Naruse's 'The Whole family Works'

Roger Macy macyroger
Thu Aug 9 19:30:44 EDT 2007


I wonder whether anyone can throw any light on a query that cropped up in the recent Naruse season in London?  His 1939 film The Whole Family Works (Hataraku Ikka) is unusual for Naruse in that most people think that it reaches some sort of conclusion.  The problem is that there are completely opposed views as to what that conclusion is.  My perception was that the son, Kiichi, was going to leave home to study.  I confirmed that view with others, some of whom are on this forum, after I had gone home and read up Peter High's account of the film in The Imperial Screen (pp174-178).   He comes to the opposite conclusion and quotes the key closing dialogue in support.  But a subsequent straw poll at the Open Forum at the BFI also considered that Kiichi was about to leave.

The discrepancy arises because our memory is that Kiichi reasserts - after the discussion with his school principal - that he is not prepared to spend the rest of his life at home, and that the father finally folds and says that everyone can leave.  This is the same dialogue as in Peter High's book, but in a different order.  This conclusion seemed compatible with the contemporary  view of the state as a higher family.

Majorities, of course. can be wrong - and we were a western audience viewing it through english subtitles.  It would only have needed a slightly altered cut from the script that which Peter High read for us all to be right.  Unfortunately, it was not possible to view the film again and it was not shown at the short season at Edinburgh.  A spotted dialogue list for subtitling would, no doubt, clarify the dialogue order but, as in most of the prints, there was no translation/subtitling credit and it did not look as if the english subtitles were recent.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has seen this film and would appreciate their perception as to outcome, where they saw it and in what language.

To avoid too much forum chatter, I would be happy to receive any replies off list to the address below, rather than just clicking on 'reply'.
thanks,
Roger Macy
macyroger at yahoo.co.uk
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