lew crippen / george kaplan mini-challenge (1 Viewer)

[Seth Paxton]

Hmm, if only there were a way to stand in the crowd circling this fight chanting "fight, fight, fight" and perhaps throwing a randomly placed stone from time to time.

Or better yet sneak in with the classic gimmick of "yeah" or "are you gonna let him say that to you?".


Throne of Blood is far down my Kurosawa list to be honest. I put it in the Hidden Fortress range, far, far below films like High and Low, Ikiru, Red Beard, or Rashomon. I think he did Shakespeare better with Ran even, which does a better job of exemplifying the surrealistic absurdity of life that comes through in Shakespeare, at least when I read it.

 

[MartinTeller]

I'm currently reading The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, and in a passage about some of the crimes that fascinated young Hitch, I came across this:



Any relation, Lew?

 

[Lew Crippen]

Any relation, Lew?

No I’m not Martin, but although little known here, Dr. Crippen is quite well known in the UK. The jokes normally begin at customs and immigration at Gatwick. Sample:

Customs Official (examines passports, looks up and says as an aside to my wife): You’ll want to be careful then, Mrs. Crippen

And the Brits think that we don’t get their humour.

 

[SteveGon]

I'd take you on Steve but we've probably seen most of the same films.

That's what I was thinking. I'd take on Weinberg but I'd probably have to watch Armageddon again.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Funny, I was thinking that I should do a mini-challenge with Rob just to make him watch Chariots of Fire again.

- Walter.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Seth, So’s your mother

I chose Throne of Blood because, while it is a favorite of mine, it is not so well-known or well-regarded as the ones you mention.

I’m actually not surprised that it is not among your favorites, as I think that one of the differeneces we have in evaluating films is that I tend to like fanciful films more than you.

Plus, I already knew that George did not require realism in order to appreciate films and I thought that this might appeal.

 

[oscar_merkx]

I have to confess that something came up while sitting down to watch TOB, so hopefully tonight won't be a problem.

I did see it last year as part of the BFI tour of Kurosawa, and Mifune is just so brilliant.

To be continued

 

[oscar_merkx]

Updated

I am listening to Michael Jeck's commentary at the moment, dry but very informative

 

[Lew Crippen]

How is the commentary, Oscar? I don’t have the DVD.

 

[george kaplan]

I watched it on TCM, so I haven't heard the commentary either. Lew, what do you mean you don't own the dvd? You challenged me to this film, and I'm going to own it before you?

 

[Lew Crippen]

That does indeed have some humor. I knew it was coming around as a part of the retrospective and thought that I could save some money by deferring the purchase until I had caught up with the unseen Criterion DVDs that I want (which may never happen).

But this is all pretty futile, as Hopscotch, which I just ordered was an unplanned (at this time) purchase. :b

 

[Brook K]

When I saw the Throne of Blood screening two weeks ago, I found it a less satisfying experience than I remembered it. I would agree with many of the things Lew said and it certainly is a fine showcase of acting and Kurosawa's aesthetics. Maybe because I find it rather similar to Ran but lacking the incredible battle sequences or the development of other characters beyond Mifune and his wife?

I still like it, but like Seth, would now place it further down my list. Also as I continue to discover his modern films, I'm finding I like all of those better than most of the samurai films.

Lew, the shaving of the eyebrows was a common practice for Japanese nobility and courtiers. You will see it in other Kurosawa films like Rashomon and Ran, and other Japanese historical films like The 47 Ronin, Chusingura, and The Samurai Trilogy. If Pascal pops by I'm sure he could elaborate much further.

A comment on "overacting". I've expressed my displeasure over terms like "pretentious", "melodramatic" and "self-indulgent" before and I would put overacting in this group of critical fallacies as well (though a lesser one because I think overacting can occur, like say in Troma movies, just not in the movies I usually see criticized in this way). An auteurist/artist type director, is not going to cast an actor that does not produce the desired effect for their role. The effect that we see as "overacting" may not even be the actors decision, but rather something the director tells them to do. Kazan cast Brando from the stage, knowing exactly what Brando would do because he'd played the character hundreds of times already. Kurosawa knew what Mifune could and would do. He wasn't going to allow things in his films that he didn't want to happen. Kubrick knew what Jack Nicholson would bring to the Shining and if he wasn't doing exactly what Kubrick wanted, you KNOW he would reshoot until it was exactly what he wanted.

To me, none of these examples are "overacting". They are the exact effect that the director wishes to inpart. In real life people scream, yell, and act crazy. I don't know why we expect movie characters/actors to be more restrained.

 

[george kaplan]

Re: overacting

Well if an actor emotes in a way that strikes a viewer as unrealistic or disconcerting, etc. then while that may be the director's intention, it doesn't make it a good idea. If I played the Scarecrow in a play of the Wizard of Oz, and the director told me to scream at the top of my voice, and sob uncontrollably throughout, that wouldn't be a good performance. I'm reminded of Richard Dreyfuss' character being directed in the play in The Goodbye Girl.

If it's valid to consider some acting great, some good, and some bad, then I don't see why overacting as a description of a type of acting that is bad is inappropriate.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Next up will be some thoughts on Hopscotch.

Get those thoughts on the murderous lady and her spouse posted.

 

[oscar_merkx]

Re commentary TOB.

Very similar to Seven Samurai imo which I thought was an excellent and informative commentary

 

[Matt<>Broon]

Lew, the shaving of the eyebrows was a common practice for Japanese nobility and courtiers. You will see it in other Kurosawa films like Rashomon and Ran, and other Japanese historical films like The 47 Ronin, Chusingura, and The Samurai Trilogy.

At the risk of shuffling off topic this is precisely right.

Both the shaving of the eyebrows (generally to be replaced by black blobs) and the blacking of teeth were common practice amongst the Kuge (nobility) and the upper ranking Buke (Samurai caste) women. It gives an amazingly stark and dramatic image which is in and of itself not ill suited to Noh.

I've always found it a fascinating example of changing ideals of beauty and aesthetic over the ages.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso,
Notte e giorno d'intorno girando.
Delle belle turbando il riposo,
Narcisetto, Adoncino d'amor.
Non piu avrai questi bei penacchini


My copy of Hopscotch (Criterion) arrived and I popped it in to check it out and was surprised to hear a Mozart aria from the The Marriage of Figaro in the background, while the menu was being displayed. To be sure I went into this movie with no preconceptions, other than with Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, it must be a comedy and, at that a romantic comedy. I therefore (given the music as a clue) hit play expecting something with plenty of mistaken identities and women dressed as men dressed as women. Etc.

Yet another surprise, as while there were elements of comedy and in the end, the guy gets the girl, this is decidedly not a romantic comedy. As both Matthau and Jackson play retired (or retiring) spies and the plot revolves around the CIA and KGB, one might then think that this is a spy thriller along the lines of an early Hitchcock or something like Charade or perhaps a Bond film, to which this film does bear some resemblance. But unlike Hitchcock, director Ronald Neame does not examine any issues of personal morality and unlike Grant, Matthau does not resort to devices such as taking a shower while fully clothed. But this does not mean that the film has no depth and that it is only an enjoyable, throwaway piece of fluff, filled with fantastic devices (though there are a couple of low-tech ones) or young beautiful women (true, Glenda Jackson is stunning, but she is a mature stunning).

Here we are treated to an examination of the morality of spying itself (spies qua spying, as it were) and the bureaucracy of these agencies (and who gets promoted and why), and those who are more concerned with self-interest than national interests.

In the end, how serious and complex is this movie? In the interests of further discussion, I’ll just comment on how the music is used in the film, not as just background, but I think also as a commentary. For example the theme, the aria Non piu andrai is taken from a scene in The Marriage of Figaro where Figaro tells a young man that he won’t have worry about chasing girls anymore because he is going off to the army to be a solider. And it is quite a comic area as he describes his new environment, loosely as 'That hair, that shinning aspect/…/Drunk among soldiers/A huge mustache, a little knapsack/Gun on you back, sword at your side/…/A lot of honor, with very little pay//And in place of the dance/A march through the mud/Over mountains and through valleys/…/To the music of trumpets//Of bombards and cannons/…On to victory.'

Now this sung to a very ineffectual young man (in fact in the opera, a ‘pants’ role (the young man played by a mezzo-soprano)). This then, is what Matthau thinks of many of his ex-colleagues and of the importance of what they are doing.

All for now, more later.

My rating:

:star: :star: :star: (out of 4)—a must see.

 

[george kaplan]

Just a quick thought for now.

Wow, Lew! Although I like Mozart, I didn't know the translation of the opera, and had no idea how that fit into the movie. How cool that you would immediately find something about this film that I had no knowledge of.

I'll say a bit more later.

 

[Lew Crippen]

The (more or less) translation of the opening part of the aria (where Figaro is needling the young, amorous (but very ineffectual) youth is:

You won’t go anymore amorous butterfly;
Fluttering around day and night
Waking up the beautiful girls.
The Narcissus—the Adonis of love;
No you won’t have those fine feathers (that ability any more)

It is a measure of my geekiness that I know stuff like this, which does not mean that I read Italian, only that I’ve spent far too much time listening to music with a libretto in my hand.

And here is another from aria from the film, which I think is appropriate (though not as perfect as Non piú andrai.

While we are waiting at one point some very poingnt music swells up, a soprano singing. It is an aria sung by Cio-Cio San (Madame Butterfly) as she gazes on the harbor, waiting for Lieutenant Pinkerton to return and the dawn to break:

Un bel di, vedremo
Levarsi un fil di fumo;
Sull’estremo confin del mare.

Meaning (sort of),

One fine day, I will see
A thin streak of smoke rising
On the horizon, far out to sea…

The point here is that she is all alone, waiting for her lover to return from his duties overseas. Of course Pinkerton is a rat bastard, whose return turns out to cause the deepest distress for Cio-Cio San, so we can’t carry the analogy too far.

 

[george kaplan]

It's interesting that although I've seen Hopscotch a number of times (I saw it when it came out in 1980 and owned a horrendous p&s laserdisc), I've never really known anyone else who'd seen it, and so I've never actually discussed it.

I've been thinking about why I like it so much, and the answer is at least partly political/historical. I believe that enough time has passed that this is more historical than political and will be safe for me to discuss here.

I was about 12 when Watergate finally led to Nixon's resignation, and for the rest of the 70s, I was very much in sync with the post-Watergate era of which this film perfectly captures. Kendig sort of represents the country coming to grip with the mistakes of the Nixon era as he realizes what he's been a part of with the CIA, and electing Carter was a lot like doing to the establishment what Kendig does to the spy establishment in this movie.

Of course in the end, even though Kendig outwitted Myerson at every step and made it clear what a fool he was, and 'won', in the end Myerson is still in charge of the CIA and nothing really changes, just like Reagan and Iran/Contra brought the post-Watergate renaissance of honesty and progressiveness to an abrupt halt. And if I carry this forward into the 90s, I will be getting into politics, so I'll just say that it's pretty obvious that the Myersons of the world are still running things with that same Myerson competency.