Anniversaries of the two Ballads of Narayama
The Golden Thousand included two films with the same name - "Narayama bushikô 楢山節考 (The Ballad of Narayama)". One of them is celebrating its 65th anniversary on June 1, 2023. The second - recently, on April 29, 2023, celebrated the 40th anniversary of its premiere. The connection between these films will be discussed below.
It all started with the fact that in 1956, 42-year-old guitarist Shichiro Fukuzawa decided to change his line of work and published the novel "Narayama bushikō 楢山節考 (The Ballad of Narayama)". The musician based the plot of his novel on an ancient legend that a certain feudal lord of one country issued a ruthless order that those who are too old to work should be thrown off the rocks because they are useless. Documentary evidence of whether it really happened or not, and if it was, then where, in Japan, in India or somewhere else, has never been given by anyone, but that's what it is and a legend. Be that as it may, the novel was very popular and brought its author the prestigious award established by the magazine Chūō Kōron, and at the same time the glory of a rising star in the literary firmament of Japan.
In the wake of the success, Shichiro Fukuzawa, over the next three years, created several more literary works, and the first of these was the novel "Tōhoku no Zunmu-tachi 東北の神武たち (The Gods of Tohoku)" (1957). This novel was also based on a legend according to which, in a village isolated from the outside world, there was a tradition according to which only the eldest sons could marry and inherit the property of their parents, while the younger sons were obliged to work the land and did not have the right to have sex. In the same 1957, the famous Japanese film director Kon Ichikawa made a film adaptation of this novel.
The film by Kon Ichikawa based on the novel by Shichiro Fukuzawa became a kind of impetus for the birth of the idea of the film adaptation of the "The Ballad of Narayama", moreover, two filmmakers at once. One of them was the 46-year-old venerable Keisuke Kinoshita, who by that time already had more than 30 films under his belt. The second is 32-year-old Shohei Imamura, who by that time had already worked at various film studios for 7 years, but had not yet made a single film on his own. It is clear that Kinoshita had undeniable advantages, which he took advantage of. On June 1, 1958, "Ballad of Narayama", directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, premiered in Japan.
Shortly after appearing on the screens of Japanese cinemas, the film was nominated for the Golden Lion of the Venice International Film Festival in 1958, but the jury of the festival, chaired by Jean Grémillon, awarded the main prize to another Japanese film – “Muhomatsu no issho (The Rickshaw Man)”. But at the audience “The Rickshaw Man” was much less successful than “The Ballad of Narayama”. By the way, as a member of the jury of that film festival was the famous Soviet film director Sergei Vasiliev, one of the creators of the legendary film "Chapaev."
Japan submitted this film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but the film was not included in the list of nominees.
The film reached the American cinema viewer three years later. A.H. Weiler (by the way, born in Russia), who noted in his review that the film was staged in the style of the traditional Japanese Kabuki theater, unusual for the eyes of a Western audience, wrote that
«viewing "Ballad of Narayama," like tasting shark's fin soup for the first time, can be an exotic, if not a sobering, experience. »
The film did not reach the Soviet cinema audience at all.
Roger Ebert, who rated the film 4 out of 4 stars and included it in his "Great Movies" list, wrote about the film in his review dated March 7, 2013.:
""The Ballad of Narayama" is a Japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. What a space it opens up between its origins in the kabuki style and its subject of starvation in a mountain village!"
And this film was the last that Ebert included in his list of "Great Movies". One month after the publication of the review, Ebert passed away.
And Shohei Imamura patiently waited in the wings. And waited. In 1983, exactly a quarter of a century after the release of Keisuke Kinoshita's film, he presented to the audience his version of the film adaptation of the novel by Shichiro Fukuzawa. More precisely, not one novel, but two at once, since he combined the plots of the novels "The Ballad of Narayama" and "The Gods of Tohoku". Naturally, there is very little left of the manners of the Kabuki theater that impressed American film critics in Imamura's version. Infused into the plot of "Ballad" the plot of "Gods of Tohoku", steeply mixed with sexual themes, demanded harsh naturalism, up to the depiction of copulation with animals. But this ensured the film festival success.
Two weeks after its premiere in Japan, Shohei Imamura's film was presented to the guests and participants of the Cannes International Film Festival. The jury of the film festival, headed by the American writer William Styron, awarded Imamura's film the main prize of the festival - the Palme d'Or. Although among the contenders for this award were, in particular, "Nostalgia" by Andrei Tarkovsky, "King of Comedy" by Martin Scorsese, "Station for Two" by Eldar Ryazanov and others. By the way, the jury of this film festival also included a representative of Soviet cinema - Sergei Bondarchuk. A year later, at home, Shohei Imamura's "The Ballad of Narayama" received 11 nominations for the Japanese Academy Film Awards and won three of them, including in the all-important category - Best Japanese Film.
While Imamura's film was more successful in the film community than Kinoshita's, the opinion of professional film critics leaned in the opposite direction. For example, Roger Ebert rated Imamura's film with the same 4 stars, but did not include it in his list of "Great Movies". Vincent Canby, a film reviewer for the influential New York Times, noted in his review not without sarcasm:
"Though the performances are good, especially Sumiko Sakamoto's as Orin and Ken Ogata's as Tatsuhei, ''The Ballad of Narayama'' is too picturesque to reflect the simple austerity of the story it tells...The sophisticated photographic techniques, including the long, lovely helicopter shot of snow-covered mountains that opens the film, have little to do with the primitive lives contained in the movie itself. The ultimate effect is not to celebrate nature, or to shock us out of our civilized lethargy, but to exploit nature in a manner designed to impress jaded audiences without actually disturbing them."
Unlike the 1958 film, the 1983 film, thanks to perestroika, hit the screens of Soviet cinemas and enjoyed great success - more than 21 million moviegoers.
As for the ratings of ordinary moviegoers, Shohei Imamura's film was rated from 8 to 10 by 63% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users, and Kinoshita's picture by 65% of users. But taking into account festival achievements, the 1983 film with a rating of 8,485 took a higher place in the Golden Thousand - 328th. Keisuke Kinoshita's film has a rating of 7.81, placing it in 969th place.
... And the fate of Shichiro Fukuzawa, on the basis of whose works 4 films were shot, two of which were included in the Golden Thousand, turned out to be rather sad. In 1960, Chūō Kōron published another of Fukuzawa's works, "Furyū mutan 風流夢譚 (The Tale of an Elegant Dream)". There was an episode in this story in which the protagonist recounts his dream in which the leftists take over the Imperial Palace and behead the emperor and empress, as well as the crown prince and crown princess, in front of an enthusiastic crowd. The story provoked terrible consequences: a certain 17-year-old ultra-patriot broke into the house of the editor-in-chief of the magazine, killed the maid, seriously wounded his wife. Despite the fact that Fukuzawa apologized, he was severely persecuted and was forced to go into hiding for 5 years. After these persecutions, he was no longer able to return to full-fledged literary activity. Years of wandering took a toll on his health: on October 31, 1968, he suffered a severe heart attack due to cardiomyopathy and was on the verge of life and death. After that, he spent 19 years fighting the disease until his death. He ended his life as a pie salesman in the working-class neighborhoods of Tokyo.
