October 8, 2019 (XXXIX: 7) Masaki Kobayashi: HARAKIRI (1962, 133m)

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DIRECTOR Masaki Kobayashi WRITING Shinobu Hashimoto wrote the screenplay from a novel by Yasuhiko Takiguchi. PRODUCER Tatsuo Hosoya MUSIC Tôru Takemitsu CINEMATOGRAPHY Yoshio Miyajima EDITING Hisashi Sagara The film was the winter of the Jury Special Prize and nominated for the Palm d’Or at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. CAST Tatsuya Nakadai...Tsugumo Hanshirō Rentarō Mikuni...Saitō Kageyu Akira Ishihama...Chijiiwa Motome Shima Iwashita...Tsugumo Miho Tetsurō Tamba...Omodaka Hikokuro Ichiro Nakatani...Yazaki Hayato Masao Mishima...Inaba Tango Kei Satō...Fukushima Masakatsu Yoshio Inaba...Chijiiwa Jinai Yoshiro Aoki...Kawabe Umenosuke MASAKI KOBAYASHI (b. February 14, 1916 in Hokkaido, Japan—d. October 4, 1996 (age 80) in Tokyo, Japan) was a Japanese film director (22 credits) and screenwriter (9 credits), best known for writing and directing the epic trilogy The Human Condition (1959–1961), as well as the samurai films Harakiri (1962), for which he won the Jury Special Prize and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and Samurai Rebellion (1967), and Kwaidan (1964), for which he, once again, both won the Jury Special Prize and was nominated for the Palm d’Or. He was also nominated for the Palm d’Or for Nihon no seishun (1968). He also directed: Youth of the Son (1952), Sincerity (1953), Three Loves* (1954), Somewhere Under the Broad Sky (1954), Beautiful Days (1955), Fountainhead (1956), The Thick-Walled Room (1956), I Will Buy You (1956), Black River (1957), The Inheritance (1962), Inn of Evil (1971), The Fossil (1974), Moeru aki

(1979), Tokyo Trial* (Documentary) (1983), and Shokutaku no nai ie* (1985). He also wrote the screenplays for A Broken Drum (1949) and The Yotsuda Phantom (1949). *Also wrote SHINOBU HASHIMOTO (b. April 18, 1918 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan—d. July 19, 2018 (age 100) in Tokyo, Japan) was a Japanese screenwriter (71 credits). A frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa, he wrote the scripts for such internationally acclaimed films as Rashomon (1950) and Seven Samurai (1954). These are some of the other films he wrote for: Ikiru (1952), Eagle of the Pacific (1953), I Live in Fear (1955), Darkness at Noon (1956), Throne of Blood (1957), Stakeout (1958), The Hidden Fortress (1958), A Whistle in My Heart (1959), I Want to Be a Shellfish (1959), The Lost Alibi (1960), Storm Over the Pacific (1960), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), The Magnificent Seven (1960), Ghost Story of Kakui Street (1961), Happyakuman seki ni idomu otoko (1961), Harakiri (1962), Attack Squadron! (1963), Brand of Evil (1964), The Outrage (1964), Revenge (1964), Samurai Assassin (1965), The Great White Tower (1966), Samurai Rebellion (1967), Japan's Longest Day (1967), Hell in the Pacific (1968), The Last Day of Hsianyang (1968), Hitokiri (1969), The Shadow Within (1970), Dodes'ka-den (1970), The Human Revolution (1973), Yellow Dog (1973), Village of Eight

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—2 Gravestones (1977), Lake of Illusions (1982), and I Want to Be a Shellfish (2008). YOSHIO MIYAJIMA (b. February 3, 1910 in Nagono, Japan—d. February 21, 1998) was a Japanese cinematographer (45 credits). He worked frequently with Masaki Kobayashi. These are some of the films he worked on: Utanô yononaka (1936), Jinsei keiba (1938), War and Peace (1947), Violence (1952), Before Dawn (1953), The Beauty and the Dragon (1955), Wedding Day (1956), Joyu (1956), Behold Thy Son (1957), Glow of the Firefly (1958), Naked Sun (1958), The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959), The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959), The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961), Love Under the Crucifix (1962), Harakiri (1962), Kwaidan (1964), Live Your Own Way (1967), Empire of Passion (1978), Akô-jô danzetsu (1978), and Shikake-nin Baian (1981). TATSUYA NAKADAI (b. December 13, 1932 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese film actor (162 credits) famous for the wide variety of characters he has portrayed and many collaborations with seminal Japanese film directors, such as Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Teshigahara. He was featured in 11 films directed by Masaki Kobayashi, including The Human Condition trilogy (1959-1961), wherein he starred as the lead character Kaji, plus Harakiri (1962), Samurai Rebellion (1967) and Kwaidan (1964). These are some of the films he appeared in: Seven Samurai (1954), Hi no tori (1956), Hadashi no seishun (1956), The Thick-Walled Room (1956), Ôban (1957), Untamed Woman (1957), A Dangerous Hero (1957), Black River (1957), Kampai! Miai kekkon (1958), A Boy and Three Mothers (1958), Conflagration (1958), Naked Sun (1958), When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), Yojimbo (1961), Sanjuro (1962), The Inheritance (1962), Love Under the Crucifix (1962), High and Low (1963), The Sword of Doom (1966), Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die! (1968), Battle of the Japan Sea (1969), Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (1970), Inn of Evil (1971), The Gate of Youth (1975), Blue Christmas (1978), Hunter in the Dark (1979), Kagemusha (1980), Willful Murder (1981), Return from the River Kwai (1989), Summer of the Moonlight Sonata (1993), East Meets West (1995), After the Rain (1999), Spellbound (1999), Vengeance for Sale (2011), To Dance with the White Dog (2012), Yamato (2015), Zatoichi: The Last (2010), Until

the Break of Dawn (2012), The Human Trust (2013), Giovanni's Island (2014), Lear on the Shore (2017), and

Henkan Koshonin Itsuka, Okinawa o Torimodosu (2018). RENTARŌ MIKUNI (b. January 20, 1923 in Gunma, Japan—d. April 14, 2013 (age 90) in Inagi, Tokyo, Japan) was a Japanese film actor (190 credits). The 1987 film Shinran: Path to Purity, which he wrote and directed, was awarded the Jury Prize and was nominated for the Palm d’Or at the Cannes

Film Festival. These are some of the films he acted in: The Good Fairy (1951), Boyhood (1951), Fireworks Over the Sea (1951), Sword for Hire (1952), Woman of Shanghai (1952), The Blue Revolution (1953), Eagle of the Pacific (1953), The Lovers (1953), Till We Meet Again (1955), The Burmese Harp (1956), Stepbrothers (1957), The Eagle and the Hawk (1957), Face in the Dark (1958), The Outsiders (1958), Ballad of the Cart (1959), The Catch (1961), The Revolutionary (1962), The Outcast (1962), Harakiri (1962), Hell's Kitchen (1962), Escape from Hell (1963), Kwaidan (1964), A Fugitive from the Past (1965), Zatoichi the Outlaw (1967), Profound Desires of the Gods (1968), City of Beasts (1970), Men and War (1970), Shadow of Deception (1971), Yomigaeru daichi (1971), Confessions Among Actresses (1971), Zatoichi at Large (1972), Journey Into Solitude (1972), Coup d'Etat (1973), The Possessed (1976), Never Give Up (1978), Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981), The Street of Desire (1984), A Promise (1986), Beyond the Shining Sea (1986), River of Fireflies (1987), A Taxing Woman's Return (1988), Wuthering Heights (1988), Shiny Moss (1992), The Friends (1994), Turning Point (1994), Free and Easy 18 (2007), Free and Easy 20 (2009), Someday (2011), Chronicle of My Mother (2011), and Kuchita teoshi guruma (2014). AKIRA ISHIHAMA (b. January 29, 1935 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese film actor (57 credits). These are some of the films he has appeared in: Boyhood (1951), Fireworks Over the Sea (1951), Youth of the Son (1952), Nami (1952), Sincerity (1953), Somewhere Under the Broad Sky (1954), The Tattered Wings (1955), Christ in Bronze (1955), White Devilfish (1956), The Rose on His Arm (1956), Namida (1956), The Unbalanced Wheel (1957), The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959), Farewell to Spring (1959), Marry a Millionaire (1959), Towering Waves (1960), Bitter Spirit (1961), The Bridge Between (1962), Harakiri (1962), Yopparai tengoku (1962), Day-

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—3 Dream (1964), The Snow Woman (1968), Orgies of Edo (1969), Devil's Flute (1979), and Itosato (2018). SHIMA IWASHITA (b. January 3, 1941 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese actress who has appeared in about 100 films and many TV productions (117 credits). She is married to film director Masahiro Shinoda, in whose films she has frequently appeared. These are some of the films she has appeared in: Dry Lake (1960), Late Autumn (1960), Killers on Parade (1961), Epitaph to My Love (1961), A Roaring Trade (1962), Kono ni uruwashi (1962), Harakiri (1962), An Autumn Afternoon (1962), Kigeki: Detatoko shôbu - 'Chinjarara monogatari' yori (1962), Glory on the Summit (1962), Sing, Young People! (1963), Kyoto (1963), Legend of a Duel to the Death (1963), Samurai from Nowhere (1964), Assassination (1964), The Scarlet Camellia (1964), The Fool Arrives with a Tank (1964), Snow Country (1965), Radishes and Carrots (1965), Captive's Island (1966), Onna no issho (1967), Double Suicide (1969), Red Lion (1969), The Shadow Within (1970), Forbidden Affair (1970), Black Picture Album (1971), Man on a False Flight (1971), The Petrified Forest (1973), The Demon (1978), The Politicians (1983), MacArthur's Children (1984), Time of Wickedness (1985), Gonza the Spearman (1986), Yakuza Ladies (1986), Childhood Days (1990), Yakuza Ladies: The Final Battle (1990), Sharaku (1995), Yakuza Ladies: Blood Ties (1995), Moonlight Serenade (1997), Ohaka ga nai! (1998), Owls' Castle (1999), Spy Sorge (2003), and Kamogawa shokudô (TV Mini-Series) (2016). TETSURŌ TAMBA (b. July 17, 1922 in Tokyo, Japan—d. September 24, 2006 (age 84) in Tokyo, Japan) was a Japanese film actor (336 credits) with a career spanning five decades. These are some of his many roles: Satsujin Yôgisha (1952), Senkan Yamato (1953), Wakaki hi no takuboku: Kumo wa tensai de aru (1954), Twilight Saloon (1955), Seiki no shôhai (1956), Kenji to sono imôto (1956), The Depths (1957), Female Slave Ship (1960), The Gambling Samurai (1960), Daredevil in the Castle (1961), Pigs and Battleships (1961), Minami taiheiyô nami takashi (1962), Kuro to aka no hanabira (1962), Hokori takaki chosen (1962), Taiheiyo no g-men (1962), Gang tai Gang (1962), Harakiri (1962), A Flame at the Pier (1962), Hell's Kitchen (1962), Gang and G-Men 2 (1963), Tokyo aantachibiru: dasso (1963), Three Outlaw Samurai (1964), Samurai from Nowhere (1964), Assassination (1964), The Shogun's Vault (1964), The 7th Dawn (1964), Revenge (1964), Kwaidan (1964), The Birth of Judo (1965), Samurai Spy (1965), The Secret of the Urn (1966), You Only Live Twice (1967), Army Intelligence 33 (1968), Diamonds of the Andes (1968), Snake Woman's Curse (1968), Gambler's Farewell (1968), Delinquent Boss (1968),

Blackmail Is My Life (1968), Black Lizard (1968), The 5-Man Army (1969), Yakuza hijoshi - mushyo kyodai (1969), Yakuza bangaichi: massatsu (1969), Crimson Bat - Oichi: Wanted, Dead or Alive (1970), The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan (1970), Men and War (1970), Postwar Secrets (1970), The Wolves (1971), Silence (1971), Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (1972), The Water Margin (1972), Tidal Wave (1973), The Castle of Sand (1974), Karate Inferno (1974), Karate Bear Fighter (1975), Seven Nights in Japan (1976), Zero Pilot (1976), The Alaska Story (1977), Message from Space (1978), Kôtei no inai hachigatsu (1978), Never Give Up (1978), Hunter in the Dark (1979), Flames of Blood (1981), Samurai Reincarnation (1981), The Wild Daisy (1981), The Imperial Navy (1981), Suspicion (1982), Conquest (1982), Marco Polo (TV Mini-Series) (1983), Battle Anthem (1983), The Geisha (1983), Station to Heaven (1984), Cabaret (1986), Be Free! (1986), Night Train (1987), Twilight of the Cockroaches (1987), Four Days of Snow and Blood (1989), Genji monogatari (TV Series) (1991), The Hit Man (1991), Female Neo Ninjas (1991), Peking Man (1997), Blind Beast vs Dwarf (2001), Graveyard of Honor (2002), The Cat Returns (2002), Violent Fire (2002), The Twilight Samurai (2002), and Doomsday: The Sinking of Japan (2006).

Andrea Grunert: “Kobayashi, Masaki” (Senses of Cinema) Masaki Kobayashi’s career coincides with the so-called Golden Age of Japanese cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite the fact that some of his films such as the war trilogy Ningen no jōken (The Human Condition, 1959-1961) and Seppuku (Harakiri, 1962) had won international critical acclaim,1 the centenary of his birth in February 2016 passed almost unnoticed in the Western media.2 Kobayashi has been largely forgotten by the average Japanese filmgoer, and outside Japan interest in his work is much lower than it is for the films of his contemporaries, such as Akira Kurosawa. Kobayashi’s politically and ethically uncompromising and economically risk-taking attitude put him in conflict with the studios he worked with, Shōchiku

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—4 and Toho: this might explain the fact that he made only 22 films. Moreover, his critical view of militarism in Japanese history and the entanglement of politics and the economy in Japanese society are topics that are not attractive to young Japanese people. However, they are still burning issues in Japan and in the modern world, more meaningful than ever before. The Human Condition is not only a landmark film putting a harsh light on Japanese imperialism during World War II, it is a remarkable and universal statement against war. Harakiri, Kwaidan (1964), Jōi-uchi: Hairyō-tsuma shimatsu (Samurai Rebellion, 1967) or Inochi bō no furō (Inn of Evil, 1971) – all bearing the director’s unique signature – reveal the complex interplay between content and form, morality and aesthetics. They show in a most original way how traditional forms can be used as a tool for political criticism and ethical reflection. Kobayashi was one of the finest depicters of Japanese society in the 1950s and 1960s, and explored the war and post-war situation by addressing controversial topics such as corruption, economic exploitation and the denial of war atrocities. The Human Condition was such a great international success in the 1960s that a remake was produced for television in 1963 directed by Takeshi Abe. It is not the film’s harsh and uncompromising realism which makes it outstanding, but its approach to Japan’s imperialist policy. As film critic Setogawa Sōta pointed out, it “was the first Japanese film that frankly depicted ‘Japanese devils’ in China in great detail.”3 Kobayashi dared to criticise openly Japanese militarism and to show the brutality of the Japanese occupation policy in China. His humanist message is close to Kurosawa’s, but his political attitude and his interest in aspects that concern Japanese society are more clearly expressed than in the work of most of his contemporaries. Not unlike Kurosawa, he was a risk-taking filmmaker who was interested in challenging formal aspects and rejected compromise, an attitude which made his position more and more insecure in the 1970s when Japanese film industry experienced a period of drought. His last film – Shokutaku no nai ie (Family Without a Dinner Table aka The Empty Table) – was released in 1985, twelve years before his death. However, his anti-violence stance and his personal style

with its combination of aesthetics, historical research and emotions are as vibrant as ever. Born on the northern island of Hokkaido, Kobayashi spent his youth in his hometown Otaru near the mountains. His penchant for views from a height was developed during these years, when he enjoyed skiing on his home island. Breathtaking views of the mountains filmed on Hokkaido appear in The Human Condition,

and other films also contain impressive shots of mountain landscapes. Not unlike Kurosawa, Kobayashi uses meteorological conditions such as wind, snow, storms and heavy rain to add movement to his frames. His insistence on natural elements creates a broader context for his protagonists, connecting them even more clearly to a culture in which the contemplation of nature is central and in which there is an omnipresent awareness that the

fragility of human existence depends so much on natural conditions. Kobayashi returned to Hokkaido to shoot his war trilogy. He left the island to study ancient oriental arts and philosophy at the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo in the 1930s. After graduation in 1941, he entered Shōchiku Studios but was drafted into the army shortly after and sent to Harbin, Manchuria. Being a pacifist, he refused promotion to higher ranks several times. This is a significant manifestation of his independent spirit and non-conformism. Kobayashi spent the final months of the war interred in a POW camp in Okinawa, at that time under American control. Upon his release from the camp in 1946, he became an assistant to Keisuke Kinoshita, one of the leading directors of the period – together with Yazuro Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Kenji Mizoguchi – and at that time under contract at Shōchiku. His first films are inspired by the studio’s style, which was renowned for its shomin-geki: contemporary stories and domestic dramas. The sentimental style of these productions is resonant in Kobayashi’s early films, Kinoshita clearly being a major influence.4 Kobayashi’s mentor Kinoshita was the scriptwriter of his first film, the 45-minute-long Musuko no seishun (My Sons’ Youth, 1952), and of his first feature film Magokoro (Sincere Hearts, 1953). Both are social melodramas close to the style of the studio and deal with young people’s desires and fears within a coming-of-age context.

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—5 In 1953, Kobayashi directed a far more personal film on a topic that was unusual for Shōchiku. Kabe atsuki heya (The Thick-Walled Room) is an early example of his lifelong preoccupation with the war and his deep interest in politics and society. This landmark film is one of the first Japanese films to deal with the war heritage, raising questions of responsibility for atrocities committed by the Japanese. The screenplay, by the novelist Kobo Abe, is based on the secret notes written down by former members of the army who were sentenced for war crimes. The protagonists are low-ranking soldiers, categorized as B and C war criminals. The film targets not only the brutal punishment suffered by these men at the hands of the Americans, but also the fact that many of them were framed by their superiors who escaped punishment. Without trying to whitewash his protagonists, Kobayashi suggests how badly they were treated by a system which denied all responsibility. The prison is not simply the stage on which the intimate drama of Japan’s post-war society is played out: the huis clos of the prison is turned into a metaphorical space and a dramatic character in its own right. The bleakness of the expressionist black-and-white photography, unusual camera positions, cross-fades, the subtle blending of everyday situations and dream sequences revealing the tormented spirits of the inmates are aspects that repeatedly shine through the realism at the film’s core. The Thick-Walled Room was far too controversial in 1953 – just one year after the end of American occupation – so was not released until 1957. By that time, it had lost much of its political impact. Since there was no chance that Kobayashi’s second feature film would be released straightaway, he returned to the psychological drama more typical of Shōchiku. Mittsu no ai (Three Loves, 1954) and Kono hiroi sora no dokoka ni (Somewhere Under the Broad Sky aka Somewhere beneath the Vast Heavens, 1954) are like many other Japanese films of the 1950s in that they deal with poverty and disillusionment: the disfigurement of one of the protagonists in Somewhere Under the Broad Sky is a visual reminder of the war and the permanent mark it left on post-war society. Another film, Uruwashiki saigetsu (Beautiful Days aka Days of Splendour, 1955) affirms small-town values and recalls Kinoshita’s great success with his film of domestic life, Nijū-shi no hitomi (24 Eyes, 1954). In these films, the family is the

microcosm in which the economic struggle of the (young) protagonists and their disregard for society are depicted. Kobayashi’s love story Izumi (Fountainhead aka The Spring, 1956), however, begins to address political issues such as real-estate speculation and corruption more overtly. This is also true for Anata kaimasu, (I’ll Buy You, 1956) which adds to the domestic tale a portrayal of the corrupt world of

professional baseball to the domestic tale. Kobayashi explores the machinations behind the scenes of this very popular sport in his home country, and the film ends with the dissolution of the family and a murder. Filmed in a realist manner, I’ll Buy You reveals – just as The Thick-Walled Room did before it – a penchant for

expressionist lighting creating moments of profound bleakness. In Kuroi kawa (Black River, 1957) Kobayashi offers insights into a Japan of the 1950s dominated by crime, violence, corruption and poverty. The setting is reminiscent of Maxim Gorki’s play The Lower Depths (1902), a shack close to an American military base where a human drama is enhanced by strong social criticism. The greedy landlady, the apolitical student and the convinced communist form part of the cast of characters who are trying to survive in post-war Tokyo. Joe (Tatsuya Nakadai in his first leading role) is a cynical and brutal gang boss who controls the whole district. Wearing sunglasses and exuding coolness, he apes a new masculine type imported from the U.S., and the film clearly asks questions about the Americanisation of Japanese society. However, the main targets are those Japanese who adopt American trends only superficially. Social conformity is at the core of Kobayashi’s criticism, and he represents his compatriots as mere opportunists who, after having blindly followed the rules of the military regime, are now happy to adapt to the rules of democracy, whatever the cost. The society he depicts is one that accepts a continuing authoritarian rule, and this is the basis for corruption and violence. Kobayashi condemns any idealisation of poverty, having the student Nishida (Fumio Watanabe) say: “I have chosen to live in this shanty to save 600 yen. But I don’t like poverty. It makes you lose dignity.” Nishida, introduced as shy and clumsy, anticipates the rebel in Kobayashi’s oeuvre. Instead of being presented as a sympathetic character, he is a man of principles. Unlike the communist, he does not follow an ideology but confronts

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—6 Joe for Shizuko’s (Ineko Arima) sake, since he is in love with her. Joe is the pure product of a society left to its own devices by its former rulers, the head of a male-dominated clan that lives from crime and violence. There is no justice system, and so the young woman kills Joe to put an end to the evil he embodies. The far bigger crime, the corruption that has created this misery and violence, goes unpunished. The image at the end of the film is a rainy road at night. A gloomy image in which Shizuko, a human miniature, vanishes into the all-enveloping darkness.5 The Human Condition is the first film Kobayashi made outside Shōchiku, and his critical depiction of the Japanese during the war was not appreciated by the conservative studio. As a producer, he took enormous risks with this monumental work: the shooting lasted 2½ years and the whole production took four years. The screenplay is based on a popular novel by Junpei Gomikawa deriving from personal experience but inspired in equal measure by Kobayashi’s own war experience as a pacifist in the Imperial Army. Kaji, his protagonist, could be considered the director’s alter ego as he is a pacifist serving in the Kwantung Army. Kobayashi raises questions which are uncomfortable still today: what did World War II turn the Japanese into? Who was responsible for the atrocities committed in their name? As Patrick Galbraith puts it: “From controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine to glaring omissions in high-school textbooks, conservative Japanese continue to fan the flames of their stained relationship with China by dismissing and denying many wartime atrocities, but the truth was laid bare 50 years ago in Kobayashi’s films.”6 Kobayashi breaks with taboos by showing comfort women and depicting the inhumane treatment of Chinese civilians in Japanese labour camps. One of the most brutal moments is the discovery of the near-starving prisoners in the cattle wagons: hundreds of men, their faces and bodies marked by hunger and exhaustion, run away into the bare Manchurian landscape, desperately trying to find food and water. Another crucial moment is the arbitrary execution of six of the prisoners by the Japanese military police. This long sequence reveals the desire of the prisoners to resist and Kaji’s own contradictory feelings, oscillating between fear and determination. He stops the execution after the third man has been beheaded but is drafted into the army because of

this insubordination. In the third part, he is imprisoned in a Soviet labour camp, where he continues his struggle, this time against the corrupt system established by the other Japanese officers. The trilogy is not only a confrontation with historical guilt but also the portrait of a society that continuously suppresses the individual. Focusing on resistance to authority, it is a major humanist document. “Human condition” is not entirely accurate as a translation

of the Japanese title Ningen no jōken, which means the special condition under which a person is human. This particular meaning is revealed at the moment of the execution when Wang (Eijirō Tōno), one of the Chinese slave labourers, tries to convince Kaji to put an end to the cruel punishment of innocent men. He wonders if Kaji, still hesitating, is either a murderer who pretends being a humanist or a human being who fully deserves this name. As in most of his films and especially in his two period films Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion Kobayashi is preoccupied with the uneasy relationship between the individual and society, between personal desire and social obligations. Having a strong sense of justice and dignity, Kaji (Tatsuya

Nakadai) is aware of his inner contradictions and limitations. He arrives at the labour camp determined to show that better life conditions lead to better work, but he discovers how much he himself is part of an unjust system. His rebellion is paralleled by a never-ending struggle for integrity that shows where there are no heroes. In the end, he is forced to face evil, and he kills the sadistic Kirihara (Nobuo Kaneko). Without becoming a figure for heroic identification, Kaji represents a symbol of hope in a world of opportunism and corruption. He prevents the Soviet tribunal and the Japanese officers from maltreating the lower-ranking prisoners. Kobayashi defends bourgeois ideals in his representation of Kaji’s love for Michiko (Michiyo Aratama): his protagonist’s last words before dying in the cold are addressed to his wife. However, the individual is always seen in a broader social context that includes fundamental questions concerning an individual’s place in society. The human figure framed through a telescope lens and thus turned into a miniature suggests the individual’s place in the world. Kaji and Michiko, Kaji and the soldiers,

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—7 or Shizuko in Black River appear in the emptiness of a wide landscape. In The Human Condition, Kaji has to face snow, wind, heat, dust, hunger and torture. At the end, his body is an unrecognizable shape under the snow. Karami-ai (Bitter Love aka Inheritance, 1962) could be considered a transitional work about a man trying to set his house in order as death approaches. This family story that contains some whodunnit elements examines social conditions and human behaviour, creating a grim portrait of a society dominated by greed and corruption. The jazzy score by Torū Takemitsu is the composer’s first collaboration with Kobayashi.7 Realism dominates The Human Condition and Kobayashi’s films of the 1950s, realism enhanced and overcome by subtle camera movements and sophisticated lighting devices. Harakiri, Kwaidan and Samurai Rebellion, all set in the past, reveal Kobayashi’s growing interest in Japanese art forms and concepts. He first discovered this dramatic potential while working on Harakiri. “I was keenly attracted to the stylized beauty of our traditional forms,” he stated. “At the same time, since I felt I had come to the end of pursuing realism in film, this new mode of expression delighted me.”8 Harakiri is an intimate character study filmed in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio (The Human Condition had been filmed in 2.35:1), and an impressive representation of oppressive hierarchical structures. The script – adapted from a novel by Yasuhiko Takiguchi – was written by Shinobu Hashimoto, the scriptwriter of Kurosawa’s Rashomon(1950) and Seven Samurai (1954). Hanshiro Tsugumo (again played by Nakadai) is a ronin,9 a figure who often serves as a tool to challenge authority and to criticise blind obedience. Both Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion transcend the codes of the jidai-geki (period film) and chambara (swordfight film) in order to explore the role of Japan’s feudal heritage in the construction of the collective psyche of the Japanese people in the 20th century. In Harakiri, Kwaidan and Samurai Rebellion, there are long travelling shots in the barely furnished rooms revealing the harmony inherent in symmetrical compositions. Kobayashi’s favourite angle – from above – transforms the courtyard of the Iyi residence into the stage of a Noh play, another traditional art form Kobayashi takes inspiration from. The focus on symmetry and asymmetry is reminiscent of the formal use of grouping in

Noh drama. The dialogue, written in the archaic style of public storytelling, is another device that Kobayashi uses to oppose realist conventions. The poetic imagery is heightened by sound and music: Torū Takemtisu’s score includes songs from Japanese folklore and atonal Biwa sounds. Expressionist lighting contributes to a sense of fragmentation, creating gloomy corners which immediately question the apparent visual equilibrium. Motome’s (Akira Ishihama) extremely painful death is presented in a series of fast cuts which are in stark contrast with the slow ceremonial pace of other shots. The oblique position of the camera destroys the concept of linearity presented in the architecture. It creates a disturbing moment in which the pain and the fear the young man experiences becomes even more palpable. The ideal of harmony is revealed as a means

to mask the truth – underneath the apparent cleanliness, filth and violence are only too obvious. The frantic sounds of the Biwa accompanying Motome’s agonising death create strong discordances which, together with the visual strategies, challenge the idea of beauty in death and emphasise the cruelty of the ritual of self-

disembowelment. Kobayashi draws attention to the ambiguity within the concept of bushido (the way of the warrior) at the centre of samurai society. The inhumane treatment of the young Motome, forced to commit suicide with his bamboo blades, is the consequence of codes of behaviour that are accepted without being questioned. The samurai ancestor’s empty suit of armour shown in a succession of shots at the beginning and at the end of the film becomes a symbol of meaningless traditions stubbornly defended by the samurai (as the representatives of a hierarchically-based society). The Iyi family accept Motome’s horrifying death and kill his father-in-law Hanshiro simply in order to save their own reputation. Hanshiro questions this behaviour: “The samurai is a human being too. There are moments in which human sentiment is what is most important.” Kobayashi’s focus on the individual must be understood in a broader context. Hanshiro is the veteran of the war period of the late 16th century and he refers to other historical events such as the dissolution of clans by the ruling shogun, which led to homeless and penniless ronin invading the country. “The rich,” he says “have no idea of misery.” The recourse to the jidai-geki and the past does little to mask the criticism of structures that are militarist and determined by economic

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—8 policy as represented in contemporary Japan by the keiretsu (the informal business groups controlling Japan’s economy in the second half of the 20th century) and the still valid rigid concepts of loyalty and obedience. Kobayashi condemns the Japanese militarist tradition of the past and the rigid hierarchies still observed in present-day Japan through the historical prism of feudal Japan. Social concerns are less overtly present in his first colour film Kwaidan, inspired by four traditional ghost stories retold by the Irish-Greek-American journalist Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904). Kobayashi captures the beauty of old Japan while at the same time extending the limits set by non-realist film-making. According to Japanese artistic concepts, illusion is not hidden. The sumptuous settings, created entirely on a sound stage, allow a great degree of stylisation, including a tribute to surrealism. Painted backgrounds, the startling use of sound and music by Takemitsu and Kabuki together with Noh-influenced staging also contribute to this outstanding exploration of form. In the second story “The Woman of the Snow” especially, the painted décor is reminiscent of a theatre setting. Takemitsu’s innovative score contributes to a constant atmosphere of terror in which ordinary phenomena such as the cracking of wood are transformed into scary, alien sounds. Kwaidan states strong ethical positions but at the same time contains portrayals of society as well as references to recent history, mainly through atomic bomb imagery.10 Kobayashi invested all his savings in the film, but despite much critical acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival, it was not a commercial success.11 Samurai Rebellion is another film in which Kobayashi makes use of jidai-geki elements as a tool for social criticism. The setting is a provincial court in 1727, a hundred years after Harakiri. It stars Toshirō Mifune, whose company produced the film together with Toho. Most of the shooting took place in Mifune’s brand new sound stage in Setagaya.12 As in Harakiri, there are some frantic battle scenes combining realism with stylish choreography. The duel between Isaburo (Mifune) and Tatewaki (Nakadai) is a precisely measured but extremely intense exchange of blows. Aesthetics and space become signifiers in their own right. Kobayashi used the precepts of Japanese architecture to create a metaphorical space reflecting social norms weighing down on the characters and also the transgression of these social norms. The sobriety and symmetry of

interiors symbolises oppressive sterility and dullness. The social constraints are a burden which has turned Isaburo into a prematurely aged man. However, the linearity of the architecture and tradition disappears when the protagonist – preparing his house for the battle – crosses bamboo rods at the openings, providing a counterbalance to the symmetrical concept. Isaburo has regained strength and confidence. The change undergone by the protagonist is

subtly reflected by his mask and costume and by the actor’s sense of presence and outstanding performance. The conflict between giri (feudal authority) and ninjo (human feeling) has been part of the samurai film since the silent era.13 Kobayashi makes use of this contrast in the development of his central character, Isaburo, from an obedient but lucid servant (the very meaning of the term

“samurai”) to an independent fighter for justice. Donald Richie called the film “a relentless attack on the feudal traditions inherent in Japanese society”14, and topics such as social hierarchy and history are approached in a complex manner within the framework of a domestic drama in which Isaburo is not the only one to rebel. The Japanese title could be roughly translated as “An Order of the Emperor (or a high-ranking person): The Sad End of the Bestowed Wife”. Lady Ichi (Yōko Tsukasa), the main female figure, refuses to accept the traditional woman’s role as object and becomes even more worthy of admiration than the men. Her resistance is a radical gesture against the rules imposed by the ruling elite and within a male-dominated world. The choice of title indicates that the film is not a conventional chambara and underlines Toho’s wish to target a wider audience. The importance given to the domestic was also a strategy to distance the film from the rival studio Shōchiku, which had produced the successful Harakiri. Kobayashi considered his next film, the adaptation of Shusako Endo’s novel Nihon no seishun(The Youth of Japan aka Hymn to a Tired Man, 1968), as a sequel to The Human Condition. The central character is a man (Makoto Fujita) who, haunted by the memory of the war, confronts a society which still denies its past. Unlike his son who is eager to join the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and does not care at all about the past, the father faces up to the spectre of history: “When we were in the army, this is what we did.” Torn between social responsibility as a husband and father and personal desires, he disappears at

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—9 the end of the film, having found a solution to his dilemma. In 1969, Kobayashi, Akira Kurosawa, Kon Ichikawa and Keisuke Kinoshita formed the artist collective Yonki no kai (which could be translated by “committee of four knights” or “committee of four musketeers”) with the aim of rescuing Japanese cinema in its time of difficulty.15However, the only film they produced – Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den (1970) – was a commercial failure, after which the collective disbanded. Inochi bō ni furō (Inn of Evil, 1971), another jidai-geki, was adapted by Nakadai’s wife Tomoe Ryū from a novel by Shugorō Yamamoto. The Japanese title could be translated as “We give our lives for nothing” – an idea at the core of this tale of altruism where a group of thieves and murderers give their lives to save a young couple. Evil is represented not by these outcasts, who are “crippled humans”, but by the ruling class, the rich, and corrupt police: references to contemporary Japan are clear. The expressionist lighting for the nightmarish chase in the swamp at the end of the film turns the human body into a mere silhouette while the go-yo lanterns, which seem to float in the darkness, create a haunting background. Despite box-office successes, the collaboration between Kobayashi and Toho did not last long. However, it is not sure who decided to put an end to it – the studio bosses or the director himself.16 Kobayashi, disliked television, but directed a series in the 1970s on condition that he could use some of the material for a feature film he was planning. Kaseki (Fossils, 1975) was about a successful architect (Shin Saburi) diagnosed as having cancer, and adds a dimension of fantasy to its existentialist discourse by introducing a female character (Keiko Kishi) who is the embodiment of death. The protagonist starts questioning his life, which has been dominated by work. When he learns that his disease can be cured, he retires to the mountains – Kobayashi’s home ground – to find out what could be more important than fame and pursuing a career. After this he made Moeru aki (Glowing Autumn aka Blazing Art, 1978), a Japanese-Iranian co-production, is a film about a woman (Kyōko Maya) in love with carpets who, at the end, travels to Iran. This film was a huge commercial failure. However, Kobayashi continued fighting for his personal projects, giving little attention to economic risks and political controversies.

Tōkyō Saiban, (The Tokyo Trial, 1983) was an important documentary on the twenty-eight war criminals sentenced at the Military Tribunal for the Far East, and an independent production. The fact that Kobayashi added to the archive material of the trials and the Great Pacific War footage of the crimes that the countries presiding over the court had committed in their colonies in Africa and Southeast Asia during the three years of the trial and the Vietnam War was a source of irritation and a probable reason for its rejection by many American and European

critics. Kobayashi’s critical attitude stems from his political convictions as a communist and anti-imperialist, and he shows clearly the changing ideological positions of the former allies – Americans and Russians – immediately after the war. His film, far from being nationalistic, is a courageous statement against violence and oppression.

Family Without a Dinner Table deals with the conflict between individual needs and social requirements in a contemporary setting: a father (played by Nakadai) takes the side of his son, who has been arrested for terrorism. The uncompromising attitude of the father, unusual in the system he lives in, results in the breakdown of the family. The film deals with the inner conflict of the middle-aged protagonist and his refusal to take responsibility for his son’s actions. He is, however, fully aware of his own limitations as father and husband (his wife committed suicide). The film ends with a glimpse of hope when he meets his grandson for the first time. The beautiful landscape of Hokkaido shot under a blue sky is the appropriate setting for a new beginning. It is in the grassland and hills of the northern island that the townsman comes to peace with himself. As if his career comes full circle: the filmmaker returns in this last sequence of his last film to his home region which inspired him so much. Like Kaji, like Hanshiro, and like the protagonist of Family Without A Dinner Table, Kobayashi stuck to his principles and resisted entrenched power – as both a member of the Japanese Imperial Army and as a filmmaker. His films were concerned with the struggle of the individual against corruption and conformism, and reflected his anti-authoritarian views. The Human Condition, Harakiri, Samurai Rebellion and Inn of Evil insist that responsibility lies within the hierarchical system, one that in both the past as in the present, is integral to the Japanese way of life. The recourse to

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—10 historical settings suggests that these views are controversial in modern Japan: in Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, Kobayashi addresses the very issue of history and the role of the individual. The ronin Hanshiro is erased from the history books, but his ancestor’s suit of armour has been repaired and the blood which covered the walls has been washed away as if his struggle for life and his violent death in the Iye residence had never taken place. Ichi’s and Isaburo’s resistance are crucial events that will not be recorded in official histories. The rebellious actions of Hanshiro and Isaburo, both ending in death, reveal the futility of individual rebellion. Kobayashi’s worldview is ultimately pessimistic: the dissident, even if morally the victor, cannot change the world. Yet we can observe him and his fight for justice. There is a glimpse of hope in Samurai Rebellion when the wet nurse, having witnessed Isaburo’s last desperate fight, saves the little girl. This woman might spread the story of love and rebellion, and Ichi and Isaburo may perhaps not be forgotten. Kobayashi’s chambara-inspired films are not concerned with the question of honour and the idea of how to die a beautiful death but with the essential question of how to live as a human being. If only for the key moment in which the filmmaker shows a man who leaves well-trodden paths and becomes a human being in his own right, it is worth coming back again and again to Kobayashi’s work. When Isaburo leaves the stone-paved path in the courtyard of his house, thereby endorsing his full support of his daughter-in-law, his zori leave footprints in the carefully-raked sand. At this moment, he transgresses the visible as well as the invisible boundaries which keep him prisoner of the rigid code that Kobayashi never tired of questioning.

Joan Mellen: “Harakiri: Kobayashi and History” (Criterion) Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi came of age in the postwar moment, a time when filmmakers were at the vanguard of dissident expression in that country. Drawing upon a rich history of protest in Japanese cinema,

which had fallen dormant during the war and occupation years, filmmakers seized the opportunity to challenge those institutions that remained wedded to the nation’s feudal past. Of this generation of directors, none was as passionate as Kobayashi. Every one of his films, from The Thick-Walled Room (1953) to the feature-length documentary Tokyo Trial (1983) to The Empty Table(1985), is marked by a defiance of tradition and authority, whether feudal or contemporary. Kobayashi found the present to be no more immune to the violation of personal freedoms than the pre-Meiji past, under official feudalism, had been. “In any era, I am critical of authoritarian power,” the filmmaker told me when I interviewed him in Tokyo, during the summer of 1972. “In The Human Condition [1959–61], it took the form of militaristic power; in Harakiri, it was feudalism. They pose the same moral conflict in terms of the struggle of the individual against society.” Like other directors of this period—notably Akira Kurosawa—Kobayashi often expressed his political dissidence via the jidai-geki, or period film, in which the historical past becomes a surrogate for modern Japan. In Kobayashi’s hands, the jidai-geki exposed the historical roots of contemporary injustice. (Japanese audiences were well schooled in history and could be counted on to connect the critique of the past with abuses in the present.) Harakiri, made in 1962, was, in Kobayashi’s career, the apex of this practice. In the film’s condemnation of the Iyi clan, Kobayashi rejects the notion of individual submission to the group. He condemns, simultaneously, the hierarchical structures that pervaded Japanese political and social life in the 1950s and 1960s, especially the zaibatsus, the giant corporations that recapitulated feudalism. Born in Hokkaido on February 14, 1916, and educated at the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo, Kobayashi joined the Shochiku Ofuna studio in 1941, as an assistant director. Eight months later, he was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army. There, he resolutely rejected the opportunity to become an officer, insisting upon remaining at the rank of private. To suffer the misfortunes of the ordinary recruit at the hands of the military clique, to place himself in harm’s way without the prerogatives of the officer class—the class that had led Japan into the Pacific War—was Kobayashi’s means of protesting against the war itself. That war, Kobayashi has said simply, was “the culmination of human evil.” After the war, Kobayashi returned to Shochiku Ofuna, where he assisted the great director Keisuke Kinoshita before graduating to directing in the early 1950s. His antiauthoritarian tendencies were immediately apparent in his work, inevitably provoking studio

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—11 censorship. His first major film, The Thick-Walled Room, was shelved by Shochiku Ofuna for four years, as a result of its controversial suggestion that those responsible for Japanese wartime atrocities were not the minor, or B and C, war criminals but those at the top. Kobayashi had been indignant that, at the end of the war, soldiers and low-ranking officers were often punished cruelly, while many of those directly responsible for the crimes escaped censure. It is surprising that a director like Kobayashi would ultimately flourish at Shochiku Ofuna, which was then specializing in sentimental domestic dramas of everyday life. Even the great directors working at the studio, Yasujiro Ozu and Kinoshita, fit the studio model. Ozu’s films may dramatize social change—none more than his masterpiece Tokyo Story—but his characters ultimately accept that they are powerless to alter their circumstances. In contrast, Kobayashi’s characters risk their very existence by coming into conflict with the forces of injustice. Indeed, the individual in his films best expresses himself when he risks everything, taking a stand against corruption, hypocrisy, and evil. Harakiri opens in 1630, only three decades into the more than 250-year reign of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Tokugawa consolidation of power, following its victory in a civil war, has resulted in the destruction of many clans, depriving feudal daimyo of their fiefdoms and converting their samurai into ronin, condemned to wander the countryside masterless, in search of means of survival. Still armed with two swords—representing their soul, according to the code of Bushido—the former samurai are feared and mistrusted. Safely under the protection of their Tokugawa ally, the Iyi clan are contemptuous of the suffering ronin who come to their door requesting that they be permitted to perform hara-kiri (ritual suicide), in the hope that they might instead be hired on. When Motome Chijiiwa (Akira Ishihama) presents himself before the Iyi clan for this purpose, they choose to preside over his death rather than offer assistance. It is his father-in-law, the samurai Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai), who, in shaming the Iyi clan before their retainers and avenging Chijiiwa’s death, expresses Kobayashi’s view that there are ideas worth dying for. Tsugumo’s bold defiance of feudal authority has a precedent in Bushido itself: the samurai who sacrifices his conscience to “the capricious will . . . or fancy of a sovereign,” Inazo Nitobe writes in Bushido: The

Soul of Japan, is to be chastised, even if the only recourse against injustice open to the samurai in Harakiri, after failing to appeal to the conscience of the Iyi clan elder, is to shed his own blood. Kobayashi discovers irony in the finiteness of the Tokugawa period. The feudal daimyo behave as if their power will last forever, but audiences are able to penetrate their hubris through their own awareness that the Tokugawas will be defeated and that official feudalism will fall with the restoration of the Emperor Meiji, in 1868. This irony is reinforced when Tsugumo tears apart the

armored figure, with its white wig, that stands for the clan’s heritage. When it is later resurrected and reseated in its place of honor, Kobayashi exposes the fragility and transience of all authoritarian power. This perspective fits Kobayashi’s subtle critique of contemporary society as well. Kobayashi suggests that, just as

the Tokugawas, in their arrogance, were shortly to be defeated by upstart, dissident clans loyal to the emperor—and as militarists during World War?II had been defeated—those wielding feudal power in the present might well find their authority coming to an end. Kobayashi’s rebellious sensibility found its parallel in the actor he discovered, Nakadai, star of Harakiri and Kobayashi’s other masterpiece, The Human Condition (and later of Kurosawa’s High and Low and Ran). An actor of the modern Shingeki, or New Theater, Nakadai embodied postwar individualism and youth culture—in his clear enunciation and strong, deep speaking voice and in his expressive body movements, facial mobility, and willingness to convey deeply felt emotions, rather than repressing them on behalf of an outworn notion of samurai dignity. Nakadai portrays the distinguished Tsugumo as, in part, an ordinary man: a grieving widower, kind father, and doting grandfather. Kobayashi contrasts these images of the family man with the fierce, upstanding traits Tsugumo possesses as a samurai. Yet it is as a loving father that Nakadai is particularly moving. He refuses to allow his daughter to be adopted by a clan in which she might become a concubine; he will not sacrifice her to serve his own fortune, even when their economic situation is dire. This fierce individualism serves Kobayashi’s dissidence. In the scene where Nakadai examines the bamboo sword that his son-in-law was forced to use to end his life, he weeps, “The stupid thing was too dear to me?.?.?. and I clung to

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—12 it!” revealing a range worthy of Marlon Brando. Like many Japanese novelists and filmmakers, Kobayashi depicts social themes through allegory; he is an expressionist rather than a realist. In Harakiri, the stark contrasts of black and white—for example, Tsugumo’s black kimono against the white-sheeted platform on which he tells his story—reflect the intransigence of the Iyi clan, upon whose mercy Chijiiwa throws himself unsuccessfully. Kobayashi’s extensive use of the wide screen signifies the seeming endlessness, the horizontality, of feudal power. The setting may be the feudal past, but Kobayashi undermines its authority by juxtaposing rigid, hidebound politics with a panoply of modern film techniques, from zooms to fast pans to canted frames to rapid elliptical cutting to gruesome realism. With these devices, which so obviously defy the stolid rituals of the past, Kobayashi expresses his belief that society need not be destructive of the needs of individuals, and that authoritarian power, however cruel and seemingly permanent, may in fact be vulnerable to change. Harakiri won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1963. Kobayashi’s mentor, Kinoshita, pronounced the film a masterpiece, among the five greatest Japanese films of all time. Kobayashi would continue working for another two decades, ultimately breaking out of the studio system in the late 1960s and forming the independent Yonki-no-Kai, or the Club of the Four Knights, with Kinoshita, Kurosawa, and Kon Ichikawa. Harakiri, though, would remain the most vibrant expression of his belief that life is not worth living unless injustice is confronted with unrelenting force and single-minded purpose.

Roger Ebert: “Harakiri” Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy. "Harakiri," one of the best of them, is about an older wandering samurai who takes his time to create an unanswerable dilemma for the elder of a powerful clan. By playing strictly within the rules of Bushido Code which governs the conduct of all samurai,

he lures the powerful leader into a situation where sheer naked logic leaves him humiliated before his retainers. The time is 1630. Unemployed samurai, called ronin, wander the land. There is peace in Japan, and that leads to their unemployment. Their hearts, minds and swords have been pledged to their masters, and now they are cast adrift, unable to feed and shelter their families. It would be much the same with a corporation today, when a loyal employee with long tenure is "downsized." Loyalty runs only from the bottom up. At the gate of the official mansion of Lord Iyi, a shabby ronin named Tsugumo Hanshiro applies for an audience with the clan elder, Saito Kayegu (Rentaro Mikuni). He has been set loose by Lord Geishu and has no job. He requests permission to kill himself in the clan's forecourt. The ritual act is known as harakiri, or seppuku (which is the film's title in Japanese). It involves using a short blade for self-disembowelment. After the blade plunges in and slices from left to right, a designated master swordsman stands by to decapitate the samurai with one powerful stroke. Tsugumo desires to kill himself because of the disgrace of being an jobless samurai. Saito tells him a story designed to discourage this. In the district there have been many appeals like this, and in some cases the desperate samurais had their lives spared and were given work by the clan they appealed to. They didn't really want to commit harakiri at all. However, Saito says, many clans have wised up to this tactic. He tells a story of Chijiwa Motome (Akira Ishihama), another cast-off from Lord Geishu. He turned up not long ago here in this very forecourt, he says, asking the same permission. Saito granted it--but only if he performed the ritual immediately. Motome gave his word as a samurai that he would indeed kill himself, but asked permission to first pay a short personal visit. Saito saw this as a delaying tactic, and commanded Motome to disembowel himself then and there. This was not easy, because Motome had pawned his short sword, and had a cheap bamboo replacement. As a man of honor, he fell on this blunt blade and caused great damage and pain before being decapitated. So you see, Saito tells Tsugumo, you had better be sincere. "I assure you I'm quite sincere," Tsugumo says, "but first I request your permission to tell a story"--one that will be heard by Saito and the retainers of the household, who are seated solemnly around the edges of the courtyard. "Harakiri" was released in 1962, the work of Masaki Kobayashi (1916-1996), best known for "Kwaidan" (1965), an assembly of ghost stories that is among the most beautiful films I've seen. He also made the nine-hour epic "The Human Condition" (1959-1961)

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—13 which was critical of the way the Bushido Code permeated Japanese life and helped create the state of mind which led to World War II. And he made "Samurai Rebellion" (1967), about a man who refuses to offer his wife to a superior. His recurring theme, seen clearly in "Harakiri," is that fanatic adherence to codes of honor, by granting them a value greater than life itself, sets up a situation where humanist values are forbidden. The samurai class eventually created the Japanese militarist class, whose members were so indoctrinated with worship of their superiors that the deaths of kamikaze pilots and the slaughter of soldiers in hopeless charges under fire were seen, not as military acts, but as a seeking for honorable death. The modern Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima was famously so devoted to the code that he saw its decay as the shame of Japan, and himself committed seppuku in 1970 after leading his small private army in an ill-advised uprising to restore the honor of the Emperor. The American writer-director Paul Schrader told his story in "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" (1985). Opening in a way similar to "Rashomon," in which a man arrives at a gate and begins telling one of four versions of the same story, Kobayashi makes a film where there is only one correct version of the story, but its meaning depends entirely on whose point of view you take. Who is right? Saito, who is determined not to have the charity of the Iyi clan exploited, or Tsugumo, who is determined that Saito and his household will hear the whole story of Motome which led up to his falling on his pathetic bamboo sword. It would be wrong for me to reveal the details of the story Tsugumo tells. What I can say is that it is heartbreaking. He explains that Motome was not a man trying to avoid death by the excuse of asking for a delay. He was a man whose actual honor humbles Saito and other authoritarian bureaucrats. Sometimes it takes more courage to do the right thing than to do the traditional thing. Following the Bushido Code frees its adherents from the need to arrive at their own moral conclusions. "Harakiri" is a film reflecting situational ethics, in which the better you know a man the more deeply you understand his motives. The telling of the story involves a feeling of ritual. Three times Tsugumo is given the privilege of choosing the master swordsman who will behead him. Three times a messenger to sent to fetch the man. Three times the messenger returns alone, with the news that the chosen man is feeling too ill today to survive. Tsugumo, who is obviously familiar with the retainers of the Iyi clan, doesn't seem very surprised. He will eventually explain the absence of the "sick" men by producing in the courtyard dramatic

symbols of their lack of inner strength. This provides one of the great dramatic moments of all samurai films. It's important how the director Kobayashi's own life reflects Tsugumo's ideals. He was a lifelong pacifist, but his way of acting on his beliefs was not to avoid military service but to refuse promotion to the officer class, so that he would take his chances along with other conscripts. This black and white film is elegantly composed and photographed to reflect the values it contains. The camera often takes the POV of Saito, standing at the top of the stairs leading from the courtyard to the official residence, looking down from authority to Tsugumo the lowly petitioner. Then it will take a reverse POV of Tsugumo looking up to the man with the power. Angular shots incorporate the onlookers, who sit impassive and listen as their leader and the powerless ronin speak. Then, during a swordplay scene, a hand-held camera is used to suggest the breaking down of tarditional patterns It would take men with hearts of stone to resist being moved by Tsugumo's story, but these men have been born and bred to have such hearts. The fist image in the film will raise questions in the minds of viewers. We are looking at the symbol of the Iyi clan, the repository of its traditions and ancestors--an empty suit of armor. Eventually this symbol will be disgraced and exposed as the hollow man it is. And when we listen to the heartless reasoning of Saito, it is easy to draw parallels with more recent political debates where rigid economic theories of both left and right are cited as good reason to disregard human suffering.

“Samauri cinema” (Wikipedia) Chanbara (チャンバラ), also commonly spelled "chambara", meaning "sword fighting" movies,[1] denotes the Japanese film genre called samurai cinema in English and is roughly equivalent to western cowboy and swashbuckler films. Chanbara is a sub-category of jidaigeki, which equates to period drama. Jidaigeki may refer to a story set in a historical

Kobayashi—HARAKIRI—14 period, though not necessarily dealing with a samurai character or depicting swordplay. While earlier samurai period pieces were more dramatic rather than action-based, samurai moviesproduced post World War II have become more action-based, with darker and more violent characters. Post war samurai epics tended to portray psychologically or physically scarred warriors.[2] Akira Kurosawa stylized and exaggerated death and violence in samurai epics. His samurai, and many others portrayed in film, were solitary figures, more often concerned with concealing their martial abilities, rather than showing them off.[2]

Historically, the genre is usually set during the Tokugawa era (1600–1868). The samurai film hence often focuses on the end of an entire way of life for the samurai: many of the films deal with masterless rōnin, or samurai dealing with changes to their status resulting from a changing society. Samurai films were constantly made into the early 1970s, but by then, overexposure on television, the aging of the big stars of the genre, and the continued decline of the mainstream Japanese film industry put a halt to most of the production of this genre.[3]

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2019 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS (SERIES 39)

Oct 15 Nicholas Roeg Don’t Look Now 1973 Oct 22 Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles 1974 Oct 29 Larisa Shepitko The Ascent 1977

Nov 5 Louis Malle Au revoir les enfants 1987 Nov 12 Charles Burnett To Sleep With Anger 1990

Nov 19 Steve James, Frederick Marks & Peter Gilbert Hoop Dreams 1994 Nov 26 Alfonso Cuarón Roma 2018

Dec 3 Baz Luhrmann Moulin Rouge 2001

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The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.