The Embodiment of Nuclear Fears

This has been a weird week... the very week of the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing has seen an escalation of fears that North Korea will join the 'nuclear club', and the death of Haruo Nakajima, the actor who played the monster in the 1954 film Gojira. The eponymous monster played an embodiment of the national post-traumatic stress disorder felt by the Japanese populace after World War 2, especially the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Mr Nakajima's portray of the hulking villain of the movie was nothing short of heroic, as the suit he wore weighed more than two-hundred pounds:


"Since materials were so rare, things like rubber were not available. Instead, they used ready-mixed concrete, so it weighed about 100kg. It was so heavy and hot, and with the lighting, it was even hot just to touch it. I was sweating all over my face, but I did the best I could."


Being perfectly suited to the role of Gojira, Mr Nakajima continued to play the role of the monster throughout the transition of kaiju movies from horror to science-fantasy to camp until 1972, when he played the monster in his throwdown with Gigan:





The 'kaiju vs kaiju' movies which featured the formerly villainous Gojira as a hero form the greatest 'professional wrestling' act in entertainment history, with the horror of destruction undercut by the 'moves' of the outrageous monster combatants. The tragedy of the 1954 film transitioned into farce... which brings us to our current nuclear kerfuffle. The Trump vs Kim rhetorical rumble is an outlandish one... a fight between two spoiled narcissists with bad haircuts who never could have succeeded on their own merits. It's like Trumpzilla:

Versus Kim Ghidorah:

Of course, while farcical, this conflict is also deadly serious, and potentially tragic. The last thing we need is a Commander in Chief who ad-libs nuclear threats while the U.S. diplomatic corps is being hollowed out. Trump sounds as loony as Kim Jong Un, being as bellicose and ignorant of consequences as North Korea's boy wonder.

I really feel bad for the people of Guam, Japan, and especially South Korea (Seoul being vulnerable to artillery strikes). For a reasoned analysis of the Korea issue, I recommend reading mikey's take. In the meantime, I really can't freak out over this issue... I'd like to think that cooler heads will prevail while the two kaiju-in-chiefs confine their conflict to a war of words. In the meantime, I think I will honor the life and career of Mr Nakajima by listening to Akira Ifukube's glorious theme to the Gojira movies:





Mr Nakajima's turn in the suit ranged from 'figure of nuclear horror' to 'big green defender of the planet'. I don't expect a heel-face turn from either Trump or Kim, neither of them has the brains of a radioactive dinosaur.

After Yesterday's Ifukube Lovefest

Yesterday's post was one long love letter to Japanese composer Akira Ifukube. I have to confess, though, as much as I love Ifukube's work, my favorite classic Japanese movie soundtrack is Satô Masaru's more jazz-inspired score to one of my all-time favorite movies, Akira Kurosawa's 1961 Yojimbo, a brilliant, bloody film that Sergio Leone remade as A Fistful of Dollars. With no further ado, here's the opening theme to Yojimbo:





If you haven't seen the movie, you really need to get your hands on a copy of it now. The movie is a blackly humorous, violent period piece about an amoral man who manipulates two factions of even worse men into a conflict so that he can profit from the ensuing chaos. If you have an entire day to fritter away watching movies, a Yojimbo/Fist Full of Dollars double feature would give you an entire month's recommended allowance of badassery.

A while back, I envisioned Paula Deen playing her fans' stomachs off against their pancreases in order to make money. I think one more coffin is needed for her career.

Hey, I Can Lift My Knuckles From the Ground!

Back in the mid-90's, when my two younger brothers were still in college, their friends would often descend upon the family abode for a weekend of partying and letting off steam. Oddly enough, after a Saturday night of drinking enough to float a sizable sailing vessel, a couple of us would hit the local bookstore to pick up the Sunday New York Times and we would pass it around while eating a large "hangover mitigation" breakfast. One morning, while on the paper run with "Whisky Joe", we decided to stop at a table in the bookstore cafe to guzzle a cup of coffee. There we were, two rough looking customers amid the post-church crowd. I turned to Whisky Joe and intoned, "Some people have yahooism thrust upon them, they don't have a choice in the matter, but we choose to be yahoos. We're sophisticated, educated yahoos." From then on, the Sunday paper run became known as "The Educated Yahoos Club".

As an educated yahoo, I have to confess that my exposure to the works of composer Akira Ifukube was strictly through the soundtrack work he did for Toho films. Ifukube was the genius behind the outstanding 1954 Godzilla soundtrack, including the iconic "roar" of the monster:





Poking around the intert00bz, I found one of Ikufube's earlier classic compositions, the beautiful 1935 Japanese Rhapsody:





Ifukube was also an ethnomusicologist... as a youth on the island of Hokkaido, he became acquainted with the music and culture of the Ainu people. Here is an excerpt from his 1949 vocal composition, Three Lullabys of the Native People of Sakhalin





Amazing what you learn when you decide to lift your knuckles off the ground and explore the more "highfalutin'" aspects of the career of a guy who's mainly known for his gorgeous sountracks for movies about giant moths.