Shūbun/Scandal (1949)
Nov. 6th, 2020 11:40 pmWakanomori and I watched this early Kurosawa film just now, and wow--what a story, what actors, what cinematography. There's a scene in the middle, where the tired down-and-outers at an all-night bar start singing the Japanese-language version of Auld Lang Syne, that shows a love of humanity that brings tears to your eyes--it's as stirring as when everyone sings the Marseillaise in Casablanca, though for completely different reasons.
It stars a very young Toshiro Mifune as an artist (Ichiro Aoi [correction! It's Aoe]) and Yoshiko Yamaguchi ** as a singer (Miyako Saijo) whom paparazzi photograph in a compromising position, although there's nothing between them.
It's not what it seems!
The scandal rag Amour prints a racy story, to their mutual distress, and Aoe announces his intention to sue. Enter Takashi Shimura as down-at-the-heel attorney Otokichi Hirata [Correction: Hiruta, omg where am I tonight], who begs Aoe to hire him for the case. A less appealing entrance you can't imagine: he coughs a wet cough, wipes his nose with the back of his hand, and complains about having stepped in raw sewage out in the street--and then empties out his boots and wrings out his socks, right in the room.
Aoe's model and friend Sumie (Noriko Sengoku) warns him not to hire Hiruta, but Aoe sees something good in his eyes. After Aoe meets Hiruta's bedridden daughter Masako (Yoko Katsuragi), he's even more sure he wants to hire the lawyer.
But Hiruta is a very compromisable and soon compromised man. So what will happen?
There are aspects of the film that seem like they'd push it to sentimentality. You could see Masako that way, for instance. But the bits of dialogue designed to show her goodness feel so entirely like they belong to a real person that for me at least, she escaped that fate. (At one point the subtitles have her say "my imagination keeps me busy," but what she actually says is more like "I daydream about so many things that I'm positively busy/rushed")
But what really prevents the film from being sentimental is its clear-eyed, understated recognition of how hard it is to be human in a cold world, and the incredible affection and respect you can feel flowing from Kurosawa, via Aoe, toward everyone (with the exception of the publisher of Amour, who forfeits his right to respect through his self-interested lying and manipulation). The people in the bar scene I mentioned earlier could have come out of James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men:
( faces )
It's also notable and noticeable that there's no romance in the movie (though you can imagine one springing up after the film ends)--it means that other emotions and types of love stand forward.
I highly recommend it. It's available through Netflix DVD or on YouTube.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sovay, the refined lawyer Dr. Kataoka seems tailor made for you. Although he's the publisher's attorney, he's an honorable man.
Posters advertising the salacious story near the beginning and at the end of the film:
**Actress who was born in Japanese-colonized Manchuria, made Japanese propaganda films during the war, was an actual singer and later a member of parliament, and who died in 2014 at age 90.
It stars a very young Toshiro Mifune as an artist (Ichiro Aoi [correction! It's Aoe]) and Yoshiko Yamaguchi ** as a singer (Miyako Saijo) whom paparazzi photograph in a compromising position, although there's nothing between them.
It's not what it seems!
The scandal rag Amour prints a racy story, to their mutual distress, and Aoe announces his intention to sue. Enter Takashi Shimura as down-at-the-heel attorney Otokichi Hirata [Correction: Hiruta, omg where am I tonight], who begs Aoe to hire him for the case. A less appealing entrance you can't imagine: he coughs a wet cough, wipes his nose with the back of his hand, and complains about having stepped in raw sewage out in the street--and then empties out his boots and wrings out his socks, right in the room.
Aoe's model and friend Sumie (Noriko Sengoku) warns him not to hire Hiruta, but Aoe sees something good in his eyes. After Aoe meets Hiruta's bedridden daughter Masako (Yoko Katsuragi), he's even more sure he wants to hire the lawyer.
But Hiruta is a very compromisable and soon compromised man. So what will happen?
There are aspects of the film that seem like they'd push it to sentimentality. You could see Masako that way, for instance. But the bits of dialogue designed to show her goodness feel so entirely like they belong to a real person that for me at least, she escaped that fate. (At one point the subtitles have her say "my imagination keeps me busy," but what she actually says is more like "I daydream about so many things that I'm positively busy/rushed")
But what really prevents the film from being sentimental is its clear-eyed, understated recognition of how hard it is to be human in a cold world, and the incredible affection and respect you can feel flowing from Kurosawa, via Aoe, toward everyone (with the exception of the publisher of Amour, who forfeits his right to respect through his self-interested lying and manipulation). The people in the bar scene I mentioned earlier could have come out of James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men:
( faces )
It's also notable and noticeable that there's no romance in the movie (though you can imagine one springing up after the film ends)--it means that other emotions and types of love stand forward.
I highly recommend it. It's available through Netflix DVD or on YouTube.
sovay, the refined lawyer Dr. Kataoka seems tailor made for you. Although he's the publisher's attorney, he's an honorable man. Posters advertising the salacious story near the beginning and at the end of the film:
**Actress who was born in Japanese-colonized Manchuria, made Japanese propaganda films during the war, was an actual singer and later a member of parliament, and who died in 2014 at age 90.
