Red Beard
| Red Beard | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Akira Kurosawa |
| Produced by |
Ryuzo Kikushima Tomoyuki Tanaka |
| Written by |
Masato Ide Ryuzo Kikushima Akira Kurosawa Hideo Oguni |
| Starring |
Toshiro Mifune Yūzō Kayama |
| Music by | Masaru Sato |
| Cinematography | Asakazu Nakai |
| Edited by | Akira Kurosawa |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Toho |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 185 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Red Beard (赤ひげ Akahige) is a 1965 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa about the relationship between a town doctor and his new trainee. The film was based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's short story collection, Akahige shinryōtan (赤ひげ診療譚). Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Humiliated and Insulted provided the source for a subplot about a young girl, Otoyo (Terumi Niki), who is rescued from a brothel.[1] The film looks at the problem of social injustice and explores two of Kurosawa's favourite topics: humanism and existentialism.
Plot
The film takes place in Koishikawa, a district of Edo (the former name of the city of Tokyo), in the 19th century. Young Dr. Noboru Yasumoto (Yūzō Kayama) is the film's protagonist. Trained in a Dutch medical school in Nagasaki, the arrogant Yasumoto aspires to the status of personal physician of the Shogunate, a position currently held by a close relative; his father is already a well-established, highly competent physician. Yasumoto believes that he should progress through the safe, and well-protected, army structure of medical education. However, for Yasumoto's post-graduate medical training, he has been assigned to a rural clinic under the guidance of Akahige ("Red Beard"), Dr. Kyojō Niide (played by Toshiro Mifune). Dr. Niide may seem like a tyrannical task master, but in reality he is a compassionate clinic director. Initially, Yasumoto is livid at his posting, believing that he has little to gain from working under Akahige. Dr. Yasumoto feels that Dr. Niide is only interested in his medical notes and soon rebels against the clinic director. He refuses to wear his uniform, disdains the food and spartan environment, and enters the forbidden garden where he meets "The Mantis" (Kyōko Kagawa), a mysterious patient that only Dr. Niide can treat.
As Yasumoto struggles to come to terms with his situation, the film tells the story of a few of the clinic's patients. One of them is Rokusuke, a dying man whom Dr. Niide discerns is troubled by a secret misery that is only revealed when his desperately unhappy daughter shows up. Another is Sahachi, a well-loved man of the town known for his generosity to his neighbors, who has a tragic connection to a woman whose corpse is discovered after a landslide. Dr. Niide brings Yasumoto along to rescue a sick twelve-year-old girl from a brothel (fighting off a local gang of thugs to do so) and then assigns the girl to Yasumoto as his first patient. Through his efforts to heal the traumatized girl, Yasumoto begins to understand the magnitude of cruelty and suffering around him as well as his power to ease that suffering, and learns to regret his vanity and selfishness.
When Yasumoto himself falls ill, he is nursed back to health by the care and affection of Otoyo, the twelve-year-old girl who was saved from the brothel.
Through his observations of Dr. Niide's compassion and a series of destitute patients, Dr. Yasumoto learns what being a doctor really means. The lives of patients are more important than wealth or status. Their sufferings can be ameliorated with compassion and conscientious care.
Production
According to the commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD Red Beard is 185 minutes long and was shot at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It was Kurosawa's first film to make use of a magnetic 4-track stereo soundtrack and principal photography took two years. The set was intended to be historically accurate: the crew went as far as to use the right kind of aged wood that would have been used in the region at the time the film is set, at Kurosawa's request.
Cast
- Toshiro Mifune – Dr. Kyojō Niide, Akahige ("Red Beard")
- Yūzō Kayama – Dr. Noboru Yasumoto
- Tsutomu Yamazaki – Sahachi
- Kyōko Kagawa – "The Mantis" or "Madwoman"
- Terumi Niki – Otoyo
- Reiko Dan – O-Sugi
- Miyuki Kuwano – Onaka
- Tatsuyoshi Ehara – Genzo Tsugawa
- Akemi Negishi – Okuni, the mistress
- Yoshitaka Zushi – Choji
- Yoshio Tsuchiya – Dr. Handayu Mori
- Eijirō Tōno – Goheiji
- Takashi Shimura – Tokubei Izumiya
- Chishū Ryū – Mr. Yasumoto
- Kinuyo Tanaka – Mrs. Yasumoto
References
- ↑ Stephen Prince commentary to Criterion Collection DVD release
External links
- Essay by Donald Richie at the Criterion Collection
- Red Beard at the Internet Movie Database
- Red Beard at AllMovie
- Red Beard (Japanese) at the Japanese Movie Database
- Red Beard at Rotten Tomatoes