Red Beard

Akira Kurosawa's "Red Beard" begins with a man in a kimono, a short sword in his sash, walking. The camera is behind him, looking up, and his head and back fill the center of the screen. He's walking towards a cluster of wooden building that indicate we're in pre-20th century Japan. If you're a fan of Kurosawa, you've seen this shot in many of his samurai films, and the man's sword indicates that he is a member of that class, but rather than being an errant swordsman, he's a young doctor, straight out of medical school, who has been sent to do his residency at a clinic. This is a story of doctors, and of the people they take care of, shot like a widescreen, black and white, samurai epic. It's a great film.

The two central characters of the film are Dr. Yasumoto (Yuso Kayama), the character we saw at the beginning of the film, and "Red Beard", Dr. Niide (Tosiro Mifune), the director of the clinic. The central story of the film is the development of Dr. Yasumoto from a spoiled, self centered, young jerk to a compassionate and dedicated doctor, under the gruff tutelage of Red Beard.

In a previous post I compared Kurosawa and Capra. Watching this film I thought of Kurosawa and Dickens. They both managed to combine a belief in the goodness of people with a totally bleak vision of the poor's plight, suffering under a callous and corrupt social system. This vision allowed them to alternate sentimental scenes with scenes of the blackest humor. This is not an action film but there is one fight where Red Beard explains to a bunch of pimps, who are trying to prevent the two doctors from removing a 12 year old girl from a brothel, that, “You know, a bad doctor can kill you. I won’t kill you, but I might break a couple of arms or legs." You should listen to your doctor.

Two Takes on the Same Subject

The bureau chief freely admits to having teared up while watching the last scene of Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946). It's easy to do so, particularly after a cup of wassail. The film has become part of the American Christmas ritual and the American film canon . The chief has probably seen it five or six times. It's a wonderful mix of comedy, fantasy and sentimentality, with a solid substrata of New Deal populism and post WW II optimism. It asks the question, "What is the worth of a person's life?"

Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru" (1952) asks the same question but from an entirely different perspective. The American occupation of Japan ended in 1952, the year of "Ikiru's" release, but there's still a sense of residual economic anxiety in the film. Unlike George Bailey (James Stewart) of Bailey Building and Loan, who in the end realizes how many people's lives he's touched,  Kanji Watanabi (Takashi Shimura) is part of a city bureaucracy dedicated to passing the buck. After thirty years of work, his only accomplishment is to have stamped thousands of papers and sent them on to other offices.

"Ikiru" is not a Christmas tale and has no supernatural elements so I will end the comparisons except to point out that George Bailey, in despair, learns he has already accomplished many good things while Kanji Watanabi, in despair, realizes that he has to accomplish one. He has fatal stomach cancer. He's estranged from his son whom he has sacrificed for. He makes a brief attempt at hedonism but is badly suited for it. He decides he will accomplish one thing before he dies, he will get a children's playground built in a working class neighborhood where there in currently an insect-ridden cesspool.

The story of how he does this is shown in flashbacks during his wake. This is a wonderful scene where as the city officials and bureaucrats get more and more drunk, the truth about Watanabi's accomplishment emerges. This is a great film, wonderfully written, acted and directed. I was led to it by a review by Roger Ebert which is well worth reading.