Cinema Talk

I’ve taken an unintentional break from Hirosh Shimizu for quite awhile now so I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t connect with this like I did with his previous efforts. Within the first few minutes, such fears were cast aside. While this is probably the Shimizu film with the worst print, it’s brilliance still shines through. Once again Shimizu crafts a formal brilliant little drama that appears so innocent and carefree on the surface, but is tragic and heartbreaking underneath. If I have any complaints at all, I’d say that it is a tad bit too gentle, which isn’t all that unusual for Shimizu. This is the sort of wonderful film I’ve come to expect from him.

The story here is very particular and atypical. After all, most of the plot’s forward momentum comes from the title character’s accent. Nobuko comes from out-of-town to become a teacher at an all-girls boarding school. She lives with her aunt, a geisha, which eventually causes some controversy with the school’s authoritative figures. Inside this geisha house, though, we see something very Shimizu-ian, a character whose tragedy is quickly approaching. The aunt’s daughter is destined, just like the reserved female character in Arigato-san, to pursue a career as a geisha, something she has little to no interest in. By the film’s end, this character seems pretty much unimportant, but she still is an example of those hidden tragedies woven within most of Shimizu’s work.

The main focus here is, instead, Mieko Takamine as the Nobuko. Takamine, unfortunately, has been generally forgotten but her performance here and in Shimizu’s Anma to onna gives us a wonderful taste of her talent. At first, she comes off a bit awkward with her greatly exaggerated accent, but I guess a lot of this could be blamed on the subtitle translation, which goes to great efforts to make it known that she clearly doesn’t talk like her teaching peers. I can’t stress my respect enough for Shochiku’s decision to make these films accessible to the English-speaking world, but perhaps some sort of short explanation on the differences in dialect would be helpful. This isn’t too much of a problem, though, as Nobuko quickly adapts to her surroundings, loses her accent, and becomes a much more interesting character overall.

I must admit, the “dark” turn the film takes in its final act is pretty surprising. Even if Eiko’s character “opening up” was predictable it is handled in a manner that isn’t the least bit old-fashion. At first, we see Eiko as the popular and likable troublemaker that has long been a headache for the school’s faculty. As most of the girls take a rise to Nobuko’s teaching style, Eiko continues to display her rebelliousness. It is then revealed that the school’s finances are supported by her father, thus explaining the staff’s resistance to “disciplining” her. It may not need to be mentioned, but such scenarios still happen in modern life. Nobuko is the first teacher to treat Eiko like the other students and when she does, Eiko turns to suicide.

This all sounds over-whelmingly melodramatic, but Shimizu somehow crafts it with such sincerity for his characters. The sequence in which Eiko disappears (to proceed in killing herself) we are never shown anything that is meant to manipulate the sadness of Eiko, but instead, a selection of static corridor shots complimented by the students calling for their peer. She is found and quickly taken to the hospital, where she essentially tells Nobuko why she is such a troublemaker. It is a bit too tightly put together, as it seems to explain away all of the character’s problems, but the sequence itself is so honest. Even as the film ends on a string on near monologues (first from Niko, then from her father, then from Nobuko) it doesn’t feel the least bit preachy. If the moral is that all kids want attention, than in my humble opinion, no amount of manipulation can water down the cause. At least not when it’s in Shimizu’s hands. What could have been the Japanese Dead Poets Society is instead, one of the truest meditations on life as a teenager and as a young adult.

It may have helped to watch two of the more unremarkable westerns I’ve seen in a long time beforehand, but this was definitely fantastic. Another little motion picture that reminds me of everything that makes that period of time from the late 30s to the early 60s the most special one in the history of American cinema. This is one of the earliest I’ve seen, appearing in the theaters the same year as Ford’s much more recognized Stagecoach. Ford himself would, of course, use the same source material as this film to create the legendary My Darling Clementine. It’s hard not to compare this to Ford’s adaptation, but that’s hardly a problem, this is just as great.

The story hasn’t changed all that much from 1939 to 1946, at least not in a general sense. The main character here is still Wyatt Earp, a quiet man who reluctantly accepts the responsibility of Sheriff in Tombstone. He, to the dismay and surprise of many, becomes friends with Doc Holliday, the town’s most infamous figure. He meets Doc at a very awkward point in time, as Doc’s one-time love, Sarah, comes to town to reunite with him. Earp himself falls for Sarah, who Doc responds to indifferently, but Earp decides to fight off all the excess of Doc’s current lifestyle with the hope that Sarah can return to the man she once loved.

It doesn’t really matter who it is performing the sequence, Randolph Scott or Henry Fonda, but I think I’ll always get a little teary-eyed when Earp asks Sarah or Clementine to stay in Tombstone and give Doc another chance. It’s such an odd and perplexing move on the part of Earp, but it is heartbreaking in a way that is both subtle and relentless. For my money, I’ll still say Fonda’s performance is the best, as he (and Ford) have a lot more time to flesh out the actual character, but Randy Scott is, as expected, quite excellent. He really had this type of character down pat – and said character would continue to appear frequently for the remainder of Scott’s career. The only difference between his performance here and the one in Decision at Sundown are a few wrinkles.

I don’t see anything all that interesting about Allan Dwan’s technique here. I didn’t really watch the film for him, anyway, but mostly for Scott and seeing another view of the Clementine story. This does have some nice grainy black and white cinematography, though, which was truly a joy to watch coming off the Technicolor throw-up schemes in The Cimarron Kid and The Man From the Alamo. There are a few nice Tarr-esque tracking shots, but otherwise, nothing really all that note-worthy. The heavy use of fades in the film’s opening is certainly not all that flattering, but thankfully, things pick up from there. Even then, this is the sort of film where form isn’t the main appeal. The content is the substance here, and it is very substantial.

Definitely a step-up from The Cimarron Kid but once again, this is a very minor entry in Boetticher’s career. I suppose I would feel a bit better about these two films if it hadn’t been for the fact that Anthony Mann was already making some of the most masterful westerns of all-time in the same time period. Everyone has to start somewhere, but it seems that unlike Mann, Boetticher had a lot of maturing to do as a filmmaker.

Maybe Boetticher just needed a bit more experience before he made these two pictures, not only as a filmmaker but as a human being. There is an extremely naive worldview presented here, that is not at all present in Boetticher’s latter films with Randolph Scott. The story concerns John Stroud, the only man to run away from the Alamo. He is relentlessly prosecuted by the townsfolk as being a coward, but of course, he actually isn’t. In fact, he may be more brave than those that stayed. As it turns out, Stroud only left to help his family. In other words, one of the most eye roll-inducing and predictable narratives I’ve come across in a long time. It would have been so much more interesting have Stroud actually been portrayed as a wimp. I don’t know how he was in real life, but its not as Boetticher is aiming for historical accuracy here.

So while this shows more promise than The Cimarron Kid with a much more refined aesthetic, and a few more glimpses at Boetticher’s future grittiness, it also suffers from having a flawless martyr of a hero. It seems that Stroud never does anything wrong, but every character thinks otherwise. As a result, this is 80 minutes of phony sympathy crafted by a filmmaker who went on to do much better things.

I wasn’t really expecting this to be on the same level as Budd Boetticher’s films with the great Randolph Scott, but I still can’t help but be a little bit disappointed by this. Certainly the lack of a leading man that demands as much attention as Scott does is a huge loss, but it seems to be aesthetically tame as well. It doesn’t look all that different from Tourneur’s Canyon Passage but I’d say that two completely different tones are being attempted, not to mention that Canyon Passage came about five years earlier. This is still a nice little western with a few nice ideas, but it only hints at the genius of Boetticher’s latter films.

There is one note-worthy aspect of this film and it is the unfortunately underdeveloped relationship between the title character and Carrie Roberts, a woman who tries to save “The Kid” from his inevitable doom. It’s almost a complete 180 from the cold tension in the male-female relationships of Boetticher’s work with Scott. Of course, that sensibility may just be inherited from Scott’s passive acting style, which Audie Murphy is leagues away from. Still, I think the attention Boetticher lends to this relationship is a bit uncharacteristic for a western. I still prefer the aformentioned cold tension, but the tone that seems to be intended in this film is sort of interesting. Overall, neither character is fleshed out enough to make their turmoil particularly interesting, but it still seems like a half-way decent attempt on Boetticher’s part.

Sam Peckinpah’s second film is rightfully considered a landmark in the western genre, but that doesn’t exactly make it the masterpiece that many hype it up to be. More than anything, it is just a simple, almost mindless joy to watch. It’s a harmless type of fun to see Randolph Scott in his very last performance as well as to see Warren Oates in one of his earliest. It’s nice to see the end of one generation of western aesthetics collide with a new generation. This is, after all, technically the last “classic western” and everything that has come after has been labeled  revisionist, or modern, or something to that effect.

My personal enjoyment of this film does come with some context. It helps a great deal to not only be familiar with the film’s cast, but to also be a big fan of it. I can definitely get behind any film that puts Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott together, let alone anything that features Warren Oates. Had these roles been filled by actors I had no interest in, the film itself will probably be fairly unremarkable. However, these people are in these roles and each and every one of them is a joy to watch. At first, it took awhile to get use to seeing Scott play a character that was so self-conscious of his age. In all of the Boetticher films I’ve seen with him, he seemed to hide that a great deal, appearing experienced, but not enough to be an old fogey. Here, though, he and McCrea are made out to be exactly that.

Eventually, though, it becomes quite easy to get use to as it turns out, Scott is essentially playing the exact same character he’s ever played except now he’s completely tired of his career. Seem familiar? Well, I suppose that definitely works in this film favor. There isn’t a particularly strong feeling that Scott himself is going to throw in the towel after this performance, but there are a few subtle hints that help give his character some complexity. Joel McCrea has a few similar moments, but the third “hero” (if you can call him that) seems to be put in simply to give a young guy for the oldies to shake their heads and roll their eyes at.

Other than that, though, Peckinpah is very much focused on pushing the plot forward. Thankfully, though, there are a few legitmately amazing moments. A good example would be pretty much every sequence with Warren Oates, but the wedding sequence seems to take the cake, at least in my opinion. It definitely has a great sense of kinetic energy that seems to welcome in the new generation of western filmmakers, while still paying its due to the originals. I suppose that’s what this is, overall. Peckinpah obviously wasn’t as concious of what a landmark his film would be when he made, but the viewer does, and personally, I think that helps the film’s case.