Cowboys and Samurai: A Tale of Two Heroes

a bleak landscape a horizon a lone cowboy is he good or bad an outlaw or marshal the image of a lone cowboy in the desert is as American as apple pie manifest destiny and Krantz except maybe it's not now while western films find their origin and dime novels about cowboys and Indians the Western is more influenced by Japanese cinema than you might think I'm not saying that Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone had waifu body pillows and cosplay Daz cowboy bebop characters and anime conventions but you cannot deny Japan's influence on the earth and westerns you might have been thrown into a loop while watching the second season of Westworld when a handful of the characters found themselves in medieval Japan he might have thought that the filmmakers were combining two completely different genres two genres that have almost nothing to do with each other well if he thought that you were wrong samurai and western films have an interlocked cinematic history with westerns inspiring samurais and vice-versa to start I'm going to use the most obvious example Yojimbo in a fistful of dollars in 1961 Kurosawa released a samurai classic Yojimbo it follows a cunning Ronin played by Toshiro Mifune who plays two gangs against each other for his own personal profit in 1964 Sergio Leone released the normal scene for scene remake of Yojimbo for his own personal profit but he couldn't have just stolen the movie though right Italians in Spanish are good people who aren't known for stealing anything but before you get mad at Leone for copy and Kurosawa's homework just know that Kurosawa and his fellow Jimbo scribe Peru's oku Kashima sued the production for breach of copyright they won in were awarded 15% of the film's worldwide gross and the exclusive distribution rights for Japan the deal was so sweet that they made more money off of a fistful of dollars than they did from Yojimbo but Yojimbo in a fistful of dollars weren't made in a vacuum it wasn't like Kurosawa had never seen a Western before but Leone found it coincidentally easy to adapt your Jimbo into the western genre Kurosawa loved Occidental forms of storytelling from classic Hollywood movies to Shakespeare being a Japanese man obsessed with everything Western you might say that Kurosawa was the antithesis of a weak his western style influences ran deeper than just cowboy films as he also made Shakespearean adaptations in film Noirs but that's for another video we might take a globalized culture for granted now in 2019 but in the mid 20th century that was something completely new before World War two samurai films and Ben Chi the kind of silent film where presenter would narrate the film in the cinema were all the rage once World War two commenced however all films needed to showcase the greatness of the Emperor it's definitely not fair to think that Japan was the only country making propaganda films but I find one of the restrictions of these propaganda films interesting filmmakers were told they couldn't exaggerate the cruelties of war with overly realistic depictions blood and guts weren't exactly allowed in American films either but the contradictory nature of this quote is striking don't show the realistic horrors of war please because that is hyperbole and nothing close to reality not to spoil anything but Japan lost to ensure the Empire would never rise again the u.s. demilitarized Japan and with the help of Hollywood used American films to change Japanese culture over 600 films were shown to the Japanese populace in order to promote the American Way of life Studios also flooded their films in war-torn Western European nations you know depending upon how you view history you could see world war 2 is a bloody ploy from movie studios to internationally showcase their films the influx of American films into Japanese movie theaters no doubt affected Japan's own cinema I might have made the relationship parasitic earlier in the video but in reality it was much more symbiotic it was sort of a rapport between the East and the West but I can't lie that American Studios love to remake Japanese films Toho would make movies like Seven Samurai in the hidden fortress and then Americans would make the Magnificent Seven in star wars but isn't imitation the highest form of flattery maybe that's why Disney loves to remake its own films but it's not enough to just say there's a connection because films are remade in other countries samurai and cowboy films share similar structures settings themes and characters there is a reason why it's so easy to turn a samurai into a cowboy they both are essentially a form of the knight-errant story which is a medieval genre about a knight traveling the world in pursuit of adventures in order to prove the silver-rich valley use in japan this kind of store is called Musha Shugyo so let's analyze the traits that both genres share both follow a loner or a group of Wanderers both featured generally stoic protagonists both showcase protagonists with a certain code of morals and honor their morals may not coincide with standard law and may also conflict with it the conflict often arises out of another character the antagonist living by a different code or no code at all in the sort of doom rawness of lives by a definite code of honor even if his actions make him more of a villain which Cassie Rob's banks but doesn't kill the protagonists are often skilled in combat almost always to an unrealistic extent samurai with their swords and cowboys with their guns the setting is almost never the home of the heroes instead the film's open with the wandering hero and end with the hero returning to wander in the classic western case the cowboy rides off into the sunset the landscape is a character whether it's the arid vast deserts of the American Southwest or the lush mountain villages of Japan they often deal with themes of modernization and justice in lawless or oppressive societies or sometimes they focus on enacting true justice outside the confines of the law an High Plains Drifter the stranger turns an entire town into hell on earth in order to punish the residents for a heinous crime serving as an allegory for the state of California now this isn't the case for every Western or samurai film but the protagonists are less like regular people and more like mythic heroes suku is like an unstoppable demon I mean his first name literally means dragon the man with no name and almost every samurai - cherem a foo net place feels like violent forces of nature the stranger in High Plains Drifter is quite literally a vengeful spirit this isn't the case of mythic characters and ordinary tales westerns tell the Genesis story of modern america and samurai films serve as a form of modern japanese mythos not to mention that the stories often feel like snippets of these characters lives each film is just one adventure but there's a sense that there are infinite adventures before and after what we see on screen it's similar to how we read myths about Greek and Roman heroes myths are no longer orally passed down generations but are instead projected onto the silver screen to the size of gods for all to witness not every samurai lives in the 8o period of Japan and not every cowboy exists in 1880's Arizona there are many cases in which the classical Western or samurai hero finds themselves in a completely different setting the most obvious example is Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog the way of the samurai were Forest Whitaker plays as a hitman who fancies himself a samurai you can trace its influence back to jean-pierre Melville's the samurai which again is a film about a hitman French this time who lives by a samurai code and then listening I was effectively remade as Nicolas Winding reference drive well not remade but it did heavily influenced the film all three of these films contain the structure and archetypal characters of westerns and samurai films but in modern urban settings as a last small example I want to take a look at Terrance Young's 1971 film red Sun the film stars Toshiro Mifune Charles Bronson Ursula Andress and Alain Delon what's interesting is that Mifune starred in Seven Samurai and Bronson starred in the remake Magnificent Seven they long of course is known for his leading role in the samurai and Andres was the famous honey writer from dr. know although I don't know how that factors into westerns the plot sees them hunting down a gang that stole an ancient Japanese sword and was intended as a gift from Japan to the US the film itself is a statement on the relationship between samurais and cowboys seamlessly blending the two together for an adventure in the West even though it might have been shot in Spain by a French company mr. Ector was British so hopefully after this video you can pop on at Kurosawa kobayashi film and watch them with newfound appreciation or maybe you'll notice the eastern influences and one of your favorite westerns films aren't made in a vacuum and maybe the case of the Cowboys and the samurais show how we as people have universal stories that transcend cultures [Music]

Channel: The Kino Corner

Views: 132,675

Keywords: Western, Samurai, Kino, The Kino Corner, Clint Eastwood, Sergio leone, Spaghetti, Kobayashi, Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune, The Sword of Doom, Japan, West, America, Films, Movies, Video Essay, John Ford, John Wayne, cinema, Criterion, Hollywood, Southwest, Wild West, Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress, Red Sun

Id: nLIv01Q2EB4

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 19 2019