Last Samurai

[Aaron Gerow]

Nice to see more discussions on the Last Samurai and more. It seems the 
topic has been taken up in other places as well, with a fairly long 
piece on the same three films appearing in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/movies/04RICH.html

It echoes many of the statements of praise and criticism we have seen 
on KineJapan.

Sparked by our discussions, I went to some of the Japanese film sites 
to look at audience reviews of the film. Clearly, the overwhelming 
response is favorable. One common theme is a general surprise that, 
contrary to expectations born of previous bad examples, Hollywood seems 
to have created a fairly accurate film about Japan. (Kudos apparently 
go to the earnest efforts of our Mark Schilling!) Even those who 
complain about inaccurate details praise the film for accurately 
showing the spirit of Japan. It is these latter kind of comments that I 
found interesting.

First is the problematic assertion that a depiction of spirit, 
especially a national spirit, can be accurate. As I repeatedly stress 
in my nation and national cinema class, assertions about national 
spirit should always be treated with suspicion because they often hide  
more than they reveal, hiding especially their repressions (of 
difference, of otherness) and their histories (how were such unities 
_created_?). While we shouldn't throw all universalizations out the 
window, we have to be aware of the violence involved in moving from the 
particular to the universal. So I ask, just what is being hidden when 
Japanese spectators are seeing "Japanese spirit" in The Last Samurai? 
It is interesting that many of those praising the film's depiction of 
Japanese spirit recorded not only their surprise at that depiction, but 
also their embarrassment--that Hollywood was in effect showing them 
what it means to be Japanese. Coupled with this in some cases was a 
criticism of Japanese cinema, and of samurai films in general (many 
accepted Kurosawa as an exception, but some even said Last Samurai was 
as good or better than much Kurosawa!). This was criticism both of 
Japanese cinema's inability to show what it means to be Japanese, but 
also to be as cinematic as Last Samurai (the numerous comments about 
"sasuga Hollywood" getting the action scenes done right).

There are many ways to analyze such comments. First is to point out the 
disturbing parallels with much neo-nationalist discourse in Japan 
today, which similarly argues that postwar Japan in general has failed 
to narrate its nationality. Comments that The Last Samurai made people 
feel proud to be Japanese echo calls for textbooks that write a 
Japanese history of which people can be proud. Second is again the 
repetition of a long history of discourse in which the West is sought 
out as a mirror of recognition and identity. Joanne questioned my 
earlier assertion about a Hollywood complex, but I stand by my claim. 
Few filmmakers can ignore a situation in which not only is the market 
dominated by Hollywood, but the majority of audience members, critics, 
and media outlets still see foreign cinema as more cinematic than the 
domestic fare. That's why you still see a variety of strategies to make 
Japanese cinema seem "foreign" (ranging from putting all the credits in 
English to copying wholescale from Hollywood films). One also should 
look to the discussions of national identity outside of film. The fact 
that the verb "mitomeru" (to recognize) repeatedly appears in articles 
on Ichiro and Matsui, that even mediocre players like Shinjo get huge 
coverage when they try the US major leagues, etc., is not just because 
these players are challenging the "best" baseball league in the world, 
but because they become representatives through which Japan is 
"recognized" by the West as mirror. Even in neo-nationalist discourse 
today, one can see the shadow of the USA behind it, serving as both an 
enemy and a model through which "healthy nationalism" should be 
promoted. That is what I still see as central to many complexes about 
Hollywood. And, I should add, I see much of the same discourse 
happening in 1910s Japan. Then too there was a spate of foreign films 
about Japan. Unlike the Last Samurai, however, Japanese critics roundly 
denounced these films for their inaccuracies, but at the same time 
frequently coupled that with praise for their cinematicity. As I have 
argued elsewhere, you can see in this confrontation with a foreign 
created Japan a certain origin to Japanese cinema which, while on the 
one hand tried to get it "right," on the other hand located the 
cinematic in the hands of the West, such that Japanese films could only 
be cinematic if they adopted Western film style--could be Japanese 
cinema only if they became more like Western cinema. I think we can't 
ignore that the current discourse on The Last Samurai contains a strong 
linkage between getting Japanese spirit right and filming it the 
Hollywood way (that's why, one can suppose, so many were moved to 
tears). Japanese films are thus inadequate because they don't do it the 
Hollywood way--and that's why they don't get Japan right, too.

I still see in this remnants of colonial discourse. There has to be an 
unequal geopolitical power, one symbolized by colonialism, to make one 
ashamed of one's history or cultural products, to make one embarrassed 
that others can depict you better than you can depict yourself. If 
Zizek talks about Western European nationalism imagining a "theft of 
enjoyment" from Eastern Europe in order to valorize its own national 
"Thing," for many colonized nations, the imagining involves often 
hidden recognition that the "Thing" has already been stolen by the 
West. That then does not mean that Japan should therefore be "proud" of 
itself and begin creating itself by itself (a dream of nationalists 
which, as I mentioned above, is really often only a rehash of 
US-European ideology--repeating that which it is rejecting), but that 
it must directly engage with these processes on the cultural and 
political level--to make visible all that is hidden in assertions of 
Japanese spirit.

Clearly these arguments about Japanese discourse on Last Samurai are 
not something that can be used to criticize the makers of that film. 
That, you can say, is not their responsibility. But just as Japanese 
viewers and filmmakers need to be more conscious of their own readings 
of Hollywood cinema, so I think the makers of the Last Samurai need to 
be more aware of what's hidden in their own creations. I do salute Mark 
for putting so much effort in making the film accurate, and salute 
Zwick for the desire to get it right. But what the effort to be 
accurate often misses is the impossibility of knowing: i.e., it often 
assumes a transparency to the other that doesn't exist. This is one of 
the central points of my first posting: that while Last Samurai 
remained unconscious of the problems of its quoting Japan (at least on 
the level of the final film), a film like Kill Bill, for all its 
problems, at least exhibited some kind of consciousness. I think some 
of the best cinema in Japan today, where the problem of the other is a 
central one, starts from the recognition that the other cannot be known 
and tries to work from there (this can be seen in films ranging from 
Aoyama to Miike, from Kurosawa to Koreeda). Just look at Aoyama's 
_Ajima no uta_ and you'll see a film that is visibly recognizing its 
inability to know its Okinawan subject, yet trying to explore means of 
engaging in some kind of dialogue with that other.

I just hope we can see similar efforts in some of the foreign cinematic 
encounters with Japan.


Aaron Gerow
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu