SCFZ poll: Masaki Kobayashi

[flip]

Polling the films of director Masaki Kobayashi

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Kobayashi films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Wednesday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: brian d, greennui, ofrene, kanafani, bure, greg x, oscarwerner, silga, dt, umbugbene, roscoe, rischka, wba, thoxans, mesnalty, caracortada, joks, zulawski, nrh, evelyn, st gloede, mauries, mysterious dude, john ryan

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

[flip]

i haven't seen the human condition, but it sounds like it will make the most sense to count the three three parts as three separate films (especially because we might have trouble getting to a top ten otherwise)

[flip]

seen two:

Harakiri

[grabmymask]

1. Kwaidan
2. The Human Condition III: A Soldier’s Prayer

[mesnalty]

Seen 5:

1. Harakiri
2. The Human Condition I

[flip]

grabmymask, you can nominate the director we poll next if you like!

[grabmymask]

grabmymask, you can nominate the director we poll next if you like!

How about William Castle? I’ve seen 10 myself.

[kanafani]

Only 2.

Harakiri

[...]

Harakiri
Samurai Rebellion
Kwaidan

And I've seen 13 Castles

[brian d]

seen 4, but i can't distinguish the human condition films at this point, so...

harakiri


only seen 1 william castle (his lighthouse movie, of course)

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I've got 7 William Castle's, would gladly watch a few more if need be to make him poll-able. One of my favourite Hollywood genre personalities.

[Curtis, baby]

Seen 10

Kwaidan
Harakiri
Samurai rebellion
Human condition 3
Human condition 2

Seen 8 William Castle

[wba]

i haven't seen the human condition, but it sounds like it will make the most sense to count the three three parts as three separate films (especially because we might have trouble getting to a top ten otherwise)

It's logical. We don't count the Back to the Future films as one part either.

[wba]

01. Samurai Rebellion
02. Harakiri
03. Kwaidan

Kobayashi seen: 6

William Castle seen: 8

[flip]

i wasn't sure if william castle would meet our thresholds, but we're there! i'll start up the castle poll on friday or saturday

[St. Gloede]

Seen 17:

Kwaidan
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
The Inheritance
Samurai Rebellion

THCII would be next, followed by Inn of Evil and Black River. I should rewatch Harakiri! Most looking forward to: The Fossil.

Director note: Took a long time digging his way out of passable dramas, but when he did he became one of the best directors in Japan.

[Umbugbene]

Seen 13:

1. Kwaidan
2. Harakiri
3. The Human Condition 3
4. The Human Condition 2
5. The Human Condition 1

Honestly I can't distinguish between the 3 parts of THC, so I'll just assume that it builds as it goes along.

[...]

Director note: Took a long time digging his way out of passable dramas, but when he did he became one of the best directors in Japan.

He's a difficult director for me to get into since he seems so damned sincere in his moralism, little hint of much in the way of irony or ambiguity in values, though there are competing ones between people of course and difficulties causing shifts in hierarchies of individual values, but the perspective of the movies seen set. In the case of Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, the first two of his movies I watched, this, on reflection, is a considerable strength given the type of story being told demanding a sort of linear sense of narrative propulsion to build force towards their explosive ends. But when I watched Human Condition, back for the first Mubi world cup, and then I Will Buy You and Black River, that same conviction started to weigh down the experience for me, making them feel a bit too earnest and certain and somewhat leaden or wearying for it.

I let that sort of erode some of my earlier enthusiasm for Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, probably unfairly, which I realized after thinking about Miike's remake of Harakiri, which was fine, but lacked that same sense of moral urgency in its retelling that Kobayashi's version seemed to have. I'd taken to thinking Kwaidan was the better more because it had the strongest match of competing values based on situation, but after thinking about it I switched the order back to how I first felt about them since that seems to better fit Kobayashi's strengths rather than my wants for something with more fluidity or complexity of individual values in the moment.

Contrast Kobayashi to Okamoto, for example, and I find the latter far more interesting for providing layered irony on top of the moral indignation, but that suits my interests and view, not necessarily that of the movies. Harakiri or The Human Condition done as Okamoto might have done, maybe not too far from The Human Bullet, is an entirely different thing than Kobayashi's version and couldn't provide such a straight progression of effect or condemnation, so I don't want to undersell Kobayashi, but the movies of his I've seen feel a bit more limited in scope of their capture for being so focused on intensity of their view to the point of sometimes bordering on, what feels to me, like simplicity, but then moral certainty would be just that and shouldn't necessarily be denigrated for the belief if the values are true. It isn't my preference generally since that "true" is much to hard to pin down, but sometimes it works.

[wba]

Yeah, I partially agree, but I think Kobayashi grew as a filmmaker. I couldn't stand the first two Human Condition Films, cause I found their sense of "morality" repugnant, but the third one was pretty good (and the detestable protagonist finally dies) . His subsequent films I've seen seemed to get better, culminating for me with Samurai Rebellion.

[Roscoe]

KWAIDAN

Seen enough to rate more, including THE HUMAN CONDITION, and thanks no thanks.

[karl]

Seen 13, to my surprise. Unlike some Murnau-hating weirdos here, I think the early films of this director are often quite good.

1. Samurai Rebellion
2. The Fountainhead
3. Inn of Evil
4. I Will Buy You
5. Beautiful Days

[ofrene]

seen 11

Harakiri
Kwaidan
The Human Condition 3 (admire than like this trilogy but stirring conclusion whatsoever...)
Inn of Evil
Samurai Rebellion

didn't like his early work (heard I Will Buy You is good but didn't see that) and Hymn to a Tired Man is so mixed one (masterpiece for some part, worst for some part...)

[john ryan]

Seen 12

1. Samurai Rebellion
2. Harakiri
3. Kwaidan
4. Human Condition I: No Greater Love
5. Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer

[St. Gloede]

Director note: Took a long time digging his way out of passable dramas, but when he did he became one of the best directors in Japan.

He's a difficult director for me to get into since he seems so damned sincere in his moralism, little hint of much in the way of irony or ambiguity in values, though there are competing ones between people of course and difficulties causing shifts in hierarchies of individual values, but the perspective of the movies seen set. In the case of Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, the first two of his movies I watched, this, on reflection, is a considerable strength given the type of story being told demanding a sort of linear sense of narrative propulsion to build force towards their explosive ends. But when I watched Human Condition, back for the first Mubi world cup, and then I Will Buy You and Black River, that same conviction started to weigh down the experience for me, making them feel a bit too earnest and certain and somewhat leaden or wearying for it.

I let that sort of erode some of my earlier enthusiasm for Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, probably unfairly, which I realized after thinking about Miike's remake of Harakiri, which was fine, but lacked that same sense of moral urgency in its retelling that Kobayashi's version seemed to have. I'd taken to thinking Kwaidan was the better more because it had the strongest match of competing values based on situation, but after thinking about it I switched the order back to how I first felt about them since that seems to better fit Kobayashi's strengths rather than my wants for something with more fluidity or complexity of individual values in the moment.

Contrast Kobayashi to Okamoto, for example, and I find the latter far more interesting for providing layered irony on top of the moral indignation, but that suits my interests and view, not necessarily that of the movies. Harakiri or The Human Condition done as Okamoto might have done, maybe not too far from The Human Bullet, is an entirely different thing than Kobayashi's version and couldn't provide such a straight progression of effect or condemnation, so I don't want to undersell Kobayashi, but the movies of his I've seen feel a bit more limited in scope of their capture for being so focused on intensity of their view to the point of sometimes bordering on, what feels to me, like simplicity, but then moral certainty would be just that and shouldn't necessarily be denigrated for the belief if the values are true. It isn't my preference generally since that "true" is much to hard to pin down, but sometimes it works.

You will NOT enjoy Kobayashi's early work, they are, while good, sanctimonious morality plays and earnest melodramas - I Will Buy You actually stands out as a reasonably dark and cynical work - the same goes for The Thick-Walled Room - but they lack the technique and layers his later work has. Warning: His debut, Youth of the Sun, may be dangerous for your health - as it is essentially "Earnestness: The Movie".

The one film you may actually enjoy in this case is The Inheritance, which is wrapped in cynical irony and plays as a dark comedy.

I will of course agree that Kobayashi can not quite stand up to Okamoto, but in terms of his work from the late 50s and later it would be hard to describe him as anything but a master craftsman (and not everyone needs to be Okamoto - he was rather in a league of his own when it came to blending comedic irreverence into his films - there is room for the stoic moralists as well - which, btw, I had not actually considered Kobayashi's greater work to be until now).

[wba]

Well, Okamoto wasn't that much more than a master craftsman himself (when at his best), and I think in comparison he isn't a (much) better director than Kobayashi. And he could be equally moralizing. It's just that he had a sense of humor (and a wicked one), whereas Kobayashi seems to have had none at all. And some of the strongly anarchist tendencies in Okamoto's work makes you like his films more in comparison to the relative conservatism of Kobayashi. At least that's how I feel about it, as I always WANT to like and enjoy Okamoto's films more than I actually do, even when he makes a masterpiece like The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman or Sword of Doom.

He's just nowhere near the greatness of truly outstanding filmmakers working at the same time as him in the Japanese film industry, like Kon Ichikawa, Nobuo Nakagawa, Seijun Suzuki, Susumu Hani, Tomu Uchida, Masahiro Makino, Ko Nakahira, Yasuzo Masumura, Nagisa Oshima, Koji Wakamatsu, Akira Kurosawa, Kan Mukai, Shohei Imamura, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Kaneto Shindo, Koreyoshi Kurahara, Teruo Ishii, etc. etc.

Of course that's nit-picking and criticism on a high level, cause if compared to US filmmakers of the 50s and 60s, he would be one of the best (easily on par with Fuller, Aldrich, Siegel, Arnold, etc.)

[...]

I will of course agree that Kobayashi can not quite stand up to Okamoto, but in terms of his work from the late 50s and later it would be hard to describe him as anything but a master craftsman (and not everyone needs to be Okamoto - he was rather in a league of his own when it came to blending comedic irreverence into his films - there is room for the stoic moralists as well - which, btw, I had not actually considered Kobayashi's greater work to be until now).

No disagreement on craft and I'm not opposed to sincerity necessarily, just don't find it as rich as having moral belief cut with notice of the more ridiculous aspects of human nature that makes living a moral life so difficult. Okamoto was just a handy point of comparison since I'd just watched two of his movies, not meant to hold him as measure for Kobayashi to live up to. Both strains run through Japanese cinema, as well as that of elsewhere. Kurosawa is more a moralist in the Kobayashi vein and Naruse can be too, Imamura and Suzuki are looser and more attuned to the ridiculousness of life like Okamoto, though of course all the directors have their own styles and ways of exhibiting their perspectives that make them unique as well. I personally lean towards favoring the latter group in a general sense, but can't deny the former had movies that work from their particular point of view and are better for the earnestness of their approach.

[flip]

there was a tie for first, and i'd normally have a tiebreaker vote (only for people who had seen the two tied films), but i was able to deduce from ballots and letterboxd enough about how that vote would go that we won't need that tiebreaker - harakiri will be first on the list i post to letterboxd:

results

1. Harakiri (1962) -- 27 pts
1. Kwaidan (1964) -- 27 pts
3. Samurai Rebellion (1967) -- 20 pts
4. The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961) -- 13 pts
5. The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959) -- 8 pts
6. Inn of Evil (1971) -- 5 pts
7. Fountainhead (1956) -- 4 pts
8. The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959) -- 3 pts
9. The Inheritance (1964) -- 2 pts
9. I Will Buy You (1956) -- 2 pts
11. Beautiful Days (1955) -- 1 pt

tiebreaker details - from ballots and/or letterboxd, i worked out who had certainly seen both kwaidan and harakiri, and from ballots i inferred how each person would vote. there were only three possible votes i couldn't deduce, at least two of which would have gone to kwaidan, but harakiri was still going to win:

harakiri:
flip
greg x
wba
ofrene
john ryan
mesnalty
brian d
kanafani

kwaidan:
bure
umbugbene
st gloede
roscoe

couldn't tell if seen both:
grabmymask (would be kwaidan)
karl (didn't vote for either)

[Roscoe]

Seen both HARAKIRI and KWAIDAN -- I'd vote for KWAIDAN.

[flip]

posted this to letterboxd:

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-141/