Moriarty’s DVD Shelf: Was 1954 Toho’s Greatest Year? SEVEN SAMURAI And GOJIRA Reviewed!

I’m of the opinion that classics happen by accident. At last as far as studios are concerned. For the most part, studios are just concerned with feeding the beast, turning out product to fill the needs of all the distribution arms they’ve set up, happy just to make a profit for the year. Studios are not artists. Studios are business ventures, and as such, they are unconcerned with enduring quality or lasting influence or artistic accomplishment. Sometimes, though, that drive to production results in happy convergences of energy and talent, and a studio catches a wave of good releases. For Toho Studios, one could argue that they made their two most indelible contributions to film culture in the same year. Keep in mind, the studio released sixty-eight films that year. That’s a staggering number when you compare it to the 12 – 20 films that a major Hollywood studio releases on average each year. Sixty-eight films, most of them original productions and not pick-ups. All the actors in SEVEN SAMURAI made other movies that year. Some of them made three or four or six or ten other films that year. To them, this was just one of the many jobs they were doing that year. There’s no way that the Toho bosses could have known at the time exactly what they were doing. Imagine... in one year, you release two films that actually create and define entire genres of cinema. Not bad. Not bad at all. SEVEN SAMURAI It’s appropriate that all you hear over the menu screen for the new Criterion release of SEVEN SAMURAI is wind and rain. It’s quiet, still, a reminder of just how potent a weapon that quiet can be when used properly in an action film, something that today’s filmmakers seem to have forgotten completely. SEVEN SAMURAI is the prototype that today’s action filmmakers are still imitating, but it’s like what we’re watching now is a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox. You can still make it out. You can still see the general shape of things. But the details have long since disappeared, and that makes all the difference. It’s hard for a first-time viewer to approach SEVEN SAMURAI in the right way because so much of the film has been picked over, stolen, digested, and codified. There are things that originated with this film that are simply part of the formula of the Hollywood action movie at this point. The trick to getting over the inevitable echoes that this sets up when you see the movie for the first time is to focus on just how rich the characters are in every scene. The reason this film’s structure paid off so well is because it provides the perfect framework for us to meet and fully appreciate all seven of the samurai characters as well as an entire community. That’s not easy, and director Akira Kurosawa takes advantage of every single one of the film’s 207 minutes, each one a well-crafted gem. The screenplay by Kurosawa, co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, is rich like a novel. It starts with one of the cleanest set-ups for an action film ever: a small village is threatened by bandits who vow to return when it’s time for harvest, and the villagers decide to hire samurai to protect them. Think of how many times you’ve seen that basic premise recast in new settings. It’s durable because its simplicity allows for a whole range of human experience to play out. This is a movie in which class plays a major role, and what makes the premise work over and over is the way it plays out differently depending on the community in which you set the story. Having to face your own limitations is never pretty, and these farmers know full well that they can’t beat the bandits. They seem acutely aware of their “place” in the world, and when they decide to hire samurai to help them, it is a decision that nearly cripples their pride. On top of that, it’s an enormous burden for them since they’ve got no money, and they’ve barely got enough food to take care of themselves. They’re so beaten down that they’re convinced that even if they hire the samurai, they’re still going to have to be scared of what’s going to happen to their women, their daughters. They’re convinced that they are everyone’s victims, even when they’re hiring someone. And these are people who live very close to the earth, primal. Elemental. The scenes where they express their grief or their fear or their joy or their fury... they are completely naked, emotionally broad. They play everything like they’re frayed, barely able to keep control of their own emotions. It takes around an hour for the farmers to put together their team of seven samurai, and each of the vignettes in which the samurai are introduced are classic mini-movies, character studies that are expertly handled. Take the introduction of Takashi Shimura as Kambei Shimada. He’s the moral glue of the group once they’ve all been introduced, and from the moment he shows up, he commands the screen. He’s in a village where a thief has gone over the edge and, confronted with his crime, taken a hostage. No one is willing to try and overpower the thief. Kambei Shimada shaves his head and puts on the robes of a monk so that he can carry in some food for the thief and his hostage. When he does, he manages to put the thief down quickly, decisively. Think of how many times you’ve seen that moment in an action film where we see the badass finishing up the case or the adventure that happens just before the events of this film. Kurosawa’s example here is perfectly executed, and part of the impact comes from the fact that one of the other main characters, Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), is introduced as a bemused spectator, lurking at the edge of the scene, watching and admiring. We share his perspective, and it changes the way we look at Shimada. Perspective plays a big part in this film. Kurosawa puts you in each character’s shoes at some point, and the result is a masterpiece of empathy, where you see an epic story but it somehow feels intimate with every character. There’s no arguing; this is a filmmaker at the absolute height of his power. Remember... this was his fifteenth film. And it’s not even his first masterpiece. It’s his third. In a row. Coming back to back with IKIRU, a beautiful human story about finding the value in any life, SEVEN SAMURAI seems like a filmmaker in blossom. Kurosawa had been getting more muscular as a filmmaker by leaps and bounds, and watching him progress from DRUNKEN ANGEL to STRAY DOG (an underrated favorite of mine) to RASHOMON, you can see him grow more and more assured, more and more ambitious. He demonstrated a command of neorealism at least on par with his Italian peers working at the same time, but he was also able to put together masterful visual sequences that worked as silent cinema. The battles in the film remain among the most effective in film history because of the incredible job he does establishing the geography of this village and the dynamics that exist within the village with the locals and the samurai. It’s an expert wind-up, each detail ratcheting the tension up little by little. And it’s not like the mechanical precision of a Hitchcock suspense film, either. It’s more like the gradual building of a storm. Another reason that rain on the DVD menu is so appropriate. This entire movie builds to a cathartic thunderstorm, a torrent that washes the whole world clean. It’s the single most stylized sequence in Kurosawa’s career up to that point, but it’s like this film set him free. When it became an international sensation, it gave him permission to follow his muse, resulting in a string of films that remains unequaled in world cinema: THRONE OF BLOOD, THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, THE BAD SLEEP WELL, THE LOWER DEPTHS, YOJIMBO, SANJURO, HIGH AND LOW, RED BEARD, DERSU UZALA, KAGEMUSHA, RAN. He ended his career creating delicate watercolors like DREAMS and RHAPSODY IN AUGUST, having lived long enough to see his films completely digested and then reinvented throughout western pop culture. All of the things he explored over the rest of his career crystallized in SEVEN SAMURAI, and the huge running time of the film gives him room to stretch his legs and try different things. Each sequence, it’s like he’s working a different muscle, or like he’s a composer who focuses first only on woodwinds, then only on brass. It’s not until the final hour of the movie, when the bandits return and try to take the village, that Kurosawa finally unleashes the whole orchestra at once, so to speak. My favorite image in a film rich with them is probably from a wrenching sequence that takes place just before the final battle scenes. There are outlying homes in the village that are going to have to be sacrificed. The samurai know that. They’re going to use water as one of their barricades, and there’s a mill that is on the wrong side of the bridge they’re planning to destroy. An old man goes out to the mill to wait for the bandits, determined to die in the home where he’s spent his whole life. His family tells Kikuchiyo that they’re going to go get the old man. A man, a woman, and a baby. Kikuchiyo knows he shouldn’t let them go, but he’s got his own preparations to make. When things go horribly wrong and Kikuchiyo goes to try and rescue them from the now-burning mill, he finds everyone but the baby dead. Mifune is unbelievable in these scenes, raw and ruined by what he’s seeing, and when he holds up the baby, standing there waist-deep in water, and cries out, “This baby is me!,” it’s one of the most unexpected and crushing moments for me in all of action cinema. I’m always deeply impressed by the way Kurosawa communicates military strategy in the film, as Kambai Shimada uses the villagers and the other samurai like chess pieces, fighting the bandits on many fronts at once. Because the final battle is over an hour from start to finish, we have an absolute command of the geography of the village, and we also have a real understanding of who everyone is and how the battle impacts them. The most common criticism of the movie (and I can see how audiences primed by later refinements of this film’s formula might feel this way) is that the bad guys are blanks, absolute nothings. I think that Kurosawa’s point, though. Every other character in the film falls somewhere in the grey scale, morally speaking, and I think Kurosawa realized that by making his bandits into faceless attackers with few exceptions, he makes them inhuman, scary. It’s a very purposeful choice, and it flies in the face of the current thinking that you have to make the villains just as interesting and charismatic as your heroes, so that audiences “like” them. Kurosawa’s background as a painter comes through in not only his visual approach, but in his philosophy as a dramatist. He uses broad strokes at times, fine detail work at others, and in the end, it is the entire canvass that matters. SEVEN SAMURAI is not a work of genre defining genius because of any one particular thing; instead, it is because of the sheer power of the accumulation of the entire thing, the size and scale of it, and the impact it has as a whole. I think Kurosawa made better films, but I don’t think he ever made a more iconic one. In fact, I’m not sure anyone has. Technically, this is a double-dip. Criterion has released SEVEN SAMURAI before, and I had that version as well. There’s no question this is a worthwhile upgrade. The print is spectacular, the single cleanest version of this film that I’ve ever seen. There are details revealed by this transfer that I’ve never seen in all the viewings I’ve had of the film up till now. I know there’s been some controversy about the fact that Criterion also updated the English translation for the subtitles, but I thought they did a great, respectful job of making it more conversational and natural-sounding. They give Mifune’s character a little bit rougher of a rough edge, but they also serve character well across the board. Everyone seems slightly better defined by the new subtitles. Again... it’s not a radical thing, but it’s that type of work that makes Criterion the best at what they do. There are two audio commentaries, one that we’ve heard before, and one that’s new to this disc. Both are scholarly and informative. Trailer and still galleries are included as well. There’s a Toho Masterworks episode on disc two, nearly an hour long, and it’s pretty in-depth and impressively produced. Disc three has two documentaries on it, and the first is amazing. “My Life In Cinema” is two hours of Kurosawa in his own words, interviewed by Nagisa Oshima. It’s inspirational to listen to this master and see how encouraging he is to young filmmakers and how much he believes in the ability of the artist to exist inside the industry. The final one-hour documentary is all about the history of the samurai and the various influences that Kurosawa drew upon in creating his film. It’s a great piece about Kurosawa’s visual acumen, and any fan of his work will love it. If you are a serious film fan, and you only buy films that you feel you will rewatch over and over, there are few titles I would recommend more completely than this particular release of this classic film. GOJIRA Let me be the first to say that Godzilla films as a genre are silly. I know that. I think even the most impassioned fan of kaiju knows that on some level. The idea of a movie in which an actor wears a giant monster suit while stomping around on a miniature set is hilarious. When Harry created the out-of-control chant of “MAN IN SUIT! MAN IN SUIT! MAN IN SUIT!,” he nailed it in one. It’s pro wrestling with fire breath and wings. That’s what I love about it, and that’s why I love even the most gloriously batshit entry in the long-running franchise. But GOJIRA, the 1954 film that started everything, is not silly. At all. Not even close. GOJIRA is actually one of the greatest of all metaphorical monster movies, an entire culture’s shared reaction to an unthinkable national tragedy. It is the first great myth of the atomic age, and I believe that GOJIRA had to happen. It is inevitable. When we dropped those bombs on Japan, their culture was changed forever, and their culture has existed in the shadow of it ever since. Think about it. The film was made a mere nine years after the bombs were dropped. We’re not talking about some event in the distant past. I don’t think we’re going to be ready to handle monster movies that deal explicitly with 9/11 anytime soon, and honestly, I don’t think there’s any American horror filmmaker who is capable of making a film that speaks as directly to primal fears as GOJIRA does. This is a bleak film, right down to an ending that still retains the power to shock and upset. I love the way the film gradually builds to the reveal of Gojira, focusing first on the wake of destruction the thing leaves behind. It’s smartly handled, and some of the effects are so subtle that they don’t feel like effects at all. There’s very little “look at how cool this is!” to the work that is done here. Instead, any effects we see at first are disturbances in nature, the world starting to react to what’s been done to it and what’s been unleashed on it. It makes sense that the Japanese chose to use a man in a suit instead of stop-motion, which was pretty much the standard solution for this sort of thing. This was nearly 20 years after KING KONG. By this point, stop-motion was a cornerstone of special effects vocabulary, but like any animation, it requires an artists touch to make it really come to life. It’s expensive because it’s a specialized craft, and because no matter what, it requires time. Eiji Tsuburaya is the man who deserves the credit for bringing Gojira to life, and when he budgeted and scheduled the film using stop-motion as a possibility, he realized it would take seven years to finish the film. It just wasn’t an option. The choices he made are still being imitated in the current kaiju films being made now, and there are very few subsequent films in the series that top it in terms of classic imagery. For me, the most indelible image from the entire series is Gojira melting those power lines, the first time we see what effect his “atomic breath” has on his environment. It’s the first real indicator that this isn’t just a big mutant lizard, but is instead the wrath of the nuclear age incarnate. It wasn’t until recently that I learned that a tragedy which is virtually unknown in the US served as another part of the inspiration for GOJIRA, in which a fishing trawler accidentally sailed through a fallout cloud from an H-bomb test, leading the entire crew to get sick and die. In GOJIRA, the opening scenes virtually mirror those events. So does tying the film to real-life horror and disaster make it good? No. Of course not. But it seems to have instilled a sort of fatalistic naturalism in director Ishiro Honda, a lifelong friend of Akira Kurosawa’s. Like Kurosawa, Honda seems to be working in a style that evokes both the documentary edge of Italian neorealism and the dreamy Hollywood polish of film noir. Honda served in the Japanese army, and he played an active role on the Chinese front for the better part of a decade. Honda’s father was a Buddhist monk, and Honda was by all accounts a quiet and spiritual man. I can only imagine what went through his head when he visited Hiroshima upon his return to Japan. He must have though that the world had gone mad. It certainly seems like that plays loud and clear in his film, where Japan seems genuinely doomed during Gojira’s rampage. It looks like nothing will stop this creature and its fury. I can’t think of another film in the entire series that I would describe as “bleak.” I think the clearest indicator of the difference between this and everything that followed is that I would happily show my son any Godzilla movie, but until he’s much older, I don’t play to show him GOJIRA. I want him to enjoy monster movies; I don’t want to traumatize him. See if you can clear your head of every sequel that followed, of the Emmerich remake, and of all the imitators. See if you can watch the first film fresh, and pay close attention to the 15 minute rampage that comes near the end of the film. It’s the first time Gojira has been turned loose in the streets of Tokyo, and it feels like the sequence goes on and on and on, building and building until there’s such a palpable sense of dread that you want to scream just to relieve the pressure. The now-famous theme was actually just one part of the original score. It certainly hadn’t become Godzilla’s iconic signature yet. Akira Ifukube nailed the character the same way the James Bond theme perfectly encapsulated not only who James Bond was, but the world he lived in. The Gojira theme is a funeral march, a hurdy-gurdy Apocalypse. It’s the kind of movie theme that gets into your head, and it really contributes to the way the rampage turns disturbing. In the ’39 KONG, you can’t help but empathize with Kong. He’s lost, afraid, furious, betrayed, and in the end, even noble. Gojira, on the other hand, is just a terrible force of destruction. Rage. Unstoppable. Uncaring. By the end of the scene, Tokyo looks like it must have after the firebombings near the end of WWII. For a Japanese audience, it must have been cathartic. The American version of the film, GODZILLA KING OF MONSTERS, is a different kind of nightmare. This is the version I’ve seen over and over while growing up, and once you’ve seen the original Japanese version, it’s sort of remarkable just how much they destroyed the film when they imported it. Raymond Burr is the star of the American film, and let’s do the math. The original is 100 minutes long. The American version is 80 minutes. There are only 60 minutes of the original in the American version. So that means they cut out over a half-hour of film in order to insert 20 minutes of reaction shots. It’s fascinating to watch how they did it, and I have to give them credit for the effort. It’s almost surreal at times, like watching an early version of Carl Reiner’s noir comedy, DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID. In an odd coincidence, Burr’s character name in the film? Steve Martin. Accident or destiny? You be the judge. Sony Home Entertainment’s 2-disc release of GOJIRA/GODZILLA is the single most elegant release of any Godzilla movie in any format to the American market. It’s beautifully-packaged, the transfers on both discs are as good as I imagine current materials will allow, and the price is right. I’m sorry it took so long to put together this review. I’m sorry about a lot of my deadlines at AICN right now, and all I can do about it is keep writing until I catch up. Next up, a back-to-back transcription of two recent interviews, and then a back-to-back set report piece. And then that editing bay visit, and that other set visit, and of course, all that DVD Shelf stuff to catch up on and... ... bloody hell. Better go now. Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles