Spy Sorge - spoilers

[marran]

I recently saw Spy Sorge and for me what was particularly jarring was the
use of music.  I wonder for example why Shinoda felt the need for extreme
'matching' of image to music in the embassy scenes when, for example, he
used the national anthems of the embassy which was featured in the scene to
introduce the scene.  And he might have taken a hint from his much earlier
Shinjuten no amijima film and paced the music speed and loudness.  In this
film, nearly every scene -- and there were many in this long film -- seemed
to conclude or begin with dramatic music of some sort, often classical.  I
think this use of music was to emphasize the passion of ideological
conviction (or just passion whenever a Japanese woman in the scene -- we
get no ideologically involved Japanese woman in the film as I recall; they
are totally out of the loop, or did I forget someone?)  
To his credit, Shinoda did a good job of weaving many stories and
characters together.  The flow of the film, the logic of the scenes was
fairly good considering the expanse of the film ideologically and
chronologically and geographically.  
I was disturbed by the final scene of the television showing the Berlin
wall coming down while Lennon's song Imagine played.  It seemed irrelevant
to the rest of the film because from my perspective communism of Sorge's
early imagination, then Stalin's, and then of the 70s and 80s east Germany
are different beasts altogether; and while Sorge's vision and Stalin's
practice are clearly differentiated in the film, the final scene of the
Berlin wall ultimately  worked to link them all as one ideological
perspective. I saw the film with a 68 year old Japanese friend of mine who
was 12 when the war ended and from his perspective this linking rather made
sense.  
Christine Marran 

On 24 Jun 2003, mark schilling wrote:
> John asked for comments on "Spy Sorge." My "Japan Times" review is at
> 
> http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ff20030618a1.htm
> 
> A few points concerning the casting of Iain Glen:
> 
> 1) Shinoda spent years trying to cast the "perfect Sorge" -- and Glen fit
> the image he was looking for. Glen's bankability vis-a-vis the
competition
> probably had little to do with the choice -- how many people out there,
> gamers or otherwise, are going to line up to see the star of "Lara Croft:
> Tomb Raider"?
> 2) The vast majority of the Japanese audience could care less if Sorge is
> speaking German, English or Serbo-Croatian.
> 3) English is a much more marketable language internationally than
German.
> Given that the film cannot recoup without significant foreign sales, this
is
> important.
> 
> I've been hearing foreigners complain about (or laugh at) the cheesy
effects
> in Japanese movies for umpteen years, with the yardstick always being the
> latest Hollywood SFX extravaganza. Shinoda spent $20 million on "Spy
Sorge,"
> James Cameron spent $200 million on "Titanic." Which film is going to do
a
> better job of fooling the eye? No contest, right? But the producers of
> "Sorge" had a choice: either use effects that, by today's Hollywood
> standards, are not quite up to snuff -- or not make the movie at all.
> Reproducing 1930s Shanghai and Tokyo on a back lot was not an
alternative.
> (Of course, they could have used the method of Lars von Trier in
"Dogville"
> and drawn chalk marks on the stage to indicate streets, etc.)
> 
> Also, the entire film is set in a "nostalgic" dream world, in which
> everything looks newer, cleaner and more glowingly lit than reality --
i.e.,
> the same approach Shinoda has used for his historical films going back
> years. The artificiality of the effects is thus less jarring, I think,
than
> if he had tried for a grittier "Gangs of New York" realism. In my JT
review
> I compared "Sorge" to a museum diorama; given the tools he had, I think
> Shinoda built a fairly good one. My quarrel with the film lies elsewhere.
> 
> Mark Schilling
> schill at gol.com
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John Dougill" <dougill at mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp>
> To: "kinejapan" <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 9:32 AM
> Subject: Spy Sorge - spoilers
> 
> 
> > I wonder if anyone else has seen Spy Sorge?  I was shocked at how bad
this
> > expensive film was in parts.  Some of the reviews suggested that it was
> > overlong and uninspired: that's true.  But they hadn't prepared me for
> just
> > how embarrassing some of the film was.  What I don't understand is how
> come
> > the studio allowed it to pass as it is....
> >
> > For one thing this was clearly a film with a huge budget and location
> > shooting all over the place with expensive sets.  Huge amounts of
money.
> > Yet there were places where the digital effects were so false and
> artificial
> > that they distracted from involvement in the film and actually made one
> want
> > to laugh at the amateurishness.  One scene I remember clearly had what
> > looked like a painting stuck on a window to recreate a period building
> next
> > door.  Spectacularly bad special effect.  And many of the backdrops
> dripped
> > with as much inauthenticity as Hollywood films from the 1950s - oh,
look
> > planes flying past digitally recreated scenery.  It's a damning
indictment
> > of Japanese film if that is the best they can come up with...  "This
> > country's film industry has been reduced to almost nothing. The only
hits
> we
> > make seem to be animated ones," producer Masaru Koibuchi told me on the
> set
> > in Moji. "I see this film as a way to link our present with our great
film
> > culture of the past. (Article in the Japan Times
> > http://homepage2.nifty.com/uesugihayato/ispy.htm)
> >
> > Indeed, much of the film looked like the work of an amateur rather than
> the
> > final grand finale of a respected professional.  What on earth was the
> point
> > of choosing a Scottish actor to play a German master spy?  Simply to
> pander
> > to the US so they don't have to read subtitles?  These days even
Hollywood
> 
> > gets native Indians to play native Indians in their own accents.  It's
not
> > as if there aren't any German actors in the world.
> >
> > Some of the music choice was downright embarrassing.  Having the
> > Marseillaise when the French appear, the American anthem when US troops
> > arrive, and the Internationale when Communists were shown is hardly a
sign
> > of sophistication.  And bizarrely this overlong film about a Communist
in
> > World War Two finishes with a trite Beatles song, as if that would
somehow
> > make everyone feel nice at the end.
> >
> > The script was also downright embarrassing in parts.  When master spy
> Sorge
> > is going to be hung, he wonders if his faith in communism has been all
in
> > vain.  Absurdly he is comforted by his Japanese captor who tells him
that
> > Moscow has beaten Hitler so faith in communism is not misplaced.  About
as
> > likely a piece of dialogue as Buster Keaton smiling...   And what was
the
> > point of splicing films of the end of communism into Sorge's execution
-
> to
> > show his activity was pointless?  Then what was the point of the film?
> And
> > though Sorge's story was shown at great length, there was a far more
> > interesting story in the Japanese spy Ozaki... what was his motivation?
> It
> > seemed he had far more to lose, and far less connection or knowledge of
> > communism.  At one point he even appeared not to know where the
> information
> > he was providing was going - 'You don't want to know,' Sorge tells him,
> > (despite having mentioned to him earlier in the film that it was for
> > Moscow).
> >
> > By the end of the film I was angry at having forked out money for such
a
> > badly edited film.  An 'earnest three hours of exposition with wooden
> > acting,' said the International Herald Tribune.  I wish the reviewers
in
> > Japan had been more honest.  I'd be interested to hear from reactions
from
> > others who have seen it.....
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 
>