Long overdue, yes. My apologies (it’s my own fault, sorry about that, but if I can get this youtube thing to work *fingers crossed* it might just be worth everyone’s time). I’ll start off by saying that Yojimbo was (not sure if this is blog appropriate, but here goes) badass. I went into it thinking, “Okay, samurai gangster film…first of all, not my *genre* (that just pops up in and out of class, doesn’t it?) and secondly, how much can this possibly relate to
- The Glass Key
?” Oh, myself of little faith. Not only did it have much in common w/ our current book, but also with the entire *genre* (there it is again) of the Western. I was also blown away by the acting, cinematography, and eventually, yes, even the theme music (which initially was, admittedly, congruent w/ my expectations of the silly 1960s samurai gangster film I thought it would be). Now I freaking love that suite. “But I digress,” as Prof. Campbell would say.
I found that with the black and white in Yojimbo, as with other movies in b&w I have seen, it is much easier to contrast the archetypal themes (such as the scene we discussed in class where Yojimbo ‘Mulberry Fields’ is crawling between shadow and light, or death and life). Although color can be striking and impact a movie greatly (I always love Wes Anderson’s color choices, myself) I honestly love black and white for its aesthetic qualities, namely shadows. (Somehow it seems like that could reflect somehow on my psyche, doesn’t it?)
In terms of Yojimbo’s relation to The Glass Key, I found that there were more archetypal characters and less genre (uggghhh) folk (in my mind, I’m comparing the old helpful man of Yojimbo to well, I suppose…no one in The Glass Key, really because there was no one like that in there). There are more “stock” characters as Professor Campbell said, in genre movies…there were almost none in Yojimbo, save the big bumbling idiot of a gangster brother with that horribly unattractive smile. (Okay, so that was a little harsh.) There were quite a few similarities in themes too. Although Yojimbo (‘Mulberry Fields,’ laugh, laugh) himself did not gamble, the town’s problem began with that issue, and, more specifically, most scenarios (such as our protagonist being beaten to a pulp and then watched by two guards, one small, one ridiculously large, and then him escaping) still stand.
Over all, I felt Yojimbo was much more fun, and that theme music is so 60’s and hilarious…unfortunately, also catchy. I’ll leave you with this clip (if it will work) that I found on youtube of a horrible (but laughingly so) rendition of essentially one fight scene in yojimbo called ‘Yojimbo 2’…looks to be done by high schoolers(?) but the homemade theme music is what caught my eye…it’s also funny to see how many derogatory comments were left under the video if you look up the actual web page on youtube.
Enjoy!