The Last Samurai: Movie Myth or History?
Stefan Lovgren in Los Angeles
for National Geographic News
December 2, 2003
Mythology colors all history. Sometimes, legend and lore merely embellish the past. Other times, mythology may actually devour history. Such is the case with the samurai, the military aristocracy of feudal Japan.
The samurai are known as strong and courageous warriors, schooled with swords. In reality, they were an elitist and (for two centuries) idle class that spent more time drinking and gambling than cutting down enemies on the battlefield.
But it's the ideals to which they aspired?discipline, loyalty, and benevolence?that endured and shaped the romantic image of the samurai that is now ingrained in the Japanese cultural psyche.
That's in large part thanks to the movies. From Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece The Seven Samurai to the new Hollywood epic, The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, the movie samurai are usually noble and heroic characters.
Ed Zwick, the cerebral director and co-writer of The Last Samurai, makes no apologies for embracing idealism over reality for his movie. He says each version has its uses in storytelling.
"It's as important to celebrate what's poetic and idealized as it is to understand the reality," Zwick said in a telephone interview. "We're inspired by the mythologizing of the samurai as heroes."
A Time of Transition
The Last Samurai is the fictional tale of a broken United States Civil War veteran (Cruise) who travels as a mercenary to Japan soon after the overthrow of the old Shogunate and the restoration of imperial rule in 1868. He ultimately rediscovers his honor by joining a samurai rebellion against the encroaching world of the West.
The dawn of what's known as the Meiji era was a time of change as Japan emerged from 200 years of self-imposed isolation and began to shed some of its traditions. The samurai had served as a standing army with no one to fight for the last 200 years. Now they represented the past.
"It's a country that tries to modernize itself in a hurry," said Harold Bolitho, a professor of Japanese history at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It wants to get rid of a non-productive class of samurai to replace it with an effective fighting force. It wants to stand up as an independent nation and not be pushed around by Britain or the United States."
The movie rebellion is led by a samurai named Katsumoto, who is loosely based on the real-life samurai Takamori Saigo. Known for his obstinate conservatism, Saigo supported the Emperor in the Meiji coup, but then led an 1877 revolt against the government in which his followers were defeated by imperial troops drawn from the peasantry and equipped with modern arms. Saigo committed suicide.
Today, Saigo is a folk hero, a symbol of devotion to principle. In real life, he was also a pampered aristocrat bent on retaining his elitist standing.
"The samurai were very much backward-looking and no more courageous or loyal or wise than anybody else," said Bolitho. "They were just more privileged. In the end they fight for those privileges, and they are defeated by the new Japan. It's the new Japan overcoming the old Japan."
Mythologizing the Hero
But it's the idealized image of the samurai as brave and noble warriors that has survived. Zwick attributes it to the Kurosawa movies he watched as a 17-year-old student.
"I was as influenced by movie culture as I was by academic history," said Zwick. "When you're 17, you look for inspiration in different places. The idea that had most importance to me was how the samurai embraced the imminence of death and how antithetical that was to the culture in which I was living. The samurai code corresponded to an appreciation of life, the beauty of things transitory, and an absorption of the moment."
Zwick points out that Kurosawa himself was perhaps more interested in iconography than literal history, and that Kurosawa was heavily influenced by John Ford, the American director of classic Westerns, and the image of the lone frontiersman seeking justice with a gun.
"It's a kind of fusion of Western and Eastern culture that's bouncing back and forth," said Zwick. "It's important to realize this is a movie and not a historical document. That's why I chose to name the character Katsumoto, not Takamori."
But Zwick also wants his movie to depict Japan's first significant encounters with the West and to capture the rise of imperialism.
"There's a temptation to depict Japan's imperial impulse as having existed in a vacuum, when in fact they were certainly influenced by the circumstances of the world," said Zwick. "Our relationship with Japan did not begin 60 years ago with Pearl Harbor, but 150 years ago."
With the coming of the modern, explains Zwick, there are winners and losers; things are gained and lost on both sides.
"It's easy to appreciate the technological marvel and the world competitor that Japan has become," said Zwick. "But to be there in Japan and see the absolute disappearance of anything of the natural world, the aesthetic that was so celebrated and is still celebrated in the culture, feels also tragic."
Crafting the Image
The samurai may have been defeated in the late 19th century, but their virtuous and noble image has been carefully molded ever since.
"It's an idealized image that's been pushed onto the entire Japanese people," said Bolitho. "It's built into the education system and the armed forces, so that everyone who goes to war sees himself in some sense as a Samurai. It's a tremendous public relations job. Samurai images are brought out again and again, even to people whose grandparents where pushed around by the Samurai."
Still, Bolitho says he thoroughly enjoyed the new movie.
"We're dealing with a fantasy, and fantasy always tops reality," he said. "The samurai is a great movie theme. Like all ideals, it's going to be around forever."
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And a view from a friend in Japan:
"Yeah, I have mixed feelings about this movie.
There are a lot of Japanese who are lapping this up because it is about a down and out yankee who finds true meaning in Japanese culture blahblah self satisfied bullshit, Japan is better than every other country, of course!
Then, there are some other Japanese who are insulted that once more Hollywood steals another country's traditions, culture, and history and stick Tom Cruise in to be the hero, yeah yeah, America has a rich history *and* every other country's history was dominated by Americans too! Of course!
I think I would find this more palatable if it wasn't Tom Cruise.
That Koyuki bint....I'm sure she will be very popular in the West, but I find her difficult to take seriously considering I have seen her adverts for Happoshu fake-beer.
Haven't decided if I will see it yet. I did see Tears of the Sun though - very surprised, I thought it was really, really good."
