XVII. The 30 Films of Akira Kurosawa: Waruiyatsu hodo yoku nemeru (The Bad Sleep Well) [1960] (by Lewis Saul)

Ed note:  For the next several weeks, composer and film aficionado Lewis Saul has agreed to supply us with in-depth commentary about the films of Akira Kurosawa, now showing in an extended festival at the Film Forum. Even if you're unable to stop by the Forum, we think Lew's insights will deepen your appreciation of these important movies.

Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (The Bad Sleep Well) [1960]

PLAYING on January 26th at The Film Forum

This is Kurosawa's 19th film and the first co-production between his new production company and Toho.

From my reading, it has always seemed that the reason Toho was anxious to have Kurosawa foot the bill for the expensive costs of his films -- and therefore take risks he had never been forced to take previously -- was that he often seemed to choose themes for his films which did not seem "commercial" at first glance. If his next film Yojimbo [1961] {playing February 3rd} had been his 19th film instead of his 20th, I would have thought that this was exactly the case -- Yojimbo seems hand-crafted with an eye towards making a bit hit!

But instead he made this film. A powerful, unflinching (although some still accuse Kurosawa of flinching, in the end [see below]) look at corporate Japan at the beginning of the big economic boom, and the gangsters in suits who ran/run the corporations ...

The Shakespearean connection here (Hamlet) would seem to be the most tenuous of the three (MacBeth/Throne of Blood and Ran/King Lear are the other two) -- and you can read many pages in Goodwin about it -- I'll leave that to you experts. I'm just a dumb musician.

 

Galbraith's chapter on this film is filled with terrific anecdotes, perhaps because of his relationship with Mike Inoue, Kurosawa's nephew, who had a lot to do with the origins of this very interesting movie:

"When I went to college I wanted to be a scriptwriter. I wrote a script and gave it to my uncle to read. Of course, he received scripts from all over. I wrote my name on the script, and every time I went to see him the script was always under a big pile, and each time I would move it to the top of the stack. One day I went to his birthday party and his wife rushed out to meet me at the front door and said, 'You'll be very happy to know your uncle had nothing to do while he was waiting for the guests to arrive, and he started reading your script.'" After some encouragement and six months more work, Inoue presented his uncle with a script entitled, "Bad Men's Prosperity." "[Kursoawa said], 'The story is very interesting. I might take up the subject for a film, but I'd have to refine the script you wrote. You don't mind, do you?'"

Inoue received no screen credit, but he didn't seem to mind. "Some of the scenes I spent ten pages on he replaced with only one line. I had many sleepless nights writing those scenes, but I have to admit their version was much better, and it wasn't my script anymore."

But wait! -- "I was in Paris on a business trip. I was going out to dinner and I saw a very tall man in the distance and realized it was my uncle. He said, 'What are you doing here?!' He suggested that I come to his room for drinks with three men from the Japanese Television Network and Ms. Teruyo Nogami, his assistant. As we kept drinking, my uncle said, 'Listen, I'm going to tell you something very interesting. This is the man who wrote The Bad Sleep Well!' Everybody stood up and got very excited! I said, 'Wait! Wait! He's been drinking, he doesn't know what he's saying!'" [p. 285]

"The screenplay opens at a large wedding reception, of a kind still very popular in Japan, mixing traditional Japanese and Western elements. Koichi Nishi (Mifune), secretary to Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori), the vice president of a government housing company, has married his boss's pretty but handicapped daughter, Yoshiko (Kyôko Kagawa). Amidst the formality, an undercurrent of intrigue becomes apparent. With newspaper and tabloid reporters watching close by, it is revealed that the company is embroiled in scandal, and one of the company executives, Wada (Kamatari Fujiwara), is about to be arrested. Yoshiko's brother, Tatsuo (Tatsuya Mihashi), in his speech to the wedding party, threatens to kill his new brother-in-law if he fails to make his sister happy. Then, chaos erupts when the wedding cake is wheeled into the hall. [Actually, it's the second wedding cake! Shirai {Kô Nishimura} is about to hand the cake knife to Nishi. He drops it upon seeing the second cake. - ls] The cake is baked in the shape of a large office building, with a black rose sticking out of one of the miniature windows. The executives are shocked. Five years earlier, one of their own, the scapegoat of an earlier scandal, had committed suicide by jumping out the window of that very building. As one of the reporters says flatly, 'funny wedding.'

This is followed by a lengthy, thrillingly edited and scored montage as the scandal rips wide open. An accountant, Miura (Gen Shimizu, six roles with AK), is arrested. After weeks of questioning, neither he nor Wada will talk. A company lawyer (Nobuo Nakamura) passes a message to Miura, and he promptly commits suicide. Lacking evidence to charge him, Wada is released. He too plans to kill himself -- by jumping into a volcano, no less -- but is stopped by Nishi.

Wada learns that Nishi is the illegitimate son of the company man who had been driven to suicide five year earlier. Since then Nishi has been meticulously plotting revenge, going so far as to marry the vice president's daughter to infiltrate the company's inner circle. Faking Wada's suicide and observing the subsequent funeral, Nishi then uses Wada's apparent death to get to the two men working directly under Iwabuchi: Shirai, whom Nishi drives mad, and Moriyama (Takashi Shimura, his hair dyed an oily black), whom he kidnaps and blackmails. Nishi's plans begin to fall apart after Iwabuchi learns his son-in-law's true identity. And while Nishi married Iwabuchi's daughter for the sole purpose of engineering his revenge, he now realizes that he genuinely loves her, and she him. Trusting her father's claims that he wants to help Nishi, Yoshiko reveals the location of Nishi's hideout and Iwabuchi has both Nishi and Wada murdered [and probably Moriyama, too! - ls]. The film ends with the hero dead, the corrupt executive unpunished." [pp. 285-6]

• Masaru Satô's score sounds a bit like the beginning of Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai) [1954] {playing January 29th and 30th) to me. Galbraith quotes him saying in 1996: "I was trying to depict the ruthless corporate environment, and I remembered the expression 'it's a jungle out there,' and so I tried to create a jungle-like atmosphere in the music." [p. 287]
• The Wedding March (organ) increases in volume as the camera frames Yoshiko. As soon as Tatsuo grabs her the music stops. A few seconds later, the waltz begins...
• Kôji Mitsui (Reporter A) tells his cameraman to get ready to photograph the bust. However, when Wada appears, initially no one takes any photos. That's because they were expecting one of the two Dairyu executives ... (when they find out who he is they get their photos -- we see them in the montage which follows the scene!) ...
• Look carefully at the second wedding cake as it is being wheeled in. Do you see the black fire escape, which is visible only for a second? See below!
• Look carefully at the dates on the newspapers in the montage. The 35 is the year. Showa 35 is 35 years after the first year of the Showa Era, which began in 1926. Therefore, Showa 35 is 1960.
• A newspaper photograph of Miura getting into a car is followed by the actual Miura getting into a car!
• The lower bids of 8.5 to 9 billion yen equals about 23 to 25 million dollars; the 12 billion yen bid about 33 million. So the kickback would have amounted to eight to ten million dollars. But we learn later that only half of the kickback was paid, i.e. around four or five million dollars. (Or was it just 10%? -- the dialogue leaves me confused.) In any case, no wonder the Dairyu executives are furious -- the $5M¥ that they accuse Shirai of stealing comes to around $14,000!
• As Prosecutor Okakura (Seiji Miyaguchi) grills Wada about the kickback, Wada remains completely motionless the entire time. The stenographer waits patiently. Finally, Okakura says, " ... you owe it to the public to reveal everything you know." At this, Wada lifts his head up and looks as if he's about to speak; the stenographer grabs his pen in anticipation ... but Wada says nothing. (It seems as if Okakura's comment about his "debt to the public" may have moved him for a nanosecond -- but ultimately, the feudalistic loyalty seemingly engrained in men like Wada [note that later he still retains such an attitude -- even towards Shirai, who had helped plot Wada's "suicide"] wins out in the end).
• Okakura finally realizes that Wada will never talk because of a unique non-verbal cue, previously understood universally: he offers him a cigarette and Wada continues to look down, never moving a muscle!
• However, he does not give up, continuing with the taxi receipts, without any success.
• The next cut takes us to Prosecutor Nonaka (Chishû Ryû, an Ozu regular) who is given an anonymous letter with a tip about the taxi receipts. This is a wonderful clue to the first-time audience that someone out there is doing something ...
• As the lawyer is telling Miura that he'll have to kill himself, the camera is close and low, looking up ... this gives the cut a kind of heavy gravity...
• "What'll it be? You want to die?" Nishi barks at Wada at the edge of the volcano. Wada screams as the camera descends into the smoky nothingness, which then dissolves into newspaper headlines, proclaiming Wada's suicide. The writers keep you confused...
• Shirai's convoluted trip to the bank is beautifully scored by Satô, alternately jaunty then threatening...
• After Nishi captures/rescues Shirai, he takes him to the government building where his father jumped to his death five years earlier. The first scene is a car and the camera then pans up a black fire escape. Remember -- from the cake? (Nice parallelism!)
• Nishi reminds Shirai about what happened in that room. "Recognize that window?" and cut to the outside shot of the entire building; and zoom in on the illuminated room -- all accompanied by spooky, electronic music.
• Take a look at Mifune in action as he straightens up to normal after shoving the money into the briefcase, closing it, turning around -- just in time to face the others! You can imagine the rehearsals necessary to get that timing just right!
• Satô's cues are wonderful; for example, at 54:37, as Shirai gets in a cab to go home, AK moves in close on his haggard face in the backseat of the taxi. A bassoon descends to its lowest depths. Of course Nishimura's face begs for orchestral comment!
• Re: the "flinching" comment above. Kurosawa (via Galbraith quoting Richie): "I was simply not telling and showing enough. Like the final scene with Mori on the telephone. This is the last of several calls, all apparently to the same person, someone very high in the Japanese government. That suggests, but is not explicit enough, [that] an even worse man is at the other end of that telephone line, but in Japan if you go any further then you are bound to run into serious trouble. This came as a big surprise to me, and maybe the picture would have been better if I had been braver. At any rate, it was too bad that I didn't go further. Maybe I could have in a country like America. Japan, however, cannot be this free and this makes me sad." [p. 288] And that quote makes me very very curious about what the real story might actually be!
• Many good parallel moments in this film: Yoshiko's slip at the wedding is mirrored later when Tatsuo sends her to get more ice and she trips again -- but this time Nishi catches her ... a nice red herring because Tatsuo assumes he truly loves her (which he does, of course), but he still knows nothing of Nishi's true identity...
• Mihashi look familiar? Think egg salad recipes!
• Chuck Stephens' essay in the booklet to the Criterion DVD has a few gems in it: "A gray flannel ghost story in which the living haunt the dead, The Bad Sleep Well remains the least appreciated of Kurosawa's midperiod collaborations with Mifune -- a fate which we have only the other Kurosawa-Mifune films to blame." Very well put!
• And again: "... muscularly supercinematic set pieces and heroic visual designs."
• What can you say about Mori's make-up job! Forty-nine in real life, but he seems like 70 here! (see my comments on the job Mifune did in Ikimono no kiroku [I Live in Fear/Record of a Living Being] {1955}.
• An associate once did a study of the wipes in Ikiru and found them to be slightly off-center. That got me to pay more attention -- and I definitely see one in here (I think; the rightward wipe at 1:19:05)...
• Moriyama is paying Furuya's widow (Natsuko Kahara) a visit. The camera first shows us a guitar player on a balcony above us. He will provide the score for this scene! As the tension increases, Kurosawa brings up the volume of the guitar as well.
• Finally, Moriyama grabs the photograph from Mrs. Furuya. In the first cut, Mifune is still pretty far away. An axial cut brings the image closer. Finally, a third axial cut brings it into close-up -- but here's the strange part: the image of Mifune is different (his lips are curled in a sort of sneer that was not seen in the photos we saw before)!!
• This may seem nit-picky, but actually I'm just very curious: wouldn't there have been some way -- even in 1960 -- for Itakura/the real Nishi to prove his real identity despite the fraud? He went to college. Wouldn't he be able to get his old college buddies to testify on his behalf? Or perhaps he's so distraught over his friend's murder that he cannot think straight at the moment...
• In addition to those already mentioned above, there are a glorious amount of small roles for the Kurosawa-gumi:
• • Chishû Ryû (Prosecutor Nonaka);
  • Seiji Miyaguchi, 1/7th of The Seven Samurai (Prosecutor Okakura);
  • Kôji Mitsui (Reporter A), seven films with AK;
  • Ken Mitsuda (President of Public Corp. Arimura);
  • Susumu Fujita (Detective);
  • Yutaka Sada (Wedding receptionist). He also appears later in the film, working at a desk;
  • Kyû Sazanka (Kaneko, Dairyu exec);
  • Kin Sugai (Mrs. Wada), five films with AK;
  • Kunie Tanaka (would-be assassin of Shirai), three films with AK. Tanaka is one of my favorite character actors. He has an important role in the five-film yakuza masterpiece by Kinji Fukasaku, Jingi naki tatakai (Battles Without Honor and Humanity) [1973-4] {The Yakuza Papers}.
• Here's my favorite: Hiromi Iwabuchi plays the second Iwabuchi maid!
• Nishimura in Galbraith: "When I met Mr. Kurosawa for the first time, I was surprised when he told me, 'Nishimura-kun, you will be surprised twenty times in this film. All of your reactions should be different. You think about it.' There aren't that many different ways to look surprised, I thought..."
• 1) as he sees Wada getting arrested; 2) as he is handing Nishi the knife to cut the wedding cake; 3) as Moriyama tells him to 'get on with it'; 4) as he reaches into the safe deposit box, and finds no money; 5) as he sees the photograph; 6) as he sees the money in his briefcase; 7) as he sees Wada; 8) as he runs off looking completely freaked out; 9) as he is pleading with Moriyama about what he thinks he just saw; 10) as he sees Wada again; 11) as he is sitting in the corner at Suminoya, traumatized with "paranoia"; 12) as he is walking home, half-expecting to see Wada again, he looks very surprised when he sees a figure, and squeaks, "Wada!" But it is not Wada. It is a hired assassin with a gun; 13) as he gets in the car and sees Nishi; 14) as he turns around and sees Wada; 15) as Nishi says he's here to kill him; 16) as Nishi shows him the photograph; 17) as Nishi tells him Furuya was his father; 18) as he hangs above the traffic, seven stories up [I think that look qualifies as "surprise"!]; and 19) as Nishi shines the flashlight in his eyes as he lies on the floor thinking he's been poisoned. As Kurosawa told him -- about 20 times! After this, we don't see him again (he is in an insane asylum)...
• At 1:23:40, Nishi hears the security guards outside the room. He quickly stuffs a handkerchief into Shirai's mouth. Nishimura: "His performance was very physical. Mr. Kurosawa yelled, 'Take it easy!' but Mifune-chan couldn't take it easy once he started acting. He finally cut the back of my lip, and blood was all over the handkerchief. He apologized profusely. Then we shot the scene where he shoves me out the window. It was the real window of the building, and my body was tied to a rope which was firmly attached to a steam heater. But Mifune-chan attacked me with his unusual power. That was frightening." [p. 292] (Look carefully at the scene. There are several cuts where Mifune is clearly holding Nishimura by both legs -- although one would hope that those cuts come from a safer stunt!)
• The "poison" business is quite clever. Knowing it is only whiskey, Nishi tells Wada that he's "certainly earned the right" to force-feed the poison to Shirai. However, by this time Wada is prepared to forgive Shirai. This really angers Nishi ...
• In perhaps the best speech he is given in the film, Nishi manages to tap into the crux of the story: he screams at Wada: "How dare you! Who gave you the right to forgive him? You were in on their crooked schemes." His tone softens. "So was my father. They tamed my father and you with scraps from their table and offered you up as scapegoats, yet you can't hate them. This is the only message scum like them understand. Even now they sleep soundly, grins on their faces. I won't stand for it! I can never hate them enough!"
• But even Nishi's hate has its limits. The "poison" Nishimura drinks is just whiskey.
• There is strong anecdotal evidence that Kurosawa always picked some young actor to be the designated receptacle for his trash talk on any given shoot. It is said that Takeshi Katô) (the real Nishi/"Itakura") was the target of AK's abuse on this set. If the director felt that that is what it took to get this performance, so be it. I think Katô is fantastic!
• There are 26 wipes in this film, all horizontal (18l/8r).

Kurosawa XVIII