Forgotten masterpiece

Noel Vera

Akira Kurosawa's 1951 film "The Idiot," his adaptation of
Dostoevsky's novel, is pretty much forgotten now, or is rarely
mentioned when talking about the filmmaker or his masterworks. The
film is seriously flawed--about a hundred minutes were chopped off
before the film was released, and you can see Kurosawa trying to
make up for this with lengthy expository titles and voiceover
narrations, trying to explain the characters' complex relationships
in a few minutes of screen time. Critics who do get past the rushed,
awkward beginning note the film's literalness, its director's
apparent need to get as much of the novel as possible up on the big
screen.

Kurosawa transposed Russia to Hokkaido, for several possible
reasons: Hokkaido, located at the northernmost tip of Japan, is in
terms of landscape, architecture, and clothing considered the most
Western-looking of all of Japan's islands; in wintertime, with
everyone decked out in fur, the streets looks particularly European.
Kurosawa may have been looking for more than a Russian-style
snowstorm, though: a master of weather on film, he recruits the
various manifestations of winter to help express his characters'
inner states, from gentle snowfall to harsh sleet to mysterious fog.
Snow and ice make fantastical shapes in the form of frozen cascades,
thick blankets, grotesque mushroom growths; his characters walk
through them as if through an enchanted forest. Kurosawa has made
expressive use of summer heat before ("Stray Dog" comes to mind),
but wintertime is weather made visible, even palpable, and Kurosawa
makes full use of the season's visual possibilities in this
production, possibly more so than in any other of his films.

The film finally starts to be great in the scene where an evening
party is thrown by Tohata (Ejiro Yanagi), the wealthy man who
supports Takeo Nasu (Setsuko Hara, as the novel's Nastassia), and is
presumably her lover. The first shot is a stunner: the camera pulls
back from a huge rattan chair, and through the chair's high, soaring
backrest we see Nasu sitting in the middle of a greenhouse, in the
middle of a snowstorm (the rattan's weave and the greenhouse's metal
frame are a visual symbols of her imprisonment by Tohata, of course--
her status as caged bird (she's wrapped in black like a raven) and
exotic flower, blooming in the midst of winter). She's tense, upset--
Tohata is marrying her off to Koyama (Minoru Chiaki, playing the
novel's Ganya) with a dowry of 600,000 yen; Kurosawa indicates her
tension by wiping the frame several times, each successive wipe
showing her heading for the wet bar, drinking a glass of champagne,
then another, then another.

Then follows a wonderful wordless sequence where Nasu sits at the
couch, silent, while the three men in her life stand around her
worried. Ono (the great Takashi Shimura), whose machinations are
about to come to fruition that night (he arranged the marriage)
looks at her suitor Kayama who, glancing at Nasu, throws a look back
at Ono; Ono turns to Tohata, who stares at Nasu, still unmoving (the
music here, which sets the pace of Kurosawa's precisely timed cuts,
is as lovely as it is thrilling). It's obvious what's on all three's
minds: What is she thinking? Will she agree to this engagement, or
will she make trouble? Cut to an outside shot where the camera
glides sideways through the snow, peering through the window and the
couples dancing within, catching a glimpse of the seated Nasu along
the way. Cut back inside to the motionless Nasu, then (in reverse
order) to the staring Tohata, who looks back at Ono, who looks back
at Kayama. The tension is broken; Ono grins as if saying: "she'll
come around." Then the maid announces that Kameda (Masayuki Mori)
has arrived. Kameda is Dostoevsky's Prince Mishkin, his idiot, his
holy fool, who will throw the three men's plans into complete
disarray; only now do you realize that that shot outside in the snow
was a glimpse of Nasu through Kameda's eyes. What was she thinking?
Kurosawa without our knowing it has already given us the answer--
she's thinking of the man in the snow, looking at her through the
window as he approached the door.

It's a long scene that gets better as it goes along. At one point
there's a startling shot of Nasu hovering vulturelike in front of a
valuable vase before she knocks it to the floor; later Akama
(Toshiro Mifune as the novel's Rogozhin--a perfect match) arrives to
throw a million yen on the table for Nasu's hand; still later Kayama
stands before the fireplace, rigid, wide-eyed, while the same
million yen burns to ashes. The scene, incidentally, may be Chiaki's
finest as an actor: he's been a genial, even funny presence in many
of Kurosawa's films, but here he really shines; Dostoevsky a master
at measuring the height and depth of a man's dignity or depravity,
often both simultaneously, challenges Chiaki, and he rises--pale,
trembling--to the occasion.

Then there's the climax, a confrontation between Nasu and Ayako
(Yoshiko Kuga as the novel's Aglaia) with Kameda as the prize
(please skip this and the next paragraph if you plan to see the
film). Kurosawa prepares for it elaborately enough, with parallel
scenes of Nasu and Kameda expressing their fears to their respective
mates, Akama and Ayako, about the meeting. Kameda and Ayako ascend
the stairs to Akama's room, with Akama looking down at them through
a stained-glass window (their ascent reminds you of a convict and
her guard's climb up to the gallows' platform). Nasu's senses are so
keyed up she can hear them coming even if she's sitting facing away
from the stairs. She stands; she turns. Her eyes widen at the sight
of Kameda, the man she hopelessly loves; her eyes widen further at
the sight of Ayako, his fiancé. Ayako's eyes are downcast--
presumably out of modesty, though you suspect it's more out of fear.
The two women sit down. Ayako edges away from Nasu about an inch;
Nasu just keeps staring at her. Kameda steps forward, alarmed at
what he senses between the two; Akama leans back amused, interested
in what might happen next. Ayako pulls a bit of hair back with her
hand, and Nasu visibly reacts to this seeming effrontery--how dare
this girl move under her gaze?

The gesture gives Ayako the courage to look at Nasu. When their eyes
meet, it's Hara's moment: her eyes are huge, brows swept upwards at
the edges like gull wings--she looks like a feathered demon;
Yoshiko's Ayako can barely stand up to the stare, but does, somehow--
her expression gains ferocity in response. Kurosawa cuts to a shot
of the room's wood-burning stove, flaring up from the icy wind (I
wouldn't be surprised to learn that one reason why Kurosawa turned
Russia in summer to Hokkaido in winter is just so he could include
that fiery stove). Ayako looks away first; Nasu's eyes relax and
take on a hooded look. At one point Nasu laughs, a wild, despairing
laugh--it's perhaps the strangest moment in the whole film, because
Kurosawa doesn't show her laughing; we just hear a high screech,
almost a stuttering shriek (this is the second time; the first is
when she laughs at Tohata's party). Does Kurosawa cut away because
he felt Hara couldn't do it (though assuming the sound is her voice,
I'd say she can)? Or is cutting away his way of suggesting that it's
too much to put onscreen?

As Kinji Kameda, Masayuki Mori (he played the husband in "Rashomon")
keeps his frail hands under his chin, a gesture that emphasizes his
wide eyes and huge forehead; the overall impression is of someone
childlike, helpless. As Taeko Nasu, Setsuko Hara gives us a
performance worlds away from her serene spinsters in Yasujiro Ozu's
films--this Nasu (or Nastassia) is a passionate, fire-breathing
woman, totally in the grip of her tempestuous emotions, unable to
tolerate anyone who dares defy her, yet willing to surrender to
anyone capable of understanding her. Toshiro Mifune as Denkichi
Akama is ostensibly the most violent of the cast of characters, but
his violence really feeds off of Nasu's perversity and Kameda's
innocence; in Dostoevsky's upside-down yet totally familiar world
(he wouldn't have so much power over our imaginations if his
characters weren't so recognizable) Akama may be as innocent a pawn
as Kameda.

Dostoevsky's novels often take a philosophical principle or proposal
then "test" it or explore its various consequences in dramatic
terms; Kurosawa, in films like "Rashomon" and "Ikiru" has done much
of the same. "The Idiot" might be described as Dostoevsky's attempt
to show us how a saintly innocent would act or be treated in our
cynical, often malicious world of today--just the kind of
proposition Kurosawa might apply to one of his characters in his
films. His adaptation of "The Idiot" is arguably his most direct and
comprehensive attempt at adapting Dostoevsky's method--perhaps too
direct, one might argue: Kurosawa is possibly more successful
streamlining a Dostoevskyian character and letting him loose
onscreen for a relatively short two-plus hours (Watanabe
in "Ikiru"), than in trying to include every character and subplot
in a novel, where said novel really needs a mini-series to do it
justice.

But Kurosawa has never been known for timidity or caution, and in
fact his need to cram more and more in his pictures (in direct
opposition to films about "green tea over rice"--his dismissive (and
more than a little unfair) description of Ozu's films) has resulted
in at least one masterpiece, the massive two-hundred minute "Seven
Samurai," arguably the greatest action film ever made. One wonders
what his two-hundred sixty-six minute "The Idiot" would have been
like (it exceeds "Samurai's" running time by over an hour); as is,
one can't help but admire this, his butchered one hundred sixty-six
minute version, for its passion and reckless beauty.

(Originally published in High Life Magazine, September 2005)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)