Lost In Translation

On Kurosawa

In 2018 author Peter Tasker and Zen Photo Gallery decided to celebrate the 20^th year of the passing of Japanese world cinema master director Akira Kurosawa with an elaborately illustrated hardbound coffee table book, On Kurosawa. And as an artifact, this book is successful with the extensive collection of movies stills, illustrations, and photographs by Akihide Tamura. The handsome book design was created by Satoshi Machiguchi and Yuka Nagase of MATCH and Company. The book is divided into seven sections starting with “I Masterpieces” followed by “II Breakthrough,” “III Who is Kurosawa?,” “Kurosawa & Mifune,” “V Slump,” “VI Recovery,” and ending with “VII Coda.” In addition, there is a useful list of sources which include “Films Associated with Kurosawa,” “Films About Kurosawa and Associates,” “Related Films: Mishima and Yamamoto,” “Books-English” and “Books-Japanese,” and an “Other” section with links to interesting Youtube videos, a Japanese Playboy article from 2008, and an internet link to a page about Kurosawa and Mifune. The text is comprised of a mix of essays, poetry, and short-stories inspired by one of Kurosawa’s 30 films, exploring both Kurosawa’s legacy as well as the truth and relevance of those films today. Some of the pieces are more successful than others in expressing these concepts. For example, in the section “Screen: Scandal” Tasker explores Kurosawa’s relationship with journalists and his inspiration for the 1950 film in which journalists are the villains. Tasker was also illuminating he wrote four different narratives (from the points of view of the producer, the auteur, the go-between, and the critic) about what went wrong when Kurosawa was dismissed from a production in the entry “Screen: Tora!Tora!Tora!”. “Screen: Rhapsody in August” addresses Kurosawa’s controversial take on the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki with a summary of the film interspersed with criticisms of Kurosawa’s victimization of Japan in the film by three different critics. There are other points in the essay when Tasker provides interesting tangents related to Kurosawa and his films such as a discussion of unimpressive contemporary re-makes of some of his films (“Screen: 21^st Century Turkeys”), a list of Kurosawa’s favorite books (“Life: reading Books”), a discussion of the few women who appear in his films (“Life: Women”), and a list of his favorite 100 films of all time (“Life: Going to the Cinema”). Tasker’s book can be seen as a tantalizing introduction to the world of Kurosawa or as an additional resource for admirers of the great director. Either way, the volume would look good on any coffee table.

Waiting on the Weather

I was recently screening Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon for my Japanese Cinema class, so I decided to read Teruyo Nogami's memoir Waiting On The Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa (2006). I knew that Nogami had worked on many Kurosawa films from Rashomon up until his last film, Madadayo. However, I was unaware of her connection with Mansaku Itami (father of one my favorite contemporary filmmakers Juzo Itami). Itami was Kogami's first mentor and she helped raise Juzo. In fact I was interested to learn that noted chambara and jidaigeki director Daisuke Ito was his best friend and both were from Matsuyama-a formidable cultural friendship much like that of his son Juzo and his best friend the Nobel Prize winning author Kenzubaro Oe.  The first chapter focuses on this connection, "Mansaku Itami, My First Mentor." There is a lot of interesting information about how films were made in the postwar era in the second chapter, "Life in Miniature: At the Daiei Kyoto Studios." The third chapter proved to be a timely read for me since it concerns Rashomon, "Smiled on by Lady Luck: Rashomon." There's another interesting connection between Itami and Kogami that arises when Kogami tells how Itami also served as a mentor for Rashomon screenplay writer Shinobu Hashimoto, whom she would work with on that film. There are several facts that I was either unaware of or forgot: there were two fires that took place while they were editing the film, the film was entered in the Venice film festival without Kurosawa's knowledge-thus it's reception saved his reputation and revived his career since the film was so poorly received in Japan at first. "Toho Paradise" follows and Nogami tells how she moved to Toho after Rashomon and immediately worked with another great postwar director, Kon Ichikawa (probably best known for The Burmese Harp). In this chapter she discusses some of the jobs of the director's assistants and how they worked-using mostly examples from Kurosawa films. In "The Past Won't Return: remembering Dersu Uzala" she reminisces about the difficult 1972 shoot with cooperation of the Russian government that was a hardship in conditions of the location as well as working through a difficult shoot where Kurosawa was drinking heavily and border-lining on being outright abusive to his staff. In retrospect she feels that she could have been more understanding of him. Kogami discusses Kurosawa's issues with getting animals to perform for film in Chapter Six: "Kurosawa and Animals." The animals are a tiger for Dersu Uzala, horses in Kagemusha, and crows in Dreams. The next chapter, Seven: "Kurosawa and Music," examines Kurosawa's relationship with composers: Fumio Hayasaka, Masaru Sato, and Toru Takemitsu. In Chapter Eight: "Sentimental Recollections," Nogami remembers cinema's great that have passed away, for example: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, and Juzo Itami. In an interesting side note, she reveals that Mikio Naruse's Hideko the Bus Conductress was banned during the war for fear of showing the Malays decrepit-looking bus, which would have stained Japanese honor. It is followed by Chapter Nine, "Observing the Kurosawa Group," looks at several peopel associated with Kurosawa and the two most interesting sections for me were: "What Really Happened with Shintaro Katsu on Kagemusha" and "Kurosawa and Mifune after Red Beard." The last chapter was devoted to discussions of Kurosawa's meetings, appreciations, and relationships with world directors: John Ford, Laurence Olivier, Jean Renoir, Jean-Luc Goddard and John Milius, Werner Herzog, Martin Scorcese, William Friedkin, Sidney Lumet, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, John Cassavetes and Jim Jarmusch. This book is certainly of interest to Kurosawa fans, but perhaps indispensable to fans of the golden years of Japanese cinema. There is some repetition in the book since it was culled from a number of sources, but very entertaining and enlightening.

BFI: Throne Of Blood

Robert N. Watson has written some great commentary on one of Akira Kuroswawa's masterpieces in BFI: Throne Of Blood (2014). The Japanese title of the film, incidentally, is Kumonosu-jo (Spider's Web Castle). In the introduction, Watson points out that there was a tepid reaction when the film was first released-it was voted the fourth best film of 1957 in the Kinema Junpo end of the year list. However, over time it has garnered respect as one of Kurosawa's finest achievements and one of the best film adaptations of a Shakespeare play,Mac Beth, of all time. Watson cites its influence on him probably led him to become a Shakespearean professor. In fact, my own first viewing was as an assignment in an university Shakespeare course to watch the film and compare and contrast it with a filmed Royal Shakespeare performance of MacBeth. Watson states that it is a a profoundly ambivalent exploration of human morality that is at once intensely localized and transhistorical-and deeply self-conscious of the medium. In the next section, "A Guided Tour Through the Spider's Web," Watson analyzes the film with commentary chronologically as it was presented in the film: from "Day One" until it's conclusion on "Day Six." There are several photos to reflect points that Watson makes about mise en scene throughout the discussion. It is a very though provoking analysis and description, in fact, I was inspired to go back and watch my 2003 Criterion edition of the film again.

Sanjuro Redux

I recently re-watched Akira Kurosawa's sequel to Yojimbo, Sanjuro (1962), because so many of my Japanese Cinema students saws it as the out-of-class viewing assignment and I realized that I couldn't remember the film well, unlike Yojimbo. Tsubuki Sanjuro (the man with no name's alias in this film) is an interesting character: savvy, uncouth, and a killing machine with the sword. He mentors and helps a group of samurai bring down corrupt officials who have kidnapped their magistrate. One of the leaders of the group is a sinister Tatsuya Nakadai who ends the film having a sword fighting duel with Sanjuro and loses spectacularly in spurt of blood. There is some comedic relief from the rescued magistrate's wife (Takao Irie) and her daughter (Reiko Dan) as well as a captured henchman. There are the usual Kurosawa flourishes and grand moments of cinematography in the fighting scenes. It was nice to revisit a classic Kurosawa samurai film.

The Quiet Duel

The Quiet Duel (1949) is the last of Akira Kurosawa's films for me to see. It came out the same year as Stray Dog. It is a less satisfying film overall than Stray Dog since it is a melodramatic and seemingly simple story.  It is based on a play, it is about a selfless young doctor dedicated to improving society in light of personal tragedy. Toshiro Mifune plays the sacrificial young doctor, Koyji Fujisaki, who has contracted syphilis through surgery in the war and refuses to marry his fiance (Miki Sanjo) or tell her why for fear that she will sacrifice her chance for marriage and a happy life by waiting to see if he recovers. He works in his father's clinic, his father is played by Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura. There is an engaging performance from Noriko Sengoku as a cynical, outspoken  patient and apprentice nurse who cannot afford an abortion who finds inspiration in Fujisaki's selflessness to strive onto become a nurse and competent mother despite her circumstances. The man from whom he contracted the syphilis, Nakada (Kenjiro Uemura), arrives on the scene and has selfishly ignored his condition, married and impregnated his wife, which leads to a tragic premature birth and with Nakada succumbing to madness. Apparently, according to Donald Richie in the original script Fujisaki also succumbs to madness, but the American censors would not approve of that ending so Kurosawa changed it its current ending with Fujisaki living out his days attending to the poor and sick. It is yet another example of Kurosawa's humanism where the lead character acts out for the greater good of society rather than falling back on selfish individual pursuits. This films exhibits the torrential rains that always punctuate Kurosawa films, that I thought started with Rashomon. There are several artfully framed and orchestrated scenes throughout. But overall, the film is considered a minor achievement in the dierctor's overall oeuvre.

The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail

The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail (1945) is Akira Kurosawa's fourth film and a part of Criterion's Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa (with Sanshiro Sugata, The Most Beautiful, and Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two). it is a curious film in several respects since it was filmed during Japan's surrender on a restricted budget. It was kept off the American censor's list, because some felt that Kurosawa wasn't being respectful of the origins of the story which was staged in Kabuki and Noh versions.  Therefore it wasn't shown until 1952, however Kurosawa maintained that this was not so. He was being more true to the Noh version, of which he preferred and found more artful than Kabuki. That being said it is also his shortest film coming in at under an hour, and also a comedy and musical. Perhaps, his intent was to entertain people after the hardships of the war and defeat.

The Most Beautiful

The Most Beautiful (1944) is Akira Kurosawa's second film and a documentary like propaganda film at that. It is included in the Criterion Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa (Sanshiro Sugata / The Most Beautiful / Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two / The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail). Already Kurosawa is employing techniques he would master in his classic masterpieces years later. He uses techniques like cutting action forward to be more efficient with story telling. He also uses short cuts for flashback sequences that suggest the past rather than relive it. The story is basic. It is about a precision lens factory that is staffed by women who make great sacrifices to keep up with production for the war effort. Many consider it one of Kurosawa's minor works, but already his genius is showing. It is also of note that after the film he married one of the actresses from the film,Yoko Yaguchi.

Ozu vs. Kurosawa

Interestingly, this issue of Ozu vs. Kurosawa came up earlier this year when I stated that last year I discovered Ozu in my round up of films watched in 2009. I finally saw Tokyo Story and got Criterion’s Eclipse Late Ozu Box Set (Early Spring / Tokyo Twilight / Equinox Flower / Late Autumn / The End of Summer). A friend of mine who has moved from Japan said that living outside of Japan made him appreciate the subtleties of Ozu and his representation of Japanese society and culture. And I can understand that and I do appreciate his films, but I have a couple of issues with his films:

1) Reliance on “kata” (specific forms). In Japanese culture it seems that many arts are based on variations of a single form: temples that vary in slight details, the endless variations of ramen, traditional dances that are essentially the same in form, etc. Ozu’s films are all variations on the same theme of the dissolution of the family. So if we were to apply Isaiah Berlin’s concept of the hedgehog and the fox. Ozu is the hedgehog that knows one great thing and Kurosawa is the fox who knows many things. I appreciate that Kurosawa has made film noir, period dramas, contemporary films, as well as adaptations of western and Japanese classics. I will concede to the point of Kurosawa sometimes being overly dramatic and, perhaps, overly simplistic in his humanism. After watching all those Ozu films it was sometimes difficult to differentiate between them and I noticed that in some films he used the same sets-which comes across as bit lazy to me since they are not supposed to be connected plot wise in any fashion. This is not to say that his analysis of the breakdown of traditional family values isn’t important or worthwhile is beside the point. I just prefer the dynamism of Kurosawa. 

2) In some ways I resent his “official” view of Japan, because I don’t think it gives a true picture of Japanese society His milieu is extremely limited to middle class households with long suffering wives and dutiful daughters. This doesn’t ring true to me, nor did it ring true to Shohei Imamura, who worked for Ozu (most notably on his classic Tokyo Story) and his career is a case study in the “unofficial” version of Japanese history since postwar Japan. Not all of Kurosawa’s characters are virtuous doctors or crusading cops or selfless samurai. Kurosawa features gangsters, pimps, whores, and drug dealers in some of his films not to mention attacks on the media, the yakuza, the government, the military, and other negative institutions that exist in Japanese society. I am drawn to his moral vision. 

I think both directors have a distinct place in the pantheon of great Japanese directors. But it may say more about the viewer’s sensibilities than anything. I have some viewing projects that I haven’t gotten around to and one of them is to watch Ozu’s Late Spring, which might create a different effect since I will be watching it almost a year removed from when I saw many Ozu films within a fairly short period of time. I might appreciate it more or find more to latch on to this time around.

The Hardboiled Samurai: Crime Fiction and the Films of Akira Kurosawa

The Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa used a variety of sources for his films throughout his career. These sources ranged from traditional Japanese Kabuki plays in The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail to classic works of world literature like Shakespeare plays in Throne of Blood and Ran and Dostoevsky in The Idiot. Kurosawa has a wide-ranging interest in art and has borrowed from more popular sources as well. His first film Sanshiro Sugata was based on the popular contemporary novel of the same name by Tsuneo Tomita. Kurosawa was also a fan of popular detective and mystery novels. In three of his films Kurosawa used this source material: Stray Dog (1949), Yojimbo (1961), High and Low (1963). However, even when Kurosawa uses established source materials for his films, they were adapted to fit his artistic vision and worldview.  He frequently expanded these plots to make critical commentary on contemporary Japanese society. This is particularly true of the aforementioned films.

Throughout the film career of Kurosawa, he has continually stressed the importance of the individual’s responsibility to society in general. Thus Kurosawa feels that mankind’s most noble pursuit is in the betterment of society. Many of Kurosawa heroes and villains grapple with this concept.Some of these protagonists include the virtuous doctors from Drunken Angel and Red Beard as well as the samurais who protect the poor villagers in Seven Samurai. Another example of this can clearly be seen in the case of the petty bureaucrat from Ikiru who has faced an “Ivan Illych” type epiphany when he realizes that he is dying. He comes to the understanding that he has been living his life in vain. He soon comes to realize that the only satisfying way of living life is in the service of society. Thus, before his death he pushes through a civil project to build a park for a community where a cesspool used to be.  After completing this act, he can die knowing that his legacy will be that he has contributed to improving society. Kurosawa uses these crime fiction stories to promote his views on the responsibility to rebuild post war Japan in Stray Dog, make a comment about the parasitic existence of the yakuza in Yojimbo, and highlight society’s misplaced emphasis on capitalism over humanism in High and Low.

Stray Dog

Stray Dog (Nora Inu), Akira Kurosawa’s tenth film, was written first in the form of a novel. He had set out to write a Georges Simenon detective story (Kurosawa 1982): “I first wrote the screen play in the form of a novel. I am fond of the work of Georges Simenon, so I adopted his style of writing novels about social crime.” (McCoy 2007) Simenon is the creator of “the worldly, humane Inspector Jules Maigret, whose ability to crack tough cases depended more on social and psychological acumen than any Homlesiam puzzle-solving genius.” (Rafferty, 2004, p.4) However, Kurosawa would quickly learn that his own voice and concerns would quickly infuse this project.

Some of the similarities between Kurosawa’s screenplay and the work of Simenon include characterization, setting, the use of weather and an emphasis on procedure.  Grost (2009) points out that Kurosawa’s detectives, Sato and Murakami are policemen, like Maigret, who engage in realistic, time consuming procedural police work to solve crimes. In addition, Kurosawa like Simenon uses many locations, mostly in the poorer districts of Tokyo, like the black market in Ueno. The extreme heat that Kurosawa employs in his film can also be seen in Simenon novels like M. Gallet decede (Maigret Stonewalled) (1931). But for Kurosawa it would be difficult to excise his worldview from the equation.

As a result, Kurosawa saw this film largely as a failure, since he set out to make a “George Simeon” mystery story.  The result may be a failure when evaluated as a genre piece, however it is a success in other aspects. This is a more complex and nuanced story that rises above the limitations of a mere detective mystery story:

Kurosawa was right, in a way, about his failure to imitate Simenon. Stray Dog isn’t as tidy or compact as a Maigret novel, but for the best possible reason: it’s the work of a more generous and more complex artist.  Kurosawa’s film has a richness-an abundant and almost unruly curiosity about the extremes of human behavior-that the French writer’s slender, shapely books never demonstrated.  It’s obvious in the movie that at this point in Kurosawa’s career (just a year before his international breakthrough, Rashomon) he was outgrowing his influences, and that, whether he knew it or not, he was destined to become more than a reliable genre craftsman, a petite maitre like Simenon.  Stray Dog isn’t an ideally efficient detective thriller; the excitement it provides is deeper and more satisfying than simple suspense. (Rafferty 4)

The story becomes the vehicle that Kurosawa uses to develop other complex issues and themes.

Therefore Stray Dog can be seen as several films in one.  It can be viewed on several different levels: as a detective “film noir”, as a doppelganger story of the protagonist and antagonist (who have similar backgrounds) in a race against time to stop the killer from killing again, a protégé/mentor story between the seasoned veteran and rookie cop, or as a realistic social commentary on the postwar Japan. (McCoy 2007) So the basic story is that of a cop who loses his gun and tracks down the criminal that is using it for crime. However, there is the story between the pursuer, Murakami, and the criminal, Yusa, who resemble each other in that both had fought in the war and returned to Japan and had to struggle to survive. Murakami is given advice by the senior detective Shimura, who helps him track the killer down. This all takes place in the war-ravaged Tokyo-complete with scenes filmed at the black market in Ueno.

Essentially Kurosawa is critiquing capitalism and how it divides people rather than bringing them together. Murakami and Yusa faced difficult times after returning from WWII, but their responses to the hardships they faced reflect two divergent paths available in postwar Japan. Murakami chooses to get a job as a police officer, which helps him connect with society by fighting crime and corruption. The fact that Yusa feels alienated by his exclusion from capitalistic society leads him to pursue crime. This frustration with the unfair capitalistic system will be echoed and more fully explored later in the film High and Low.

Yojimbo

            The sources for Yojimbo are controversial in that Kurosawa was usually forthright about his source material, but Kurosawa cites no specific source for this film other than inspiration from the westerns of John Ford. However, it has been suggested that Dashiell Hammett’s great gangster novel, Red Harvest (1939), was an inspiration for the film:

Several critics over the years beginning with Andrew Sarris saw parallels between the great American gangster novel and the great samurai film classic. Manny Farber stated flatly that Yojimbo was “a version of Red Harvest – a bowdlerized version.” Not everyone was so sure. Donald Richie, perhaps the leading scholar on Kurosawa’s work, said in a 1996 interview, “I think the similarity in themes is just a coincidence. Kurosawa has always acknowledged his sources.”  Kurosawa was a reader of crime fiction; his 1960 film Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru, or The Bad Sleep Well, was adapted from an Ed McBain novel. But some feel Kurosawa was not so open in acknowledging his sources; his 1949 film The Quiet Duel owes much to Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illyich. David Desser, another Kurosawa scholar, in his book The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa, states categorically that “Yojimbo is a an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest” and “the basic situation that motivates the plot in Yojimbo is adapted from Hammett’s Red Harvest.” (Berra 2005 p.4)

In addition, Stephens (1998) suggests that Yojimbo has a suspicious indebtedness to Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest. Furthermore, there was a controversy about the film rights to Red Harvest.  It seems that the producers of the film Last Man Standing had obtained the rights to remake Yojimbo from Kurosawa’s estate. Thensomeone from Grimaldi Productions, suggested that it was widely known that Yojimbo is the samurai version of Red Harvest and to redo Yojimbo without acknowledging Red Harvest was “borderline dishonest.”  However, it seems nothing came of this particular controversy. (Berra 2005) Keeping these controversies in mind, it will be illuminating to look at the similarities between the two works to discuss the validity of the claims made by Sarris, Farber, Desser, and Stephens.

            There are several striking similarities between the works that seem extraordinary if they are mere chance. To begin with both works have a protagonist with no name, “the continental op” from Red Harvest, and the samurai with no name in Yojimbo.  In both works, there is no central authority and the only law and order comes from the balance between two opposing factions, of which neither is strong enough to openly confront one another. This unknown stranger hires himself out to both sides, essentially playing both ends against the middle. When the dust settles both sides are destroyed and the stranger comes out on top.

            Kurosawa is using this idea of a ruthlessly corrupt town and a super human samurai to clean it up as comment on contemporary society. Richie (1996) suggests that the dreadful town in Yojimbo is contemporary Japan.  Furthermore, Prince (1991) reports Kurosawa’s intentions: “I was so fed up with the world of the Yakuza. So in order to attack their evil and irrationality, and thoroughly mess them up, I brought in the super-samurai played by Mifune… Only such a samurai of the imagination, much more powerful than a real samurai, could mess up these gangsters.”  (Mellen, Voices from the Japanese Cinema, p.57)  In essence, Kurosawa is borrowing the conventions of the gangster novel, Red Harvest, to make a comment about contemporary society and the role of the Yakuza.  He is fantasizing about cleaning up society by disposing of the gangster, something that is all but impossible in real life given how entrenched the Yakuza are in the daily workings of Japanese society.

High And Low 

            It has been long established that Kurosawa adapted High and Low from Ed McBain’s crime novel King’s Ransom (1959) from the “87^th Precinct” series. The main inspiration for Kurosawa involves the story of a businessman who is engaged in a big business deal when his chauffeur’s son is mistakenly kidnapped instead of his own son. The wealthy businessman must decided whether of not to pay the ransom or let the boy die. Again, Kurosawa uses the source material to make a statement about contemporary Japanese society as much as to film a police procedural thriller.  The English title of the film doesn’t have the same connotations of the Japanese title: Tengoku To Jigoku-Heaven And Hell.  Richie (1996 pp.pp.163-164) points out that:         

…this suggests an extreme opposite that merely High and Low does not. The first half of the picture takes place in heaven-that is, in Mifune’s apartment, high in a bluff in Yokohoma and visible from most of that section of the city. Even the background for the credit title is scenes of Yokohoma from high up. These include the harbor, Chinatown, the trains, and factory chimneys which later become important to the action, and al are seen as Mifune himself sees them-from above. The second half of the film takes place in hell-in Yokohoma itself, and eventually descends to the lowest circle: the alleys around Chinatown where in a warren of cheap hotels and bars the heroin pushers are found.

Kurosawa’s regular lead man, Toshiro Mifune plays the wealthy shoe manufacturer Kingo Gondo, who lives in a gorgeous western style house high up on a bluff over looking a slum below.  A villain who takes it into his own hands to redistribute the wealth tries to kidnap Gondo’s son, but mistakenly kidnaps the chauffeur’s son. The villain is a poor medical student who lives in the slum in the bluff below the magnificent mansion. It begets the moral question; is a chauffeur’s son worth as much as a wealthy industrialist’s son? At first, Gondo refuses to pay the ransom since it interferes with his goal of taking a controlling share of his shoe company. Eventually he complies, and the second half of the film is a police procedural where the detectives track down the kidnapper and murder, Takeuchi. Takeuchi has murdered his accomplices and then murders a woman in a dope alley to check the purity of heroin he has purchased according to the instructions from a blackmail letter forged by the police. He is finally apprehended at the hideout and will be executed for murder.

Kurosawa has no sympathy for the villain in this film; it is a film of extremes-Heaven and Hell-black and white-good and evil. In Stray Dog there was some sympathy for the villain who was driven to desperation by bad luck, a weak character, and the capitalist society. However, the contrast between Gondo, who is a humanitarian who abandons his ambition to help the innocent, whereas, in contrast, Takeuchi is a cold-blooded kidnapper-murderer, whose hatred of Gondo is misdirected. It is an example of the reactionary message of class antagonism. Takeuchi should be angry against society and their championing of capitalist values over humanitarian values. Yoshimoto (2002) puts it very succinctly and accurately; High and Low presents shattered images of the nation divided by confusion, ambiguity, and the reversal of values.

Conclusion 

Kurosawa has the ability to transform crime fiction story sources into high-minded social critiques of contemporary Japanese society. In Stray Dog the plot of a police officer getting his revolver-stolen sets the stage for mediation on postwar morality. There are two characters that have faced the hardship of postwar society and have chosen two different paths of survival, one upholding the law, while the other chooses to violate the law for survival. In Yojimbo the hardboiled plot of two warring gangs buying the services of a bodyguard reflects the corrupt yakuza of contemporary society and acts as a revenge fantasy of riding Japan of that blight. High and Low, on the other hand, starts out as a crime story in which a wealthy businessman has to decide between the fates of his company of that of an innocent boy, but it extends to become a critique of the shattered values of contemporary Japanese society. Kurosawa has an eye for creating entertaining spectacles, but at heart he is a moralist who feels the need to expose the failings of contemporary Japanese society. He manages to combine these two sensibilities to create entertaining social critiques, which is no easy task. Modern cinema is the richer for his efforts.

References 

Berra, A. (2005) From “Red Harvest” to “Deadwood.” Retrieved March 9, 2009 from

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2005/02/28/hammett/print.html 

Grost, M. (2009 updated) Georges Simenon. Michael E. Grost’s “A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection.” Retrieved March 11, 2009 from http://www.trussel.com/maig/grost.htm

Hammett, D. (1939) Red Harvest. Vintage.

Kurosawa, A. (1982). Something Like An Autobiography. (A. Bock, Trans.) New York:  Vintage Books.

Kurosawa, A. (Director). (1963). High And Low [DVD]. The Criterion Collection, 1998.

Kurosawa, A. (Director) & Prince, S. (Audio Commentary). (1949). Stray Dog [DVD]. The Criterion Collection, 2004.

Kurosawa, A. (Director) (1961) Yojimbo. [DVD] The Criterion Collection, 1999.

McBain, E. (1959) King’s Ransom. Signet.

McCoy, P. (2007) “Two Paths After Defeat: Postwar Mentality And Morality in Stray Dog” Toyo Journal of the Institute of Human Science, Vol. 13.

Prince, S. (1991) The Warrior’s Camera. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Rafferty, T. (2004). Kurosawa comes of age. Stray Dog (booklet from Stray Dog [1949 DVD] The Criterion Collection.

Richie, D. (1996). The Films Of Akira Kurosawa. Berkeley: University Of California Press.

Simeon, G. (1931) Maigret Stonewalled. Penguin.

Stephens, C. (1998) The Criterion Collection Liner notes. High and Low. [1963 DVD] The Criterion Collection.

 

 

Sanshiro Sugata Part II

Sanshiro Sugata Part II is probably one of Akira Kurosawa’s biggest failures. It was made due to the success of the previous film, but it may have been rushed because of the fire bombing of Tokyo. So it makes me wonder where they got the American actors for the fight scenes between the boxer and Japanese martial artists. It is a very formulaic film: Japan (good) v. USA (bad). It is a propaganda picture, it is apparent that Kurosawa phoned this one in.