The Last Samurai

I was about to say earlier that if I had not read Roemer on the 30th of April 1985 the world would be short a genius; I said that the world without the Infant Terrible would be like the world without Newton & Mozart & Einstein! I have no idea if this is true; I have no way of knowing if this is true. Not every genius is a prodigy & not every prodigy is a genius & at 5 it is too soon to tell. Sidis knew 12 languages at 8, lectured on solid geometry at Harvard at 12, and ended unknown to all but anxious parents of early over-achievers. Cézanne taught himself to paint in his twenties. But Bernini was a prodigy and a genius, and so was Mozart. It’s not impossible. It’s possible.

It’s possible, but is it likely? If L is a Mozart or a Newton people 10 centuries from now will be interested in the fact that he so nearly

Why did he cut off his hair? Why did he change his clothes?

WHY DID HE CUT OFF HIS HAIR? WHY DID HE CHANGE HIS CLOTHES?

WHY DID HE

He had to disguise himself as a priest so the thief wouldn’t be suspicious and kill the child.

Well why couldn’t the priest go?

I think Buddhist priests don’t believe in violence. Besides, the priest might not have been able to disarm the thief. Anyway the thing that matters is that he does it for nothing, and he does it to rescue a child, because we discover later that his greatest regret—

I would like to tell him to let the film speak for itself. I am about to say this in the confidence that he cannot go wrong when I remember Mr. Richie’s comments on the final rice-planting scene. Mr. Richie is the author of The Films of Akira Kurosawa, and as I rely on this book for everything I know about the many films of Kurosawa which are not available on video I wish he had not said that the end showed the ingratitude of the farmers and a rice-planting scene as an element of hope. If the film does not speak for itself I will have to say something about the film which I would very much rather

I say to L that I read somewhere that in the Tokugawa period it was punishable by death for a non-samurai to carry a sword. I say that Mr. Richie says that shaving the head would normally be a mark of humiliation for a samurai. I say that the name of the actor with the moustache is Mifune Toshiro because I don’t want him to pick up my bad habit of putting the names in the Western order out of laziness and I write it down on a piece of paper for him so he will know it next time. I say that the name of the actor who plays the samurai is Shimura Takashi and I write down after a little thought the characters for Shimura and after a lot of thought the character for Takashi. I say that I have seen Kurosawa’s name spelled two ways, the characters for Kuro (black) and Akira (don’t know) are always the same, but I have seen two different characters used for Sawa. I write down both versions & I say that it seems more polite to use the form preferred by its bearer. He says which one is Kurosawa and I say he does not appear, he is the director and he says what’s a director and I say that it will be easier to explain when he has seen the film. It occurs to me that these pieces of information are flimsy defences against whatever it is that makes a man when told to toss a person from a plane do as told, which is too bad as L instantly wants to know more. He asks me to write down the names of all the other actors so he can look at them later. I say I will try to find them in the autobiography.

never existed; Roemer will be as momentous in his way as the plague that sent Newton home from Cambridge. But why shouldn’t he end badly? The business of getting a baby from womb to air is pretty well understood. Out it comes, a dribbling squall. Presently its talents come into the open; they are hunted down, and bludgeoned into insensibility. But Mozart was once a prodigious, prestidigious little monkey.

My father used to say with a mocking smile when things went wrong, which they for the most part did: Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these, it might have been. If L comes to good not by some miracle but by doing the right thing rather than the wrong others may profit from his escape; if he comes to bad (as is not unlikely) his example may spare them.

The farmers look at each other. This is the man they need. They follow him out of town.

So does Mifune.

So does the aristocratic young man. He runs up to the samurai in the road and falls to his knees.

L (reading subtitles): My name is Katsushiro Okamoto. Let me follow you

L: I am Kambei Shimada. I am only a ronin. What’s a ronin?

I: A masterless samurai.

L: I am not a samurai and I have no followers

L: Please take me

L: Stand up, or else we can’t talk properly

L: You are embarrassing me; I am not very skilful