Giants and Toys (巨人と玩具 Kyojin to gangu?) is a 1958 comedy film directed by Yasuzo Masumura and starring Hiroshi Kawaguchi.[1] It portrays the increasingly frenzied efforts of the World candy company to compete with the rival Giant and Apollo companies over caramel sales. World (under the leadership of the machivellian Mr Goda) “discovers” a tomboy girl with bad teeth to be the center of their promotional campaign, involving colorful space suits and ray guns. It turns out that as she becomes famous that she’s less and less inclined to go along with World’s plans for her.
The film satirizes the instant manufacture of media stars, the decline of a gentlemanly business ethos (or the tradition of bushido) and rise of a culture of ruthless corporate skulduggery, and the emphasis on work at the expense of personal life and health–Mr Goda’s health has been so ruined by his diet of pep pills and tranquilizers by the end of the film that he is regularly coughing up blood.
The Film, Giants and Toys directed by Yasuo Musumura, describes the competition among the caramel companies, Apollo, World and Giant while criticizing the reality in Japan of commercialization and mechanization of people for caramel which is money. Since the Industrial Revolution, money has been one of the most important factors for human’s life. Some people even believe only money will bring them happiness. To make more money, of course companies emerge, and the companies publicize their commodities. However, is money really everything to make people happy? The movie, Giant and Toys demonstrates how things would turn out if people pursue only money.
At the beginning of the film, Nishi, who is a new employee in the publicity department of World Caramel, was a good friend of Yokoyama who is an employee of Giant Caramel. Also, Nishi respects his boss, Goda, who has great ability to publicize, and loves Kurahashi from Apollo Caramel. However, as the movie goes Nishi gets betrayed by his lover, Kurahashi and Yokoyama because of money. Kurahashi betrayed him for her company, and she says, “sooner or later you will do what I did.” Even though Kurahashi loves him she doubted Nishi will betray her sooner or later. She chose her company and job which give her money. Also, Yokoyama betrayed him by managing Kyoko who was a representative character of World Caramel. Yokoyama quit the job because he can make more money if he manages Kyoko, who is now a big star. He says, “I’ll do everything for money.” not considering at all of his friendship with Nishi. He does not even know what he did wrong for money, and rationalizes his behavior. In addition, Goda turns out to be an inhuman person as Nishi finds out he married the crazy daughter of World Caramel’s chief for his spot now. Although Goda was depicted as ambitious business man, as the movie goes to the end, he becomes almost like a machine that works for the company. He does not care whether he gets sick because of over work. What he only cares about is selling more caramel which equals money. Furthermore, Kyoko who was innocent and free girl signs on the contract paper to be a model of World Caramel without any hesitation once she knew she can earn lots of money out of it. However, the more does she earn more money and become famous, the more does she get arrogant, and want more money. Also, her appearance changes as well. She was innocent looking girl, but, at the end of the movie, she smokes cigarette, wears heavy makeup, and of course nice and clean teeth. This shows how much Kyoko has been changed as she earns money.
Everything in the movie is related to earning money, and how people get changed to make more profit and money. However, the movie indicates earning money is not everything, and only money does not make people happy. In this movie, although Nishi started his new career with expectation, he lost his love, friendship, dignity and became miserable at the end. Of course, money is important to sustain human’s life, but, it should not be everything for them.
Yasuzo Masumura‘s film Giants and Toys satirizes a 1950s Japanese environment in which the need to create profits from commodities becomes a priority over maintaining sanity and humanity. The film suggests that these commodities (represented by caramel candies) and the businesses’ desires to create profits from them cause the producers and consumers of these goods to become out of touch with their humanity in some way. While the actual storyline of the film reveals this effect of a commodified environment, specific sequences and stylistic techniques in the film help to reinforce this theme.
In one of the opening scenes between two businessmen, one man acknowledges that the “masses” below them “look like caramels”. Also, later in the film, an anonymous Japanese businesswoman is referred to as “not a woman,” but rather, a “machine”. These statements take on stronger meanings when we relate them to the montage of the caramel factory. This montage sequence, which occurs near the beginning of the film, depicts the caramels traveling along the factory’s machinery. These caramels are each sliced, wrapped, and packaged into identical boxes, and the movements and sounds of the machinery prove to be extremely repetitive andmechanical, as the factory of course intends to produce identical packages of the candies. So, in comparing the business executives to this “machine” and the masses to the “caramels”, we are reminded that these companies basically wish to manipulate and unify mass opinion, as the factory machine similarly manipulates the candies into identical packages.
The comparison of the machinery to the business executives is also relatable to Mr. Goda’s lack of empathy. Obviously, a machine has no capacity for feeling. And this factory machine in particular goes through specific motions in order to create a product—the packaged caramel boxes. Similarly, Mr. Goda seems only to care about creating sales. After the Apollo factory burns down and an older executive at World Caramel suggests that they (the workers at World Caramel) should be “gentlemen” and not completely take advantage of Apollo’s weakness, Mr. Goda later claims that they should “forget compassion, fear, shyness, compromise and remorse” because “sales are everything”. Obviously, Goda comes to lacks basic human empathy and, like a machine, has only one goal: to produce (in his case, profits).
As mentioned earlier, in comparing the “masses” to the caramels, we can identify these “masses” as being manipulated by the companies. Specifically, the businessmen and marketing executives in the film intend to manipulate the masses into desiring the same commodity—which, in sense, could render the people of the “masses” the same. We can view this sameness in one of the opening shots when the “masses” are pictured walking on the streets wearing almost identical suits and ties. In a way, the repetition and synchronization of their walking reflects the movement of the caramels through the factory. This image suggests that these people have lost a sense of control and so, “like puppies”, they simply go along with the crowd.
Thus, these specific shots and sequences—particularly that of the caramel factory—help to reinforce the idea of dehumanization in the film. Through the actual plot and through these symbolic and stylistic elements, Masumura cleverly depicts a commodified world in which machine-like business executives control the easily led “puppies” of the masses.
Minamata: The Victims and Their World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Minamata: The Victims and Their World
Directed by Noriaki Tsuchimoto
Produced by Ryūtarō Takagi
Cinematography Kōshirō Ōtsu
Editing by Noriaki Tsuchimoto
Takako Sekizawa
Studio Higashi Productions
Running time 167 min
Country Japan
Language Japanese
Minamata: The Victims and Their World (水俣 患者さんとその世界?, Minamata: Kanja-san to sono sekai) is a Japanese documentary made in 1971 by Noriaki Tsuchimoto. It is the first in a series of independent documentaries that Tsuchimoto made of the mercury poisoning incident in Minamata, Japan.
Contents
[hide] 1 Film content
• 2 Reception
• 3 Versions
• 4 References
• 5 External links
[edit]Film content
The film focuses on the residents of Minamata and nearby communities who suffered damage to their nervous systems, or who were born deformed, due to the ingestion of fish containing abnormal amounts of mercury released into the sea by a fertilizer factory owned by Chisso. It not only shows their current condition and the hardships borne by their families, but also the discrimination they had suffered from other Minamata residents, the insufficient response by Chisso, the slowness of government action, and the problems faced by victims who had not been officially designated as suffering from Minamata disease. The main action of the last part of the film is the effort of victims and their supporters to buy shares of Chisso in small quantities so that they can attend the annual stockholders’ meeting and confront the corporate leadership. The documentary takes the side of the victims in their struggle, but it also devotes much time to understanding their lifestyle, especially their traditions and their close relationship with the sea.
[edit]Reception
Minamata: The Victims and Their World screened at numerous film festivals and won several awards, including the Film Ducat at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival.[1] The critic Mark Cousins has programmed it as one of “ten documentaries that shook the world.”[2]
The Minamata city is a small place far away from the center of Japan, and located in the southern part of Kyushu. It was a place surrounded by natural resources and full of history, from the thirteenth century even until the Meiji period, it was under the influence of the local lords. However, from the late Meiji period to the Taisho period, things changed dramatically – a factory was built. As one of the rising zaibatsu, the Nichitsu Company brought electricity and jobs to the local people of Minamata; nevertheless, it also brought them one of the most horrifying pollution disease, mercury poison from the wastewater discharge from the factory. As populous of low social status, they did not have a voice that attracts others to listen. The government and the overpowering company ignored these voices until the case became extremely severe and finally make the public confront to the true condition of the brutally destroyed nature and the negatively affected people.
These people of Minamata have been living there for generations. The natural environment around them cannot be defined as simple as a place they build their house on or the bay they go for fun once in a while. It is the opposite. The sea they fish in and the lands they cultivate are the source of their living. These nature dwellers had already became one with the local eco-system until the factory was built. Since then, the Minamata Bay was polluted and the creatures living in it became contaminated. As a member of the local eco-system, people consume locally catch seafood while taking in chemicals that had been accumulated in the food chain. Eventually, their brains got eaten up and became incapable of doing daily tasks.
In the film, there are many shots of nature: the sea, the sky, and birds soaring in the sky. These scenes of nature are used as transition for interviews of different patients. The scene of the soaring bird in the heaven also creates a dramatic contrast between the lively bird and the disable boy who was born with the Minamata sickness. As a boy in the age of seven, he was suppose to be as free as a bird: jump or run whenever he please instead of helplessly crawling on the tatami and spit out mumbling words. This is not the only time Tsuchimoto uses this technique to create comparison and contrast of the situations of the patients. This sequence of shots is repeated several times across the documentary and reveal to the audience about the lives of young victims and their lost of the right to grow up as a healthy, normal adults. They are truly the innocent victims of the cost of industrial modernization and the great profits earned by the zaibatsu.
This deadly disaster happened in Minamata should serve as reminders of how costly pollution can be, not only to the environment but also to human beings. What’s more, we need to reconsider the relationship between us, human, and the great nature. What will we, or even our next generation, pay for the careless damage we done to nature? Though this pollution tragedy has already past and people have chosen to forget and move on rather than relive the suffering, one must learn from these mistakes and catastrophes, not only the Japanese, but everyone in the world. For, it is only by remembering that we can hope to avoid another tragedy to mankind.
Noriaki Tsuchimoto’s documentary Minamata: The Victims and Their Worldexamines the circumstances and stories of Japanese citizens with Minamata disease, a severe impairment of the central nervous system caused by consumption of local fish or shellfish from the polluted Minamata Bay. This pollution, caused by the flow of inorganic mercury compounds from the Chisso Company’s Minamata factory into the bay, accounted for nearly forty-five deaths and countless other cases by 1970—one year before Tsuchimoto released his documentary. Through depicting the patients’ hardships, Tsuchimoto definitely plays on our sympathies and, through his filmmaking techniques and use of juxtaposition, he also encourages us to recognize the unnaturalness (and thus, wrongness) of an industry’s interfering with a natural food source.
Tsuchimoto’s juxtaposition of nature to the unnatural pollution emphasizes the peculiarity of the industry’s interfering with a natural food source in Minamata. At one point in the film, the camera depicts a few fishermen explaining their baiting techniques and then fishing in the Minamata Bay. In between this sequence, however, the camera shifts to a sequence depicting the Chisso waste pipe streaming into the Minamata Bay.
The timing of this shot in between the fishermen’s fishing routines encourages us to recognize the unnaturalness of the Chisso Company’s practices. Also, after the camera depicts this Chisso pipe, it soon after captures the landscape of the Minamata Bay. The image of this natural landscape, juxtaposed to the industrial pipe, also emphasizes the perverse nature of the company’s polluting practices.
Tsuchimoto also juxtaposes the natural act of fishing to the hysterical cries of Hamamoto at the shareholder’s meeting in Osaka. By cutting from the chaos of this meeting to the peacefulness of the fishermen in the Minamata Bay, Tsuchimoto highlights the iniquity of the Chisso Company’s polluting practices. With this dramatic shift from the meeting to the calm bay—which happens to be the concluding scene in the film—we are reminded that Hamamoto’s anguish is due to what should ordinarily be a simple act of fishing.
The documentary also highlights the unnaturalness of the pollution in its depictions of the man fishing for octopi. After the fisherman has captured a great number of octopi, the camera depicts these dead sea creatures—which are attached to his baiting stick—flowing underwater. While the images of these dead octopi do have an ethereal quality, the grittiness of the film quality and the choice of black and white film emphasize the pollution of the bay water.
Thus, through juxtapositions and particular film techniques, Tsuchimoto highlights the unnaturalness and/or immorality of the Chisso Company’s waste practices. So, in a sense, the retrieval of or consumption of fish—both practices that should occur in accordance with nature—become (in this film) symbols for Japan’s favoring industries over the well-being of its environment or its people.
Godzilla (1954 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gojira
Original Japanese film poster
Directed by Ishirō Honda
Produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka
Screenplay by Ishirō Honda
Takeo Murata
Story by Shigeru Kayama
Starring Akira Takarada
Momoko Kōchi
Akihiko Hirata
Takashi Shimura
Music by Akira Ifukube
Cinematography Masao Tamai
Editing by Kazuji Taira
Distributed by Toho
Release date(s) November 3, 1954
Running time 95 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese
Budget $1 million
Godzilla (ゴジラ Gojira?) is a 1954 Japanese science fiction film directed by Ishirō Honda and produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka. The film stars Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata and Takashi Shimura. The film tells the story of Godzilla, a giant monster mutated by nuclear radiation, who ravages Japan, bringing back the horrors of nuclear war to a country that experienced it first hand. In 1956, a heavily edited version was released in the U.S. as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. The original Japanese-language version is now available in the United States and Britain under the title Gojira. It was the first of many kaiju films released in Japan and the first that paved the way and set the standards for future Kaiju films, many of which also feature Godzilla.
[edit]Plot
When a Japanese fishing boat is attacked by a flash of light near Odo Island, another ship is sent to investigate only to meet the same fate, with only a few surviving. On Odo Island, a village elder blames their poor fishing on a sea-god known as “Godzilla” and recalls that in earlier times native girls were sacrificed to appease the giant sea monster. Word gets out and a helicopter arrives on the island with curious, but skeptical, reporters. Frightened natives perform a night-time ceremony to keep the monster away. However, that night, while the natives sleep, a storm arrives and something else comes with it, bringing death and destruction. And a lone boy sees the cause during the midst of the destruction.
The next day, witnesses arrive in Tokyo. Archeologist Kyohei Yamane suggests that investigators be sent to the island. On arrival, Yamane finds giant radioactive footprints, and a trilobite. When an alarm sounds, the villagers arm themselves with sticks and various weapons and run to the hills, only to be confronted by Godzilla, who is revealed to be an enormous reptilian creature. After a quick skirmish, the villagers run for safety and Godzilla heads to the ocean.
Dr. Yamane returns to Tokyo to present his findings and concludes that Godzilla was unleashed by a nuclear explosion. Some want to conceal that fact, fearing international repercussions. Others say the truth must be revealed. They prevail and Godzilla’s origins are announced to the public. Ships are sent with depth charges to kill the monster. When it clearly failed, Godzilla appears again, frightening patrons on a party boat, and causing nationwide panic. Officials appeal to Dr. Yamane for some way to kill the monster, but Yamane wants him kept alive and studied.
Meanwhile, Emiko, Yamane’s daughter, decides to break off her arranged engagement to Yamane’s colleague, Daisuke Serizawa, because of her love for Hideto Ogata, a salvage ship captain. Before she can do that, Serizawa tells her about his secret experiment. He gives a small demonstration, using a fish tank in the lab. Shocked, Emiko is sworn to secrecy and never gets a chance to break off the engagement. That night Godzilla climbs from Tokyo Bay and attacks the city. Though the attack is over quickly, there is much death and destruction. The next morning, the army constructs a line of 40-meter electrical towers along the coast of Tokyo that will send 50,000 volts of electricity through Godzilla, should he appear again. Civilians are evacuated from the city and put into bomb shelters. As night falls, Godzilla does indeed attack again. He easily breaks through the electric fence, melting the wires with his atomic breath. A bombardment of shells from the army tanks has no effect. Godzilla continues his rampage until much of the city is destroyed and thousands of civilians are dead or wounded. Godzilla descends unscathed into Tokyo Bay, despite a squadron of fighter jets’ last-ditch attack.
The next morning finds Tokyo in ruins. Hospitals overflow with victims, including some with radiation poisoning. Emiko witnesses the devastation and tells Ogata about Serizawa’s secret Oxygen Destroyer, a device that disintegrates oxygen atoms and organisms die of asphixiation. Thus, a new energy source he accidentally created. She hopes together they can persuade Serizawa to use it to stop Godzilla. When Serizawa realizes Emiko betrays his secret, he refuses, and Ogata and Serizawa fight and Ogata receives a minor head wound. As Emiko treats Ogata’s wound, Serizawa apologizes, but he refuses to use the weapon on Godzilla, citing the public bedlam his weapon could cause. Then a newscast shows the devastation Godzilla has caused. Choirs of children are shown singing a hymn. Finally realizing this, Serizawa decides he will use the weapon only one time and then its secret must be destroyed for the good of humanity. He then burns all his papers and research. Emiko breaks down and cries when she sees this, as she understands that Serizawa is sacrificing his life’s work and himself to stop Godzilla.
A navy ship takes Ogata and Serizawa to plant the device in Tokyo Bay. They don diving gear and descend into the water, where they find Godzilla at rest. Ogata returns to the surface as Serizawa activates the device. Serizawa watches as Godzilla dies then tells Ogata to be with Emiko. He then cuts his own oxygen cord, sacrificing himself so his knowledge of the device cannot be used to harm mankind. A dying Godzilla surfaces, lets out a final roar, and sinks to the bottom, disintegrating until he is nothing but bones, and eventually, nothing.
Although the monster is gone, those aboard ship are still grim. They do not know if the death of Godzilla is the end or the beginning of an apocalyptic era. Godzilla’s death has come at a terrible price and Dr. Yamane believes that if mankind continues to test nuclear weapons, another Godzilla may appear.
The ways Godzilla depicts the infiltration of western influence is by using the monster as a symbol of nuclear power, which undoubtedly is linked to America. Godzilla is unpredictable, destructive, and seemingly lacking motive. He seems to only be interested in destruction for destruction’s sake. Although this might seem like a crude and over the top way to depict the use of nuclear power, one can also see it as a clear depiction of sheer psychological terror the Japanese were subjected to as a result of nuclear destruction. The techniques used by Ozu, the director of Tokyo Story is, in fact, more sophisticated and subdued.
In the scene in Godzilla when Godzilla is laying waste to the main capital Tokyo, there is an utter absence of Emperor Hirohito’s imperial palace. At some point Godzilla should have encountered the palace, but its absence clearly indicates a desire on the part of Ishiro Honda and Tomoyuki Tanaka to conceal, or essentially censor any ill or undesirable portrayal of the government, especially in this recovering post-war climate. As cited by Dower, a plethora of topics, subjects, and ideas were forbidden from being mentioned in discourse and publication, so naturally, Emperor Hirohito as the representation of the strength of the nation would be subject to a certain discretion, especially in as socially prevalent a film as Godzilla.
