Samurai Fiction

Here's another installment. Sorry I couldn't do it everyday, Jeri. School is killing me. :-(
　#3 In Harakiri, the facade of Bushido is underscored by the insinuation that the samurai of the Iyi clan were no longer warriors. When Tsugumo reveals that he went after Omodaka, the best swordsman of the Iyi clan and the ring leader of Chijiwa's demise, he admitted that Omodaka's use of the wind was clever, but in a fight he was still no match for Tsugumo who had fought in actual battles, lecturing those who would listen to his admonition that swordsmanship practiced only in the dojo and not in actual battle was like "learning to swim on a tatami mat." 
　This attitude led to movies in the 1990s that revisioned the samurai. They were less warriors and more bureaucrats, and the lines between good and evil were not so clear. In "Samurai Fiction", one clan hires a ronin--Kazamatsuri--who saves one of its members on the road. He is a superior swordsman but others in the clan are suspicious of him. He is tasked to watch over a famous sword gifted by the shogun but a clansman accuses of him of trying to steal it. An argument ensues and the ex-ronin ends up killng the clansman and runs away, taking the sword with him. Heishiro, the son of the clan Lord, insists on pursuing Kazamatsuri to take back the sword. The father knows that he is unskilled and tries to stop him, but Heishiro will not be denied. 
　Both Kazamatsuri and Heishiro are symbolic of this shift in view of the samurai. Kazamatsuri is a samurai with skills but is portrayed as both good and bad: He saves the clansman but then walks off with the shogun's gift, although that was not really his original intent. Indeed, when he flashes back to the series of events that finds him running away, we wonders, "How did it come to this?" The fact that Kazamatsuri is gay further blurs the modern image of the samurai.
　Heishiro's character suggests that the romantic image of the samurai is over. Besides his own ineptitude, his brothers-in-arms are just as flawed. When they catch up with Kazamatsuri on the road one, Kurosawa, dies immediately, the other, Shintaro, survives but is seriously injured. Does Kurosawa's death suggest the death of the romantic image of the samurai as portrayed in Kurosawa Akira's Seven Samurai and Yojimbo? Is Shintaro's injury a criticism of the attempts to reframe the samurai in Katsu Shintaro's Zatoichi films? Indeed, the man who helps Heishiro recapture the sword is named Mizoguchi, a man who is as skilled as Kazamatsuri but refuses to fight after killing one man and then adopting the daughter of the man he killed. He would rather live a peaceful life and fight only by throwing stone or two, a bloodless way to fight, as bloodless as the most famous movie directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, The 47 Ronin (Chushingura). Kurosawa, Shintaro, Mizoguchi: I'm pretty sure that these names were not chosen by accident. 
　Anyway, the movie was not very popular, but it is as entertaining, even humorous, as it is thought provoking.

Harakiri (Seppuki 切腹)

#2 The 1960s and 70s in Japan are marked by student protests and riots. Many were radicals but I personally know a few who participated in some of the protests to varying degrees. The protests began in the late 1950s for the return of Okinawa to Japan, boiled over with the unpopular mutual security treaty between Japan and the US in 1960 and developed into riots against the Viet Nam war and for education reform at the University of Tokyo to end bureaucratic authoritarianism and meaningless lectures by disengaged professors. Underlying these protests was a deep-seated distrust of "the man", those who scheme to maintain appearances and their position of authority... but this is a conversation better left to the political scientists of whom I am not one.
　However, I can say that a number of the films of this era seem to reflect this distrust of higher authority. The second film I show is "Harakiri" (切腹 Seppuku) recipient of the Special Jury Award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. The film is about two masterless but law-abiding samurai who struggle to make a living by making paper umbrellas and fans or teaching the Classics to neighborhood kids instead of wandering the country as mercenaries. They are juxtaposed against samurai who are members of major clans that live in the mansions of their Lord in the city of Edo, samurai who espouse the Way of the Warrior (Bushido), a life style created by and for the samurai elite to justify and glorify their status in society. The story begins with rumors of masterless samurai "requesting" an official place to commit ritual suicide on the grounds of the palatial residence of a major clan but ultimately receiving a position in the clan or at least some money to discourage them from making a mess--socio-politically rather than physically--of their house. Chijiwa is not of this dubious ilk but his infant son is sick and he cannot even afford a doctor so he tries his hand at this scheme to glean a few coins for his family but is surprised to find that he will be forced to fulfill his request. The suicide ritual is gruesomely cruel. Tsugumo, Chijiwa's father-in-law and also masterless, reacts: He decides to call out the hypocrisy of this particular house (and the ruling class in general), revealing that their "code" of Bushido is just a facade.

10 Films in 10 Posts

Okay, on facebook, an old blog friend, Jeri,  has tasked me to post one poster a day of a movie that influenced me for 10 days. I don't know if I can do it for 10 days, but I will try. Anyway, any film will influence me one way or another and it's hard to choose ten that have influenced me "the most." As I was pondering my choices, I got an email from Sierra Humes, a student in my class this summer who said she continues to think about some of the movies we saw more than a month after class ended. For this teacher, it is hard to think something more satisfying than the idea that students are still "influenced" by a course I taught. So I've decided to post Japanese films I screened this past summer. 
　#1: The first J-film I ever saw in a class as an undergraduate and the first I ever showed in a class I was teaching was "Seven Samurai". Yes, a bit dated and unoriginal, but it remains a classic. It is still one of the highest-rated action films on Rotten Tomato of all action films, not just J-films. And while it is fun to watch--Toshiro Mifune's Kikuchiyo is certainly a treat--it is instructive as well. It depicts class separation of the Edo period: Young Katsushiro desperately wants to be with the peasant Shino, but she knows that she must remain with her kind. Kikuchiyo born a peasant, wants desperately to be a samurai, and in a way he does, but at what cost? (Watch the film.) It is also a film reflective of the time it was produced. Kurosawa often incorporated his own view of society, and the seven samurai--ronin, masterless samurai looking for purpose in the Edo period--may be a reflection of those soldiers wandering back home from WWII trying to find their way in a rebuilding Japan of the 1950s.

Traversing the Warrior Fantasy--Martial Culture and The Meiji Restoration

Date: Friday, March 23, 2018
Time: 2pm-4pm
Location: National Churchill Library and Center (Gelman Libaray 101a)
RSVP at: goo.gl/QK2wMp

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies.

Speaker: Michael Wert, Associate Professor of East Asian History, Marquette University

Abstract: The Meiji Restoration is typically analyzed in terms of international and domestic politics, intellectual trends, and changes in the commercial economy. This talk adds to that conventional narrative by exploring the role of warrior identity and the widening gap between warrior ideals and warrior realities in the nineteenth century. For samurai and elite commoners alike, martial culture in the form of swordsmanship became a vehicle for acting out the fantasy of the ideal warrior at a time when warrior authority was at its nadir. Rather than see culture as simply a site of resistance, it was the very act of over-identifying with warrior fantasy and ideology that undermined the Tokugawa regime.

Speaker Bio: Professor Michael Wert is an associate professor of East Asian history at Marquette University, with a focus on early modern and modern Japan.His first book Meiji Restoration Losers: Memory and Tokugawa Supporters in Modern Japan engages memory theory by asking how memory can help answer broader historical questions. Specifically, it traces the “memory landscapes” of the Meiji Restoration from 1868 to the present through the lens of those on the losing side. His second project continues to center around the Meiji Restoration, using theoretical tools to investigate the role of martial fantasy, culture, and violence in the early modern period. Professor Wert is a graduate of GW (B.A. East Asian Studies, 1997).

About Me

I'm a former assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at The George Washington University. I taught Modern and Classical Japanese Language, as well as Classical Japanese Literature.
My duties as an instructor focused on enhancing the reading abilities of advanced students. This included reading contemporary fiction that is relatively easy to comprehend: 村上春樹 Murakami Haruki, 星新一 Hoshi Shin'ichi, etc. I also encouraged students to learn bungo, or classical Japanese; besides reading the Classics such as 伊勢物語 Ise
monogatari or 方丈記 Hojoki in the original, bungo is a must for those who want to conduct research in Japanese history, political science or economics using pre-World War II sources.
My research interests continue to focus on the influence of texts and contexts on reading, particularly as they pertain to Heian court poetry.

Once upon a time at UCLA: Clockwise from back left, Hillary, Terry, Stephanie, Alan, Weiyon, Masaya, Roger Ebert, Kim, Yuka, Tsukasa, Yan, Yasuko, Ken and unidentified. (I can't remember her name. Can someone remind me?)

Brief Bio:

Born in Los Angeles, CA. Graduate of Loyola High School, East Los Angeles Community College (AA), UCLA (BA and MA), and Stanford University (PhD). First learned how to speak Japanese effectively at age 17 at Mikawaya, a Japanese confectionary in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Learned to read and write Japanese during college. Research interests include Late Heian poetics, renga linked poetry, and Japanese film and pop culture. See Curriculum Vitae for more detail.