Shogun by Clavell in miniseries format

I'll pretty much watch anything about Asia. I'd even look at a campy low cost production from the early 80s like Shogun for entertainment. The TV series was pretty campy. It didn't get any noms or awards. And a lot of the set pieces, like the boats, were pretty crappy. This was back in the days before CGI and such. So actual boats had to be used with a simulated sea. It might've worked back then, but it looks pretty bad nowadays. And the overt references to politics and religion really strain the viewer to recall the 100 years War and the discovery of East Asia.

I think back to the current political state of affairs when this TV series was produced. TV was still a big market, really the only one. There was no internet. And Thatcher and Reagan were in office with the bluster of election wins, proclaiming a revolution. Japan was a driving force in World affairs. It seemed like the Japanese were going to take over the World. In fact they didn't. But a film like Shogun shows how interest in Japan was at a fever pitch during the 80s. The Japanese even have a statue to commemorate the decade of the 80s in Japan.

I thought all the talk and conflicts about religion and race really indicative of the time period the film was made. I thought it could be a artifact about the 80s. In the US, the religious right was a major force in the 80s. Reagan used it to his advantage. The film makes much about the conflict in Christianity between Protestants and Catholics. There is also much talk about the West and East. All of it stays surface level. Things never get that dramatic.

It's TV, what do you expect? Yet the series is still compelling as a story about the discovery of Japan and the opening of it's culture. Although it would close it doors to the World for centuries, eventually it opened up. Thats another long story. It would be interesting if there was a film made about the Meiji Restoration period. Most Japanese films, that deal with History, are usually focused on the Empire period and the Wars that happened in the early 20th Century.

Somewhat entertaining. Not as good as something by one of the countless Japanese auteurs.

Russian Films

I was reading film comment two nights ago and I started to get ideas about watching film. Last week I went to Stupid Fucking Bird which is based on a Chekhov play. The play was good. I felt like the main character was going through playwriting class during his monologues. It also seemed to be a reflection of current times. It was good. I enjoyed it.

Afterwards I started to think about a class about Russian Literature and Film. Of course I don't speak Russian and I've never been there, but I entertained the thought anyway. I've taken some Russian History classes and I've been interested in Russia as a place through films like Dotocr Zhivago and some early Soviet filmmakers like Eisentstein and Dziga Vertov. And further along came Zvaganinstsev's Leviathan which I thought was great. Too bad it missed best foreign language film in the oscars race. I thought it should have won.

Anyway I thought about War and Peace and it turns out there's been numerous adaptations of Tolstoy's classic. My plan was to buy or rent all of the copies of War and Peace and then compare them to find out which one was the best. There is the Audrey Hepburn edition from the 50's which seemed good, but perhaps a little short. I had watched it years ago when I was reading a book about World Cinema. I thought that I should watch it again years later to see if it's any good. It didn't win any major awards, but any rendition of War and Peace deserves a look. Then there is the Sergei Bondarchuk edition which is in Russian and features an all Russian cast. I bought the DVD and I'm hoping that the film has subtitles because I don't understand Russian. After the 60's Russian version which won best Foreign Language film Oscar the year it was released comes a BBC production starrring Anthony Hopkins at a very young age. I'm up to episode 11 in the series of 20 episodes. I've got to write a paper for my MFA, then I'm going to immerse myself in War and Peace and write about which film is the best in my judgement.

There is also a current release of the film from 2015. It's a miniseries. It looks like War and Peace in the digital age. I should probably take a look.

Similar to War and Peace is Tolstoy's other well known novel which has been adapted for the screen numerous times. It is Anna Karenina. I read the Tom Stoppard script to the Keira Knightly starrring film from a few years back. After doing some quick searches on amazon, I found out that the role of Anna Karenina is a popular one among actresses. Not only Knightley, but also Sophie Marceau, Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh have all played the doomed adulteress. I'd like to make a similar plan for Anna Karenina. And then decide which one I like the best.

Of course in an exercise like this one, budget and time are the most important things. War and Peace and Anna Karenina were written at a time when authors released their work in segments. So the longer they wrote the more segments they would have in publications. Which is why Tolstoy and Dostoevsky wrote such long novels. Charles Dickens too wrote really long books like Bleak House.

Well it looks like I have a project for the Summer break. We'll see how it goes.