<i>The Blind Swordsman</i> (review)
1980; University of Hawaii Press; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bio.2010.0836
ISSN1529-1456
Autores Tópico(s)Philippine History and Culture
Resumo86 biography Vol. 3, No. 1 Harry Crews is a disturbing writer. He loves the wayward and the ceremonial, and that is a hell of a combination. Scenes of pumping iron, snake hunts, all come to us with a joy and exuberance. Amazement often replaces explanation. But he brings us a world which ninety percent of us do not know, and he places it beautifully made into our hands: There is no doubt that in that time he was, as they say in Bacon County, fond of lying out with dry cattle. Maidens or at least those young ladies who had never had a child, were called dry cattle after the fact that a cow does not give milk until after giving birth to a calf. An unflattering way to refer to women, God knows, but then those were unflattering times. (12) Michael Ondaatje York University, Toronto Because the editors of Biography would like to consider as many ramifications of the biographer's craft as possible, we have decided to include reviews of film and television biographies. The following appraisal of John Nathan's film "The Blind Swordsman"—one of three in his series The Japanese—is the first of many reviews of biographies in other media. John Nathan, "The Blind Swordsman" (Part II of a series: The Japanese). The film biography on Shintaro Katsu by director and well-known translator John Nathan (Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea and Kensaburo Oe's A Personal Matter) is one in his series of three biographical sketches entitled "The Japanese" currently being aired on PBS stations. Katsu Shintaro is the 46-year-old producer, director and featured star of 25 motion pictures and three seasons of television films on Zato Ichi, a blind swordsman folklore figure of the 1830's whom Shintaro has made into the most popular media hero in post-war Japan. Nathan's film biography dwells on Shintaro's high-energy professional and private life, following him from movie set to discos and hotel suites to reveal a personality that seems consistently full of itself, if not always free from self-doubt. The problem with the film as biography is that it seems too easily satisfied with its obvious merits—namely the charisma of Shintaro as he snarls, carouses, orders and generally grandstands his way through REVIEWS 87 the film, and the dramatic contrast between the "romantic" 19thcentury Japan we like to fantasize about and Katsu's modern-day capitalization on that dream to create a violence-filled million-dollar business . What we do miss is a sense of the director's personal artistic response to the man he is filming, and a feeling of psychological roundedness impossible to obtain from a few weeks in the life of a 46year -old man. "What of the child?" we ask. "What about the young man?" Worst of all, Nathan skips completely over what must be a natural question for the average viewer: What, if any, is the connection between Zato Ichi and the frenetic Shintaro Katsu? It is a curiosity that the public will always have regarding the artist and his art, and one I believe to be worthwhile. It annoys me that some of the most interesting biographical pieces of information on Shintaro were those I culled from the press kit on the series. Take, for example, the story of how the young Katsu, while on a tour of America with his father's professional samisen troupe, fell under the spell of Hollywood's film industry and abandoned his musical career for apprenticeship to a Tokyo movie company. Or the fact that Katsu's old samisen teacher was blind, a detail of enormous interest , considering his great skill in emphasizing the superhuman compensations Zato Ichi develops for his loss of sight. These points are not made in the film, and I find them hard to forget. Another weakness in the film could also be a source of its strength— the director's obvious admiration for his subject. Nathan was quoted in the press material as saying, "I was looking for someone more than a match for me in personal power and forcefulness ... a man...
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