The
seventh and penultimate film in my analysis of the Chambara films of Akira
Kurosawa is the arrestingly stylish epic Kagemusha. Developed and
produced during the latter third of Kurosawa’s career, the brilliance of this
period drama is often muted by the “drama of its production” and the presence
of the ‘70’s darlings’ George Lucas and Frances Ford Coppola during the height
of their powers: after they created ‘the blockbuster’, but before they
themselves became the “new studio system”. The pulling of focus ultimately undermines the
legacy of this film. Its overall commentary on the dehumanization of the
Japanese Feudal caste system, and the self-construction of a duplicitous
dynasty which futilely attempts to hold on to power after their Lords death,
goes under-appreciated.
PLOT
As a precaution to
protect the Leader of the Takeda Clan, Shingen Takeda, his brother Nobukado,
finds a thief to impersonate Shingen during potentially hostile events. When
Shingen dies from wounds sustained in battle, this “shadow warrior” must take
his place full time for a period of two years, to assure a peaceful transfer of
power to Shingen’s grandson. However, as
the weeks turn into months, and the peasant “look-alike” becomes more
comfortable in his role and used to the trappings of wealth and power, his
ambition threatens to expose the ruse. The inner circle attempts to thwart his
desires, lest the Takeda Clan’s plan falls like a house of cards, thereby
leaving it in ruin.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
This
film marks several firsts in Kurosawa’s career. It is the first film Kurosawa
shot in color (more on this later), It is the first-time getting financing
outside of the Japanese Toho system, and it is the first time that Kurosawa
created a Chambara film that is based upon specific historical events and
people rather than just period specific themes.
Set
during the Sengoku time of Japanese history, commonly referred to as the
“warring states period” (period of civil unrest between 1500-1600) out of which
came the (in)famous Tokugawa Shogunate; which not only unified Japan, but also began
to bridge the gap with the west through the entrance of Christian missionaries.
Kurosawa was drawn to this time because of the mystery surrounding the actions
of the Takeda clan during the battle of Nagashino. In that battle, all of the
soldiers in the Takeda clan died, but no one in the Oda/Tokugawa clans died. Confused
by this action, Kurosawa began to craft a story that would explain this, and tie
in the historical use of doubles for royal protection (Rayns 1981). Kurosawa
felt that the immersion of “The Double” into the life of Shingen, coupled with
the strength of Shingen’s actual character, would cause “The Double” to become
him. Thus, his subordinates would then be willing to martyr themselves through “suicide”
at the battle of Nahashino. To that end, Kurosawa took Shingen’s battle
standards of: “Swift as the wind, as silent as the forest, as sweeping as fire,
as immovable as the mountain.” (Shingen himself taking the quote from Sun Tzu) and
used them as a unbeatable battle strategy (and important plot point) (Rayns
1981). Just like he depicted the movable forest in Throne of Blood, the
moving mountain spells doom in Kagemusha.
Even
though Kurosawa was working with historical figures, that did not stop him from
taking dramatic license in some areas of the storytelling. In Kagemusha, he
intentionally depicts Shingen’s historical antagonists (Tokugawa and Nobunaga)
as noticeably younger men than they were.
Add to this the historical understanding that both Nobunaga and Tokugawa
were “more modern” than the average Japanese at the time (believing the earth
to be round, and knowledgeable about the world outside of Japan) being an
active importer from abroad (Rayns 1981). While Kurosawa did not set out to
make a film about the beginning of Japan’s transition out of the Feudal period,
in part because it would take a few more wars and hundreds of years for Japan
to really begin to modernize during the Meji era, but Kurosawa understood that
it was a “more modern” sensibility that could defeat Shingen and be used as a
visual foil for Shingen’s son, whose actions cause the Clan’s collapse.
Production
The origin of Kagemusha
began after Kurosawa’s long and difficult shoot on Red Beard in 1965. Kurosawa
was intrigued by rulers that would have multiple identities in different
situations (Grilli 2009). Still a fan of Shakespeare, the original conception
of Kagemusha began as an adaption of King Lear; something
Kurosawa would eventually complete just a few years later with Ran in
1985. Yet, in 1965, a medieval Samurai epic was unclear in the mind of Kurosawa,
who was consistently distracted by other projects and problems (Grilli 2009).
By the time Kurosawa made
his way back to “The Shadow Warrior” in the late 1970’s, it was after a
somewhat tarnished reputation from a series of missteps, setbacks, and failures
in the intervening years. After directing
Red Beard, Kurosawa’s name became synonymous with tyrannical behavior on
set, fluid schedules, and ballooning budgets (Grilli 2009). Also during this
time, feeling too restricted by the studio demands, he attempted to create his
own production company with three other legendary Japanese directors: Masaki
Kobayashi, Kon Ichikawa, and Keisuke Kinoshita. This inundated Kurosawa
with a lot of business distraction that impacted his overall cinematic
creativity, resulting in the 1970’s commercial failure of Dodes’ka-den.
This failure, and the collapse of the production company, led Kurosawa to begin
to compromise his artistic vision by being drawn into the production of Tora,
Tora, Tora, co-produced by Hollywood. While he eventually left the
project over creative differences[1], this experience added to
his reputation for being impossible to work with, causing Kurosawa to descend
into a suicidal depression in December of 1971 (Grilli 2009). He eventually experienced
a spiritual resurgence after winning the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 1975
for Dersu Uzala, but the damage was done, and he found the financing for
Kagemusha to be next to impossible. Enter George Lucas and Francis Ford
Coppola.
George Lucas, Francis
Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Brian DePalma, Martin Scorsese and John Millius
were a part of the cinematic revolution of the 1970’s. They were integral in
shifting Hollywood away from the dominant Studio system, born in the 1930’s, to
more independent, director focused cinema. In the late 70’s, these directors
were the young “hotshots”; transforming the way films were made; but they also
were big fans of Kurosawa; George Lucas being especially vocal about the
influence Kurosawa’s work had on 1978’s Star Wars. So, when Lucas and
Coppola heard that one of their idols couldn’t get the complete financing for
his next project, they used their clout in the industry at the time, to convince
American studios to give Toho the money to produce and complete the film (Criterion
2009). By their own accounts, Lucas and Coppola would take edited dailies from Kagemusha
and present them to different studios to try and convince them to back the
film’s completion. In the end, it was 20th Century Fox that supplied
the rest of the capital necessary to finish the film; in part, or in total, to
keep George Lucas happy, due to his massive success for them with Star Wars.
Thus, “the circle was now complete”, and George Lucas was able to use his
“blank check” status at Fox, to pay Kurosawa back for being such an inspiration/model
for him.
Additionally, what made
the pitch by Lucas and Coppola even easier, was Kurosawa’s painted storyboards,
all of which were used in the presentation to the studios. Having painted as a
hobby when he was younger, Kurosawa returned to this passion with vigor in the
intervening years as he struggled with Kagemusha’s financing. Kurosawa
visualized the epic so intricately in these paintings, that it convinced art
director Yoshiro Muraki and cinematographers Kazuo Miyagawa and Asakazu Nakai,
to have Kagemusha be the first of Kurosawa’s films to be shot in color; to
create a painting in celluloid. When you look at the comparison between
Kurosawa’s images and the finished film, it is visual poetry set in motion.
One of the interesting ironies
of this film, and “late stage” Kurosawa in general, is that even though his
later work gets either overshadowed by the film’s production, or unnecessarily
compared to his earlier work, the later films of his career still inspire other
films that pay homage to both Kurosawa and his work. A lot of Kagemusha can be seen in such
films as Dave (1993), The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), The
Devil’s Double (2011), and most directly, Shadow (2018) by Zhang
Yimou, who substitutes ancient China for Feudal Japan. According to Matt Seitz
(2019), Yimou’s openly derivative film pales in comparison because Kurosawa was
“better at making the talking bits exciting, too.” And I tend to agree.
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
The
essential story of Kagemusha revolves around a man forcibly trying to
take on the life of someone else. Yet,
through the development of a convincing impersonation, the person ultimately begins
to believe the part that has been thrust upon them[2]. This has Sociological
implications in the work of Berger and Luckmann’s Social Construction of
Reality and Goffman’s Presentation of Self. However, before getting
into those specifics, there are also general Sociological implications of class
dynamics, and the way we are folded into a larger social system, that needs to
be addressed.
Kurosawa
understood very clearly the importance of the use of doubles for people in power.
The use of “the decoy” is a common military strategy to achieve success.
However, historically, that success was achieved by the dehumanization of
(usually) the underclass. They become as Foucault (1990) states “the docile
bodies” by which the will of the powerful is enacted upon, and through which
they maintain their sovereignty. This violation of human rights was often
masked through the rationalization of conscription, where peasants were
compulsorily “inducted” into military service. The authority of the ruling
class (usually justified through some manner of divinity) then used the bodies
of their charges to protect the sanctity of their own lives, and the order they
have established.
Taken
more broadly, this idea of conscription can be used as an analogous metaphor for
the general process of socialization; but instead of military service, we are
forced into labor to become productive, law-abiding members of society. Most
everyone socialized into any society (but especially within the US) is taught
to enter the workforce. This is the culmination of (usually) decades long
learning and social investment in an individual. Yet, like Shingen’s “shadow
warrior”, We, the past, present, and future labor force are trained, then
forced to supplant each other. The cycle is usually the same: we spend the
first part of our lives learning to take the jobs that others are currently
doing. When we get those jobs, we feel, as “The Double” felt, that we do
not/cannot measure up. Then, as we get comfortable, we begin to believe that we
have earned our positions through our experiential trials (The Double’s
presence on the battlefield) and become willing to (sometimes literally) kill
ourselves for our work; whether that be through a lifetime of harsh labor that
destroys our bodies, or our identities becoming so wrapped up in what we do, that
when we are ritualistically supplanted (retirements) many do not know what to
do, or even who they are.
One of the seemingly
innocuous, but secretly toxic phrases that illustrates Kurosawa’s “shadow
warrior” analogy for the socialization of the general labor force, is the phrase:
“Fake it, till you Make it.” This is the advice that is given to Shingen’s
double in Kagemusha; and it is the same advice that is spewed out in countless
commencement speeches every year at high schools, colleges, and Universities
across the country. On the surface, this statement is supposed to generate
solidarity; that we are all in this together, because no one knows what they
are doing. That, by the simple act of going through the motions enough times to
breed familiarity, it will magically generate comfortability, and therefore
confidence. Outside of just how objectively terrifying the idea is that many
people in positions of power such as policymakers, rulers, and the like, actively
don’t know what they are doing (Openly evil is sometimes easier to reconcile
than straight incompetence); what a lot of people miss about this overtilled “faux
inspirational statement”, is the way that it purposefully conditions and normalizes
feelings of uncertainty and apprehension in order to keep the public docile,
while placating the already established system without providing any means of
challenging it.
Berger, Luckmann and
Goffman
When we get into the
specific theoretical concepts that Kagemusha represents we have to turn
to the work of Berger, Luckmann and Goffman.
The basic principles of The Social Construction of Reality and The
Presentation of Self are as follows:
The
Social Construction of Reality is a cornerstone of
Social Constructionism. Social
Constructionism contends that
individuals within society are defining, and therefore creating, the world
around them through social interactions as a type of communal exchange. Therefore, our understanding about the world
cannot take place without other people. It is a social process.
Important
aspects
1) We
are born blank (Tabula Rasa), without an understanding of reality that is then
filled in by social norms, rituals, and routines.
2) Individuals
actively participate in the creation and maintenance of the world around them
just by living and interacting with in a society, with a particular social
order.
3) The
understanding of the world, including those that we take as concrete truths, have
the ability to change based upon the influence of social forces, history and
the shifting perception of the populace. (it
is like water)
4) Just
because something is a social construction does not diminish its value or
importance. Something that can be social constructed, fluid with history, and
impacted by social forces can cause, create, and maintain consequences. These consequences can be both positive
and/or negative
5) Conversely,
a consequence that is so extreme or persistent in a particular society (e.g.
forms of racism and sexism) can partially solidify the socially constructed
term. Thus making it seem natural to
those within the social structure. It
is through this process, and the results of consequences and practices, that
the object or term becomes “real”.
In
the context of the film, “The Shadow Warrior” became the real Shingen when he
was validated by others around him (especially the grandson), when his presence
on the battlefield resulted in the consequence of the battle’s success, and
people’s willingness to die for him. He became the real Shingen through his
interactions with others, and the consequences attached to those experiences.
Similarly, coming out of the
Sociological study of Dramaturgy, the study of social interactions by invoking
Theatrical terms, Goffman saw the theatre as a metaphor for social
interactions. For Goffman (1959), we all perform our “selves/ identities” for a
particular audience. Aided by the Teamwork of our fellow Actors, we all
participate in Impression Management and Performance, both on a micro
(individual level) and Macro (the group impression) level. According to Goffman
(1959), there are two types of impressions that exist. Impressions that are
given, (This is what you openly present to people either verbally or through a
sense of self definition) and Impressions that are given off (This is insight
or information that someone gleans from observing your behavior). Since
impressions that are “Given off” are more powerful in determining our “Self”,
Goffman says these are the impressions we attempt to control…in other words, we
attempt to control how other people see us. We do this through products
(clothing, cars, etc.), behaviors, languages, and the way that we speak (slang,
rate of speech). Goffman’s work understands that this process takes place in
two different stages: The Front Stage
and The Back Stage. The front stage is where the performance is given and where
the audience members for that performance is located. This is the space for individual performances
of a particular impression, and the space where teamwork is done to maintain a
group impression. The Back Stage is
where the performance is dropped and worked on. Goffman (1959) elucidates that we all have
multiple Statuses and Roles we need to play in our society. Each of these
statuses, and their corresponding roles, have their own Front Stage performance
and Back Stage maintenance. These different stages for different impressions
overlap with one another. Which is why Goffman says that the world is divided
into Front Stages and Back Stages. One performance’s Front Stage is another
performance’s Back Stage…we are constantly performing. Yet, things get interesting,
and more closely related to the double’s experience in Kagemusha, when
you combine these Goffmanian ideas with Charles Horton Cooley’s idea of “The
Looking Glass self”
“The looking glass self” is a theory of
self-construction by Charles Horton Cooley. According to Cooley (1902), the
perception of our self is dictated by our interpretations of interactions and
reactions that we have with others daily. Therefore, we get an idea about who
we are by the way other people treat us. If we get positive treatment, it will
more likely lead to a positive self-concept. The opposite is also valid. This
implies that when we upset someone (especially someone that we know) the
compassion and empathy we feel to reconcile with that person, is coming from a
desire to mend our own self-concept. If we don’t feel the desire to reconcile,
then that person’s reaction matters little to us (or, more accurately, they
matter little to the formation of our self-concept). Unfortunately, this also
implies that all of our interactions and relationships are motivated by
self-interest.[3] Additionally,
this means that much of who we are (in terms of self-construction) is based on
other people’s actions toward us.
When we combine Goffman’s ideas of Impression Management with Cooley’s
“looking glass self”, what we realize, is that it creates an elaborate and purposeful form of self-deception
to maintain the social order. We solidify in others how we want to be
perceived, but that in turn, shapes the perception of our selves. We are
manufacturing support and “evidence” for our own self construction, which
thereby helps the larger impression of a functional, productive, and stable
society. This is the last wish of Shingen Takeda, the goal of the Daiymio’s
council, and the plight of the “Kagemusha” so completely, that “The Double” is
willing to die with the rest of the Takeda soldiers, to prove his loyalty in a
final sacrificial display.
CONCLUSION
In all of Kurosawa’s Chambara filmography, Kagemusha often gets
overlooked. Even as a product of “late stage” Kurosawa, that conversation
usually gets monopolized by Ran; leaving this masterpiece without
recognition. When looking at this
through a sociological lens, as we continue to exist in this ever-corporatized
dehumanization of the labor force, many of us may empathize with the “Kagemusha”,
feeling that we too are “the shadow”. Like him, we desire for acceptance and
validation from a system we know, deep down, we will never get; certainly not in
equal measure to what we put into it. We may love our jobs, but our jobs will
never love us back. Ultimately, that is the crux of the problem. We shouldn’t
love our jobs to begin with, and we sure as shit shouldn’t die for them.
REFERENCES
Criterion Collection 2009. “Lucas, Coppola and
Kurosawa” from Criterion Blu-Ray Edition Spine 267
Cooley Charles H. 1902. “The looking Glass self” in Human Nature
and the Social Order
Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann 1966. The
Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge
New York: Anchor Books
Foucault, Michel 1990 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prisons
New York: Vantage Books
Goffman Erving 1959. The Presentation of
self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books
Grilli Peter 2009. “Kagemusha: From Painting
to Film Pageantry” in Current Retrieved on 5/1/2022 Retrieved at: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/360-kagemusha-from-painting-to-film-pageantry
Rayns Tony 1981. “Talking with the Director” in
Sight and Sound Included in the booklet on the Criterion Blu-ray
Seitz, Mathew Zoller 2019. “Shadow Review” in RogerEbert.com
retrieved on 5/1/2022 retrieved at https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shadow-2019
[1]
How do you say “No” to a Kurosawa suggestion?
[2] Vonnegut
would enjoy this
[3] This seems to only hold up with US Socialization patterns.
