MovieChat Forums > Sugata Sanshirô (1974) Discussion > Government Standards/Cuts?

Government Standards/Cuts?

posted 14 years ago by RashomonLaStrada
7 replies | jump to latest

There may not be anyone alive today who could tell us what the Japanese government cut from Sanshiro Sugata. But I wonder if anyone can tell what the "standards" were for wartime movies and what (what in the world?) could have been in this movie that offended those standards?

Maybe these cuts are the reason so many people comment that the beginning of the movie is disjointed and does not engage them. Is that also the reason that there are some breaks in the movie with long written explanations of how time has passed? The second half of the movie is more satisfying storytelling.

Any theories on this?

"The good end happily, the bad unhappily, that is why it is called Fiction."

[–] Splash_Woman 14 years ago

Nothing was cut by the Japanese government, in fact they loved the film so much that they forced Kurosawa's hand and had him rush a quickie sequel out. The seventeen minutes of missing footage was lost sometime between the film's premier in 1943, and its re-release in 1952. The general consensus is that the footage was somehow destroyed during the course of World War II, and that this only became obvious after Kurosawa became a highly regarded filmmaker and a demand arose for his older films.

Luckily, the original script survived, and those are the sources of the long written explanations that are featured in the available cut of the film. The film was remade in both 1955 and 1965 using Kurosawa's original script; however, to my knowledge neither of these versions have seen the light of day outside of Japan.

[–] KenanP 14 years ago

zoe-fisher, I believe you're very mistaken.

The DVD (the new Criterion box with 25 Kurosawa movies) opens with:

"This film has been modified from the original version of Akira Kurosawa's debut film, which opened in 1943, without consulting the director or the production staff. 1,845 feet of footage was cut in 1944 to comply with the government's wartime entertainment policies.."
1952 Toho company

Also, in "Something Like An Autobiography" (page 130-131) Kurosawa says how he, when he had to face the censors in the Ministry of the Interior, wanted to tell them to go to hell and beat them with a chair because of their stance on Sugata Sanshirô. No word about them loving it.

Also, it was not the government but the studio that pushed for a sequel due to the success of the first movie. (again according to his autobiography)

RashomonLaStrada
According to Kurosawa in the autobiography:

The point of the censors was that everything in the film was "British-American". They seemed to find the little incident of the "love scene" between Sanshirô and his rival's daughter on the shrine stairs (the censors called this a "love scene" but all the two did was meet eachother for the first time there) to be particularly "British-American", and they harped as if they discovered some great oracular truth. If I listened attentively, I would fly into rage, so I did my best to look out the window and think of other things.

--------------------------------
Oh you mad cuz I'm stylin on you

[–] RashomonLaStrada 14 years ago

Thank you KenanP...

I think you hit on it. The "boy-girl" stuff was seen by the Japanese govt as being British-American...

still it would be great to have an original script to follow while watching the released movie in order to see exactly what was cut.

"The good end happily, the bad unhappily, that is why it is called Fiction."

[–] lnoft97 14 years ago

I watched part of this, this morning. I thought the boy-girl stuff on the stairs was very scenic and charming. I shudder to think what was "acceptable" boy-girl stuff to the Japanese government decades ago.

[–] crazyanglo 14 years ago

The Kempitai supervised the filming of this movie (again, see "Something Like An Autobiography") to ensure "decency". Despite that fact, Kurosawa managed to slip in some supremely erotic imagery. Notice the positions of the open parasol (hers) and furled parasol (his) on the stairs in the park.

[–] Splash_Woman 14 years ago

Thank you for the information. I guess I was mistaken, but I can swear (approximately two years ago) I saw a copy of the film broadcast on IFC that had an extremely shaky Toho intro on it that explicitly mentioned that 17 minutes of footage had been lost, and that they were then in the process of trying to relocate it. Meanwhile, they had inserted small silent-movie-esque scenes to explain the missing plot points, and apologized for the inconvenience. I do know, whatever the message was, it was noticeably longer than what you posted.

I know I also read somewhere that Zoku Sugata Sanshiro was heavily pushed for by the Japanese government. This makes some sense considering the film's plot is about Sugata demonstrating Japanese superiority against foreign rivals.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the apparent misinformation I posted. I've read quite a few books and articles on Kurosawa, but never the man's own autobiography. I suppose that I should probably correct that before I discuss him again.

*is thoroughly embarrassed*

[–] jadow81 14 years ago

The original 1943 release was 97 mins version.
Upon the re-release in 1944, it's cut to 79 mins,
which remains the official version to this day.
The original elements of the cut parts have been believed to be completely lost.

However, some years ago, with the help of Gosfilmofond (the Russian State Film Archive),
a team of Japanese researchers discovered portions of the original prints in their vault.

Although they were in very bad condition,
they restored and integrated them into the existing version.
The result is the 91 mins version included in the 2002 Toho DVD as an extra.
(R4 Madman DVD includes them as "Deleted Scenes", according to DVDBeaver:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews27/sanshiro_sugata.htm)

Still missing some parts, but much better than 79 mins version,
if you can ignore the poor picture/audio quality (especially audio).

This extra version also has optional audio commentary with
the Japanese film historian who discovered the prints in Russia
and Kurosawa's long time scriptor Teruyo Nogami.
According to their commentary, the cuts made to 1944 re-release
were simply due to the length, not the contents.
They had some strict rule about the movie length in '44, but not in '43.