The Moral Ambiguity of Kurosawa's Early Thrillers

The Moral Ambiguity of Kurosawa's Early Thrillers James Maxfield During the Second World War Japanese censors denounced Akira Kurosawa's maiden directorial effort, Sanshiro Sugata, for being too "British-American" in style (Autobiography 131). The charge was ridiculous in connection with perhaps the most charac- teristically Japanese film this director ever made, but after the war Kurosawa did make two films that seemed to revel blatantly in British-American influence: the gangster film Drunken Angel, 1948, and the police procedural Stray Dog, 1949. Drunken Angel, in the manner of American gangster movies of the 1930s, is a studio-bound film; as a matter of fact, it had its genesis in an existing set that had been used for another film: the studio asked Kurosawa if he "couldn't use it to film something, too" {Autobiography 156). Stray Dog, in contrast, employs considerable footage shot on the actual streets of post-war Tokyo (Autobiography 175)- perhaps in imitation of the documentary style of such American police dramas as Naked City, 1948. But if the basic styles of these films are, broadly speaking. Western or American, the characters remain distinctly Japanese, and in his treatment of the protagonists Kurosawa varies considera- bly from American models in his refusal to pass definitive judgment on their moral natures. Although I intend in this essay to focus on the characters portrayed by Toshiro Mifune as the "heroes" of the two films, I should first acknowledge that a good case can be made for the slum doctor Sanada (Takashi Shimura) as the true hero of Drunken Angel. Certainly he is the title character a physician who has drunk up the alcohol allotted to him for medical use but who is still entitled 20 to ctaim to the young gangster Matsunaga that he (the doctor) is "a sort of angel" since he wishes to cure Matsunaga not only of tuberculosis but of the corruption of the yakuza way of tife. Atthough there can be tittle question about Sanada being preeminently a force for good in the film, considerable ambiguity or uncertainty neverthe- tess surrounds this character. Firsf of alt, why is he a doctor in the stums? A fettow student from medicat schoot (Takahama) is now obviousty weatthy and is driven about in a chauffeured car, but Takahama tetls Matsunaga that no one knows more about curing tuberculosis than Sanada, so the latter's tack of financiat success is ctearty not the result of timited skill at his profession. Sanada, however, implies that he is not as successfut as Takahama because he didn't focus as ditigenfty on his studies in medicat schoot: "I'd pawn my clothes to go see a girl." He goes on to say he "messed up [his] life then," then adds, "But I had a reason to." This "reason" is never referred to again in the course of the film, so the viewer has no way of judging how valid it may have been or indeed if such a "reason" actuatty existed, tn any case Sanada's comments indicate his own view that he coutd have been as successfut as Takahama if he had worked harder in schoot and hadn't "messed up" his life. Yet the film as whote suggests another view: that Sanada is a doctor in the slums because that is exactly where he wishes to be: not among well-to-do patients as Takahama is but with the poor who need him-and are also more willing than higher class patients would be to allow him to express his own true, abrasive, tactless self. The circumstances of Sanada's personal life are no more clear than those of his professional life. The doctor lives with an older woman and his nurse. Is the older woman a servant or a retative? (She treats him with familiar contempt when he is drunk.) And what is the nature of his retationship with fhe nurse, Okada's former mistress? Stephen Prince's description of the retationship seems accurate enough as far as it goes: "[Sanada] has taken Miyo, who is Okada's wife [?],' as his nurse and has cared for the woman and hetped heat her emotionat scars while Okada was in prison" (81). But has he taken her only as his nurse and ward or also as his mistress? [t wouid not be illogicat to assume the tatter relationship for a man who when younger pawned his clothes "to go see a girt." When asked about the woman by one of the gangsters, Sanada asserts, "She's mine." Depending upon how one tooks at the character, this statement coutd be interpreted atmost allegoricatly as Sanada the angel affirming that the nurse now belongs to the forces of good rather than to those of evii represented by Okada, or it could taken as an expression of sexuai possessiveness: this woman beiongs to 21 me and to no one else. The film, it would seem, commits itself to neither interpretation but allows both. The primary relationship of the film, between Sanada and Matsunaga, also possesses a measure of ambiguity. One thing that is clear is that Matsunaga is not just an ordinary patient to Sanada. The doctor's commitment to this patient may at first seem strange since Sanada hates the gangster's way of life, and Matsunaga repeatedly responds to his physician's diagnoses with acts of physical violence toward him. But as Donald Richie argues, "[The doctor] and the gangster.. .hate each other with such intensity that one must suspect love as well" (48). With this idea in mind, one can interpret an otherwise curious comment Sanada makes to the bar girl Gin early in the film. When she remarks that Matsunaga is "too skinny," he says, "Are you in love with him too?" There does not seem to be anyone else present to be included in the "too" other than Sanada himself. At the end of the film, although Sanada and Gin seem to have diametrically opposed interpretations of Matsunaga (she thinks Matsunaga was ready to reform; the doctor says a gangster could not change; "A dog's a dog...Hoodlums end that way"), these different reactions are rooted in similar feeiings. Sanada tells Gin, "I know how you feel. That's why I can't forgive him." Sanada's bitterness in some sense is that of a frustrated lover. (Matsunaga's death scene was intercut with shots of Sanada carrying home two fresh eggs for his patient, the doctor's happy smile being that of a suitor carrying flowers to his beloved.) If Sanada loves Matsunaga, what does he love in this man who is everything he disapproves of: a force for disease and death rather than health and life? Richie's suggestion again seems quite plausible: the doctor loves the reflection of his younger self in Matsunaga (48). Sanada says to his nurse, "That gangster. He reminds me of myself when I was young. He acts tough, but he's lonely inside. He can't kill his conscience." Because of his sense of identification with Matsunaga, the doctor in a way is trying to heal his former self to show that even though he "messed up" back then, his life can now change for the better, move from sickness into health. Even though drinking aicoho! undoubtedly is bad for a person suffering from tuberculosis, Sanada's denunciations of Matsunaga for drinking also manifest his internal hatred toward himseif for his alcoholism. If drinking will kill Matsunaga, it is also surely killing Sanada, if more slowly. Perhaps another reason Sanada cannot forgive Matsunaga at the end of the film is that the iatter's death seems to foreclose hope for himself as weii. Although the fiim ailows the viewer to speculate on the 22 doctor's motives for trying to help the gangster, in the end ail that is certain is that Sanada tried to cure Matsunaga of ailments physical and moral but that he failed-and the patient died. Matsunaga's death is probably the most ambiguous element of the fiim. Evidence for this judgment can be seen in the interpretations of Matsunaga's death found in the two leading critical books on Kurosawa's films- interpretations that are almost diametrically opposed. Donald Richie sees Matsunaga's death as heroic, virtually a redemption: "...how he died is the most important aspect of his death. He died fighting what he finally identified as evil, he died fighting his former self" (52). Stephen Prince, on the other hand, regards Matsunaga's death not as heroic but "pitiful" (84). The gangster does not die fighting evil; rather he "goes to his extinction out of concern for his reputation": Okada has "seize[d] his territory," and Matsunaga must try to kill the older man to restore his warped sense of honor as a gangster (84). His values remain distorted to the end. Although I am inclined ultimately to agree with Prince's assessment of Matsunaga's death, the sequences leading up to the fatal stabbing offer evidence of a variety of motivations behind the ganster's ultimately self-destructive actions. He begins with clearly admirable motivations, but they become deflected by events over which he has no control. A carefui examination of the sequences depicting the last day of Matsunaga's life wiil demonstrate how his motivations seem to shift from scene to scene. But first we should look at three key sequences that precede Matsunaga's flnai day. One, Matsunaga's dream, seems to be a symbolic foreshadowing of his ultimate fate. The dream, however, is directly preceded by a sequence that offers hope for Matsunaga.

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