Jingi Naki Tatakai

Watching Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story, I was somewhat reminded of the camerawork used in most multi-camera sitcoms. The camera never seems to move very much higher than the ‘audience’s’ perspective, much like in shows such as Roseanne or Cheers. Whereas in these sitcoms, the audience is at a slightly higher vantage point which works with the higher seating position of a western dining table, (A much used set-piece in Roseanne) the camera in Tokyo Story is often at a lower height as if the audience were looking up towards a stage, this being because the traditional Japanese position for dining was seated on the tatami mats on the floor. Being that I was watching this film, unconsciously through the frame of these American sitcoms I was rather upset that I did not produce a tear for the Grandmother’s death. I quite often find myself crying as a result of the family patriarch, Dan Connor’s reactions to his family in Roseanne or Sam Malone’s constant battles with his past in Cheers but this same reaction did not surface in my viewing of Tokyo Story. Admittedly, several reasons do arise for this, such as the fact that I was pre-warned that the scene was coming, my easy empathy towards Sam and Dan’s characters due to their emasculated emotional deficiencies and the fact that Tokyo Story contextually, is much further from my own reality than these sitcoms.

This lack of empathy due to context reminded me of a quote from either Akira Kurosawa or Kenji Mizoguchi who, in reference to Westerners describing Ozzu’s films as showing the ‘real Japan’. The argument was that, though Ozu’s films may have shown a reality that had once existed in Japan during the Meiji era which ended in 1912 just before the instatement of the Taisho emperor whose major contribution was the push for integration of ‘foreign customs’, which meant that more men were trading their kimono for western-style suits, tea ceremonies were reserved mostly for formal occasions, replaced in social circumstances by saki drinking and less traditional versions of geisha parties which began to take on a slightly cabaret sort of effect. After World War 2, during the American occupation it became even more common to see Geisha replaced by western-dressed escorts and whiskey drinking becoming commonplace.

These changes attribute Ozu’s aesthetic a particularly ‘old-world’ effect, which is another reason why, as a western viewer in the 21^st century I struggled with the material. My true passion for Japanese cinema stems for the Jingi Yakuza (or Chivalrous Gangster) films of the post-war period that replaced the banned feudalistic Samurai films and also the Jitsuroku Yakuza (real-event Gangster) films that began to show up during the 1970s as a result of directors who were raised during the militaristic Showa period of the Manchurian occupation up until the end of the War, rallying against the falsehoods of the Jingi pictures. The vibrant, dandyish aesthetic of some of the Jingi films much like the Italian Westerns of the 1960s and the desperate dynamism of the Jitsuroku films that owe a great debt to my other favorite eras of film, the Nouvelle Vague of the late 1950s and 1960s and the New Hollywood the late 1960s and 1970s are what really rests comfortably in my over-active mind.

Peasant Logic

Reading and watching Wise Blood, I was reminded a lot of my time living in a Greek village as a boy. Hazel Moates, in the novel has a sort of uneducated wisdom and logic that I can appreciate. A quality a lot of the older men and women in the village shared.

When he is told by his grandfather that Jesus died for his sins he comes to the decision that ‘the only way to keep Jesus away is to not sin. So I just won’t sin.”

He may be missing the preacher’s point but his logic is flawless. He does not see Jesus as a font of love. He sees Jesus as a punishment. If he sins, Jesus will be unhappy with him, so therefore he would rather just be ignored than have to stand accusation.

I remember speaking to my grandfather once, he was telling me the story about the time he killed a snake. It had appeared in the rows between the vines. Not a very poisonous snake but its bite would hurt like crazy and the fact that the closest doctor was a long walk down a mountain and over to the coast, infection would not be fun. I looked up at him with wonder in my eyes, ‘So how did you kill it, Papouli?’

“Kill it?’ he replied, ‘why would I bother risking my health. Snakes only hang around when it’s warm. I just went and had a siesta until it got colder later in the afternoon.’

To stay away from the snake just don’t do anything that will attract its attention.

This concept of uneducated wisdom also brings to mind something that I once read about Scientology. Scientology is aimed at people with an overabundance of imagination but not very much education to help harness it and aid in analysis rather than free-form daydreaming. This is why so many actors go to Scientology eg. Tom Cruise, John Travolta. They are uneducated ‘artists’. They want something to use their imagination on but never had any form of release for it other than their acting.

This, I believe, is why Hazel Moates does not want to be a preacher, why ‘(He doesn’t) believe in anything.’ (pp20) He has too much logic going through his head for such ‘nonsense’. If Jesus will get you if you sin just don’t sin. Why do you need a bible for that? I appreciate the logical simplicity of this mindset. I fondly call this ‘peasant logic’. I come from two lines of proud, hard-working peasants. Just because I have gotten the chance to get an education doesn’t mean that when I injure myself I don’t immediately cause as much pain to the injured area as possible so that the adrenaline kicks in quicker and I can keep doing what I’m doing, no matter how many times doctors call me an idiot. Rand would be proud, if only she wasn’t so caught up in her hating.

Conan Roark

I think the most enjoyable aspect of The Fountainhead was the propagandizing. I admit that I am an atheist but that does not hinder my ability to enjoy a well-presented preaching. What Rand does well, is play on the ego of the reader and as a man with ample ego I was fully prepared to be stroked.

As I read the book I felt myself steering further and further to her Objectivist point of view and I actually felt no guilt for this. I have always appreciated logic over ‘soft’ feelings, so she already had an ‘in’ with me. What made her preaching successful was the way in which she presented it within the genre of melodrama. I know melodrama. I like melodrama. What I enjoy most about melodrama is that, even if it is never made blatantly clear, the story is always basically just about people wanting to sleep with each other. As a mid-twenties male, (till with original, working equipment, only been crashed once, paint-job slightly faded) I do so enjoy reading about my hobbies especially if they are hobbies that anyone can be good at as I don’t enjoy research.

Reading this novel made me think about other films and books where I felt that I was being steered politically in one direction by was so swept up by the accessible story that I did not care. There are countless films like this but the films that I find are as obvious as The Fountainhead are the films of John Milius. He was the dialogue writer on Dirty Harry and the writer of its sequel Magnum Force. It is his adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan The Barbarian that I find most exciting because most people are swept up by the fantastic Sword and Sorcery adventure plot and never realize they are watching a Regan era right-wing propaganda film.

Conan, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, with his slightly pared down MR Universe body, lantern jaw and standing well over six feet represents the Nietzchen superman. Nietzche is even quoted at the beginning of the film as the war drum theme starts to play.

“That which does not kill you makes you stronger.”

But ultimately as the film goes on it becomes apparent that Conan’s real enemy is the previous two decades of American cultism and hippies. Conan scoffs at the “flower people” when they tell him to lay down his arms and armour and join them on their pilgrimage. His ultimate goal is to kill the cult leader, a Manson-esque James Earl Jones, as Thulsa Doom.

The most Roarkian scene in the film is when Conan describes his no-nonsense god. He explains that he does not pray to his god, Crom as he seldom listens. Crom’s ethos is for one toi live they’re life and become the best man or woman they can and never expect divine help. There will be no weakness.

‘He’s strong. If I die I will have to go before me and he’ll ask me “What is the riddle of steel?” If I don’t know it he will cast me out. That’s Crom. Strong on his mountain,” Conan says to his friend Subotai as they discuss who’s god is stronger.

This reminds me of Roark worshipping logic over any god. He does not expect divine providence, he takes responsibility for his life so that he can die knowing he has achieved. Got to love a philiosophy that tells you to be the best you can be and not get bogged down by too much moralizing.