thedrifter
12-17-06, 09:31 AM
The Other Side of WWII
- John Stanley
Sunday, December 17, 2006
When Clint Eastwood recently told The Chronicle how he came to make "Flags of Our Fathers," his World War II epic that opened across America in October, he confessed that he became helplessly fascinated with the battle for Iwo Jima.
"I began to see it from the Japanese point of view, a totally different way of viewing our history," he said. "It was such a small island, and yet it had taken an armada of 880 ships and the lives of 6,700 Marines to capture.
"The defenders, who kept the fight going for 40 furious days from within a system of caves and tunnels, lost 20,000 men. It became the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, and in my mind a second movie took shape, from the viewpoint of the Japanese military. With two films, I could show how each side approached the battle, and how each culture differed in its attitude toward war."
That second film, "Letters From Iwo Jima," opens Wednesday at the Century 9 and then at other theaters in early January. Because it was shot with a Japanese cast and a script translated from English into Japanese, and because subtitles are used throughout, "Letters" seems like a foreign-made film, something Akira Kurosawa might have directed. And yet it is purely an American project -- directed by Eastwood and produced by him and Steven Spielberg, among others, for DreamWorks.
In dramatizing the Japanese military, Eastwood asked screenwriter Paul ("Flags of Our Fathers") Haggis and fledgling movie writer Iris Yama****a, a Japanese American, to shape a script around a handful of lower-ranked Japanese soldiers trying to survive the battle, to be called "Red Sun, Black Sand." That title was changed after portions of the script became based on letters written by the commander of the island garrison, Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (1891-1945), which had already been published as a book, "Picture Letters From Commander in Chief."
To portray Kuribayashi, Eastwood chose Ken Watanabe, a Japanese actor who had been minimally known in America before his Oscar nomination for portraying Katsumoto in "The Last Samurai" (2003) opposite Tom Cruise. Before that breakthrough, Watanabe had been a household name in Japan since 1987, when he played a samurai hero in the TV series "Dokugan-ryu Masamune." Watanabe began to break away from his samurai image when he made "Memoirs of a Geisha" (2005) and "Batman Begins" (2005). He has maintained a low profile and simple lifestyle, as he does not consider himself a star.
Watanabe struggles at times with his English, and an interpreter was translating when the 47-year-old actor took time via phone from Los Angeles to discuss his experience with Eastwood, whom he first met at the Academy Awards in 2004.
"I couldn't talk when we were introduced," Watanabe said. "I think I stopped breathing. When I could finally speak, Clint was generous to me, like a father. Even before we worked together, he was a favorite moviemaker to me because of 'Unforgiven,' a Western but not a Western. True feelings for human beings."
When Watanabe heard that Eastwood was making "Flags of Our Fathers," he asked his agent to secure him a role in the film -- but there were no significant Japanese parts. However, by then Eastwood had shaped the concept for "Letters" and sought out Watanabe.
The actor immediately buried himself in the general's history.
"Kuribayashi, a remarkable man. Resourceful. Not just good military, but a generous man," Watanabe said. "He came to America twice (as deputy military attache in Washington, D.C.). Most Japanese were not meeting Americans in 1928. He developed strong ties to this country and traveled here and in Canada very much. He understood about U.S. economy and industry. He respected America and was opposed to war. And later, during his command of Iwo Jima, this made fighting America difficult for him. But it also gave him a look into the American mind, so he could create his defense of the island. He fought with many officers about defending Iwo Jima. They wanted to attack. He wanted them to stand and fight."
It was Kuribayashi who shifted strategy and moved his troops inside the volcanic island to fight from heavily fortified positions.
Before shooting in Hollywood -- where most of the cave sequences would be done -- and on Iwo Jima, Watanabe traveled to Matushiro, Japan, to meet with Kuribayashi's descendants. He also read all 41 published letters the general wrote while on the island. To Watanabe, these letters revealed him to be "a household man, a father who took care of his family. And he was a man with a sense of humor. There were funny drawings. I saw a picture of a small chicken." (Eastwood has described the artwork as "doodles and caricatures" filled with sentiment.)
In Hollywood, Watanabe, who loves cooking, prepared rice bowls for cast and crew. He also did his best to see that the nuances of the Japanese language were understood by the Americans after several translations of the script into Japanese had been boiled into one. (Eastwood has said, "Acting is acting. When it's good, it's good, even if you don't understand the language that's being spoken.")
Some sequences of "Letters" were filmed on Iwo Jima, with the cooperation of the Japanese government, which now considers the island -- with its 18 miles of tunnels, 5,000 caves and thousands of unrecovered bodies of soldiers -- sacred soil.
Watanabe recalled that when he arrived on Iwo Jima, "I couldn't stop crying as I stepped off the plane." As he began to walk, "I had a feeling pass through me. It was the experience of the battle. In a moment, I lived the fighting again. I was surrounded by these feelings of the men who had died, and the feeling was that they had done the right thing."
Watanabe had brought with him "pure water" from Matushiro, which he carried to the island cave -- now dedicated as a monument -- where Kuribayashi had commanded his garrison.
"I was very sad in that headquarters cave because when I poured the water out, it soaked into the sand and was quickly gone," Watanabe said. "I felt as if Kuribayashi was thanking me for that water. It was a terrible place. During the battle, like a sauna. The temperature had been 120 degrees and there was no food and little, if any, water."
Watanabe, who plays a victim of Alzheimer's disease in his next film, "Memories of Tomorrow," and who is a survivor of leukemia, said it was his idea to have Kuribayashi carry a pearl-handled .45-caliber automatic pistol -- given to him by an American -- as a symbol of his sentiments. The official story is that the commander committed suicide on March 25, 1945, in the closing days of the battle, but "nobody has ever known for certain how he died," Watanabe said. "Clint dramatizes it in a special way."
The actor said he couldn't speak for five minutes after he saw the final cut of "Letters From Iwo Jima."
"I couldn't find a word to say. It was internal, very painful. Before shooting the movie, I think I was confused about my feelings toward the reality of war. Now I know I definitely hate war and want to fight against war. We now have two movies with completely different tragedies. But by watching the two perspectives, we can see the truth better. Both are important if we are to tell the story of Iwo Jima."
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (R) opens Wednesday at the Century 9 in San Francisco.
John Stanley is a freelance writer.
Ellie
- John Stanley
Sunday, December 17, 2006
When Clint Eastwood recently told The Chronicle how he came to make "Flags of Our Fathers," his World War II epic that opened across America in October, he confessed that he became helplessly fascinated with the battle for Iwo Jima.
"I began to see it from the Japanese point of view, a totally different way of viewing our history," he said. "It was such a small island, and yet it had taken an armada of 880 ships and the lives of 6,700 Marines to capture.
"The defenders, who kept the fight going for 40 furious days from within a system of caves and tunnels, lost 20,000 men. It became the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, and in my mind a second movie took shape, from the viewpoint of the Japanese military. With two films, I could show how each side approached the battle, and how each culture differed in its attitude toward war."
That second film, "Letters From Iwo Jima," opens Wednesday at the Century 9 and then at other theaters in early January. Because it was shot with a Japanese cast and a script translated from English into Japanese, and because subtitles are used throughout, "Letters" seems like a foreign-made film, something Akira Kurosawa might have directed. And yet it is purely an American project -- directed by Eastwood and produced by him and Steven Spielberg, among others, for DreamWorks.
In dramatizing the Japanese military, Eastwood asked screenwriter Paul ("Flags of Our Fathers") Haggis and fledgling movie writer Iris Yama****a, a Japanese American, to shape a script around a handful of lower-ranked Japanese soldiers trying to survive the battle, to be called "Red Sun, Black Sand." That title was changed after portions of the script became based on letters written by the commander of the island garrison, Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (1891-1945), which had already been published as a book, "Picture Letters From Commander in Chief."
To portray Kuribayashi, Eastwood chose Ken Watanabe, a Japanese actor who had been minimally known in America before his Oscar nomination for portraying Katsumoto in "The Last Samurai" (2003) opposite Tom Cruise. Before that breakthrough, Watanabe had been a household name in Japan since 1987, when he played a samurai hero in the TV series "Dokugan-ryu Masamune." Watanabe began to break away from his samurai image when he made "Memoirs of a Geisha" (2005) and "Batman Begins" (2005). He has maintained a low profile and simple lifestyle, as he does not consider himself a star.
Watanabe struggles at times with his English, and an interpreter was translating when the 47-year-old actor took time via phone from Los Angeles to discuss his experience with Eastwood, whom he first met at the Academy Awards in 2004.
"I couldn't talk when we were introduced," Watanabe said. "I think I stopped breathing. When I could finally speak, Clint was generous to me, like a father. Even before we worked together, he was a favorite moviemaker to me because of 'Unforgiven,' a Western but not a Western. True feelings for human beings."
When Watanabe heard that Eastwood was making "Flags of Our Fathers," he asked his agent to secure him a role in the film -- but there were no significant Japanese parts. However, by then Eastwood had shaped the concept for "Letters" and sought out Watanabe.
The actor immediately buried himself in the general's history.
"Kuribayashi, a remarkable man. Resourceful. Not just good military, but a generous man," Watanabe said. "He came to America twice (as deputy military attache in Washington, D.C.). Most Japanese were not meeting Americans in 1928. He developed strong ties to this country and traveled here and in Canada very much. He understood about U.S. economy and industry. He respected America and was opposed to war. And later, during his command of Iwo Jima, this made fighting America difficult for him. But it also gave him a look into the American mind, so he could create his defense of the island. He fought with many officers about defending Iwo Jima. They wanted to attack. He wanted them to stand and fight."
It was Kuribayashi who shifted strategy and moved his troops inside the volcanic island to fight from heavily fortified positions.
Before shooting in Hollywood -- where most of the cave sequences would be done -- and on Iwo Jima, Watanabe traveled to Matushiro, Japan, to meet with Kuribayashi's descendants. He also read all 41 published letters the general wrote while on the island. To Watanabe, these letters revealed him to be "a household man, a father who took care of his family. And he was a man with a sense of humor. There were funny drawings. I saw a picture of a small chicken." (Eastwood has described the artwork as "doodles and caricatures" filled with sentiment.)
In Hollywood, Watanabe, who loves cooking, prepared rice bowls for cast and crew. He also did his best to see that the nuances of the Japanese language were understood by the Americans after several translations of the script into Japanese had been boiled into one. (Eastwood has said, "Acting is acting. When it's good, it's good, even if you don't understand the language that's being spoken.")
Some sequences of "Letters" were filmed on Iwo Jima, with the cooperation of the Japanese government, which now considers the island -- with its 18 miles of tunnels, 5,000 caves and thousands of unrecovered bodies of soldiers -- sacred soil.
Watanabe recalled that when he arrived on Iwo Jima, "I couldn't stop crying as I stepped off the plane." As he began to walk, "I had a feeling pass through me. It was the experience of the battle. In a moment, I lived the fighting again. I was surrounded by these feelings of the men who had died, and the feeling was that they had done the right thing."
Watanabe had brought with him "pure water" from Matushiro, which he carried to the island cave -- now dedicated as a monument -- where Kuribayashi had commanded his garrison.
"I was very sad in that headquarters cave because when I poured the water out, it soaked into the sand and was quickly gone," Watanabe said. "I felt as if Kuribayashi was thanking me for that water. It was a terrible place. During the battle, like a sauna. The temperature had been 120 degrees and there was no food and little, if any, water."
Watanabe, who plays a victim of Alzheimer's disease in his next film, "Memories of Tomorrow," and who is a survivor of leukemia, said it was his idea to have Kuribayashi carry a pearl-handled .45-caliber automatic pistol -- given to him by an American -- as a symbol of his sentiments. The official story is that the commander committed suicide on March 25, 1945, in the closing days of the battle, but "nobody has ever known for certain how he died," Watanabe said. "Clint dramatizes it in a special way."
The actor said he couldn't speak for five minutes after he saw the final cut of "Letters From Iwo Jima."
"I couldn't find a word to say. It was internal, very painful. Before shooting the movie, I think I was confused about my feelings toward the reality of war. Now I know I definitely hate war and want to fight against war. We now have two movies with completely different tragedies. But by watching the two perspectives, we can see the truth better. Both are important if we are to tell the story of Iwo Jima."
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (R) opens Wednesday at the Century 9 in San Francisco.
John Stanley is a freelance writer.
Ellie