267 Kagemusha

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
Message
Author
User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

#51 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:08 am

I was thinking that this is exactly the type of film that benefits most from a commentary track. The director has quite correctly done his research but highlighted certain things or compressed and changed certain events in the process of making his film. For example as Stephen Prince highlights making Katsuyori Takeda seem more directly responsible for the downfall of the Takeda clan, or creating the scene by the sea with the rainbow or the final three charges etc.

I'm fine with this as I think it should be the main focus of a filmmaker to explore the themes, and it seems Kurosawa was using the historical events to explore this and create an artistic vision without the need to pretend he is reflecting historical reality. That said, and this may open up a huge area for discussion outside of Kagemusha, I can be vicious about filmmakers who might hide behind this argument to hide lazy storytelling, especially when the motive seems to be less for artistic changes than as part of a cynical manipulation, so that there seems little reason for something to be set in a particular period other than for the scenery of the time, without any seeming individual expression expressed to justify the distortion (*cough* U-571 *cough*).

I guess it is important to realise films have no particular remit to be faithful to a particular issue - there are so many issues like money, alienating a potential audience, the need to make an enjoyable or thought provoking piece of work that necessitates some ellipses (sorry Matt!) in its narrative. It is both wonderful and worrying that the experience many may have of an event may only be through a film so the view of the period that many may take as absolute truth is simply only the one expressed by the film's creators, and I worry that this is something that many filmmakers have not taken responsibility for. On the other hand, I think this is not particularly a filmmaker's fault but perhaps a fault in an unquestioning (mass?) audience willing to accept a particular persons view without question. I don't think that this is just historical but in thinking of contemporary and fictional work that may be viewed in a different light in the future (are we all going to think that things are worse in the future because looking back on Friends we might think that everyone in New York lived in huge apartments at the end of the twentieth century?).

Reviewing my argument, it might seem that I am only in favour of gritty realism (or is that just another style of filmmaking?), but I'm more in favour of education, a breadth of available resources to judge things against (my interest in Japanese history brought about by many Kurosawa films is sending me on many visits to my library!), and a critical eye that can enjoy a piece of work for what it is and fit in into context of the general consensus of the real events and also for films in the time in which it was made, as it makes sense to me that films reflect the time and ideas that they were made in as they do a historical period or in the characters that they portray (In this way I do not mind too much about U-571 as the inaccuracies can in a way spur me on to understand the real story of the Enigma code)

It seems to me that a commentary track like the one on Kagemusha, or Peter Cowie's on Tokyo Olympiad should help these problems of 'authenticity' and might allow filmmakers to free themselves from the necessity of wanting or needing to remain faithful because there will be a chance to set the record straight on a commentary, either through detailing the changes or adding information that might have been omitted for various reasons (such as the events left out of Tokyo Olympiad).
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

BWilson
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2004 6:06 pm

#52 Post by BWilson » Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:09 pm

I agree that the film benefits greatly from the commentary. Particularly as it explains a great deal of Japanese history to a western audience. I assume that most Japanese would be aware of the history surrounding the end of the Takeda and the rise of the Tokagawa, but I knew nothing of it (except that there was a period in Japanese history called the Tokagawa Period).

But, I have a question on a technical detail. How was the first shot of the film done? Split screen? Acting w/ a double? The commentary doesn't bother to explain any technical details of the production. Does any other supplement on the disc explain how the shot was done?

unclehulot
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:09 pm
Location: here and there

#53 Post by unclehulot » Wed Apr 06, 2005 2:20 pm

I haven't had a chance to watch the new disc yet, but I remember the old version (as shown here theatrically as well) took away a good deal of the mystery of the opening by actually labelling (with a subtitle) the "double" and telling us who was who. Obviously it's quite different if we are expected to figure this out on our own. Does the new one do this??

User avatar
oldsheperd
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2004 5:18 pm
Location: Rio Rancho/Albuquerque

#54 Post by oldsheperd » Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:54 pm

Are you talking about the prologue before the opening credits?

kevyip1
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:07 pm

#55 Post by kevyip1 » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:13 pm

Anyone know more about the "Toho Masterworks" series? How many episodes are there, and what other films are covered? Was it made in 2003, as indicated on Kagemusha's booklet? Is "Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create" the name of the series itself, or just one series among many that are collectively known as "Toho Masterworks" ?

So far, I believe there are 4 episodes included on Criterion DVDs of Ikiru, The Lower Depths, Stray Dog, and Kagemusha.

User avatar
manicsounds
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
Location: Tokyo, Japan

#56 Post by manicsounds » Sat Apr 09, 2005 6:25 am

First off the opening shot was done with split screen.
you can tell if you have a large enough set.
The right side of the image with the thief is a bit jittery at points.

The MASTERWORKS documentaries are on all of Kurosawas DVDs
in Japan, with the exception of DREAMS.

no subtitles on the Japanese discs though.

kevyip1
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:07 pm

#57 Post by kevyip1 » Sat Apr 09, 2005 4:22 pm

[quote="manicsounds"]The MASTERWORKS dï½

User avatar
exte
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 4:27 pm
Location: NJ

#58 Post by exte » Sat Apr 09, 2005 6:39 pm

When I bought Kagemusha, was I the only one who got the cheapest case ever released by Criterion? Every singe bit of plastic that either kept the discs or booklet in place completely broke off before I got a chance to even take anything out. If I'm not the only one, how sad it is that they're charging exuberant prices and using just the shittiest cases possible. Does Criterion offer replacements for this kind of thing, or will I have to buy myself a replacement online?

User avatar
kortik
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 6:50 pm
Location: Seattle

#59 Post by kortik » Sat Apr 09, 2005 8:34 pm

kevyip1 wrote:Do you have a link to the DVDs, or any info that pertains to the questions in my previous post?
Kurosawa: The Masterworks DVD

Kurosawa: The Masterworks - Toho Official Site

In Japanese

kevyip1
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:07 pm

#60 Post by kevyip1 » Sun Apr 10, 2005 10:51 am

Thanks. The box sets, however, contain the actual films themselves, and the "Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create" documentaries are listed as a special feature for each disc. So I would have to buy the whole set, many of the films I already own, just to get the docs, with no English subs. No thanks.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

#61 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Apr 15, 2005 4:41 am

I was thinking about the sniper's restaging of how he managed to shoot Shingen. Stephen Prince mentions in his commentary about how it is an expression of Kurosawa's interest in the process of the event, as well as being the first instance in the film of the gun sweeping the Takeda clan from history. I was thinking that it could also be an early expression in the film of the theme that runs through most of Kurosawa's work of the heroic individual taking the initiative - the action would perhaps have been the most important event in the sniper's life - but instead of celebrating this individual in the way the earlier films had, the sniper is characterless, his actions acknowledged but the person himself subsumed back into the clan he works for, for whose success his actions have been in service of. So it could be the early expression of losing yourself in service to a clan that the double finds later on.

I think this also fits into the idea of heroism being an outsider concept - admirable but also suggesting an unpredictable, dangerously individualistic personality that would need to be rigidly controlled and occasionally allowed to express itself in actions such as that of the sniper. You could maybe see it as a flipped version of Hidden Fortress where the princess and her guard are mainly seen through the eyes of the peasants - here in situations like the sniper it is the leaders, their figureheads and the inner circle observing the actions of their subjects.

User avatar
daniel p
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:01 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

#62 Post by daniel p » Sun May 22, 2005 1:10 am

Finally got around to watching this one and was gobsmacked by the transfer... after watching Fanny & Alexander, and being disappointed a bit, Kagemusha blew me away.

Regarding the film, is it just me, or were the American influences a little distracting? I didn't really feel the 'fanfare' parts to the score suited the film, and it kind of took me out of Japan for a while here and there... and some of the subtitle choices seemed a bit American-ised to me. Maybe it was to do with the script moreso than the translation.

Great film though (apart from that), and I cannot say whether I prefer it to Ran or not. And I have to say, after watching the film, I really like the coverart!

User avatar
jorencain
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:45 am

#63 Post by jorencain » Sun May 22, 2005 8:28 am

Yeah, I really hated most of the score. It never seemed to fit what was happening on screen in a natural way. Or at least it wasn't what I expected in a Kurosawa film. Takemitsu's score on "Ran" works MUCH better. That was really the only distracting thing for me though. I loved the film otherwise.

User avatar
tryavna
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 pm
Location: North Carolina

#64 Post by tryavna » Sun May 22, 2005 11:07 am

To be fair, though, the score was usually the weakest link in all of Kurosawa's films -- American influence or not. Just take a listen to the wife's version of the story in Rashomon. As Donald Richie points out in his commentary, Kurosawa obviously wanted a more or less exact replica of Ravel's "Bolero" -- and it shows.

Then again, music has been the bane of several great directors. Probably the most notable is John Ford, who by all accounts simply didn't care about the scoring of his films.

leo goldsmith
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 1:13 pm
Location: Kings County
Contact:

#65 Post by leo goldsmith » Sun May 22, 2005 10:34 pm

tryavna wrote:Just take a listen to the wife's version of the story in Rashamon. As Donald Richie points out in his commentary, Kurosawa obviously wanted a more or less exact replica of Ravel's "Bolero" -- and it shows.
I have to say that I mistrust a lot of Richie's talk about Kurosawa's tin ear. I happen to think that the bolero in that film gives that particular scene its own weird rhythm that marks it off from the other parallel scenes in an interesting way, whether or not one notes its derivation. And then there are examples of Kurosawa's very deft use of music: the maudlin, sentimental tune made ecstatic in Ikiru; the music in the "hell" sequence of High and Low; and the piano at the end of Stray Dog.

That said, I also think the Kagemusha score is crap.

djali999
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 11:41 am
Location: Florie-dah

#66 Post by djali999 » Mon May 23, 2005 12:56 am

Yeah, Kagemusha's score is pretty appalling. Which is odd because I often think Kurosawa is among the best filmmakers at orchestrating a soundscape. The moments in Kagemusha that Kurosawa decides to leave the music out show his customary tact, but when it enters it's awfully... iffy.

I think the case here is that less than a more Western score being hoisted on him by Fox or whomever, it's possible what with all the American money in the film Kurosawa may have been experimenting with a new type of music. He went back to what we think of as a more "traditional" Kurosawa sound in Ran, so it probably didn't always work out exactly how he would have liked.

But when that excessivley Western, modern soundtrack began to come out of my TV speakers, I was pretty shocked -- this from the man who gave us those beautiful, perfect opening titles in Red Beard?

User avatar
tryavna
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 pm
Location: North Carolina

#67 Post by tryavna » Mon May 23, 2005 10:36 am

I'm not relying solely on Richie's commentary. The musical cue for the wife's story is clearly a rip-off (intentional or not) of Ravel's "Bolero." Maybe my musical training makes me more sensitive to it than most viewers, but "Bolero" is such a famous (and in many ways overrated) piece of music that it's quite jarring and almost always takes me out of the movie for at least a couple of minutes.

User avatar
jorencain
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:45 am

#68 Post by jorencain » Mon May 23, 2005 11:11 am

tryavna wrote:The musical cue for the wife's story is clearly a rip-off (intentional or not) of Ravel's "Bolero." Maybe my musical training makes me more sensitive to it than most viewers, but "Bolero" is such a famous (and in many ways overrated) piece of music that it's quite jarring and almost always takes me out of the movie for at least a couple of minutes.
I agree. The same thing happens at the opening of "Femme Fatale", and while in both cases it must have been an intentional choice to copy "Bolero", I'm also distracted by it. I understand the effect that both director's were looking for, but I'm way too conscious of it for it to affect me on an emotional level. The whole scene I end up thinking, "Wow, that sounds just like Bolero. Interesting," rather than feeling slowly-building tension.

leo goldsmith
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 1:13 pm
Location: Kings County
Contact:

#69 Post by leo goldsmith » Mon May 23, 2005 12:03 pm

tryavna wrote:I didn't call Kagemusha's score "crap" -- Leo did. (In fact, although I do think it's inappropriate to the film itself, I've never thought the music qua music is bad in and of itself.)
Yeah, I was maybe being a teensy bit glib there.
jorencain wrote:I agree. The same thing happens at the opening of "Femme Fatale", and while in both cases it must have been an intentional choice to copy "Bolero", I'm also distracted by it. I understand the effect that both director's were looking for, but I'm way too conscious of it for it to affect me on an emotional level. The whole scene I end up thinking, "Wow, that sounds just like Bolero. Interesting," rather than feeling slowly-building tension.
There's probably no need to belabor this here, but I wonder what the intention might have been, and I'm not at all sure it was slow-building tension. Actually, what I like about the use of the faux-Bolero, intended or not, is that it's kind of funny. The wife's story is the most melodramatic in the film and the relentless quality of the music seems to add to this. It's also pretty clearly the least credible episode in the film -- or at any rate, it's not one that Kurosawa (it seems to me) wants to use to invoke sympathy or suspense.

User avatar
Taketori Washizu
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:32 am

#70 Post by Taketori Washizu » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:51 pm

daniel p wrote:Finally got around to watching this one and was gobsmacked by the transfer... after watching Fanny & Alexander, and being disappointed a bit, Kagemusha blew me away.

Regarding the film, is it just me, or were the American influences a little distracting? I didn't really feel the 'fanfare' parts to the score suited the film, and it kind of took me out of Japan for a while here and there... and some of the subtitle choices seemed a bit American-ised to me. Maybe it was to do with the script moreso than the translation.

Great film though (apart from that), and I cannot say whether I prefer it to Ran or not. And I have to say, after watching the film, I really like the coverart!
So did you have a problem with the transfer of Fanny & Alexander or the film itself when you compare it to Kagemusha?

If it is the transfer, then you must be blind. Criterion did a beautiful job with the picture and sound on Fanny & Alexander, one of their best I should say.

User avatar
daniel p
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:01 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

#71 Post by daniel p » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:59 pm

Nope, not blind, I could read what you typed all right anyway...

F&A, as I have discussed in it's own thread, looked pretty average to me. Weak black levels and heavy grain often disappointed me. I am not the only person to state this either.
Kagemusha, from a similar era, looked incredible to me, and blew F&A away imo.

This is all in regards to the transfers - I'd find it hard to compare the films.

J M Powell
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:20 am
Location: Providence, RI

#72 Post by J M Powell » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:57 am

Can anyone verify/discuss this post on Amazon's listing for "Kagemusha"?

"I had Kagemusha for several years on VHS, before going exclusively DVD. I remember Kagemusha as one of Akira Kurosawa's best movies, in my pinion, second only to Throne of Blood. I was awaiting the delivery of the Criterion edition of this movie with great excitement. It was a letdown. Be warned that this is the mutilated Francis Ford Coppola version, and not the original one!

Almost the whole magnificient battle at the end of the movie has been cut. As it is not violent by today's standards, one can wonder why? And while the
quality of the movie is OK, I had expected it to be much better. One can only hope that one day Kagemusha will be issued in a complete version, so we can watch this movie in all it's splendour, and the way Kurosawa wanted it to be. "

User avatar
tryavna
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 pm
Location: North Carolina

#73 Post by tryavna » Thu Sep 08, 2005 1:19 pm

I've seen both the shorter, original release and the full-length release, and Criterion have definitely released the latter.

This certainly isn't the first time people have posted incorrect reviews on Amazon. That's the problem with Amazon and IMDb: anybody can post on there, which means anybody can post false information, too. There's a similarly incorrect Amazon review of Criterion's release of Black Narcissus, which claims that it's the original censored American release -- and that just isn't the case.

I've always wondered if some people just like to post lies about Criterion's releases for some sort of sick fun....

kevyip1
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:07 pm

#74 Post by kevyip1 » Mon Sep 18, 2006 7:11 pm

Is there is a list of differences between the short and the long versions of "Kagemusha" anywhere on the Internet?

The IMDB "alternate versions" entry doesn't have this info, and in fact, has the wrong info: somebody wrote "there are 20 minutes featuring Kenshin Uesugi. For some reason, these scenes were cut out of the USA version."

I have both the short and long versions on DVD and could very well make a list. But before I take it upon myself, I want to know if the info isn't already available.

User avatar
teddyleevin
Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:25 pm
Location: New York City
Contact:

#75 Post by teddyleevin » Sun Jun 10, 2007 11:51 pm

I see that Kamatari Fujiwara is in this film, but I can't seem to find him. Where is he?

Post Reply