44 Silence

Discuss releases by Eureka and Masters of Cinema and the films on them.
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colinr0380
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#51 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Sep 22, 2007 9:32 am

An interesting article here: The Christology of Shusaku Endo.

Murasaki53
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#52 Post by Murasaki53 » Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:19 am

That certainly is an interesting article. One particular sentence caught my eye:

'The silence of God on the fumie is not the silence of "nihil." '

Somewhere, I seem to recall Shinoda being described as a nihilist. Which could mean that his interpretation of the 'Silence' is something rather different.

As for the movie itself, I hope the lack of post-release comment (a curious silence in itself) does not mean that it is being overlooked. Assassination is the only truly satisfying Shinoda movie that I have seen so far but as a director I do find him thought-provoking and Silence will certainly leave the viewer with much to ponder.

I'd also be interested to know what those familiar with Roland Joffe's extraordinary The Mission think of this film.

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Michael Kerpan
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#53 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sun Oct 07, 2007 11:59 am

Interesting that "Assassination" is your favorite Shinoda -- as it is one that I only admire rather than loving. "Silence" (on the other hand) is one I love -- with some reservations.

I can't see Shinoda as a nihilist -- nothing he said when visiting Harvard a few years back pointed in that direction.

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Der Müde Tod
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#54 Post by Der Müde Tod » Sun Oct 07, 2007 12:58 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:I can't see Shinoda as a nihilist -- nothing he said when visiting Harvard a few years back pointed in that direction.
This then, makes him the perfect nihilist, perhaps?

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sevenarts
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#55 Post by sevenarts » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:53 pm

I agree, I haven't seen Silence yet but nothing I've seen in the Shinoda films I have seen makes me think he could be described as a nihilist. In particular, there is so much beautiful humanism in Ballad of Orin, and a real sense that he is showing these things out of a desire for social change. His worldview is dark and even somewhat pessimistic, certainly, but I'd say that that belief in the capacity for change would preclude any charges of nihilism.

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#56 Post by Murasaki53 » Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:42 am

I was rather hoping that someone might have been able to pin down that reference to nihilism in Shinoda. It really stuck in my mind when I came across it because I found it surprising myself but I can't for the life of me recall whether it was in a DVD extra or in something I read.

I've had a look in Donald Richie's diaries and his guide to Japanese Cinema. Nothing.

Perhaps it came up in the interview with Shinoda that's an extra on Pale Flower.

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souvenir
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#57 Post by souvenir » Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:20 am

In the interview on the Pale Flower disc, Shinoda, talking about the film and the idea of the lone wolf choosing sides, says "nihilism was my primary theme."

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Michael Kerpan
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#58 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:33 am

souvenir wrote:In the interview on the Pale Flower disc, Shinoda, talking about the film and the idea of the lone wolf choosing sides, says "nihilism was my primary theme."
So -- Shinoda says the _film_ is about nihilism -- and not that _he_ is a nihilist.

;~}

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kinjitsu
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#59 Post by kinjitsu » Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:51 am

Exactly. Although his films might contain nihilistic themes and characters, this does not necessarily indicate that Shinoda is, or was, a nihilist.

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Tommaso
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#60 Post by Tommaso » Fri Oct 19, 2007 6:32 am

I finally received the "Silence" disc and watched it last night, and contrary to my expectations, I do have some mixed feelings about both film and the transfer. The film itself poses some striking questions, as has been already pointed out here and in the various reviews around, and certainly has some marvellous camera work in places, and a great sense of capturing the menace and confinement these Christians live in via the visuals. On the other hand, there are a lot of things about it that somewhat let me down. First of all, Shinoda's description of it as as 'spiritual adventure film' is most to the point, but here is where the problems start. There is little of the visual and narrative experimentation that makes "Double Suicide" so striking. In having a somewhat adventurous narrative (which also uncomfortably is mirroring the life of Christ, obviously) there seems to me a certain loss of impact of the main 'theme', i.e. the Silence of God. Probably the comparison is not really fair, but when I think of what Ingmar Bergman did with the same topic in his own film of (almost) the same name, I cannot help but saying that Shinoda/Endo's variant seems almost conventional. This is partly due to the characters: Kikuchiro with his 'weakness' is never really believable for me in his constant to-and-froing (is it slyness or real fear that motivates him?), for instance. Also Rodrigues' final apostasy seems somewhat too quick, especially if one considers the half-rape of the woman with which the film ends. How does he come to not only apostatize, but also give up his celibacy so quickly? This may have also something to do with Donald Lampson: I find him mis-cast and delivering an incredibly stiff performance. Whether he's supposed to look like Jesus I don't know. But he doesn't look like a 17th century priest either, but rather like people looked in the early 1970s. And he curiously reminded me of Richard Chamberlain in "The Thorn Birds" (does anyone still remember that howler?!!)....

I don't know either whether the 'horse torture' scene is in Endo's book or not, but almost exactly the same thing can be seen in Eisenstein's "Que Viva Mexico". Shinoda apparently was an Eisenstein fan, whether he had seen that film (considering it's troubled history) I can only guess at, but in any case: Sergej did it in a much more intense and frightening way. Minor point, surely.

I really loved Takemitsu's music, though. The comparison with both Dowland and Stockhausen made here is most the point, and it perfectly captures the mingling and clashing of the two cultures in this way.

About the look of the film on the disc: hmm...... it doesn't live up to what the caps Nick posted promised, sorry. For the first time in my life I wish that MoC had fiddled around with the contrast knob a little more. The film looks not only dark and desaturated (which is nice and surely what Shinoda intended), but sadly also somewhat unsharp, murky and lacklustre in many places. I'm fully aware that the transfer was HD and progressive, but still it looks often 'noisy' (as opposed to 'grainy') in the many dark moments, as if it came from an analogue video source originally. No complaints about the ingrained Japanese subs though , really not disturbing.

I wish I could see this all more positively, and I'm sure Nick did the best he could with the materials Toho gave them, but I have to say: this is by far the worst picture I've seen on an MoC disc.

To end on a positive note: the essay by Doug Cummings is great, one of the best I came across recently, not just in an MoC booklet. Highly informative, insightful, and pointing out all the things you need to know to understand both the characters' motivations and those of Endo and Shinoda.

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#61 Post by Murasaki53 » Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:20 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
souvenir wrote:In the interview on the Pale Flower disc, Shinoda, talking about the film and the idea of the lone wolf choosing sides, says "nihilism was my primary theme."
So -- Shinoda says the _film_ is about nihilism -- and not that _he_ is a nihilist.
You're quite right guys. Just checked out the Pale Flower disc. I then thought it might have been a remark Kobayashi made about Shinoda when Shinoda was interviewing him on Disc 2 of Harakiri.

Wrong again. My brain must have just aberrantly filed away the phrase 'the great nihilist of Japanese cinema' in the 'Shinoda' section of its long term memory.

And this isn't the first time I have come on this Forum and posted something daft! Still, at least it got a discussion going on a thread that was looking a bit... well, threadbare in the aftermath of the release of the film.

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zedz
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#62 Post by zedz » Fri Nov 02, 2007 12:09 am

Just a quick note to say that I don't get the quibbles with this transfer. My set-up isn't that high tech, but the film looked gorgeous: a warm bed of earth-tones offset with rich reds and greens. I was surprised by how 'modern' and nuanced the colour looked, even though the striking images (e.g. man and landscape) were quintessentially seventies.

As for the film, I found it a rather impressive study of religious fanaticism out of control (and that's just the Christians). I don't agree that "the silence of God" is the main theme - it's more of a given in this world - and Shinoda seems to be much more interested in the ways in which people 'manage' culture for political ends. The big problem with the film is Lampson: he's just awful, and gives a stiff, badly modulated performance that drains a lot from the film. The way he repeatedly screamed out to the Japanese (in English) immediately after the crucial moment verged on the comic. Maybe the s in Lampson's name should be an o?

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#63 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:58 am

zedz wrote:The big problem with the film is Lampson: he's just awful, and gives a stiff, badly modulated performance that drains a lot from the film.
I tend to agree. What surprised me with this film is how well it fared overall despite this hole right in the middle.

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zedz
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#64 Post by zedz » Fri Nov 02, 2007 3:57 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
zedz wrote:The big problem with the film is Lampson: he's just awful, and gives a stiff, badly modulated performance that drains a lot from the film.
I tend to agree. What surprised me with this film is how well it fared overall despite this hole right in the middle.
Really, it's the only obvious reason for Scorsese to revisit the film (while watching, I hoped that if I blinked twice he'd turn into Christian Bale), and even then I can't see that great an improvement. I certainly can't imagine a better looking film coming out of it. Miyagawa's work is brilliant, wildly different from his Mizoguchi work but just as great.

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Cold Bishop
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#65 Post by Cold Bishop » Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:40 pm

zedz wrote:Really, it's the only obvious reason for Scorsese to revisit the film (while watching, I hoped that if I blinked twice he'd turn into Christian Bale), and even then I can't see that great an improvement. I certainly can't imagine a better looking film coming out of it. Miyagawa's work is brilliant, wildly different from his Mizoguchi work but just as great.
I still haven't gotten around to ordering this but...
zedz wrote:I don't agree that "the silence of God" is the main theme - it's more of a given in this world

I imagine when Scorsese makes it this is going to be where the major change will occur. I can't imagine Scorsese making a movie where the silence of god is treated as a given.

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Michael Kerpan
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#66 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Nov 02, 2007 5:58 pm

zedz wrote:I certainly can't imagine a better looking film coming out of it. Miyagawa's work is brilliant, wildly different from his Mizoguchi work but just as great.
Have you seen Ballad or Orin? Also remarkably visually wonderful. ;~}

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Morandi
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#67 Post by Morandi » Tue Nov 20, 2007 6:18 am

have mixed feelings talking about this DVD.
first, i was not disappointed by the transfer. in my opinion the outdoor shots (especially ones at daytime) were quite good, colours seem to be accurate and no issues with contrast ... its a little bit different with the dark indoor shots, but i thinks those are very very difficult to manage on digital medium like a SD DVD. adding the booklet, the job was well done by MoC.
i had more problems with the movie, and like a lot of other users already had written its mainly because of the acting. lampson is a pain to watch. and he is not only stiff but the way he is talking: well done you know your lines by heart. i was disturbed by his make-up and the other padre in the end, i mean they did not look pale, they looked like gray-green zombies. on the other hand its a very interesting script, and the movie creates a very appropriate atmosphere, cinematography! score!! but enough of that, i can agree with most of the comments on the movie and i have nothing special to add.

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Cinephrenic
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#68 Post by Cinephrenic » Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:19 am

Martin Scorsese has plans to remake this film.

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FerdinandGriffon
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Re:

#69 Post by FerdinandGriffon » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:44 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:I strongly suspect that (as with Imamura's Eijanaika) there is not now (nor has there ever been) a print or negative without Japanese subtitles for English dialog. So -- no flaw on either MOC's part or Toho's (unless failing to foresee the digital future was a mistake).
The print I saw last night at Walter Reade was sans Japanese subtitles and drop-dead gorgeous.

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Re: 44 Silence

#70 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue May 19, 2020 2:33 pm

I finally watched this adaptation and feel like if going by faithfulness to the novel it's roughly the same as the Scorsese. I prefer the more recent one as its length is necessary to draw out the movement through acclimating to the culture. I also felt like the Shinoda film glossed over a lot of the Japanese rationale for devotion as well as the motivating consequences of meaning in the missionaries' own dedications to their humanist duties as blended with religious. The first half of the Shinoda film is what suffers the most from this lack of attention to the possibilities of grace, which in the novel (and somewhat in the Scorsese film) really expanded my peripheries to why these missionaries engage on their missions, on both a personal level of gratification and in satisfaction with the teachings of Christ. While it's present here too, the depth of the voiceover in the Scorsese is key to the book's power of internalized conflict in weighing faith across these humanist beliefs, which begin to present as more diverging ethical dilemmas over time.

I cannot recommend the book highly enough, as it's one of the best documentations of the inner thoughts of a man getting beaten down physically and psychologically as he continues to philosophically process his definitions of spirituality (it's also only 200 pages!). There is a subtle indication that the clinging to the rigid practices of his faith could be psychologically in place for selfless beliefs in this as the holiest act a person can make, or they could be a subconsciously self-focused desire for him to become Jesus and thus hang onto an identity at the expense of saving lives. The juxtaposition of the tangible pragmatic realities that people will die because of his non-actions as actions, which magnifies responsibility on him and splits the values of his religion to superficial desecrations of icons vs empathic liberations, with his internal stakes in the choice as a crucial factor that he seems to be facing for the first time.

The subtleties become less subtle over time and the book reaches a crescendo that is impossible to be translated in all its internal complexity onto the screen, as these contradictions charged by forceful accountability boils up acutely into his consciousness (think of the internalized shame and psychological defenses from the personal history of alcoholism in The Shining's novel, which Kubrick wisely threw away for the film as they were unadaptable- though this book is much more dense in that area, and more philosophical than emotional). Scorsese actually did try to tackle this with as much success as I think anyone could have, and deserve props for it. The Shinoda is a great film in many respects, though this piece ultimately feels slightly less powerful than the 2016 version, though I am admittedly going to judge by my obsession with the book.

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