If there's one Japanese film produced before Kurosawa became a director, that movie buffs are aware of, it's this one. I first saw it some time in the 1970s, but I have not looked at it for twenty or twenty-five years. This weekend, TCM broadcast it. Given that I spent the weekend with a terrible sore throat, cough and general malaise, I could not give it the concentration that it demanded until this evening.
It's clearly a beautifully mounted production of the Japanese flag-waver, funded in part by the Japanese government. Mizoguchi attempts to open it up with a huge set that requires a large number of long shots, as well as a gracefully moving camera under the helm of Kohei Sugiyama (perhaps better remembered for his work on Gate of Hell). That said, it's clear to me why it was not a box office hit; all the action sequences take place offscreen. In terms of suspense, that's not a bad thing; as Hitchcock noted, suspense is waiting for the bomb to explode, not the explosion -- something modern film makers might do well to learn. The final, mass suicide of the ronin is calmly and brilliantly staged -- again, off camera, except for one.
One goes to these big movies for the big scene. All too frequently, they're disappointments. The dead-guy-on-a-horse scene in El Cid doesn't work for me. The calm, stoic manner in which everyone does his duty works here, as do the occasional emotional outbursts to vary the tempo.
It's not a short movie. It was released in two parts and lasts over two hundred minutes; the print was good, although there were occasional flaws and it could use a super-duper restoration. Still, it's great. If you haven't seen it already, give yourself a treat. In fact, if you haven't seen it recently, you'll enjoy looking at it again.
It's clearly a beautifully mounted production of the Japanese flag-waver, funded in part by the Japanese government. Mizoguchi attempts to open it up with a huge set that requires a large number of long shots, as well as a gracefully moving camera under the helm of Kohei Sugiyama (perhaps better remembered for his work on Gate of Hell). That said, it's clear to me why it was not a box office hit; all the action sequences take place offscreen. In terms of suspense, that's not a bad thing; as Hitchcock noted, suspense is waiting for the bomb to explode, not the explosion -- something modern film makers might do well to learn. The final, mass suicide of the ronin is calmly and brilliantly staged -- again, off camera, except for one.
One goes to these big movies for the big scene. All too frequently, they're disappointments. The dead-guy-on-a-horse scene in El Cid doesn't work for me. The calm, stoic manner in which everyone does his duty works here, as do the occasional emotional outbursts to vary the tempo.
It's not a short movie. It was released in two parts and lasts over two hundred minutes; the print was good, although there were occasional flaws and it could use a super-duper restoration. Still, it's great. If you haven't seen it already, give yourself a treat. In fact, if you haven't seen it recently, you'll enjoy looking at it again.