So, last week I watched the Keanu Reeves abomination that was 47 Ronin and this week I took it upon myself to watch the 1941 original, The 47 Ronin, available on Hulu Plus and it’s rather astonishing the differences between the two. Of course, the original doesn’t have magic, monsters or the Reeves character and those are the immediate differences, but what’s even more fascinating is to compare the way the two films approach the story and what is considered important.
The first difference is in the approach to the story. Even though the ’41 film runs 223, versus the 118 minutes that make up the 2013 remake, it wastes no time getting started. A little on screen text and immediately we see Lord Asano attack the court official Kira Yoshinaka. Due to the injection of Reeves’ character into the remake it takes forever to get to this moment and by that time it’s already unclear what the story is actually focusing on.
The next major difference is in the film’s approach to violence, which is to say there is none. In fact, when the 47 ronin take their revenge not a stitch of the battle is seen on screen and neither is their final act of seppuku. While I’m not saying I wouldn’t have appreciated a little action and, if anything, this film earned the right to show the ultimate act of seppuku at the end, but it places an emphasis on what the film was about, which were the people and the honor of the samurai code, not action set pieces. Earn the right to tell your story before adding the flourishes and those flourishes will be all the more appreciated.
In addition to all of this, director Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) has some wonderful moments in this film, particularly the way he frames a shot, keeping information hidden until just the opportune time. A framing style we’ll later see adopted by Sergio Leone for his spaghetti westerns and Akira Kurosawa, most notably, in Hidden Fortress.
In addition to this I watched the upcoming Blu-ray release of Orson Welles‘ Touch of Evil and Sam Peckinpah‘s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, the latter of which I’ve had on my DVR for some time. I’ll write more about Touch of Evil soon, but as for Pat Garrett, I love Peckinpah’s portrayal of violence in his films and this one was no different, but what I really couldn’t stand was his overuse of music. If anything, the final scenes emphasize how jarring the musical decisions in this movie are as he goes from no music and an amazingly emotional climax to Bob Dylan‘s “Billy 4” over the closing credits. Dylan not only has a role in the film, but also took the lead on the score and is heard throughout the movie and I just felt it took away from the film overall. Otherwise, I quite enjoyed it.
Other than that, I’ll be heading out to the theater today to catch my second viewing of The Grand Budapest Hotel and earlier this week I saw Neighbors and Oculus. And this coming week I’ll be seeing Transcendence and might check out a second viewing of Only Lovers Left Alive if it fits the schedule.
