Re Last Samurai

Wed Dec 31 14:54:18 EST 2003

j.izbicki at att.net wrote:
But as indicated above, honor in the face of certain defeat can also be 
absorbed into the virtually suicidal battles engaged in by the Japanese 
military toward the end of the Pacific war when supplies and reinforcements 
were non-existent. In other words, for both defense and offense, guns really 
are more effective than bows and arrows, and no struggling force that?s 
really trying to win will deliberately opt for lesser technology. But that 
hopelessness is precisely the appeal of the movie and is perhaps what--was it 
Jasper--referred to when his students said that the movie ?got it right.? 
Namely that defeat was preferable to living under circumstances that were 
deemed repugnant and going out fighting was an act of consummate courage. 
This is where the film gets some emotional power but likewise where its 
colonialist underpinnings are most insidious: the ?nobility? of the savage 
arises. And surely the parallel with Algren?s anti-Indian past was 
deliberately set to evoke the ol? noble savage saw.

Over-emotional western accounts of the rebellion have similarities to comments made about the Boxer rebellions in China. The whole idea that civilisation involves a loss of innocence (usually by force) is very attractive to modern, western audience, but I find it hard to locate this 'innocence' in pre-westernized civilisations. Many people still ascribe this simplistic, honourable, almost child-like existence to the societies conquered by the Romans, but it seems to have little real basis in history.

Jim.

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