Movie Malcontent / THE LAST SAMURAI

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THE LAST SAMURAI / Malcontent's Mark: C

December 4th, 2003

Katsumoto: Ken Watanabe
Nathan Algren: Tom Cruise
Simon Graham: Timothy Spall
Colonel Bagley: Tony Goldwyn

Directed by Edward Zwick.
Written by John Logan, Marshall Herskovitz, and Edward Zwick.
Rated R

The Last Samurai is a visually stunning epic; practically every shot has an elegant, mythical quality. The production design and cinematography is remarkable, re-creating the patterns and textures of 19^th century Japan; its opulence and antiquity saturate the screen. The costumes, including Civil War regalia and Samurai armor, are historically accurate and ornate. And, of course, there’s Tom Cruise swaggering through the proceedings with tousled mane. And yet, there’s an ugly subtext that makes the movie an oftentimes unpleasant viewing experience.

Cruise plays Nathan Algren, an alcoholic Civil War vet who hawks Winchester rifles in a traveling road show in the late 1800s. He’s a survivor of Little Bighorn, where he watched his comrades commit many atrocities against American Indians. Supposedly his Civil War heroics are known across the globe; Algren’s a hot commodity to the young Meiji Emperor of Japan who commissions him to train Japanese peasants to use modern Western weapons. The conscript army is needed to quell a samurai uprising that has been preventing the construction of a railroad. We soon find out that the suppression of the samurai is more about ending old Japanese traditions and starting new Western ones.

Algren is soon commanded to send his Imperial army into battle before they are fully trained. The peasant warriors face off against the samurai in a fog-filled forest, where Algren confronts samurai leader Katsumoto, played by Japanese actor Ken Wantanabe. Algren’s army is easily defeated by the highly-skilled warrior class of the samurai, but not before Algren’s fights off a few of Katsumoto’s cronies. The Last Samurai’s first affront to the ancient tradition of the samurai is how Algren easily kills a dozen samurai with his bare-hands before he is beaten to submission. Little Big Horn survivor or not, a broken-down, alcoholic Civil War vet shouldn’t last one round with a samurai warrior - especially with his flowing mane in his eyes the whole time.

The screenwriters further affront the legend of the samurai when Algren is taken into captivity after his defeat. Algren watches the samurai train and learns their fighting style. At one point, he starts a fight with the samurai in second command. He is knocked down many times, but he keeps a-coming - just like Rocky Balboa. In fact, throughout his two-month captivity, the second-in-command becomes Algren’s Apollo Creed – always antagonistic until Algren finally matches him in a draw. Yes, you heard me right - even though the second-in-command has probably developed supreme warrior skills over a lifetime, he is matched by a Yank who has only spent a couple of months in training.

But while Algren is in the samurai’s captivity, it’s not all about fighting and training. Algren also learns many cultural traditions from the oppressed people, like how to wear a kimono so that your biceps are exposed.

Cruise works hard to make Algren’s metamorphosis from Civil War Yank to pseudo-samurai convincing. Yet too often, Cruise resorts to depicting emotional turmoil by making his face go red, getting the vein in the middle of his forehead to pop out, and asking the cinematographer for unflattering lighting. On the other hand, Wantanabe displays the grace and modesty of a truly refined actor. He’s a direct descendent of the supreme Japanese acting legacy trail-blazed by Toshiro Mifune.

Indeed, the movie is anchored by the talent of the Japanese supporting cast. Model-Actress Koyuki makes her American feature debut as Taka, a woman recently widowed after Algren’s first battle. Though Koyuki only speaks Japanese, her tenderness and gracefulness has a quiet poignancy. And the samurai of the village imbue their characters with dignity and humor without becoming types.

Like Master and Commander, the story takes its time. The pacing isn’t too contrived thus allowing breathing room for moments of quiet and moments of action. Unfortunately, the filmmakers append an earnest voice-over narration of Algren reading from his diary. I found the voice-over a bad idea for three reasons: First, we strangely never see Algren writing in this diary. Stranger still, throughout Algren’s captivity, Katsumoto appears to be in possession of the very diary that Algren is writing in and reading from. Second, at certain points in the movie the voice-over inexplicably switches from Algren to a British envoy played by Timothy Spall. Third, Algren makes gawky anthropological observations of his captors like, “They are an intriguing people,” “There is something spiritual here.” “What does it mean to be samurai?”

But of course, there’s no time for real cultural insight, not when Braveheart-like battles need to be inserted into the narrative. The battles are well choreographed with Akira Kurosawa-style slow motion and vivid colors reminiscent of the battle scenes of Ran. Yet there’s an unpleasant subtext to the movie's final battle. In most cinematic battles, the lines between good and evil are very clearly drawn. Although these lines can sometimes be blurry when depicting civil war, Hollywood usually demarcates the protagonists as the underdog because people root for the underdog. In The Last Samurai, the samurai are clearly the underdogs, being small in number and using only swords against gunfire. Yet their “enemies” in the final battle are conscripted peasants, inexperienced with Western weapon technology. They are much like the peasants of Algren’s ill-fated troops – who, ironically, we were meant to initially sympathize with earlier in the film.

I imagine many will compare The Last Samurai to Dances with Wolves. I must confess I’ve never seen Dances with Wolves, and watching it has never really been on my “to do” list. The reason lies in my disinterest in the white savior mythology, a mythology we’ve seen in urban dramas like Dangerous Minds (Michelle Pfeiffer educating/empowering black youths) and Hardball (Keanu Reeves coaching/empowering black youths), and in Alan Parker’s historical narratives Come See the Paradise (Japanese racism during WWII filtered through the eyes of Dennis Quaid) and Mississippi Burning (African-American racism in the 1960s filtered through the eyes of Gene Hackman). The Last Samurai recycles the white savior mythology of Dances with Wolves – the protagonist lives among his supposed enemy, then is assimilated into their culture and ultimately protects them. But really, both movies are about how a white man can find personal redemption by hanging with oppressed people.

I’m not being PC. I just find the white savior narrative so formulaic. Watching The Last Samurai, you can practically see the screenwriters going through the checklist of subplots: Oppressed people first disdain white man, then learn to respect him, then finally idolize him. Check. Child of oppressed people hates the white man for killing his father, yet eventually admires and reveres the white man – ultimately offering the white man his prized possessions and weeping when the white man must leave the oppressed people. Check. Many young men of the oppressed people sacrifice their lives so that the white man can live. Check. A woman of oppressed people first hates the white man for killing her husband, yet eventually falls in love with him. Double check.

Three screenwriters were responsible for The Last Samurai, though you can tell Gladiator screenwriter John Logan laid down the basic framework. Now for another confession: I never thought Gladiator was anywhere near Oscar-worthy material. I found the writing by Logan to be sloppy and ham-handed. It did not surprise me that he also wrote the straight-to-video single-concept epics like Tornado and Bats. It DID surprise me, however, when the Gladiator screenplay was nominated for an Oscar. That nomination, and the other inexplicable nominations awarded to Gladiator, brought about the end of my Oscar innocence. For many years prior, I had turned a blind eye to Oscar’s marketing machine phoniness, but the multiple nominations for Gladiator finally shattered my rose-colored glasses. In The Last Samurai, Logan continues his knack for clichés and embarrassing dialogue.

Cruise was one of the many producers for The Last Samurai. I’m guessing he lobbied for Logan, presuming he would up the Oscar chances for his film. And maybe to buttress his Oscar campaign, Cruise may be responsible for suggesting the recycling of the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves storyline, and the hiring of the Oscar-winning cinematographer of Braveheart and the director of the multiple-Oscar nominated movie Glory. It’s disappointing how Cruise appears to have conceived The Last Samurai as a mish-mash of various Oscar-nominated epics from the last fifteen years.

Cruise may be looking for his third Oscar nomination for acting as he venerates himself as the broken hero; Russell Crowe played a similar role in Gladiator and he won his first Oscar. Yet after his strained performance in The Last Samurai, I’m afraid we may have already seen the best of Cruise’s acting abilities in Jerry Maguire and Magnolia. When I first saw Maguire and Magnolia, I was impressed by Cruise’s seemingly newfound acting talent. Yet in every role since those films, his face has been either disfigured or covered by masks, as if trying to make a statement: that he is NOT vain, but a true ACTOR. (I could be wrong, but isn’t he only substantiating his narcissism by choosing roles that mock or hide his vain control freak image, yet don’t challenge him as an actor?) In retrospect, his roles in Maguire and Magnolia don’t seem all that impressive, now that we know he was basically spoofing himself.

Although The Last Samurai is in many ways a well-crafted film, it also represents the creative vacuum that is Hollywood’s mix and match mentality: take a recycled Oscar-winning story-line, toss in an Oscar-winning cinematographer, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, and a veteran director of Oscar-nominated epics. Add a star with a samurai sword. And presto: pre-packaged Oscar material. I only hope the Academy sees through this charade, and perhaps my faith in the Oscars will be restored.

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