dual personalities

Since I started watching postwar Akira Kurosawa films earlier this week, I have continued down that trail. I watched Scandal (1950) with a young and very handsome Toshiro Mifune.

It is the story of Ichiro Aoye, an artist, who meets a famous young classical singer while painting in the mountains. They share an innocent encounter and are photographed by the paparazzi who spread a lie to sell their trashy magazine. The artist takes the magazine to court and drama ensues.

Like the director John Ford, Kurosawa had a “stock company” of his own, and many of the actors are included in this movie to great effect, especially Takashi Shimura, who plays Aoye’s lawyer.

You probably remember him from more than twenty appearances in his films. He is the Ward Bond of Kurosawa films.

After Scandal I watched The Idiot (1951), Kurosawa’s monumental adaption of Dostoevsky’s novel. Filmed originally as a two-part production running 265 minutes, it was released in a truncated 166 minute version. The movie, heavily edited by the studio, was a failure at the box office, but I have to say, I loved it.

Kurosawa follows the events of the novel, but he changes its setting from 19th century Russia to post-war Japan. Dostoevsky’s Christlike Prince Myshkin, returning to St. Petersburg after being treated at a clinic in Switzerland, becomes Kurosawa’s Kameda, returning home from the war after being saved at the lat minute from being executed (by mistake) as a war criminal. Masayuki Mori as Kameda (the Idiot) and Toshiro Mifune as his friend Akama are both wonderful in this tale of “the destruction of a pure soul by a faithless world.” Setsuko Hara and Yoshiko Kuga, the female leads, are wonderful too. There is no rain in this film, but the snowstorm which rages throughout deftly conveys the storm within each of the principal players.

I don’t know what exactly it is about these movies, but they speak so eloquently to the human condition. The characters all seem so real. All the actors give 100% unselfconsciously. There is so much feeling without any melodrama. I was riveted.

Ayako: How did it feel when you were facing certain death?

Kameda: Everyone in the world suddenly seemed so dear to me.

Ayako: Everyone in the world?

Kameda: Each and every person I’d ever known. Everyone I’d ever passed on the street. And not just people – the puppy I’d thrown a rock at as a child. Why hadn’t I been kinder?

Anyway, I highly recommend you watch these terrific movies!

In other news, daughter #1, the OM and I are getting ready for our big car trip next week. Leaving on Sunday, we are driving to Oklahoma City, then on to Fort Worth and Waco, Texas. Then we’ll head home by way of Tulsa. We are going to check out some great museums along the way.

Daughter #2 will be blogging for us while we’re gone next week, so be sure to check in for what’s new with the toddler set and for travel updates!

*Akama in The Idiot (1951)