“Hollywoodish like Satyajit Ray”
There´s no real parallel between Ray and Hollywood, he was rather accused of being “Western” due to adapting European models like Italian neorealism, and mostly by critics who didn´t understand the cultural devices in his films which are foremost Indian. Ray´s frustation about such ignorance lead to the point where he stated no critic should dare to write a book about him without being able to speak Bengali. As for the Kobayashi-Kurosawa debate, I can see clear similarities between “The Human Condition” and “The Bad Sleep Well” since both films criticize the misuse of power and confront the potentates with their own atrocities. I dont quite see the point of comparision with the theme of “Red Beard”, and would therefore appreciate if you can elaborate on that. And while Kobayashi´s films certainly have novelsitic qualities, I generally regard them as some of the most impacting Japanese films there are. Not on a subtle emotional level like various films made by Ozu or Mizoguchi, it´s rather the heart-rending injustice which gives his films those similarly tragical dimensions, But I think that an overall comparision between these filmmakers with vastly different priorities ultimately does neither justice, unless one justifies it with personal preference.
The manner in which the young soldier follows Kaji in The Human Condition is similar to the young doctor who ultimately decides to give his life to the human cause that ‘Red Beard’ champions. In Red Beard, the enemy is once again the society or the system (or rather the ‘poverty’ which is often the result of injustice and exploitation, and which is also the starting point of any ideology).
After watching Kobayashi, one begins to question the judgment of Kurosawa, and for obvious reasons starts to wish if only Kurosawa were a little ‘brave’ to depict the white invaders in true flesh.
As far as Ray is concerned, I don’t care whether people think he is Hollywoodish or European. It is because of him that I’m writing about films here on TheAuteurs.com :) For me, Ray is essentially Indian.
And Kurosawa a favorite.
I see, that comparision between “The Human Condition” and “Red Beard” makes sense. I agree with you that Kurosawa never dared to make his works as dissident and controversial as did Kobayashi, and occasionaly a bolder treatment of his issues would have provided some of his films with a necessary political urgency. Ray obviously was much bolder as he made political films in the 1970s which openly criticized the conditions under Indira Ghandi, and films like “The Adversary” or “The Middleman” deserve a lot of respect in that regard. In his book length study “The Cinema of Satyajit Ray: Between Tradition and Modernity” the film critic Darius Cooper made an attempt to refute the notion of Ray as a Westernized director tracing the numerous Indian sources of his films, and I am overall in agreement with him. Obviously no filmmaker works in a vacuum, and due to education, globalization and his personal experiences Ray did find inspiration in classical European music and recent European film trends, but his main concerns are nevertheless deeply rooted in Bengali literature and music which makes him an essentialy Indian director as you said.
One director is better than another for thematic reasons?
Kurosawa never dared to make his works as dissident and controversial…
This is based on the premise that art should provoke, which is how Kung Fu violence is justified I guess.
Kobayashi’s dependency on novelistic device to use space and time doesn’t necessarily mean that he makes an impact as one would expect from such a great polemic.
Perhaps that is what David Thomson means when he says Masaki Kobayashi isn’t quite original like Yasujiro Ozu or Kenji Mizoguchi (and Kurosawa is not as great as the both masters).
Both those statements seem nonsensical to me.
@RaySquirrel probably still be alive if Kaji would had just stood up sooner.
Kaji’s actions are absolutist – it wasn’t a matter of standing up sooner. He is told point-blank by Chinese and Japanese that he needs to build consensus. The point of the first part of the trilogy is that one cannot stand alone. It could not have been more didactic and contrived a message.
Hopefully he’s finished watching it by now.
Yeah he did:
It took me 10 months but I finally got around to finishing Masaki Kobayashi’s 9 and one half hour epic The Human Condition. After the whole thing I feel drained.
I also saw THE HUMAN CONDITION recently and was stunned. I can imagine how controversial it must have been in 1959-1961 and applaud Kobayashi for his daring. I wish the role of his wife had been explored more though. Her screen time vanished after Kaji was sent to the front. Today I rented HARAKIRI from the library; I hope it’s worth the $1 I spent!
KWAIDAN is one of my favorite movies also. I’d love to see that sometime in a theater.
Yes, HARAKIRI is excellent.
Yes. Samurai Rebellion ain’t bad either.
salikshah
Kurosawa vs. Kobayashi: The Futility of Exposition
After watching The Human Condition (1959-1961), one gets the feeling that Akira Kurosawa was like the quitter(s) in Masaki Kobayashi’s trilogy. They called Kurosawa a coward (he tried to commit suicide). They accused him of not confronting the enemies of his times (he preferred ghosts of the national past to living devils). They said he didn’t give his villains a face or put on too tough a battle. But then the Russians or the commies don’t come across as the real villains in The Human Condition. The real enemies of the people of Japan are the Japanese themselves. Kurosawa makes exactly the same point over and again in most of his films, doesn’t he? Take The Bad Sleep Well (1960) or Red Beard (1965) for instance, aren’t they similar to The Human Condition in their themes minus the political exposition?
While I enjoyed the sword fight in Harakiri (1962) (it was otherwise a dull movie), I think Sadao Yamanaka’s Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937) is far superior in its representation of the reality of a Samurai family fallen on difficult times. If Kurosawa does seem Hollywoodish like Satyajit Ray (another filmmaker accused of being ’ too Western’), Kobayashi’s dependency on novelistic device to use space and time doesn’t necessarily mean that he makes an impact as one would expect from such a great polemic. Perhaps that is what David Thomson means when he says Masaki Kobayashi isn’t quite original like Yasujiro Ozu or Kenji Mizoguchi (and Kurosawa is not as great as the both masters).