A Dream of Resistance: The Cinema of Kobayashi Masaki

by Stephen Prince

Celebrated as one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers, Kobayashi Masaki’s scorching depictions of war and militarism marked him as a uniquely defiant voice in post-war Japanese cinema. A pacifist drafted into Japan’s Imperial Army, Kobayashi survived the war with his principles intact and created a body of work that was uncompromising in its critique of the nation’s military heritage. Yet his renowned political critiques were grounded in spiritual perspectives, integrating motifs and beliefs from both Buddhism and Christianity.  

A Dream of Resistance is the first book in English to explore Kobayashi’s entire career, from the early films he made at Shochiku studio, to internationally-acclaimed masterpieces like The Human Condition, Harakiri, and Samurai Rebellion , and on to his final work for NHK Television. Closely examining how Kobayashi’s upbringing and intellectual history shaped the values of his work, Stephen Prince illuminates the political and religious dimensions of Kobayashi’s films, interpreting them as a prayer for peace in troubled times. Prince draws from a wealth of rare archives, including previously untranslated interviews, material that Kobayashi wrote about his films, and even the young director’s wartime diary. The result is an unprecedented portrait of this singular filmmaker.  

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In

338 pages, Hardcover

Published November 16, 2017

About the author

Stephen Prince teaches film history, criticism, and theory at Virginia Tech’s School of Performing Arts . He received his Ph.D from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The postwar period in Japan ushered in one of the great golden ages of cinema anywhere and at the forefront of that vanguard was Akira Kurosawa. Author Stephen Prince wrote a seminal book, The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa, about that groundbreaking director. However, there was a group of other worthy directors that have been identified, like Kurosawa, as “postwar humanists” by critic Audie Bock that helped define the cinema of that era who are not as well known. These other directors were Kon Ichickawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, and Masaki Kobayashi. And Prince has chosen Kobayashi as the subject of his second book length study of an essential Japanese director in A Dream Of Resistance: The Cinema Of Masaki Kobayashi (2017) published by Rutgers University Press.

Kobayashi only made 21 films in his career, however, many of them are still available on DVD today. Among these are his three 1960s period masterpieces: Hari Kiri (1962), Kwaidan (1964), and Samurai Rebellion (1967). However, he made his name with his epic 519 minute long anti-war adaptation of a novel by Junpei Gomikawa known as The Human Condition released in three parts (No Greater Love, The Road to Eternity, and A Soldier’s Prayer) in the years 1958-1961. In 2013 Criterion released a box set of some of Kobayashi’s lesser known films as Eclipse 38:Masaki Kobayashi Against the System featuring: The Thick Walled Room (1956), I Will Buy You (1956), Black River (1956), and The Inheritance (1962). So it would seem that the timing was right for a full-length study of one of the masters of Japanese postwar cinema.

Prince looks at some formative people, places, and experiences that can be seen as influences in Kobayashi’s films. For example, Prince discusses Kobayashi’s childhood growing up in a liberal family located in the majestic northern island of Hokkaido. There he grew up climbing mountains and roaming the woods of his native Otaru. His interest in cinema was piqued early by the influence of his famous actress cousin Kinuyo Tanaka, who had starred in some influential films by the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, Nikio Naruse, and Kurosawa among others. In college he became the disciple of poet and scholar Yaichi Aizu who would pass on his love of traditional Japanese arts that could be seen in Kobayashi’s period films. After joining Shochiku studios, he was drafted into the WWII where he was sent to Manchuria and would foster a lifelong antithesis to war and the army. This was most prominently shown in The Human Condition, however, it also manifested itself in several other films. Kobayashi would find a talented leading man, Tatsuya Nakadai, early in his career and work with him on his greatest films and to the end of his career. His mid career collaboration with the musician Toru Takemitsu is singled out as a significant creative collaboration during Kobayashi’s peak.

Once he returned to Japan from the war, he was assigned to work with his contemporary Kinoshita, before quickly earning the right to direct his own films. He made a number of competent minor films before his artistic break through The Thick-Walled Room (completed in 1953, but not released until 1956), which questioned the justice of the punishment of low ranking war criminals. A string of films critical of different aspects of society followed, before his international break through with The Human Condition. Then his series of period films that established him as one of the great directors in the world followed. After the rise of television, Kobayashi, like his contemporaries, suffered and did not have many chances to direct prestige films. That being said, Prince singles out three late career films that are worth seeking out in his later period: We Who Give Our Lives Needlessly (1971), Kaseki (1975), and the controversial documentary Tokyo Trial (1983).

Prince does an excellent job of illuminating the social, artistic, cultural, intellectual, personal, and philosophical aspects of Kobayashi’s films. He does this by using secondary sources to underscore insights in those areas. This is also achieved by giving the films detailed summaries-sometimes frame by frame descriptions of scenes. The tone of the book is not overly academic and should be of interest to fans of cinema everywhere. Kobayashi is a world class film maker and has directed some of the greatest Japanese films ever made, and is absolutely deserving of this full length study.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the only extensive study of Kobayashi's films in the English language, this book is undoubtedly valuable. However, I was disappointed to find that the bulk of it is a highly detailed, sometimes frame-by-frame examination of said films, with very little information about their making and less about Kobayashi's personal history. Thus, if you haven't seen every single movie Kobayashi made, you will probably find yourself skipping entire chapters, so this book is for serious admirers only.

[Alexander Curran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Posted : 6 years, 10 months ago on 22 June 2011 08:53 (A review of Harakiri)
http://www.listal.com/viewentry/1176254

"The suspicious mind conjures its own demons."

17th Century Samurai story told through clever flashbacks and storytelling thus capturing a fiery tale of revenge, deception and malice.

Tatsuya Nakadai: Hanshiro Tsugumo

Director Masaki Kobayashi, whom also conjured the masterful horror Kwaidan and epic Samurai Rebellion has yet again created another film of note. He has captured a story so great and immense, in such a way, that can only be described as simply mind-blowing. The piece in the lime light is Harakiri or Seppuku.
An effort and work that deserves praise and then yet even more. For 1962 the whole affair has a timeless feel and quality which easily surpasses and rivals any film maker in the present.

The story consists of being told through a multitude of flashbacks and clever narration. Harakiri is essentially a story within a story.
So in 17th Century Japan, we find the wars are over, it is a peaceful time where Samurai are finding it hard to attain work and funding. Many Samurai are succumbing to poverty and a grim fate. The only honourable alternative for some, is to commit harakiri or seppuku (Ritual suicide although Seppuku is death by disembowelment of the intestines) in certain feudal houses.
We the audience are shown elder warrior, Hanshiro Tsugumo, played magnificently by legendary favourite Tatsuya Nakadai, Hanshiro visits a Feudal Lord's house and asks to commit the act of seppuku.
There at the abode, he learns the fate regarding his son-in-law, a young samurai who had previously sought work at the house but was instead barbarically forced to commit traditional harakiri in an excruciating manner with a dull, blunt bamboo blade.
In flashbacks the samurai tells the tragic story of his son-in-law, and how he was forced to sell his real sword to support his sick wife and child.
Hanshiro Tsugumo thus sets in motion a tense showdown of revenge against the house...

''Swordsmanship untested in battle is like the art of swimming mastered on land.''

Harakiri profoundly entices audiences with expertly executed cinematography, close up shots, authentic costumes and locations, and expertly synchronized sounds, effects and music which compliment the frantic action played upon the contrasts that are the ambient scenes of tragedy and decaying struggle.
Masaki Kobayashi professionally lays a masterpiece at our feet that dazzles and dances before our eyes, that has the characters which make us angry or sad and that play upon our emotions by their consecutive acts.
Whether he shows us Hanshiro battling upon a windy plain with long grass, displayed with cinematography which holds no faults but stands as a beacon to the greatest art and beauty within the medium of film.
Whether he shows the tragic demise of Hanshiro's brother in law and he makes us feel his pain, and makes us feel fury and then sadness for the tragedy and death befalling the family.
The exchange of blades between our hero Hanshiro against many opponents is breath taking to behold and we cheer for him, we follow his movements in precise detail, just like we had followed his story being told throughout the film.
Kobayashi plays upon the audience with every slippery trick and spidery tendril at his disposal.
It all successfully solidifies, both, equaling an affirmed vengeance story laced with those old Greek tragedies from long ago, and also dually captures an age old problem which is poverty. Questions directed at tradition and lack of wealth in times of desperation for warriors with no purpose for their skills. Questions about honour and tradition, about respect and humility: A study which touches upon cruelty, about suspicion and doubt, and how plans can backfire when faced with unforeseen consequences.

Harakiri shows us a modern masterpiece from Japanese cinema which captures 17th Century Japan from the very pages of history. It has the revenge story and Samurai film with an alternative twisting and mutation towards the warped code of honour and then towards lies and secrecy. The samurai are shown to what lengths a feudal house will go to cover up its haunting mistakes, using a shroud of lies and deception to conceal the truth.

Some aspects of life require bravery and strength, while also holding a sense of honour and conduct higher than anything else. Harakiri or Seppuku shows the strength and bravery of one man fighting against many foes in the pursuit of truth and redemption for a lost loved one.

''What befalls others today, may be your own fate tomorrow.''

[Dustin Prisley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Dream of Resistance, as the blurb rightly states, is the first substantive English language treatment of one of Japan’s greatest filmmaking visionaries, whose collaborations and contributions echo those of greats like Ozu and Kurosawa to whom a number of books have already paid deference, with Dr. Prince’s own, in this reviewer’s opinion, being the greatest addition to critical scholarship of Kurosawa’s work in decades. The mark of this is Dr. Prince’s deftness of argumentation which even on points of contention treads carefully the line between scholarly deduction and conjecture. This book, a likewise detailed and carefully researched piece of scholarship pays equal attention to each phase of Kobayashi’s career, from his training under Kinoshita Keisuke to his later works, to which, at least by my reading, no other English work has even alluded. Drawing on a wealth of interviews, Japanese scholarship, and his own incisive commentary, Dr. Prince presents a compelling but also thoroughly readable vivisection of Kobayashi’s oeuvre that, like all great criticism, leaves the films to live on for future viewers, illuminating rather than disillusioning fans of Kobayashi, perhaps even those who merely arrive for the chambara but who might, presented with Dr. Prince’s interpretations, stay for the narrative and technical brilliance of Samurai Rebellion or others of Kobayashi’s more neglected films which Dr. Prince ably makes the case for bringing to broader critical attention and acclaim. Your mileage may vary but with my admittedly cineaste tastes I devoured the whole of the book in two sittings. Particularly notable, for me, is Dr. Prince’s attention not just to career highlights like Hara-Kiri and The Human Condition, both of which he sheds considerable light on nevertheless, but also to the early films, many of which long unavailable to Western viewers. His synopses provide the overview of a career too long obscured for monoglot critics much as Stuart Galbraith IV’s did for Kurosawa and Mifune’s works, while his analyses not only contribute, but in most cases seem actually to originate (at least in broader publication) to discussion of Kobayashi’s craft and creations. Dr. Prince notes broader critical trends to which Kobayashi has been subject, though principally in Japanese circles, including the Judeo-Christian/Buddhist thematic through-line in much of his work but, in Prince’s hands, what for many authors would present an opportunity to hyperextend an argument in pursuit of a parsimonious and salable revelation, unfolds in a series of nested conclusions drawn from scenarist, cinematographic, and editorial evidence which convince but never shy away from the complexities and dualities inherent to Kobayashi, like all great artists. So, too, does Dr. Prince’s keen attention to the cinematographic, musical, and editorial nuances of even Kobayashi’s final documentary present a valuable perspective on how Kobayashi’s work, and films more generally, act upon the viewing audience. Put simply and without risking overstatement, Dr. Prince has established himself as not only the most important and accessible writer on Japanese films since Donald Richie, but also as a superior authority on film studies more generally. This book sits proudly beside my copy of The Warrior’s Camera, and will certainly distinguish itself as one of the most lovingly dogeared and spine-creased volumes on the shelf of any other cinephile. At the very least it makes the case that Kobayashi’s work is overdue for close examination and sets the bar very high indeed for the next critic who will, perhaps because of Dr. Prince’s book, tackle Kobayashi’s stunning and varied body of work.

[Skylar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Besides the excessive attention to plot details which frustrates as Prince makes repetitive arguments toward the spiritual side of Masaki Kobayashi's filmography, the first full-length book on the director's art is an important addition to English studies on Japanese cinema in providing clear insight into his critique of militarism throughout the history of Japan. The biographical chapters are probably more important than any of Prince's film analysis, but The Human Condition receives an entire chapter to center the maturity of the director before shaping it with his period dramas following this epic.

[Mills College Library]

791.43023 P9571 2018