Red Beard
·
Introduction
Red Beard (赤ひげ Akahige)
could be a 1965 Japanese film directed by movie maker regarding the connection
between a city doctor and his new initiate. The film was supported Shūgorō
Yamamoto's story assortment, Akahige shinryōtan (赤ひげ診療譚). Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Humiliated and affronted
provided the supply for a subplot a few miss, Otoyo (Terumi Niki), World Health
Organization is reclaimed from a bagnio. The film looks at the problem of
social injustice and explores two of Kurosawa's favourite topics: humanism and
existentialism.
· Plot
The film takes place in Koishikawa, a region of Edo (the former name of the
town of Tokyo), within the nineteenth century. Young Dr. Noboru Yasumoto (Yūzō
Kayama) is the film's protagonist. Trained in a Dutch medical school in
Nagasaki, the arrogant Yasumoto aspires to the status of personal physician of
the Shogunate, a position currently held by a close relative; his father is
already a well-established, highly competent physician. Yasumoto believes that
he ought to progress through the safe, and well-protected, army structure of
medical education. However, for Yasumoto's post-graduate medical training, he
has been assigned to a rural clinic under the guidance of Akahige ("Red
Beard"), Dr. Kyojō Niide (played by Toshiro Mifune). Dr. Niide may seem
like a tyrannical task master, but in reality he is a compassionate clinic
director. Initially, Yasumoto is livid at his posting, basic cognitive process
that he has very little to achieve from operating underneath Akahige. Dr.
Yasumoto feels that Dr. Niide is barely fascinated by his medical notes and
shortly rebels against the clinic director. He refuses to wear his uniform,
disdains the food and spartan environment, and enters the forbidden garden
where he meets "The Mantis" (Kyōko Kagawa), a mysterious patient that
only Dr. Niide can treat.
As Yasumoto struggles to come to terms with his situation, the film tells
the story of a few of the clinic's patients. One of them is Rokusuke, a dying
man whom Dr. Niide discerns is troubled by a secret misery that's solely
unconcealed once his urgently sad girl shows up. Another is Sahachi, a
well-loved man of the town known for his generosity to his neighbors, who has a
tragic connection to a woman whose corpse is discovered after a landslide. Dr.
Niide brings Yasumoto along to rescue a sick twelve-year-old girl from a
brothel (fighting off a local gang of thugs to do so) and then assigns the girl
to Yasumoto as his first patient. Through his efforts to heal the traumatized
lady, Yasumoto begins to understand the magnitude of cruelty and suffering
around him as well as his power to ease that suffering, and learns to regret
his vanity and selfishness.
When Yasumoto himself falls sick, he is nursed back to health by the care
and affection of Otoyo, the twelve-year-old girl who was saved from the
brothel.
Through his observations of Dr. Niide's compassion and a series of needy
patients, Dr. Yasumoto learns what being a doctor really means. The lives of
patients square measure additional necessary than wealth or standing. Their
sufferings can be ameliorated with compassion and conscientious care.
According to the statement on the Criterion assortment DVD Red Beard was
shot at a facet quantitative relation of two.35:1. It was Kurosawa's initial
film to create use of a magnetic 4-track stereo audio recording and principal
photography took 2 years. The set was supposed to be traditionally accurate:
the crew went as so much on use the proper quite aged wood that might are
employed in the region at the time the film is set, at Kurosawa's request.
· Cast
Toshiro Mifune as Dr. Kyojō Niide (新出 去定 Niide Kyojo) conjointly
referred to as "Red Beard" (Akahige)
Yūzō Kayama as Dr. Noboru Yasumoto (保本 登 Yasumoto Noboru)
Tsutomu Yamazaki as Sahachi (佐八), a wheelwright.
Reiko Dan as Osugi (お杉), a
servant.
Miyuki Kuwano as Onaka (おなか)
Kyōko Kagawa as "The Mantis", a madwoman.
Tatsuyoshi Ehara as Genzo Tsugawa (津川 玄三 Tsugawa Genzo)
Terumi Niki as Otoyo (おとよ)
Akemi Negishi as Okuni (おくに)
Yoshitaka Zushi as Choji (長次)
Yoshio Tsuchiya as Dr. Handayu Mori (森 半太夫 Mori Handayu)
Eijirō Tōno – Goheiji
Takashi Shimura – Tokubei Izumiya
Chishū Ryū – Mr. Yasumoto
Kinuyo Tanaka – Mrs. Yasumoto
Kōji Mitsui – Heikichi
Haruko Sugimura – Kin, the madam of a local brothel.
References
Stephen Prince commentary to Criterion Collection DVD release
External links
Red Beard on IMDb
Red Beard at AllMovie
Red Beard (in Japanese) at the japanese show information
Red Beard at Rotten Tomatoes
Red Beard Associate in Nursing essay by Donald Richie at the Criterion
assortment
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