04-10-2020, 08:59 AM
A painter (Mifune) and singer are scandalized when paparazzi take a suggestive photograph of them and fabricate an affair. The painter decides to sue the tabloid for libel, but chooses a weak-willed lawyer (Takashi Shimura) for the case.
This is really Takashi Shimura's vehicle. In Seven Samurai, he plays the older samurai who leads the group in defending the village. In this movie, he plays a miserably incompetent and easily bought lawyer, with gambling and drinking problems, and with a young bedridden daughter (TB) that he worships but forever disappoints. Pathos is turned up to 11 in this overly long and repetitive courtroom drama. How many times do we need to see the lawyer agonize and fail to speak up at key moments in the case, and please, judge, not another adjournment for the day. Not to mention see the daughter with TB yank at everyone's heart-strings to the point of disembowelment.
Mifune is almost criminally clean-shaven and civilized as the painter. On a couple of occasions we do see him painting, but never get to see his work. Well, there's one exception, where he's painting a model in his studio, and she is fully dressed, and wanting to strip naked for him, but he's just doing the head, and she's totally in profile (not a very interesting angle for painters), and there's this one quick, inserted shot of crudely drawn eyes, nose and mouth -- and I have to think that was inserted afterwards, either as an afterthought by Kurosawa or at someone else's urging, because the viewer really does want to see the painter's work. But it is so incredibly amateurish, and a straight-on front view! When she's clearly in profile.
Did I mention Takashi Shimura's pathos and repetitiveness in this movie? It bears repeating, ad infinitum.
I chose this movie because I wanted to see a fairly early Mifune, and this was released in 1950, the year I was born. But I would not bother going here, unless you're a totally pathetic worm of a human being.
Intriguingly, Kurosawa made another Mifune/Shimura vehicle in 1950 that also dealt with vagaries in knowing the truth, which faired a bit better: Rashomon. I think Kurosawa sharpened his artistic vision of the subject matter on Scandal before directing that masterpiece.
This is really Takashi Shimura's vehicle. In Seven Samurai, he plays the older samurai who leads the group in defending the village. In this movie, he plays a miserably incompetent and easily bought lawyer, with gambling and drinking problems, and with a young bedridden daughter (TB) that he worships but forever disappoints. Pathos is turned up to 11 in this overly long and repetitive courtroom drama. How many times do we need to see the lawyer agonize and fail to speak up at key moments in the case, and please, judge, not another adjournment for the day. Not to mention see the daughter with TB yank at everyone's heart-strings to the point of disembowelment.
Mifune is almost criminally clean-shaven and civilized as the painter. On a couple of occasions we do see him painting, but never get to see his work. Well, there's one exception, where he's painting a model in his studio, and she is fully dressed, and wanting to strip naked for him, but he's just doing the head, and she's totally in profile (not a very interesting angle for painters), and there's this one quick, inserted shot of crudely drawn eyes, nose and mouth -- and I have to think that was inserted afterwards, either as an afterthought by Kurosawa or at someone else's urging, because the viewer really does want to see the painter's work. But it is so incredibly amateurish, and a straight-on front view! When she's clearly in profile.
Did I mention Takashi Shimura's pathos and repetitiveness in this movie? It bears repeating, ad infinitum.
I chose this movie because I wanted to see a fairly early Mifune, and this was released in 1950, the year I was born. But I would not bother going here, unless you're a totally pathetic worm of a human being.
Intriguingly, Kurosawa made another Mifune/Shimura vehicle in 1950 that also dealt with vagaries in knowing the truth, which faired a bit better: Rashomon. I think Kurosawa sharpened his artistic vision of the subject matter on Scandal before directing that masterpiece.
