O Escândalo

Frequently neglected in comparison with his earlier works, this 1950 film provides a naturalistic look at conditions in post-war

Japan and hits on themes that seem oddly contemporary: the price of celebrity and the debate over the responsibility of a free

press

All the right characters are here: a pop star, a prominent artist, a seedy attorney, an unscrupulous gossip magazine publisher and the obligatory angelic daughter with tuberculosis! ItÕs even topped off with a climactic courtroom scene.

While Toshiro Mifune is the marquee name,Takashi Shimura, as the conflicted attorney Hiruta, is the star of this moral melodrama. His performance may seem excessive to some but he gets the great self condemning line that resonates today, ÒA bad lawyer is the worst scum.Ó

One trivia note: While Mifune and Shimura are among the better known members of KurosawaÕs stable, Scandal marks the debut of another familiar face, Bokuzen Hidari, as a drunk in a hostess bar belting out Auld Lang Syne

It is wonderful to see how a skilled director like Akira Kurosawa can create a masterwork from mundane material. This one is a simple court case over a "Scandal" involving Toshiro Mifune and a famous singer. A sandal sheet magazine publishes a photo claiming them as lovers ... they are not, and sue the magazine. The resulting court trial is the bulk of the film. Their sleazy lawyer played by Takashai Shimura is a delightful, complicated character. Completely absorbing.

This Kurasawa film, starring the ubiquitous Toshiro Mifune is exactly what most film fans do NOT expect. This is NOT a samurai film and there is no killing and it was set in the present-day. Unfortunately, because of these factors it is seldom shown on TV and has been largely ignored by Kurasawa buffs. This is a real shame because I think it's one of his best--due to wonderful writing and characterizations.

The story begins with Mifune on vacation. He's in the mountains painting for relaxation when he accidentally meets up with a famous female celebrity. He drives her back to the inn they are both staying at and the next day they happen to meet again and share breakfast. Nothing illicit--just two nice people sharing time together. However, unknown to them, they are seen and photographed by sleazy tabloid writers who try to create scandal.

The star is't terribly bothered by the mess but Mifune sees this as a great dishonor and he MUST gain satisfaction from the rag. They refuse to relent and so Mifune seeks out legal representation to sue.

This is only the first third of the movie. The alcoholic lawyer and his handicapped daughter make up a powerful and importance presence in the movie. The ending is NOT TO BE MISSED--I couldn't have wanted a better human drama or better acting. Wonderful and true throughout.

Akiro Kurosawa's "Scandal" was released in 1950, the same year than "Rashomon" which makes its relative lack of fame understandable albeit unfair, because in its own modest way, "Scandal" marks a transition between Kurosawa's neo-realistic movies such as "Stray Dog" and "Drunken Angel" and international recognition. You can even feel some announcing signs of the revolution named "Rashomon"... from the very first scene.

Ichioro Aoye is painting in the mountains, watched by three rustic and colorful mountaineers who can't understand why the mount he's painting is red. Because it's moving, says Aoye. The idea that painting couldn't represent reality baffles them, foreshadowing the conflict to come. Then occurs a strange meeting with a renowned singer Miyako Sajio, played by Shirley Yamagushi. She's lost, the bus will be late, Aoye offers her a ride to the hotel on his motorbike. Later, two paparazzi from tabloid magazine "Amour" take a picture of Sajio and Aoye in a balcony.

And so begins the scandal.

At first, the film has a strange Kazanian feel reminding his films about the power of media, in one side, the offended righteous couple and opposing them, the sleazy paparazzi owner with a grin, invoking freedom of press in a media joust presented like a ping-pong montage of interviews (instead of the usual spinning headlines). There's something oddly American in this modern Japan, that went as far as adopting the standards of America such as Santa Claus, "Silent Night" and even "Auld Lang Syne". It's not much the presence of America than the loss of values and poetry Kurosawa denounces. There's something wrong indeed when people can be fooled by a static photograph but not see the poetry in a painting.

The still photo moved more than Aoie's vision of the mountain.

It's that context of twisted and distorted reality that made Japan lose its boundaries and if you look at it carefully, this is the very basis of "Rashomon", the idea that what you see, what you take for granted might only be a matter of perspective. Applying this logic to the picture, and knowing for a fact the article is a bunch of lies made to sell paper, we can't help but feel from our perspective that there's some genuine guilt within the couple, they might have fallen in love after all. It's then a matter of honor, the point is to be responsible for what you show and whether you're criticized for the way you do it is irrelevant if the intent is sincere.

Kurosawa was more celebrated outside Japan maybe because he was closer to Aioe painting his mountain, never a paparazzi forging the truth, and boy, did his pictured shake the world.

And when the media circus calms down, a down-on-his-luck lawyer named Hiruta, played by Takashi Shimura, offers his help. Aioe is perplexed at first and it's only after he meets Hiruta's young tuberculous daughter Masako (Yôko Katsuragi) terminally ill, that he lets Hiruta defend him. Masako is a central character as she represents the morality, innocence and purity being lost in post-WW2 Japan, a delicate and soulful girl who sees no bad without ignoring its existence and paradoxically, she's also the trigger of her father's moral downfall as he takes bribes from the adverse party to slow the trial, needing money to cure them.

So just when we think we're having a courtroom drama, Kurosawa surprises his own audience. The narrative loses focus on the trial and turns into a character study of guilt and redemption through he overly pathetic Hiruta. Sometimes truly heartbreaking, sometimes grotesque with his constant snorting and self-loathing (he was inspired by a man Kurosawa used to encounter in a bar), sometimes even annoying with his sorry look and bent posture, it's a first taste of "Ikiru" that kind of drag down during ten minutes before the film takes its breath back.

The focus on Hiruta proves that Kurosawa doesn't care for ideas than people, it's one thing to comment on Japan's declining values but to show it through a personal tragedy is the real craft of the Master. After all, even in "Rashomon", the story would have been pointless if it wasn't for that emotional finale with the two men.

So honor, life and death have been recurring themes in all Kurosawa's filmography and the evolution and redemption of Hiruta is the soul of the film, the internal battle between principles and money. The film carries some noir undertones with journalists posing like verbal gangsters but ultimately, the film is about the way people should conduct themselves, it's about men doing their job with commitment and responsibility. "Drunken Angel" had a doctor who cared for an ill man though he was a criminal, "Stray Dog" was about a cop who lost a gun and feared the bullets would make collateral victims, "Scandal" has singers, painters, professionals who, whether lawyers or journalist, have a responsibility to face (notice that even the bad guy's lawyer is more competent and ethical than his opponent).

That responsibility is materialized in Kurosawa's camera, one picture can destroy people's lives, but in another scene, Hiruta sees the picture of his daughter before taking a bribe and can't even look straight at her. What you see can also warn you about what you are and Kurosawa painted his own truth with the empathy of a true humanist. Another example is when Hiruta comes late at home, he sees Sajio singing a Xmas song and she's framed by the door as a screen vignette within the shot, as if that moment was encapsulating his own personal alienation.

So "Scandal" is about what people perceive and how they're perceived in return, and in this overlapping of realities, somewhere the truth exists and tending to it is a moral responsibility and art is the perfect accessory as long as it's used sincerely. Indeed a fine precursor to "Rashomon", and to use a hackneyed formula, an underrated little gem.

This premiered in Japan only four months before "Rashômon" (1950), a film that marked a turn of events for Kurosawa, who, a year later in 1951, would find himself picking up the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, his name henceforth on everyone's lips.

This marks an end of an era, then. It does pair up very well with "Yoidore tenshi" (1948) and "Nora inu" (1949), its immediate predecessors, but also with "Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru" (1960). All of these are scintillating depictions of urban Japan, but they all mark an acute sense of drama on the personal level: these are "small" films when compared to "Shichinin no samurai" (1954) and "Ran" (1985), for example, but Kurosawa, in these films, shows his strengths, and the great energetic intimacy that is prevalent in "Samurai", for example, quite possibly stems from the experience of making a film like this.

I have no idea why this is often overlooked as mere "early Kurosawa", as if that would somehow de-note a lesser film. His later masterpieces are great films, but the early films of his are amongst the most rewarding I know of. What's more, this film shares a great deal with "Rashômon" (1950) in meditating on truth and how that is and can be depicted on screen in the narrative. A brilliant film in all respects, and Mifune is as amazing as ever.