I’m been meaning to get this Series of movie posts started for while but with Corona Virus/Wuhan Virus panic in place it seems the best time to start recommending movies to buy and watch at home that perhaps folks have not seen.
Common sense tells you that a movie that runs over three hours and twenty minutes would have a slow moment or two that you can or want to take your eyes off the screen.
However that is only common sense if you’ve never watched the Seven Samurai.
There is not a shot, not a performance and not a line not even a glance in the picture that is wasted. Everything plays to the story. It’s everything that a movie is supposed to me.
If you are firm in the quite rational belief that The Godfather or Casablanca or Gone With the Wind or Citizen Cane is the greatest movie ever made nothing will challenge it more than watching this movie.
In theory the movie is about Seven Samurai who are hired come to save a poor village from bandits.
The reality is it’s really about how the process of doing so saves them. I find it one of the most Catholic movies I’ve ever seen. It’s all about responsibility, sacrifice and being one brother’s keeper and the costs that come from it.
In the beginning we see the bandits arriving at the village and noting that the barley harvest has not yet taken place and deciding to come back later when it does. The villagers frustrated by the cycle that all of their labor going to feed others without recompense look for a solution. The old man of the villege suggesting hiring Samurai. When they insist they have nothing to offer expect for food he replies “Find Hungry Samurai”.
Thus begins the 1st of three distinct phases of the picture
The quest to find Samurai
The preparing of the village
The Actual Battle
For the modern viewer ignorant of history the culture shock of the caste system whereby a Samurai has the authority to kill and the villager is nothing and where rice is a currency in itself is striking, but this group of poor farmers attempt to approach Samurai who consider themselves far above them is really something. Eventually they get lucky when they encounter Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura) a wandering rōnin, (masterless samauri) who saves a young boy taken hostage by a bandit who considers their problem and agrees to help, they also get in the bargain the young and inexperienced Katsushirō (Isao Kimura) who, impressed by Kambei’s rescue of the child begs to be his disciple. Meanwhile Kikuchiyo also impressed by Kambei’s ( Toshirô Mifune ) actions starts shadowing them .
This entire sequence of Kambei attempting to find and recruit men to go on this quest that offers no glory or reward could easily stand alone as a movie in its own right. In fact if this picture was made in 2014 instead of 1954 it would likely have without a doubt been a trilogy and a whole franchise. Eventually Kambei recruits an old friend Shichirōji ( Daisuke Katô ), Gorobei ( Yoshio Inaba) who is fascinated by Kambei, Heihachi ( Minoru Chiaki) whose real skill is morale rather than the sword ; and Kyūzō ( Seiji Miyaguchi ) the master swordsman interested only his his craft.
These six (followed by Kikuchiyo ) head to the village where the 2nd part of the movie begins. The interaction between the villagers and the Samurai, the preparation for the attack and the bonding of them as a team and dramatic contrast as the villagers deal with both their fear of the Samurai and the sacrifices that they come to realize this entails. There is also the drama of Rikichi one of the farmers who went to recruit the Samurai who has a painful history unknown to them. It is also a time of comic relief provided mainly by Kikuchiyo & Heihachi who never passes up a chance to needle him.
The climax of this idylic scene comes shortly after the encounter between Katsushirō and Shino ( Keiko Tsushima ) whose father Manzo ( Kamatari Fujiwara ) has disguised as a boy to hide her from the Samurai he fears. They spot three scouts for the bandits coming to spy on the village and the transition to the final phase of the movie, The Battle, begins.
The initial repulse of the 1st attack fills the villagers with confidence that they will be left alone for easier pickings but when they discover that the bandits are in worse shape than them and need to conquer or starve comes the realization that it is a battle to the end. Here we see the real costs of war as the villagers and the samurai both take losses up to the climax.
Ironically director Akira Kurosawa was constantly going over budget and Toho films tried to kill the project repeatedly. Kurosawa who wrote as well as Directed the picture however reasoned that the investment in the picture had been so great that they were unlikely to let it die and successfully argued fought for its completion.
While the movie was a success the critics in Japan were not as impressed but upon foreign release it reaped rewards and directors far and wide would be inspired by this storytelling. The film would be remade in the US as the Magnificent Seven replacing samurai with gunfighters with Mexico as a setting over Japan but the reach of this film, it’s cinematography is perfect, the performances (particularly Mifune & Shimura ) are outstanding and complement some of the best writing and storytelling you will see in a movie.
Social Isolation from the Corona / Wuhan Virus might not be pleasant, but if it means that you and millions others will discover this classic it will certainly not be wasted.
Right now the panic over the Corona Virus is doing a lot more damage than the virus itself. The media for both political and rating reasons are pushing this for all it’s worth and the public seems to be buying into this hook, line and sinker.
One might wonder why this is the case. After all this isn’t the first new virus out there and it won’t be the last, moreover the death rate is rather small and there is a specific population that is most at risk (elderly and infirm) who can be targeted for protective measures.
So why is everyone acting as if the world is going to end and that we are all in danger? I suspect because we so rarely are.
Unless you are living in a gang controlled area of a Democrat run city or have a job that involves risking your life regularly odds are you rarely if ever face an actual non-accidental danger to your life. Oh there is the odd hurricane or tornado and once is a very great while some lunitic goes off on a binge, but the reality is that basic threats to one’s life that were common 200 years ago, from nearby enemies, brigands and raiders or from diseases which were common 100 year ago have generally been eliminated from ordinary life in he US.
We life in a society that rarely faces death, and while that is good thing one of the side effects culturally is that we as a people don’t cope with the reality or the possibility of death very well. We deny it, we duck and dodge but death as a reality of life just isn’t there for most people on a daily basis.
So just like college students at $50K a year universities who cry oppression without irony when ginned up by activists with an ulterior motive the public living in one of the safest societies in the history of humanity is stampeded by a media who knows better into a panic for a disease which while dangerous is when it comes down to it a severe flu and can be arrested in its spread by basic hygiene that people should be doing anyways.
This is the price of the life we currently have and given the alternative of living in much more dangerous times it’s a small price to pay, but I sometimes wonder how such people are going to cope when an actual crisis comes up..
Lucy and me EWTN studios Irondale Alabama 9-6-18 (camera date was off)
The Latest in my series of Interviews with Immigrants is the incredible story of Lucy from Vietnam which I conducted during my trip to EWTN studios in Alabama at the beginning of the month.
If you are a person who regularly watches the Daily mass on EWTN you have seen Lucy in her white alb as she has not missed a mass in ten years. If you’ve ever wondered who she is and wanted to know her story, here is your chance to hear it.
I had planned to get this interview up earlier but the Kavanaugh stuff ate up all the oxygen on the net
One note (3/26/23) I have started listening to the big finish doctor who again because it helps pass the time at my current job I just don’t treat the Whitaker stuff which I haven’t watched as canon
This post is a post lost when I lost my datechguyblog.com domain, it is being recovered via the wayback machine and inserted in my current blog on the date it was posted
What our age mostly does is appropriate the cultural creations of greater talents and make them into something other.
The coming of the SJW/Ghostbusters Doctor has radically changed some very ingrained habits of mine
I’ve not gone to the BBC site to check for updates. I’ve not visited Big Finish about upcoming new releases. I’ve not done my weekly check of Amazon which offers excellent pricing on Bigfinish items if you don’t mind waiting a few months or more to get them nor checked Big Finish to see what new releases I should be looking out for.
In fact I have not bothered to watch a single episode of the series on demand, in repeats, via the VHS tapes that I started recording in 1981 nor listened to any other Big Finish episodes I own. I haven’t even touched the ones I hadn’t heard or opened yet and I’m still debating if I’m even going to bother to listen to the end of the boxed set I was in the middle of because I’m simply no longer interested in the character called “The Doctor”
So given that lack of interest while I was away at the Catholic Marketing Network Conference (still wearing and bearing 4th Doctor Scarfs because they are MY trademark now) I had heard absolutely nothing concerning the series. So imagine my surprise when the 3rd sentence out of my youngest son’s mouth when I walked though the door just after midnight Sunday morning after a week in Chicago was the news that at least one living Doctor, Peter Davison, not only gets why Jodi Whitaker as the Doctor is a mistake, but was willing to say so in public in front of a bunch of fans:
Peter Davison said she is a “terrific actress” but that he has doubts that she is right for the role.
He said before an appearance at Comic-Con in San Diego: “If I feel any doubts, it’s the loss of a role model for boys who I think Doctor Who is vitally important for.”
The veteran actor then commented: “So I feel a bit sad about that, but I understand the argument that you need to open it up.”
As you might guess it didn’t take long for the counterpunches to come, led by 6th Doctor Colin Baker.
“They’ve had 50 years of having a role model. So sorry Peter, you’re talking rubbish there – absolute rubbish,” the father of five said. “Well, you don’t have to be of a gender of someone to be a role model. Can’t you be a role model as people?”
Given his gender the use of “They’ve” is a tad odd in this context but in one sense Mr. Baker is right, one can be a role model regardless of gender, but the Doctor wasn’t a “role model” for boys, he was a HERO and it is the nature of men to desire and aspire to be a hero.
River Song:I posed as his nurse. Took me a week. 12th Doctor:To fall in love? River Song:It’s the easiest lie you can tell a man. They’ll automatically believe any story they’re the hero of.
The term “hero” comes from the ancient Greeks. For them, a hero was a mortal who had done something so far beyond the normal scope of human experience that he left an immortal memory behind him when he died, and thus received worship like that due the gods. Many of these first heroes were great benefactors of humankind: Hercules, the monster killer; Asclepius, the first doctor; Dionysus, the creator of Greek fraternities. But people who had committed unthinkable crimes were also called heroes; Oedipus and Medea, for example, received divine worship after their deaths as well. Originally, heroes were not necessarily good, but they were always extraordinary; to be a hero was to expand people’s sense of what was possible for a human being.
What a hero is
Today, it is much harder to detach the concept of heroism from morality; we only call heroes those whom we admire and wish to emulate. But still the concept retains that original link to possibility. We need heroes first and foremost because our heroes help define the limits of our aspirations. We largely define our ideals by the heroes we choose, and our ideals — things like courage, honor, and justice — largely define us. Our heroes are symbols for us of all the qualities we would like to possess and all the ambitions we would like to satisfy. A person who chooses Martin Luther King or Susan B. Anthony as a hero is going to have a very different sense of what human excellence involves than someone who chooses, say, Paris Hilton, or the rapper 50 Cent.
And how the concept has been perverted over the years
A couple years ago the administrators of the Barron Prize for Young Heroes polled American teenagers and found only half could name a personal hero. Superman and Spiderman were named twice as often as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Lincoln. It is clear that our media make it all too easy for us to confuse celebrity with excellence; of the students who gave an answer, more than half named an athlete, a movie star, or a musician. One in ten named winners on American Idol as heroes.
Gangsta rap is a disaster for heroism. Just this week, director Spike Lee lamented the fact that, while his generation grew up idolizing great civil rights leaders, today young people in his community aspire to become pimps and strippers. Surely no one wants their children to get their role models from Gangsta rap and a hyper materialistic, misogynistic hiphop culture, but our communities are finding it difficult to make alternative role models take hold.
In a age where there are so few male role model the concept of being a hero is important even in, as Greg Hodge at the Huffington Post notes everyday life
You must empower us to fully devote to you and here’s how you do it.
One word: HERO. It’s that simple. Men want to be heroes. Men project that need and desire onto women in order for them to live out their hero fantasies. Certainly, as men, we all go about it in different ways — we are all very different people — but we share this one unquenchable desire. Let your man be a hero every now and then, even if he is not feeling that heroic, even if you have to act. Remember, it’s that fleeting expression, that look of trust and admiration, that passing gesture, those few words that make us feel like your heroes.
So much is satisfied in men if you empower them to feel like heroes. You will reap the benefits.
To expand on this, think of how the rise of lawlessness and crime in communities paralleled the rise of single motherhood and absent fathers. The first Hero a young boy has IS his father and when that hero is gone he searches elsewhere, As the strong father figures recede in western culture it becomes vital that there be a hero for boys who can be defined by a speech like this
Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because, because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun and God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works, because it hardly ever does. I do what I do, because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind. It’s just that. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point in any of this at all, but it’s the best I can do, so I’m going to do it. And I will stand here doing it till it kills me. You’re going to die too, some day. How will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand, is where I fall. Stand with me
No matter how much the SJW warrior class feels otherwise, no matter how “established” the concept of time Lords switching gender is (and for the record it was only “established” because the show runner about to depart choose to establish it) these boys looking for heroes understand that no matter what face he carries the Doctor is One Single Person and no matter how much the media culture, the hollywood culture, the LGBT culture and the BBC culture wants to pretend otherwise, Jodi Whitaker’s “doctor” will not be a “role model” or an inspirational hero for boys because while the Russell Davies of the world are predominant in those cultures, out there in the actual world for every Russel T there are 100 or more boys who, while they might aspire to win or save a 35 year old woman they do not aspire to BE one. Until the casting of Ms. Whitaker those boys could see themselves as the Doctor, now even if the role goes to a man after Ms. Whitaker they can not.
Thus the Doctor, who was once a British institution, passes from the pantheon of male heroes who will inspire those boys who will become men and becomes just another character on just another TV show.
Peter Davison gets this even if Colin Baker does not and he will doubtless pay a price for it in media scorn (likely not enough to put him below Mr. Baker on the most popular doctors list) and perhaps even lost income from work not offered and convention invites unsent. The elite media in England and the US will doubtless such a result as Mr. Davison and those like me who agree getting their comeuppance It’s a final irony that the willingness of Mr. Davison’s to speak an honest truth against the grain is, dare we say it, heroic.
I suspect in those smug celebrations this those given by Mr. Hodge is well made
Don’t get me wrong — taking men down a peg or two is necessary on occasion; my wife has needed to do just that over the years, and she does it very well. But remember the stop button, ladies — cutting us off at the knees is not helpful to you. You don’t want to break us; if we are broken, we don’t work.
I’ll give the last quote to Scott Lafarge the professor who wrote that piece on heroes I’ve quoted
the ideals to which we aspire do so much to determine the ways in which we behave, we all have a vested interest in each person having heroes, and in the choice of heroes each of us makes.
The need for heroes is never more apparent than when they’re gone
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