Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa

Discuss releases in the Janus Contemporaries, Eclipse, and Essential Art House lines and the films on them.
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colinr0380
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#76 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:42 pm

Can I add to the brief discussion of Ran by saying it is one of my favourite Kurosawa films - it is one of the only films that builds up such power in the attack on the castle that even when I don't intend to I end up sobbing while watching it! (I even ended up shedding a tear while the sequence was playing with Stephen Prince's commentary!) - perhaps one reason why I like the film so much is that it was only the second Kurosawa film I had seen so I have a bit of a nostalgic connection to it. Plus Lady Kaede gets one great scene (poor moth!) and a wonderful death!

Having said that I find Nakadai's final moments after a prolonged death scene at the end of the film almost hysterically funny - can I tease Michael Kerpan by describing it thus: Aarrgghhhh!....Saburo!....(flump) :D

But then immediately after that you have the lost scroll/edge of the abyss scene which is an absolutely perfect end to the film!

But then I've always had a strange choice in films - I much prefer Sanjuro to Yojimbo! And of course Red Beard is my very favourite Kurosawa and I like The Idiot very much as well, so hopefully Mr Kerpan will forgive me for being a Ran fan!

Strangely the only Kurosawa I've had trouble with so far is Hidden Fortress. I used to really like that film but I've started to find a lot of the bickering between the peasants more irritating than charming now - perhaps because now that I have seen some of the earlier films which show a lot of empathy for outsider characters (The Idiot being a case in point) I find the caricature of the squabbling peasants in Fortress more of a step back than I had previously thought, whereas before I was more willing to give the film more leeway. Oh well, tastes change and develop I suppose - you gain new insights and lose some older connections you used to have in the process!

(I'd still take it over Star Wars any day though! :wink: )
Last edited by colinr0380 on Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:55 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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tryavna
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#77 Post by tryavna » Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:11 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:I don't see the comparison with either Cruise or John Wayne.
Since I was the one to bring this up, let me explain: I didn't mean to compare Mifune directly with Wayne, but rather to say that a Nakadai/Mifune comparison makes about as much sense as a Brando/Wayne comparison. (E.g., Nakadai and Brando were theater-trained whereas Mifune and Wayne learned their craft as film actors; all four were major stars, but Nakadai and Brando generally remained more selective about the roles they took on; etc.) In other words, just because Nakadai and Mifune were both Japanese film stars doesn't mean they make for an apt comparison.

BTW, I definitely hear Tommaso and Colin on their love for Ran. I definitely fall into the camp that prefers K.'s earlier b&w efforts, but Ran is a breathtakingly beautiful movie in many respects.

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#78 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:17 pm

I don't mind people liking Ran -- I just don't understand it. ;~}

One really wonders what Idiot would have been like if it hadn't been butchered by its studio. But apparently most of the damage was done in the first half (or so). Certainly one has some rather long, seemingly intact sequences in the last half. Does anyone know if the script of the original version still exists?

akaten

#79 Post by akaten » Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:25 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:One really wonders what Idiot would have been like if it hadn't been butchered by its studio. But apparently most of the damage was done in the first half (or so). Certainly one has some rather long, seemingly intact sequences in the last half. Does anyone know if the script of the original version still exists?
The Daryl Chin essay with the MOC disc certainly had me wanting to read the script as well. Daryl's remarks also seem to be rather specific to have been second hand accounts alone, about what was intended incertain missing sequences, that has me hoping detailed scripts of notes still exist. At the very least it would be interesting to know where abouts they gained this insight into the full cut of the film (haven't been able to check sources listed myself).

One thing I want to raise, the epilogue of sorts for The Idiot, anyone else feel there is no need for it, the scene which precedes it Mifune and Mori is just so devastating in its tone and length (and the performances!) that AK should never have attempted 'closure' for the film. However I feel it does pave the way for the far more effective manner in which he brings The Seven Samurai to a close.

I'm still in no position to make form an overall opinion of Akira Kurosawa (I don't even own this set for one thing) but even in its considerably butched The Magnificent Ambersons esque "what if" form available, I've no hesitation in calling The Idiot a masterpiece.

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#80 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:35 pm

akaten wrote:One thing I want to raise, the epilogue of sorts for The Idiot, anyone else feel there is no need for it, the scene which precedes it Mifune and Mori is just so devastating in its tone and length (and the performances!) that AK should never have attempted 'closure' for the film. .
Agreed completely. This epilogue (no real basis in the book that I recall -- which had a very different sort of epilogue) struck me as the only false step of the film. but it passed quickly and was soon (almost) forgotten -- while other scenes were practically burned into my brain.
I'm still in no position to make form an overall opinion of Akira Kurosawa (I don't even own this set for one thing) but even in its considerably butched The Magnificent Ambersons esque "what if" form available, I've no hesitation in calling The Idiot a masterpiece.
Maybe we should start a club. ;~}

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#81 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:49 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
I'm still in no position to make form an overall opinion of Akira Kurosawa (I don't even own this set for one thing) but even in its considerably butched The Magnificent Ambersons esque "what if" form available, I've no hesitation in calling The Idiot a masterpiece.
Maybe we should start a club. ;~}
I'd like to imagine that Kurosawa would have approved that after watching The Idiot I was inspired to pick up a copy of the book - however actually reading it has been a different matter!

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#82 Post by Tommaso » Fri Feb 01, 2008 7:16 am

Though I of course appreciate Colin's liking for "Ran" (and the examples mentioned are perfect to indicate why I think the film is such a masterpiece), I'm not continuing to discuss it here, but I really, really like this:
colinr0380 wrote:But then I've always had a strange choice in films - I much prefer Sanjuro to Yojimbo!
I never thought I'd read that somewhere, but I heartily agree! "Sanjuro" is at first a slowgoing experience, especially if you watch the two films in succession, but I'd also say it's by far the more differentiated, subtle and in places exceedingly funny film. Both films critique the samurai ideals and traditions, of course, but whereas "Yojimbo" is loud screeching satire (something it partly shares with "Hidden fortress", and I share your sentiments about that film, too), "Sanjuro" is fine-spun irony. And it has some truly beautiful and poetic moments; the flowers swimming in the brook around the house, for instance.

Oh, and I want to join the "Idiot" fan club! I've only seen it once, when the MoC came out, and have basically forgotten all the details (one of the problems with such long films is that you rarely re-visit them), but it immediately struck me as marvellous even in its fragmentary form and despite of the gaps in the narrative. Truly beautiful images and atmosphere, and the way Kurosawa makes a nod to Cocteau's "Orphee" with the Setsuko Hara character immediately endeared it to me.

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#83 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:49 am

Tommaso wrote:
colinr0380 wrote:But then I've always had a strange choice in films - I much prefer Sanjuro to Yojimbo!
I never thought I'd read that somewhere, but I heartily agree!
I'd join in the accolades fror Sanjuro too -- except it's just as off-topic here as Ran.. ;~}

While the cinematography in Yojimbo is more impressive, the underlying spirit of Sanjuro is closer to that of Red Beard than to Yojimbo -- something I like very much.

I credit Takako Irie for helping establish a warm-hearted moral core for Sanjuro.
Tommaso wrote:Oh, and I want to join the "Idiot" fan club! I've only seen it once, when the MoC came out, and have basically forgotten all the details (one of the problems with such long films is that you rarely re-visit them), but it immediately struck me as marvellous even in its fragmentary form and despite of the gaps in the narrative. Truly beautiful images and atmosphere, and the way Kurosawa makes a nod to Cocteau's "Orphee" with the Setsuko Hara character immediately endeared it to me.
Welcome to the club. ;~}

The cinematographer for both Scandal and Idiot was Toshio Ubukata -- and his work in both films is absolutely superb. He is a major figure of Japanese cinema that we know almost nothing about -- because all his great earlier work is inaccessible. For example (among films I've seen), he also did great work for Yoshimura (Yuwaku, Ball at Anjo House) , Oba (Bells of Nagasaki), Gosho (Girls of Izu) and Shimazu (Lights of Asakusa).

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#84 Post by Morbii » Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:53 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:While the cinematography in Yojimbo is more impressive, the underlying spirit of Sanjuro is closer to that of Red Beard than to Yojimbo -- something I like very much.
Strange - I preferred Yojimbo to Sanjuro, but your comment strikes me as interesting because I would call Red Beard my favorite Kurosawa.

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#85 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:05 pm

Tommaso wrote:And it has some truly beautiful and poetic moments; the flowers swimming in the brook around the house, for instance.
That was a great touch - it is hard to forget the gruff Mifune dumping great fistfuls of the beautiful, delicate flowers into the brook! I agree with Michael, those lessons about deceptive appearances and learning to look beyond the obvious makes it a good companion to Red Beard.

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#86 Post by s.j. bagley » Sat Feb 02, 2008 11:42 am

Going back to the subject of "Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create," in relation to this boxed set... does anyone know of anywhere that those docs are available with English subtitles?

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#87 Post by kinjitsu » Sat Feb 02, 2008 7:45 pm

manicsounds wrote:
Ashirg wrote:Did Toho create any of the Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create? episodes for these titles? It's too bad they won't be included (just like Bergman introductions to his early films).
The Toho features had them created for the Japanese DVDs. Here's a disappointment for me that they won't be included on there. Unless we hope Eclipse makes a small exception.
From the AK site:
The Toho Masterworks series “It is Wonderful to Create” is not available on a single DVD at the moment. Instead, relevant episodes have been licensed by Criterion for their releases of Kurosawa’s films.
Unfortunately, I believe that they are only available as part of Toho's massive Kurosawa Masterworks box, albeit, sans subs.
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#88 Post by s.j. bagley » Sat Feb 02, 2008 8:41 pm

ah, that's a shame.
i've really enjoyed those that i've seen so far, and found them quite insightful.

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#89 Post by Tommaso » Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:44 am

I think CC would do us and themselves a favour if they put at least some of the missing episodes on the planned disc of "Those who tread on the tiger's tail". The film is only 60 min., and while interesting, certainly not a great masterpiece, so they have to put some flesh to the disc to make it worthwhile.

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#90 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:04 pm

Sinking my teeth into this... God Setsuko Hara was such a babe. With that touch of baby fat on her in No Regrets.. , thoughts continuously turning towards That Which Is Inconvenient... considering her image exists only on a screen and I could electrocute myself. When she asked homey to get on his knees before her in that vulnerable state of hers early on, I would have seized on the moment... and landed myself probably in prison within four hours-- or forced into marriage.

Sorry to befoul her image in fronta Everyone.

Digging this set (I really hadta strain to choose.. this was next to the Lubitsch Eclipse awreddy in Kims-- so I went chronological).

PS: Ran does next to nothing for me.

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#91 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:38 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:When she asked homey to get on his knees before her in that vulnerable state of hers early on, I would have seized on the moment... and landed myself probably in prison within four hours-- or forced into marriage.
I hope you'll like The Idiot then, since that film hinges on all the male characters in the film being obsessed by her! It is the role that needs an obscure object of desire that everyone can be obsessed by and project all their positive or negative impressions onto (and doesn't shy away from showing how that means no end of trouble for her) - and it certainly helps that Hara seems to be channelling Maria Casares from Orphée (to quote Alex Cox's introduction from the MoC disc).

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#92 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:45 pm

I'll be interested in your reaction to Setsuko Hara in Yamanak's Kochiyama Soshun (1936) and Fanck and Itami's Die Tochter des Samurai (1937).

In any event, Hara is actually at her sexiest in Hideo Oba's 1948 Taifuken no onna (Woman of the Typhoon District) -- where she does a splendid job of (seemingly) channeling Rita Hayworth at her most sultry.

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#93 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:28 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:I'll be interested in your reaction to Setsuko Hara in Yamanak's Kochiyama Soshun (1936) .
STOP THE SCHRECK-TORTURE NOW!

Someone in the forum's usual back channels needs to make a subbing project out of this. And pronto... Yama has become a sort of pagan god for me, elusive one at that (how else?)

Like Conan's Crom.

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#94 Post by Fan-of-Kurosawa » Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:17 am

I have to admit that during the first few minutes of "No regrets for our Youth" Setsuko Hara appeared to me slightly "wooden" and I was quite surprised.
Especially since I have most of her Ozu films and I know how good she is. (Probably the best Japanese actress along with Hideko Takamine)

But then at about 1/3 of the film after her "moral transformation" her performance is so great that now I consider "No Regrets for our Youth" the best film out of the 5 in the box set. The strength that she shows during the scenes at the rice paddies is almost frightening.

It's a great pity that Kurosawa never made another film with a woman protagonist. In my opinion, with this film he showed that he could handle a "woman's picture" almost as good as Mizoguchi and Naruse.

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#95 Post by BrianInAtlanta » Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:45 pm

Cinephrenic wrote:Those Who Tread On the Tiger's Tail is coming from Criterion with a Donald Richie commentary, extras.
Instead of a full Criterion, what about a Wartime Kurosawa boxset to go with the Postwar Kurosawa with Sanshiro Sugata, The Most Beautiful, Sanshiro Sugata Part 2 and Those Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail?

Watched two-thirds of One Wonderful Sunday this morning. It's so much darker a movie than I recall from the TCM showing. It's a wonder the original Japanese audiences didn't walk out during that static rainy apartment scene long before they got to the Peter Pan clap-along bit. Do-des-kaden hardly gets more depressing.

I also feel I'm missing a lot of the references the original audiences would have got. Are all the trucks roaring through the streets during the model home/baseball scene supposed to be American military? I took the game having to make way for a Japanese man driving an ox cart was some kind of acid comment. And what was with that girl in the hallway at the gangster dive holding her skirt up and leaping from board to board?

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#96 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Mar 18, 2008 1:25 pm

I remember seeing this O.W. Sunday and thinking it was going to be total pus. But I was pleasantly surprised, but of course for the cheeseball Unfinished Symph bit. And whereas OWS is "generally" considered klunky, No Regrets is in the same way considered Excellent... and I found the reverse. I found OWS to be an openhearted assessment of the fates and flaws of Recovering Occupation Japan, with guilt assigned to the cheap-buck opportunists as well as the setup afforded by the Occupation, with well-meaning folks truly caught in the impoverished middle. I thought that young kid by the railroad fence pretty impressively portrayed, the whole incident. And I found NRegretsFOY a halfhearted and unsuccessful indictment of Absolutely Nobody, with a wily assignation of war-responsibility placed onto absolutely nobody via a series of script headstands and omissions (by conveniently cutting back to The Brat-- Hara's character's personal relationship w parents & should-I-or-shouldn't-I tantrums viz Boys-- when veering too close to the supposed partial goal of the film, discussing the responsibility for the war, and one woman's waking up to it). Despite a truly impressive leap forward in adventurous & truly creative mise en scene by AK (absolutely a truly important film in his canon on this point), I found it substantively--topically-- to be the "postwar" flop in Kurosawa's canon. Whereas the film is regarded by some to be the spiritual awakening of a spoiled brat, going from ignorant Right Winger oblivious to the sins of her supposed ideology, to someone who gains humanism thru firsthand viewing the repercussions of her extrapolated beliefs... the film is more the story of a woman who becomes disengaged after learning-- after his death-- that her hubby, who she thought was a rightwinger all along, was really aiding the antigovernment party, and via the traumatization of her own harsh interrogation and death of her hubby, completely withdraws from society, disengages to live as a peasant without political commitment or social engagement. I don't see the "political epiphany" (I know it sounds facetious or sarcastic but I mean this) in evidence by her being traumatized into complete withdrawal to virtual and permanent hermit status. It may be that there's a cultural nuance (i e equivalent to the importance to germans of the Uniform in Letze Mann that contemporary audiences do not understand) implicit in an upper middle class-- and spoilt-- Japanese woman of culture melding into "low" peasant society... but her reaction is so specific to the death of her husband, and her disconnect from the rest of peasant culture (though a reconciliation is signaled at the end), and so devoid of politics and humanism... that I just don't see her journey as an "awakening", and her final disposition as the "political destination" for a "reformed" member of the "oblivious" right or bourguoisie. I don't recall any acknowledgement of humanist precepts.. I see a woman who starts out angry & defensive and ends up angry & defensive; and I saw no urge to "help the peasantry" (in a humanist tradition) by her living with her inlaws. I thought she went there simply because they were her inlaws-- and would have went to them regardless of their class.

And there was way too much Setsuko weeping!

So basically I had the reverse of the expected reaction to these two films. I found OWS a nice slice of life with equal parts hardship and hope in postwar Japan; and NRFOY a hugely contrived script. With way too much weeping.!

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#97 Post by BrianInAtlanta » Tue Mar 18, 2008 8:18 pm

I say NRFOY hits Kurosawa fans so strongly because it's such a huge pro-individuality statement from Kurosawa, throwing down the gauntlet to a society in which not going along with the crowd is the greatest sin.

Reviewing it on the new disc after a year or so from seeing it last, NRFOY is certainly a step beyond Sanshiro Sugata in terms of getting the character's growth across. Did you catch the reference to that film in Yukie ripping her flower arrangement apart, turning it into three floating flowers?

However, some of the borrowings are rather obvious with the student riot shot and cut to resemble the Odessa Steps sequence and a lot of the rice farming looking like Yukie is posing on an agitprop poster.

Still like the film, 'tho, and Hara's performance, crying or no. That little almost S&M business where she makes Itokawa bow to her is a great character touch with more political resonance than all the riots and speeches. A failed moment would be the position changing against the door while her mother waits outside. I expected the mother to say, "when you've finished shifting, get downstairs. Your rice will get cold!"

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#98 Post by My Man Godfrey » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:30 am

I've enjoyed reading these comments -- especially Mr. Sausage's comments near the beginning of the thread.

Like others on the thread, I was blown away by I Live in Fear. I was expecting a clumsy, heavy-handed film (see: One Wonderful Sunday), and instead found a family tragedy like something out of Shakespeare. (It also reminded me, for obvious reasons, of The Mosquito Coast, another underrated film.) Kurosawa doesn't let anyone off the hook here; every character ends up impaled on his/her own narcissism. And that image of the burning earth: devastating, and really startling.

It's hard to believe that the actor who starred in that film was the hammy star of Scandal. I enjoyed Scandal, although it could have been so much more interesting. It seems, early on, like the two leads are beginning to fall in love. What an interesting conflict! But then the film backs away, and ends up focusing on that insufferable attorney and his daughter: the standard Saintly Disabled Girl. The scene in the bar is a weird misfire -- grinding the film to a halt (and also raising the questions raised by many scenes in a later Kurosawa classic -- Cocktail, starring Tom Cruise -- namely, why is everybody in this crowded bar quieting down to let these irritating drunks have their say?).

One Wonderful Sunday was enjoyable in a Capra-esque way at first (and it's obviously interesting to see contemporary representations of Japan in 1947), but I was irritated, first, by the film's attitude towards sex. I get that the culture is strait-laced, but seriously: what's so horribly ominous about the idea of these people screwing? And then the ending -- ouch. The liner notes state that Japanese audiences didn't respond as Kurosawa had hoped . . . but I was actually embarrassed to be watching that scene by myself, on my TV. I was literally watching through my fingers. And that scene just goes on and on . . .

Finally, speaking of Rashomon: have any of you seen Mario Bava's Four Times That Night? Perhaps the most unlikely "Rashomon-inspired" film I've seen yet. (A terrible movie . . . and terribly entertaining. [gong])

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#99 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Apr 09, 2008 9:18 am

I can see criticism of Scandal -- but (for whatever reason) I enjoyed it a whole lot. I felt _moist_ of the over-the-top-ness was intended to be entertaining -- and not taken seriously (unlike the case in Ikiru)..

I didn't see Mifune as remotely "hammy" in this.

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#100 Post by tryavna » Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:14 pm

Yeah, I'm not sure I consider Mifune's performance in Scandal particularly hammy, either. I do tend to agree with Godfrey's evaluation of the rest of the film, though. I think that relationship between the two leads is far more interesting than the attorney's inner conflict. It is fun to see an honest-to-goodness courtroom scene in a Kurasawa movie, however. Seems like every major director has to shoot at least one....
My Man Godfrey wrote:Finally, speaking of Rashomon: have any of you seen Mario Bava's Four Times That Night? Perhaps the most unlikely "Rashomon-inspired" film I've seen yet. (A terrible movie . . . and terribly entertaining. [gong])
Coincidentally, I just watched the Bava film about a week or so ago. You're right. It is far more entertaining than it has a right to be. The first half is actually rather witty, though I get the sense that Bava was growing bored with the increasingly predictable pattern/structure mid-way through -- hence the decision to "open up" the action during the third episode.

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