The Power of Money, an essay written by Karl Marx in 1844, beautifully illustrates the big influence of money in human society and in relationships between the individuals in the human society. Money, which was introduced as a medium of exchange of value, to replace the age old barter system. Barter system was based on people exchanging goods, commodities and services with each other that they perceived to be equal and square in value and utility. The barter system required both the parties to actually produce something that had utility and use for the other party. While, the system was good because it required each member of the society to produce something in order to acquire something else exchange for the produced good. There were times when the system was simply inadequate to determine the value of the commodities exchanged and to make sure that transaction was fair, simple and balanced for both the parties. Money was introduced to overcome this inadequacy of the barter system. A manufacturer, say a weaver could sell cloth for 'n' value and then take the money and buy commodities and goods for himself at 'n' value from another party. This way, the commodity could be sold for a price agreed between the two parties in exchange for a value represented by money, which in turn could be used by the seller to buy commodities and goods as per his needs. The transition from barter system to money based exchange value was a revolutionary step, as it gave freedom to both the buyer and seller to buy and sell things without being bothered to find someone who would exchange the goods for the goods they produced at an agreed value. One could buy yards of cloth and pay the weaver, who could then in turn buy more bales of cotton and silk, plus with extra money buy goods for his and his family's personal use. So far so good. Money played a very convenient role in economy as the medium of exchange and people were at last free to buy things they needed without having to bother to produce something that the seller might be interested in trading his goods with.
So, where did the money begin to change its characteristics and became a medium of influence in the society from its intended purpose of serving as a medium of exchange? The main reason that money went on to become a medium of influence is because of the inherent value associated with it. It has its own value. It can hold on to its value in total isolation and hence it has that innate property to buy everything. If a hungry, homeless man finds a bank currency note of Rs 100. He can instantly buy himself food, clothing and shelter if possible. The "value" equivalent to 100 rupees is intrinsic to that currency note. Karl Marx notes that "Money is the procurer between man’s need and the object, between his life and his means of life." It is because of this characteristic of money, it acquires godly, magical status. A possessor of money becomes respected because 'money' is respected. One who has money is considered worthy, because the "money" he has is considered worthy. A capitalist may not know a single thing about the machinery in his factory, he may not know anything about coding, application development or building/designing hardware but with money he can buy himself people who would work for him and let him appropriate profits. Money also creates "demand". If I want to study I need to have money to pay for my studies and if I do not have money, I have no real demand or desire to study. Such is the nature of money that it dictates whether an individual has a need or does not have a need by the mere virtue of its possession by an individual.
With inputs from Marxist.Org
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, July 2, 2012
An Ode To Japanese Film Directors - Part II
When we speak of the Japanese cinema, Kurosawa' name is the one that gets the first mention. While, Kurosawa rightfully gets the due credit for his highly immense and influential contribution to the world cinema, we have to look at the works of his contemporaries, who were as good as Kurosawa, if not better. This writer has not seen much of the Masaki Kobayashi's work apart from Samurai Rebellion, Harakiri and Kwaidan, while Human Condition, an epic war movie, depicting the insanity and the savagery of war, is on the "wish list".
This writer's first introduction to Masaki Kobayashi was through the 1968 flick "Samurai Rebellion". The only reason this movie was picked up, was because it featured actor Toshiro Mifune in the lead (after his parting with Kurosawa post-Red Beard) whose acting mettle had left me indelibly impressed in the earlier Kurosawa movies. The movie also had Tatsuya Nakadai, in an important cameo. The movie is about an aging Samurai (Mifune) who is asked to have his young son marry the wife of the feudal lord, as she had insulted him, earning herself banishment from the clan. After much opposition from Mifune's wife, the family finally have their son marry the ex-wife of the feudal lord. While the new family adjusts itself with their daughter-in-law, the house of the feudal lord demands that she come back and what follows is battle for family pride, honor, love and sacrifice. While, this writer saw many parallels between the styles of Kurosawa and Kobayashi and the movie nonetheless leaves impressed with the story line, acting, editing and directing. If shown to an unknowing audience many will relate this feature to Kurosawa.
Impressed with Masaki Kobayashi's style of story-telling and directing, left this writer wanting for more. The next movie in the line was, Harakiri (Seppuku) released in1962. It is a brilliant masterpiece, that is miles ahead of any other Samurai film made in that era, even Kurosawa flicks might not be close to it by a mile. The film features another great actor from the sixties era, Tatsuya Nakadai, int he lead role and is perhaps one of the finest tragedies ever depicted on celluloid in the history of cinema. If you just wanted a Samurai story perfectly blended with poetic tragedy, this is the movie. The movie starts with an old and half fed, aged samurai swordsman who comes to the house of a feudal family, requesting to commit "Seppuku" or Harakiri. The people of the house of Iye try to discourage him from committing "Harakiri" by recounting the tale of an earlier "Ronin" who came to their place asking to commit harakiri but instead wanted to extract some money out of the house. A "Ronin" is basically a "Samurai" or a "Bushido" but one who has lost his master due to death, defeat in battle etc. With a loss of a pay-master, a Samurai or a Bushido was considered a "Ronin". Many unscrupulous ex Samurais and Bushidos came to the house of rich people asking to perform "Harakiri". Many households abhorred the idea of someone committing suicide in their premises and usually paid money to the Ronins to go somewhere else to do the act. The officer tells the old man the story of a coward "Ronin" was moving around with nothing but a bamboo made sword and to teach him a lesson they "forced" him to commit harakiri with his own bamboo sword and made him suffer a painful, slow and a horrible death. The aged Ronin is still adamant at committing the act of harakiri and the feudal household heeds his request and they ask him, if he would like any man to act as his second (the samurai who will severe his head when he has cut his entrails) The aged Ronin takes names of three of the members of Iye clan, but as the story unfolds, we come to know that all the second man requested by older samurai are at home, down with some terrible illness, wanting to see or meet none one and that aged Ronin definitely has something up his sleeve.
Harakiri is like an exquisite wine. It takes it own sweet time to go down on you and then it intoxicates and stimulates you with an experience that leaves you satiated at the end. It is tragic tale that hits upon the "established" norms for Samurais and how it was convenient to bend the rules to suit one's own mean ends and that honor was nothing more than a facade for these type of people, to hide their own cowardness, their insensitivities, their false bravado. On the other hand the story deals with tender story of relationship, trust, love and respect. For any person, interested in eclectic, artful, high standard cinema, Harakiri is one of the top options. Harakiri is also a movie that tells a viewer that Akira Kurosawa, though a brilliant director, was not the only director of huge talent and substance to come from Japan and that there were others too, like Masaki Kobayashi.
Kwaidan, is a collection of four ghost stories, another great masterpiece from Kobayashi. The stories all tell the tales of love, betrayal, bravery, trust, faith, loyalty and inner demons. The first story is of a poor Samurai who leaves his loving caring wife and marries the daughter of rich nobleman. Though he has money and wealth, he has no inner happiness and still longs for his wife. He comes back to his house after several years and finds his wife welcoming him lovingly and joyously and he confesses his true love for her and asks for her forgiveness and vows to start a new chapter in their lives together.
The second story is of young woodcutter (Tatsuya Nakadai) and his friend who get caught in a snow storm and take refuge in an abandoned hut. The hut is visited by a ghost woman (Yuki Onno) at night, who kills his friend but spares Nakadai on the promise he will not spit out a word about the incident. Years later, under some strange circumstances, he recounts the story to his wife and finds out a horrifying truth.
The second story is special because it uses surrealist artwork to serve as backdrops for the scenes, almost giving them a fairytale feel.
The third story is of a blind singer, who sings songs of war that took place in ancient times between the two powerful dynasties in Japan. He is called to sing for a noble family every night and one day when he refuses, the ghosts exact a horrifying revenge on him. The segment of the story uses studio sets to beautifully create the aura, the surrounding and the eerie atmosphere essential towards the story telling.
Masaki Kobayashi has not received the attention he deserves and his works are slowly being credited with praise that they rightfully deserve. Kobayashi, like Kurosawa, was a survivor of the WWII and hence his movies have a strong anti-War, anti-Militarist, anti-Authoratarian sentiment in them, in at least in two of the movies, Harakiri and The Human Condition. While, it is too early to say anything on Masaki Kobayashi, as there is a plethora of movies that have yet to be seen by this writer, still three movies mentioned above prove his worth both as a skillful film maker and that he is undoubtedly one of the best directors of the world cinema.
This writer's first introduction to Masaki Kobayashi was through the 1968 flick "Samurai Rebellion". The only reason this movie was picked up, was because it featured actor Toshiro Mifune in the lead (after his parting with Kurosawa post-Red Beard) whose acting mettle had left me indelibly impressed in the earlier Kurosawa movies. The movie also had Tatsuya Nakadai, in an important cameo. The movie is about an aging Samurai (Mifune) who is asked to have his young son marry the wife of the feudal lord, as she had insulted him, earning herself banishment from the clan. After much opposition from Mifune's wife, the family finally have their son marry the ex-wife of the feudal lord. While the new family adjusts itself with their daughter-in-law, the house of the feudal lord demands that she come back and what follows is battle for family pride, honor, love and sacrifice. While, this writer saw many parallels between the styles of Kurosawa and Kobayashi and the movie nonetheless leaves impressed with the story line, acting, editing and directing. If shown to an unknowing audience many will relate this feature to Kurosawa.
Impressed with Masaki Kobayashi's style of story-telling and directing, left this writer wanting for more. The next movie in the line was, Harakiri (Seppuku) released in1962. It is a brilliant masterpiece, that is miles ahead of any other Samurai film made in that era, even Kurosawa flicks might not be close to it by a mile. The film features another great actor from the sixties era, Tatsuya Nakadai, int he lead role and is perhaps one of the finest tragedies ever depicted on celluloid in the history of cinema. If you just wanted a Samurai story perfectly blended with poetic tragedy, this is the movie. The movie starts with an old and half fed, aged samurai swordsman who comes to the house of a feudal family, requesting to commit "Seppuku" or Harakiri. The people of the house of Iye try to discourage him from committing "Harakiri" by recounting the tale of an earlier "Ronin" who came to their place asking to commit harakiri but instead wanted to extract some money out of the house. A "Ronin" is basically a "Samurai" or a "Bushido" but one who has lost his master due to death, defeat in battle etc. With a loss of a pay-master, a Samurai or a Bushido was considered a "Ronin". Many unscrupulous ex Samurais and Bushidos came to the house of rich people asking to perform "Harakiri". Many households abhorred the idea of someone committing suicide in their premises and usually paid money to the Ronins to go somewhere else to do the act. The officer tells the old man the story of a coward "Ronin" was moving around with nothing but a bamboo made sword and to teach him a lesson they "forced" him to commit harakiri with his own bamboo sword and made him suffer a painful, slow and a horrible death. The aged Ronin is still adamant at committing the act of harakiri and the feudal household heeds his request and they ask him, if he would like any man to act as his second (the samurai who will severe his head when he has cut his entrails) The aged Ronin takes names of three of the members of Iye clan, but as the story unfolds, we come to know that all the second man requested by older samurai are at home, down with some terrible illness, wanting to see or meet none one and that aged Ronin definitely has something up his sleeve.
Harakiri is like an exquisite wine. It takes it own sweet time to go down on you and then it intoxicates and stimulates you with an experience that leaves you satiated at the end. It is tragic tale that hits upon the "established" norms for Samurais and how it was convenient to bend the rules to suit one's own mean ends and that honor was nothing more than a facade for these type of people, to hide their own cowardness, their insensitivities, their false bravado. On the other hand the story deals with tender story of relationship, trust, love and respect. For any person, interested in eclectic, artful, high standard cinema, Harakiri is one of the top options. Harakiri is also a movie that tells a viewer that Akira Kurosawa, though a brilliant director, was not the only director of huge talent and substance to come from Japan and that there were others too, like Masaki Kobayashi.
Kwaidan, is a collection of four ghost stories, another great masterpiece from Kobayashi. The stories all tell the tales of love, betrayal, bravery, trust, faith, loyalty and inner demons. The first story is of a poor Samurai who leaves his loving caring wife and marries the daughter of rich nobleman. Though he has money and wealth, he has no inner happiness and still longs for his wife. He comes back to his house after several years and finds his wife welcoming him lovingly and joyously and he confesses his true love for her and asks for her forgiveness and vows to start a new chapter in their lives together.
The second story is of young woodcutter (Tatsuya Nakadai) and his friend who get caught in a snow storm and take refuge in an abandoned hut. The hut is visited by a ghost woman (Yuki Onno) at night, who kills his friend but spares Nakadai on the promise he will not spit out a word about the incident. Years later, under some strange circumstances, he recounts the story to his wife and finds out a horrifying truth.
The second story is special because it uses surrealist artwork to serve as backdrops for the scenes, almost giving them a fairytale feel.
The third story is of a blind singer, who sings songs of war that took place in ancient times between the two powerful dynasties in Japan. He is called to sing for a noble family every night and one day when he refuses, the ghosts exact a horrifying revenge on him. The segment of the story uses studio sets to beautifully create the aura, the surrounding and the eerie atmosphere essential towards the story telling.
Masaki Kobayashi has not received the attention he deserves and his works are slowly being credited with praise that they rightfully deserve. Kobayashi, like Kurosawa, was a survivor of the WWII and hence his movies have a strong anti-War, anti-Militarist, anti-Authoratarian sentiment in them, in at least in two of the movies, Harakiri and The Human Condition. While, it is too early to say anything on Masaki Kobayashi, as there is a plethora of movies that have yet to be seen by this writer, still three movies mentioned above prove his worth both as a skillful film maker and that he is undoubtedly one of the best directors of the world cinema.
Friday, June 29, 2012
An Ode To Japanese Film Directors - Part I
Coming back to the blogging world after nearly a yawning gap of almost twenty months, it is not too easy to pick up from where I left last. Just like a person, who exercises regularly and then stops for some reason, be it health or otherwise, finds it difficult to come back to the proper routine, something of that kind happened with this writer as well. The time away from blogging was spent exploring newer avenues, like painting, reading books, conceptualizing short stories and traveling to places. Apart from these, the writer was fortunate enough to watch some of the classics, especially from master film makers like Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi and Kihachi Okamoto. This two-part blog entry will discuss the works of Japanese directors, namely, Kurosawa, Kobayashi and Okamoto.
Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa is considered, and rightfully so, one of the best directors that the world has ever seen. He is on the same league of the directors that include Satyajit Ray, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and Orson Welles. The references to the world cinema would be incomplete without the mention of timeless classics like "Rashomon", "The Seven Samurai", "High and Low", "The Red Beard", "Dersu Uzala", "Kagemusha" and "Ran" being the most famous ones, that were universally acclaimed by the film critics and the viewers world over.
The first ever Kurosawa movie this writer watched was "Rashomon", which is a fascinating tale of murder of a man by a bandit thug. Before the judges can deliver their verdict, they need to know about the incident and its motivations from the alleged perpetrator, the surviving victim and the witness. The movie deals with the idea that there is nothing such as "objective truth" and it is more of a subjective entity, that varies from person to person and place to place. The ending of the film is intentionally left open ended. While, this movie has been considered as the "the coming of age" movie for Kurosawa, it was in fact the first Kurosawa movie on the "Samurai" genre, that he remained committed to for the most part of the 1950s, like "Seven Samurai", "The Hidden Fortress", "The Throne Of Blood", "Yojimbo" and 'Sanjuro". During the 1950s, he also worked on two non-Samurai movies, namely "Ikiru" and "I Live In Fear". Ikiru, which means "To Live" in Japanese, is a moving story about a soon-to-be retired Japanese bureaucrat Watanbe (Takashi Shimura), who has done nothing worthy of notice in his entire career except robotically moving files from his table. One day, Watanbe is diagnosed with an ulcer that is in advanced stage and he is given six months to a year to live by his doctor. Aghast at the prospect of an impending death, he tries to regain his wits and wonders aimlessly, where he meets various people, prostitutes that wean his mind away from his misery, though only momentarily. Meanwhile, a young girl, who worked in his office comes to meet him to get his signature on a letter of reference for the new job she just landed up with. His interactions with the young woman makes him realize that taking pride in the work one does, by setting goals and objectives and being happy by making other people happy, will ultimately give one happiness and a sense of fulfillment. The very next day he joins his office and sets off on a mission.
Then in 60s came Samurai flicks such as "Yojimbo" and "Sanjuro" that became the inspirations for Italian director Sergio Leone's first western "A Fistful Of Dollars". The 1960s also saw the unfortunate parting of ways between Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, arguably the one of the best director-actor combination in the history of modern cinema. The parting was so bitter that Kurosawa and Mifune never worked together for the rest of their lives. After a long period of inactivity and a major cinematic failure (Tora! Tora! Tora!) in between, Kurosawa came back with thunder named "Dersu Uzala". This was Kurosawa's first international venture, being a Soviet-Japanese co-production. This movie's story about a Russian captain and his group of Russian army soldiers in Czarist Russia, who are out in the wild, surveying the vast Russian landscape. They enlist one lonesome asiatic hunter, Dersu Uzala, who has a good grasp of the region, to be their guide. The story basically tells of human bonding that develops between the main character (Dersu Uzala) and the other individuals, who are from a different ethnic background, different culture and speak different languages and how human feelings of friendship, trust and faith transcend the manmade boundaries of ethnicity, language and culture. The film also shows that people, who we may, owing to our own ignorance, dismiss as "Tribals", "Primitives" for being technically and culturally inferior to us, are actually people who have better understanding of the nature, the environment they live in and diversified forms of life that they share their earthly habitat with. Echoes of similar thoughts are found in Satyajit Ray's last movie "Agantuk" (The Guest), where Ray successfully infuses such thought in the mind of the viewer through a scene that has no dialogues but just a group of tribals celebrating their festival and dancing around. That scene from Agantuk had a powerful effect on this writer and it made him realize that cultures are such a powerful expressions of mankind, it is their identity, each is unique in its own respect, inferior to none. . It was not felt when I saw the movie for the first time sometimes in the late 1990s but years later I watched it again sometimes back in 2009-10.
The 1980s saw two epic classics from Kurosawa,Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985). Kagemusha is simple story of a thief who has striking resemblance in appearance, almost spitting image, to the ruling feudal lord and how he dons the mantle of the feudal lord after his death to keep the rivals of the shogunate guessing about him. Ran is based on the Shakespearean tragedu "King Lear". In both the movies, the cinematography is brilliant, so are the battle scenes which are one of most iconic battle scenes ever shot on film. Both the films deal with power struggle, betrayal, lust, love, greed, defeat and death. Both of these films have another famous Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai, who gives fantabulous performance, just like he did in other Kurosawa movies but his role was always overshadowed by Toshiro Mifune's character. Tatsuya Nakadai was used to his full potential by another great Japanese film director Masaki Kobayashi, who would be discussed in the next installment. Akira Kurosawa did a few movies more towards the end of his career, the most famous one being the "Dreams", which was the cinematic expression of the dreams that he had during his life, from childhood to adulthood. These dreams include stories of boy of disobeyed his mother, to young man moving around in a world full colors. It also contains a movie story about a returning Japanese army officer who is confronted with the ghosts of the soldiers of his company, who were annihilated in the war, to a creepy segment , known as "The Weeping Demon" that shows the after-effects of a nuclear holocaust, to finally the "Village of Watermills", where people live happily and in complete harmony with their natural surrounding.
Like any other person, Kurosawa was never a person without faults. He had his triumphs and he had his downfalls. He made timeless classics and he made average movies too but in all his contribution to the world cinema has been enormous and he is credited with bringing out raw but now widely recognized acting talents, Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai. Kurosawa's legacy will continue to live on for years and he will continue to inspire generations of film makers for a long, long time to come.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)