red Beard even says to her at one point, when she appears ready to vomit reliving the horror of her story of her mother's trevail, "Never mind the rest".

Lady Sue in Ran, on the other - and, more importantly, Lady Sue's very Noh influenced use is almost flawless, not only in execution but within the overall narrative. In fact, to my mind, it strengthens the story. Her presence is a real force as opposed to Asaji, whose appearance seems to have more effect on her husband than as a force in the overall narrative (lIke the forest witch, for instance). I realize, of course, that Asaji - as written - is a far more passive character than Lady Sue but Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth is a galvanizing influence for her husband (at least, initially); she propels him to act. Asaji, especially as depicted in Throne, has more of an undermining influence on Washizu and, indirectly, the flow of the narrative. The Noh influence completely changes her character and use than say, Welles' treatment of Macbeth's viper-like spouse in his cardboard classic.

If you see any traditionally performed Noh theater you'll discover an inner force among the players; an absolute deadly stillness because, like really good Ancient Greek theater, the players are completely engulfed with whatever emotion their involved. Their outward and inward states are indistinguishable and unmistakable. This approach has to present a challenge to any director whose calling card is the action sequence. I feel Kurosawa's use of both is exquisitely merged in Ran. He's still playing with them in Red Beard.
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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#98 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Jan 09, 2017 9:37 pm

I have actually seen one of the few Noh plays that involves some genuine action (about a demon's stealing of Buddha's tooth from Sennyuji in Kyoto) -- and, even then, I find very little Noh-like pacing (or style or structure) in AK. I have too much general antipathy to Ran to really judge the issue for Ran, however. I can believe that AK was inspired, in a general way, by what he found in Noh -- but I just don't see this reflected generally (in a way that can be sensed) in his films. There might be bits of Idiot, however, -- and maybe this is a reason I do like it so much despite its devastated (editorial) condition.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#99 Post by ando » Tue Jan 10, 2017 3:30 pm

Just to clarify what I identify in K's films as elements of the Noh tradition I'll preface with a quote from the 15th century text, The Spirit of Noh or Fushikaden, by Zeami (translated by William Scott Wilson):
Zeami wrote:No matter what kind of style is assumed, the truly successful actor should allow for no openings or lapses in concentration.
Now this may seem overly simple, even simple-minded, but in contrast to contemporary acting, especially in films, where an actor's intentions/emotions/thoughts are fragmented and the greatest actors are those who are able to reveal this, the presence of an actor whose approach is steeped in the tradition of Noh with its attendant almost frightening singlemindedness can often come across as someone from another world because, in fact, they are. It has far less to do with dress or manner but a total alignment of purpose and action. Their total immersion appears to have little regard for the presence of others. And it can often appear slow compared to naturalistic contemporary performing styles but action is absolutely a part of the tradition - it's just that the focal point of action is far more pointed than contemporary modes of behavior.

My point is that it must have been fairly easy to have a character like Asaji in Throne of Blood or The Mad Woman in Red Beard to embody the spirit of Noh since, to a large degree, they're isolated characters. And as I said, I feel Kurosawa is less successful in Red Beard with Rokusuke's daughter. But Lady Sue in Ran is a pivotal figure; yet her obvious adoption of the Noh tradition is far more adroitly handled by Kurosawa, a task he probably could not have accomplished in the early or even midstage of his career. His seamless inclusion of Noh was more of a development.

Noh, as it appears to me, seems to concern itself with qualitiy. I remember an older acting coach asked me once, "What quality are you playing?" Quality?, I thought. "Don't they teach quality any more?, he replied. It's really not until now that I realize what he meant. Rokusuke's daughter in Red Beard is an example of the quality of shame - so much so that the writers didn't bother with giving her a name! No contemporary actor would take such an approach to the scene with such direct and/pointed emotion. The woman is virtually shame-less in her portrayal. It's a virtual confession to Red Beard but the manner is in the spirit of Noh, which seems to have far more to do with qualities of human emotion than individual character.

Does it follow then that Lady Sue, however successfully realized, is a narrow or low dimensional character? Probably.

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Re: Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)

#100 Post by ando » Tue Jan 10, 2017 4:52 pm

BTW, does anyone know the approximate amount in dollars of 50 ryo? I recall Noboru and the obese lord's attendant looking aghast after Red Beard asked to be paid that amount for his "house call". It's a humorous moment because I assumed, of course, that it was an exorbitant amount for what Red Beard felt was a patient being willingly neglectful of his health and Red Beard's advice. (I did read that 1 ryo is equal to about 10 cents in today's market so 50 ryo would be roughly 5 bucks, but in 1965 (around time the script was written) 5 bucks could provide a small family dinner).

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