Kurosawa's Eastern
"Western":
Sanjuro^ and^ the
Influence of Shane"
David Desser
If we understand Donald Richie and Noe'l Burch to occupy a kind of
co-chairmanship of Japanese film criticism in America and Europe,' they
share their chair uneasily. Richie stands for a kind of international
humanism in which he seeks to understand the Japanese film from an
archetypical, psycho-cultural point of view. Burch represents the side of
formalism and materialism,findingthe Japanese cinema to be Hollywood's
"other." Yet their respective programs converge in a significant way: they
each use "Japaneseness" as a criterion of value. Films and filmmakers
which manifest uniquely Japanese modes and points of view are valued
above those which do not. "Japaneseness," of course, is degined differently
for both men. yet it occupies a central position in their criticism.
The idea of Japaneseness has led both men to undervalue or misread
one of the Japanese cinema's most important films: Akira Kurosawa's
Sanjuro. Noel Burch is able to dismissSanjuro with an annoying condescension,
telling us that the film has only a "slight interest,"^ and saying
it is nothing more than a "passing concession to popular taste."^ Burch is
able to dismiss Sanjuro because, like Yo;imbo, it must be "nothing more
than a fusion of the latter-day chambera \s\c] tradition with the Hollywood
Western...."'' For Burch, the mainstream Hollywood cinema cannot, by
definition, be politically progressive. Therefore, any filmmaker working in
that mode is first of all to be castigated and second of all, cast out from the
pantheon of Japaneseness. The possibility that Japanese filmmakers can
utilize the classic Hollywood patterns for their own particular ends has
escaped Burch. This has led to his dismissal of such a crucial film as
Sanjuro.^
Richie, on the other hand, has nothing but praise forSanyuro. He sees
it as a consummate example of afilmwhich satirizes and ridicules the standard
chambara formula. For Richie. Sanjuro addresses the corruption and
54
hollowness of so much of contemporary Bushido and how the code has
been turned into an empty set of cliches. For Richie, then, Sanjuro is a
uniquely Japanese film. He says that Sanjuro is "stylistically,,,based upon
only two factors: Yojimbo and the ordinary Japanese;idai-ge/ci"' (emphasis
added). Paradoxically, Richie has missed the Western influences upon
Sanjuro, while Burch has missed its essential Japaneseness, Who is right?
Actually, both men are wrong in that they have missed Kurosawa's
essential technical strategy, Kurosawa has chosen to work in a dialectical
mode of narrative and formal construction. In his very style he examines the
relationship between Japanese and Western (American) film. This
combinatory mode can best be seen in Sanjuro, which in many ways is
basically a remake of George Stevens' Shane. To show this I will
demonstrate, using Will Wright's Sixguns and Society as a standard of
generic functions, the ways in which Sanjuro can be seen as a classic
Western,'I will then go on to show theways in whichSan/uro diverges from
Shane. Sanjuro is obviously not a Western, but it is not a Western in
specifically and significantly Japanese ways. The significance of the film
thus rests in its deliberate conjunction of certain Western motifs and
structures in order to create a work both meaningful to the Japanese and
specific to the notion of Japaneseness, Sanjuro poses issues in crosscultural
adaptation and influence that are central not only to an understanding
of Kurosawa's ovevre but to the Americanization of Japan,
Although the relevant criticism of Will Wright's program in the
Western film is not being ignored here, his morphology of the classic
Western is strong enough, I feel, to underwrite my comparison ofShane and
Sanjuro. Of course, I will be elucidating similarities that go beyond Wright,
for the connections between Shane and Sanjuro axe extremely strong.
According to Wright, Shane is a Western of the "classical" type, a type
defined by some sixteen "functions" (a syntactical feature Wright adopts
from Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale). Wright's listing of functions
comprises a virtual plot synopsis of Shane. With regard to other classical
Westerns, Wright says that "not all the functions will apply to all the films,"
but that basically all the films share a similarity: "Each film is the
story of a hero who is somehow estranged from his society but on whose
ability rests the fate of that society,"* This basic descriptionfitsSanjuro as
well. More importantly (for this description fits literally hundreds of other
films within and without the Western genre), Sanjuro manifests some
thirteen of the sixteen functions which define the classical Western:
1) The hero enters a social group,
2) The hero is unknown to the society,
3) The hero is revealed to have an exceptional ability,
4) The society recognizes a difference between themselves and the
hero; the hero is given a special status,
5) The society does not completely accept the hero,
6) There is a conflict of interests between the villains and the society,
7) The villains are stronger than the society; the society is weak,
8) There is a strong friendship or respect between the hero and a
villain.
55
9) The villains threaten the society.
12) The hero fights the villain.
13) The hero defeats the villain.
14) The society is safe.
15) The society accepts the hero.'
(Missing from this list are the following functions: 10) The hero avoids
involvement in the conflict; 11) The villains endanger a friend of the hero;
and 16) The hero loses or give up his special status.) More detailed analysis
of San;uro and Shane will show similarities beyond this morphological level.
If we understand Shane, for all its formal brilliance, to have an
essentially child-like appeal (a film willing to ignore its own subtleties by
displacing the metaphysics and ethics onto character), so, too Sanjuro has
this same phenomenological base. Both utilize children's point of view in
their narrative, thereby imbuing the films with something of the nature of a
folk tale. Sanjuro and Shane use children (or youths) as structuring
principles to create heroic/mythic images out of their main characters. Both
films work a dialectic between history and myth to comment upon the
importance and meaning of myth in today's world. (The ways in which the
treatment of myth differs separate the two films.)
Shane is first seen by little Joey Starrett framed between the antlers
of a deer out on the horizon. Thus, Shane is immediately associated
with nature. His links with the wilderness, further emphasized by his
costume, make him a kind of autochthonous being in the mythic sense.
The hero's arrrival, seemingly from out of nowhere or from the very
sjjot he inhabits, is duplicated in Sanjuro. The eponymous hero is
introduced through the mediation of youngsters and is first heard and seen
from their point of view. A disembodied laugh and an entrance from out of
the shadows of a room mark the appearance of Sanjuro. It is significant that
Sanjuro spring forth from this room, this civilized interior, for thefilmwill
take place primarily in and around such rooms as he then inhabits. Thus
Shane, which is about the transformation of nature into culture, has a hero
born of nature, while Sanjuro, which is about the return to culture, has a
hero associated with it.
Both the characters of Shane and Sanjuro take on the role of mentor/
teacher to the respective youths in thefilms.This teacher/disciple device is
common to many Westerns, both classical and otherwise (e.g.. Red River,
The Searchers, The Tin Star, Ride the High Country), and it is also
characteristic of many samurai films. But it is more particularly associated,
as Richard Tucker has perceptively pointed out,'" with Kurosawa's cinema
(e.g., Sanshiro Sugata, Stray Dog, Seven Samurai, Red Beard). Teacher/
disciple relationships characterize much of traditional Japanese culture, of
course, so that I am by no means claiming that its appearance in Sanjuro
is a function of its relationship to Shane. However, the quality of the relationship
in Sanjuro differs from the "feudalistic" forms it takes in Kurosawa's
other films, and this, I am claiming, is a function of its relationship to
Shane. This role of mentor/teacher endows each hero with an added
stature when the audience sees them through the eyes of youth.
In their roles as mentors, both Shane and Sanjuro become juxtaposed
56
against father-figures, functioning as alternative father-figures to the young
protagonists. Shane is constantly compared to Joe Starrett by little Joey.
For instance, Joey wonders which of the two adults is the better fighter, or
which can shoot faster. Little Joey undeniably finds Shane a more attractive
model than the more prosaic Joe Starrett (which duplicates the audience's
perceptions, partly a function of the casting of Van Hefliln opposite Alan
Ladd). Similarly, Iiro (Yuzo Kayama), the leader of the young samurai in
Sanjuro, is quickly won over by the dynamic hero and by the end ofthe film
is ready to forsake his family to accompany the ronin-hero. (We do not
actually see the father-figure of Sanjuro, the clan Chamberlain and Iiro's
uncle, until very late in the film. At that time, however, much is made of the
physical disparity between the Chamberlain and Sanjuro. The latter, of
course, is played by Toshiro Mifune, and Japan hardly has a more dynamic
actor.) Of equal importance is the fact that both Shane and Sanjuro have a
healthy respect for the father-figures against whom they are juxtaposed.
Shane agrees to work for Joe Starrett because he admires him and respects
what he is trying to accomplish. By working together, for instance, the two
men are able to uproot a tree trunk that has been plaguing the Starrett
farm." At the climax, Shane risks his life to battle the gunman, Wilson, even
though Joe insists that he be the one to face him. Sanjuro, too, joins the
cause of the young samurai because, even though he has never yet met the
Chamberlain, he likes the man based upon his reputation. Sanjuro and the
Chamberlain, although they do not initially know it, work together (albeit
separately) to defeat the villains, the Chamberlain stalling for time and
Sanjuro through more active measures.
The decision by Shane and Sanjuro to leave the society after they
defeat the villains is similarly based on their respect for the father-figures.
Each man knows he has no place in the society he has helped bring about
and does not wish to act as a reminder to the father of his heroism. Both
Shane and Sanjuro know that the youths admire and look up to them. They
know that the fathers cannot compete with their heroic image. They leave
because by so doing, they restore the father-figure to his rightful place.
There is a scene in Sanjuro in which all this is made explicit. The
Chamberlain expresses to his wife, daughter, and to Iiro how he is grateful
that Sanjuro left. Such a man, he says, would have been too much for him. It
is not that Sanjuro would literally have been too much, for Sanjuro would
hardly rebel against the Chamberlain whom he likes, but that the image of
Sanjuro would overwhelm that of the Chamberlain. This scene, the penultimate
one of Sanjuro, redresses this missing scene in Shane.^^ It fills
in for the Starretts' reaction to learning from little Joey that Shane will not
be coming back (a reaction which must take place after the film is over).
Marion, who loves Shane (but who loves her husband no less), must be
relieved, at least, at Shane's departure.
Both Shane and Sanjuro, as heroic characters, take on importance
and stature not only in juxtaposition with father-figures, but against outlaw
or villain-figures. Both films introduce an antagonist who is related
thematically and structurally to the hero. In Shane, this character is
Wilson (Jack Palance); in Sanjuro, it is Muroto Hanbei (Tatsuya Nakadai).
57
If Starrett is actually opposed to Ryker. the rancher, then Shane is opposed
to Wilson, Ryker's hired gun. Similarly, the Chamberlain is opposed to
Kikui, the crooked magistrate, and Sanjuro is opposed to Hanbei, the
magistrate's hired work. These relationships may be schematized thusly:
Shane: Joe Starrett :: Sanjuro : Chamberlain
Shane: Wilson :: Sanjuro : Hanbei
The outlaw-villains ofShane and Sanjuro share a kind of kinship with
the outlaw-heroes. Shane is certainly aware of Wilson by reputation, while
it is likely (if a trifle unclear) that Wilson has heard of Shane. Hanbei
recognizes in Sanjuro a kindred spirit. Shane knows that Joe Starrett is no
match for Hanbei. Sanjuro's respect for Hanbei is so great, in fact, that he
even tries to talk his way out of their duel. It is not that Sanjuro is afraid
to die (even if he really is unsure as to what the outcome will be), but
rather that the death of one of them would be a tragedy-there are so few real
samurai left in the world.
It is significant that thefinal,inevitable confrontations between hero
and opposed villain be witnessed by the youth. Little Joey is thrilled when
Shane kills Wilson, as well as the two Ryker brothers. The impressive
impact of thisfinalfightstems from Shane's being outnumbered. The final
fight in Sanjuro, similarly witnessed by the youth, is impressive for the
fountain of blood Sanjuro brings forth out of Hanbei. It both cases, the
youths are awestruck (and so is the audience of Sanjuro). Following the
fights, the youngster wants either to have the hero return home with him
(Shane) or to accompany the hero on his journey {Sanjuro). In both cases,
the request is denied. The hero sends the youngsters back home. The hero
then, watched by the youngsters, heads off into the sunset.
The story pattern and plot structure of Sanjuro thus may be seen to fit
rather neatly into the pattern ofthe classical Western. Wright also sees his
plot types as possessing a number of basic oppositions apparent in an
analysis of the symbolic roles of the different characters (heroes, villains,
society's members). The oppositions he isolates in the classical Western
are: inside/outside; good/bad; strong/weak; and the fourth, wilderness/
civilization, being "perhaps the typically American aspect of the Western."i3
Wright sees the inside/outside opposition as related to, but not identical
with, the wilderness/civilization dichotomy. It seems to me that the link
between the two oppositions would be strengthened by introducing a third
binary pair, namely nomad/settler. This seems to embody both the idea of
outside/inside and wilderness/civilization. This dichotomy characterizes
both Shane and Sanjuro. They both clearly are outsiders and both are
nomads. Shane's links to the wilderness have already been touched upon.
Sanjuro's links to the wilderness are more subtle. His introductory
associations are with civilization and the whole of thefilmis concerned with
such forces. However, as an outsider, a nomad, Sanjuro, from a Japanese
point of view, is clearly not as "civilized" as the rest of society, and much is
made of this point ( more about this later).
Wright sees the good/bad opposition in Shane from the point of view
of normative values. The societal insiders possess social, progressive ideals,
whereas the outsiders, the villains, hold to selfish economic gain." This
good/bad dichotomy is reproduced in Sanjuro where the Chamberlain, the
58
iijisider, represents harmonious social relations, while the villains seek mere
economic gain. This is made explicit when Hanbei tells Sanjuro that once he
i^ in control he will eliminate Kikui and reap the rewards. Shane and Sanjuro
are both initially mistrusted by the members of society whom they wish to
a'jd because they are both outsiders. With no moral stake in the formation
cir maintenance of the community, their motives are suspect.
ji The strong/weak opposition, according to Wright, aligns the heroes
and villains on one side and the society on the other.'' I have already
elucidated the relationship between Sanjuro and Hanbei, which
structurally duplicates that between Shane and Wilson. And if the young
samurai in Sanjuro are somewhat more admirable than the bulk of the
' farmers in Shane in their willingness to fight for their own cause, it does
riot disguise the fact that without Sanjuro's help they would easily have gone
down in quick defeat.
The opposition wilderness/civilization might seem to break down the
structural similarities between Shane and Sanjuro. If we accept Wright's
contention that civilization is "a concern with the money, tools, and
products of American culture,"" then it does indeed end this portion of our
discussion. But if we alter the terms of the definition slightly by placing the
opposition in the realm of character (which is where both films essentially
dperate), the similarities are again crucial. Shane's "natural" or wilderness
attributes are typically noted in discussions of the film. Less frequently
commented upon are his cultural attributes. For instances, in the first dinner
Shane shares with the Starretts, Marion lays out their best china. Shane
thus is understood by Marion to have an understanding of the finer things
in (civilized) life. More obviously, at the Fourth of July dance (which is also,
appropriately enough, the Starrett's wedding anniversary), it is Shane who
dances with Marion. Too, Shane's comment to Marion that a gun is merely a
tool rriakes explicit Shane's recognition of culture's ability to tame nature.
Shane, like many a Western hero, contains attributes of both the wilderness
and civilization within himself. The subversion of his wild side-either by
hanging up his gun, by leaving the valley, or by dying-characterizes the
typical Western hero.
Sanjuro also balances the forces of nature and culture, as we have
seen. In a sense, the samurai sword marks one of civilization's highest
achievements, being the finest sword ever forged by man. And if the society
in Shane marks the struggle between nature, in the form of the rancher
Ryker, and culture, in the form of the farmers, the issue in Sanjuro is one of
too much culture. Although, like Sanjuro, the young samurai wear swords,
they really cannot use them. They have been taught to use them, but have
riever used them in real action. It takes the natural man, Sanjuro, one closer
to his roots as a warrior, to rescue the civilized, would-be fighters. And
since Sanjuro is unable, or unwilling, to put aside his wild ways, he, too, must
leave the new, or rebuilt, society.
It is clear by now, I hope, that by Wright's standards and the ones I
have elaborated, Sanjuro is something of a remake of Shane, a
transposition of it in much the same way that The Magnificent Seven
transposes Seven Samurai or A Fistful of Dollars is a remake of Yojimbo.
59
Yet the question still remains, is Sanjuro a classical Western? By a kind of
oral telling, or a written plot synopsis, the twofilmsare almost indistinguishable.
Yet Sanjuro is not a Western; to say this is almost to say nothing
on one level, for Sanjuro is obviously not a Western, Simply put, it does not
take place in the American West (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), "The
element that most clearly defines the Western is the symbolic landscape in
which it takes place and the influence this landscape has on the characters
and actions of the hero,"" The Western film is defined as much by John
Ford's fabulous vistas of Monument Valley, Anthony Mann's majestic
mountains, and Budd Boetticher's barren landscapes as the narrative
patterns and character relationships Wright utilizes, Sanjuro, to put it
simply, cannot be a Western because it does not look like one, Kurosawa is
well aware of this fact, however, and puts it to creative use. He places his
"Western" in a landscape at the thematic opposite of the wide-open spaces
of the West, Sanjuro, despite the CinemaScope framing (Shane was shot in
the then-standard Academy aperture), is Kurosawa's most visually
restricted film. Much of it takes place indoors; outdoor locales are almost
entirely relegated to spaces defined by buildings-alleys, gardens, streets,
Stevens revels in the open spaces of the Grand Tetons, and makes much
symbolic use of Marion Starrett's garden (which encapsulates the thematic
opposition of wilderness/civilization, of course), Kurosawa revels in the
closed spaces of hisfilm,A river, which for Stevens would be a part of the
natural landscape, becomes, in Sanjuro, a stream connecting two
mansions. Landscape is symbolic in Sanjuro, but since the landscape is
different, so, too, is its metaphoric significance.
It is, in fact, at the level of metaphor and of aesthetics as a sign system
that Sanjuro diverges from Shane and enters into that realm uniquely
Japanese which should be prized by Burch, Sanjuro manifests the kind of
aesthetic foregrounding and intertextuality which Burch prizes so highly,
but he has undervalued the film's essentially dialectical construction. We
can see the kind of metaphorical and aesthetic foregrounding and the
dialectical nature of Kurosawa's strategy by examining a number ofcodes at
work in the two texts.
The first code to be examined is that of names. The titles ofboth films
are also the names of the central characters. This eponymous characterization
indicates that the central thrust of both narratives will be on
character, on the person so named who gives his name to the film. The
names of the characters, as names, already perform a mythicizing function.
In the contexts of the films, both "Shane" and"Sanjuro" strengthen the
characters' autochthony. When asked his nafne, the reply is "Call me
Shane," (This scene is humorously echoed in TheMagnificentSeven. Steve
McQueen's character, when asked his name, replies, "Make it Vin,")
Similarly, Sanjuro, when asked his name, ponders for a moment before,
implausibly, arriving at "Sanjuro Tsubaki," But it is this very implausibility
of Sanjuro's name versus the quite plausible, although clearly different (i,e,,
slightly out of the ordinary) name of Shane which points up a subtle
difference between the two films. For we must recognize that the two
names, Shane and Sanjuro, belong to two different discursive orders.
60
Shane, as a name, has a metonymic quality. It could be a first name, a last
name, or a nickname, but it is a name, and it is only a name.
It isn't something else. The wordSan;uro, on the other hand, actually means
"thirty years old;" tsubaki means "camellias." This is not a translation
6i the Japanese characters for the lead character's name. It is as if Shane,
when asked his name, replied, "Call me Camellias, thirty years old!" Thus, if
"Shane" is metonymic, "Sanjuro" is metaphoric.'s This is to say that
Sanjuro, in calling himself something, brings to bear another realm of
discourse. (This is an echo from Yojimbo, where Mifune's character calls
himself "Kuwabatake Sanjuro"--mulberryfield,thirty years old. Considering
the importance of names in Japanese society, Sanjuro, in making up a name
for himself, already positions himself outside of culture. But the specific
name establishes links with nature on two metaphoric levels [tsubaki, plus
the self-creation.] Thus, the selection of names for the heroes of the films is
one index of the greater sophistication of San;uro and the manner in which
codes of the Western are transposed.
If Sanjuro's use of metaphor exceeds that of Shane's, it is in the realm
of aesthetics, or the foregrounding of a code of aesthetics, where the two
films diverge almost completely. Codes, such as "The Code ofthe West," or
"Bushido," characterize the ideals encapsulated by Westerns and samurai
films. Richie, as I have mentioned, prizes Sanjuro for the way in which it
points up so much of the hollowness of Bushido as practiced in the ordinary
jidai-geki. But that is not exactly what Sanjuro does. Rather, itfindshumor
in the disjunction between the code in theory and the lack of the code in
practice. It is not Bushido, or the Code of the West, that comes in for attack.
It is the force of such a code in operation which Kurosawa examines, the
manner in which subscription to a code, to, that is, a set of significations,
causes human misunderstandings.
The young samurai in Sanjuro always have a basic mistrust of the hero,
even while they follow and admire him. Sanjuro is a ronin, an unemployed
samurai, which offends their sense of order. Further, he is dirty, grubby, illmannered,
and gruff. The youngsters see Sanjuro's clothes and apparent
attitude as an objective correlative, which indeed it is, but his actions do not
correlate to what they infer."
The lack of trust on the part of the young samurai becomes a constant
source of humor and tension in the film. Their misunderstanding
(misreading) of Sanjuro leads almost to the defeat of their plans. Their
reliance on an objective code of behavior and aesthetics prevents them from
seeing the true nature of their would-be rescuer.
The difference in nature between Scinjuro and the youngsters is wittily
shown by Kurosawa, not only by words and deeds, but by his framing
strategies. Kurosawa uses the 'Scope frame to juxtapose the horizontality of
Sanjuro with the verticality of the samurai. Whereas they always sit upright
in true samurai posture, Sanjuro likes to sprawl out across the tatami. One
montage sequence reveals this quite clearly. Some of the samurai have been
sent out as scouts to see what is happening. Sanjuro and the rest of them
await their reports. As the scouts come in, the young samurai sitting upright
listen carefully; in the background, or in the foreground (but never in the
61
middleground), Sanjuro lies horizontally across the frame, typically yawning
and scratching. The difference in posture, emphasized through the framing,
is the perfect metaphor for the disjunction between social codes, between
deeds and meanings.
There is one person in the film who does, instinctively, understand
Sanjuro, and understand the disjunction between social/aesthetic codes,
and that is the Chamberlain's wife. When Sanjuro rescues her from her
captors, she is distressed to learn that he has had to kill two of them. Sanjuro
is nonplussed at her criticism, but accepts it mutely (for him). Then, in order
to escape from their compound, they must climb a stone wall. The woman is
unable to jump to the top, so Sanjuro offers to act as a footstool. The old
woman refuses, claiming it would be "impolite." Indeed it would be impolite,
but the invocation of such a social code under the circumstances is a bit
absurd. Sanjuro understands her, however, and so reminds her that unless
she accepts his offer he will have to kill again. This prospect inspires her to
place one aesthetic value before another and over the wall she goes,
apologizing all the while for her rudeness.
On the other hand, the old lady's sense of aesthetics is not without a
certain legitimacy. We see this in a number of ways. One of them is during
the celebration over the discovery of the Chamberlain's place of
imprisonment. In the midst of their jumping about, the young samurai notice
that their prisoner, who has been kept in a closet, is leaping forjoy alongwith
them. When asked why he did not run away, he says it is because the old
lady, who had untied his bonds, never thought that he would. At this time
they also notice that he is wearing Iiro's best kimono. He tells them the
old lady gave it to him because his was dirty.
The Chamberlain's wife introduces into the film the Zen paradox of
the "undrawn sword." She reminds Sanjuro that the very best swords '
remain in their scabbards. She compares him to a drawn sword and would
prefer that he were not that way. Such a paradox, that of the best
swordsman who never uses his sword, abounds in the Zen annals. The
paradox underwrites the film precisely to the extent that an undrawn sword
is impossible, both on the narrative level and on the generic level. The
swordplay film (chambara), however much it pays homage to the aesthetics
of Zen, is impossible to conceive of minus swordplay. Kurosawa understands
this very well-hence the spectacular "fountain of blood" at the
climax.
The Chamberlain's wife at one extreme and Sanjuro at the other
represent the linked dichotomy that structures Sanjuro. The film is thus to
be understood not, like Shane, as an inevitable clash between the forces
of nature and the forces of culture, but as a struggle between aesthetic and
moral systems. At the level of shot composition, narrative conflict, and
verbal exchanges, this opposition is elaborated upon. This aesthetic tension
replaces the most significant absence in the transition from Shane to
Sanjuro: romantic, or sexual, tension. In both films the father-figures
are married. But in Shane, Marion Starrett (Jean Arthur) is a sexual
being. Much is made, subtly, of the sexual attraction between Shane and
Marion. At the end of the film Marion tells Shane not to face up to Wilson
62
if he is doing it for her. Similarly, Joe Starrett says to Shane that if he (Joe)
goes against Wilson and loses, he knows Shane will take care of Marion and
little Joey. But in Sanjuro there is no such comparable sexual triangle. Joan
Mellen notes how San/uro" introduces a woman who is...a match for the
ronin hero...But she is merely a peripheral character, and Kurosawa gives
her no name. She is also a woman of late middle age, having long passed the
time when she could use her sexuality against men.''^" Although Mellen is
wrong about the woman's peripheral status, she is quite right about her lack
of sexuality. However, it is not that Kurosawa is anti-romantic (there is
sexual by-play between Iiro and the Chamberlain's daughter); rather, that
his focus is on aesthetics as a system of beliefs. The Chamberlain's wife may
be seen as the dialectical opposite of Sanjuro (much as the Chamberlain
himself for whom she stands in during the builk of thefilm).If he represents
action, she is stasis; he is violent, she, passive.The woman is thus peripheral
to the action of Sanjuro, but central to its structure. Shane leaves so that the
sexual triangle he has caused may be broken; Sanjuro leaves because he is a
drawn sword in an age of peaceful fighters.
Stevens concludes Shane without ambiguities. Shane leaves to keep
the family unit whole; the gunfighter has no place in a civilized society; he is a
mythological being who returns to the earth whence he was born. Kurosawa
concludes Sanjuro with ambiguities aplenty. Sanjuro does not disrupt the
family unit, only the aesthetic system. But is such a system viable? Sanjuro is
a mythological being, but he is not born out of the earth, so his
wanderings are more complex than Shane's. Stevens is careful to
orchestrate the whole tone of Shane so that it reaches a tearful end. Shane,
wounded, rides off into the majestic mountains beyond as little Joey
calls after him, "Shane...come back Shane...we love you, Shane...Shane."
Sanjuro, having sliced open his opponent, is congratulated by the young
samurai. The audience, momentarily breathless, is brought to a different
mood when Sanjuro says, "Watch out, I'm in a bad mood!" A few moments
later, as the young men bow before him, he breaks into a small smile and
waves a jaunty, "bye," and saunters (Chaplinesque?) down the road.
Shane was an extremely popular film in Japan. But the narrative and
structural patterns in Shane are neither unique nor original to it. Shane
may very well be an archetypal Western, but it is hardly thefirst.Similarly,
Kurosawa need not have seen Shane to be familiar with both earlier
Westerns and earlier;idai-ge/ci influenced by Westerns. Kurosawa's affinity
for thefilmsof John Ford and his own claim to have been influenced by the
works of Hawks and Stevens should not make common connections too
surprising. The popular appeal of Shane in Japan and America, and the
popularity of Sanjuro in America and Japan demonstrate the appeal of their
mythic content to both cultures. But the differences between thefilmsmay
be said to rest precisely on Sanjuro's Japaneseness, on the manner in which
Kurosawa could structure afilmaround the clash of aesthetic systems. That
Sanjuro could seem merely a Western to a critic as perceptive as Noel
Burch, or could seem simply a spoof of chambara films to a writer as
knowledgeable as Donald Richie,demonstrates the work needed to be done
to bring theoretical and critical specificity to notions of "Eastern" and
"Western."
63
Notes
•Donald Richie's publications in the Japanese cinema are numerous.
They include Japanese Cinema: Film Style and National Character (New
York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1971); The Japanese Movie, rev. ed
(Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1981); The Films ofAkira Kurosawa
(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965). among others. Noe'l
Burch's major publication is To theDistant Observer: Form andMeaning in
the Japanese Cinema (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979).
2Burch, p. 318.
^Burch, p. 332.
"Burch, p. 318-9.
sBurch also undervalues Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, which, along
with Sanjuro, are possibly Kurosawa's most popularfilmsin America! Is this
a coincidence?
sRichie, The Films of Akira Kurosawa, p. 159.
'Will Wright, Sixguns and Society: A StructuralStudy ofthe Western
(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975).
'Wright, p. 40.
'Wright, pp. 48-9.
^°Japan: Film Image (London: Studio Vista, 1973), pp. 82-4.
"The tree trunk episode is downplayed in thefilm.Its symbolic weight
comes through more clearly in the novel by Jack Schaefer.
idea of redressing an absence in an intertextual fashion in the
cinema occurred to me when Martin "Scorsese and Paul Schrader
introduced the "Scar" scene in Taxi Driver, their loosely adapted version of
The Searchers.
'^Wright, p. 49.
'"Wright, p. 52.
'sWright, p. 55.
"Wright, p. 57.
"John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula
Stories at Art and Popular Culture (Chicago: University of Chicaqo Press
1976). p. 193.
'^This discussion of names was inspired by Claude Levi-Strauss'
discussion of the names we give pets in The Savage Mind (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 194-216.
64
"This is similar to points raised by Richie in The Films of Akira
Kurosawa, pp. 160, 162,
zojoan Mellen, The Waves at Genji's Door: Japan Through Its
Cinema (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976), pp, 52-3,
65