Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [90]
All of the censors fell silent for a long moment. Finally one of them replied, “The mere fact that you have put the comedian Enoken into Kanjinchō is an act of mockery.” My answer was, “Well, that is very strange. Enoken is a great comedian. If you say that merely having him act in this film is an affront to the Kabuki, you are casting aspersions on his talent as an actor. Are you saying that comedy is a lesser form than tragedy? Are you saying that comedians are lesser actors than tragedians? Don Quixote has a comic companion named Sancho Panza; what’s wrong with the master Yoshitsune and his retainers having Enoken as a porter who is a comic figure?”
My argument was a little confused because I was so angry, and I started to rattle on. But then a young stripling censor who reeked of an elite background came at me with bared teeth: “In any event, this film is meaningless. Just what do you intend by making such a boring movie?” All my pent-up anger broke loose against this fellow: “If a meaningless person says something is meaningless, that’s probably proof that it isn’t meaningless; and if a boring person says something is boring, that’s probably proof that it’s interesting.” The young censor’s face went through changes from blue to red to yellow, covering all three primary colors. I watched this display for a while and then stood up and went home.
But, thanks to this incident, the U.S. Army’s General Headquarters banned the release of Tiger’s Tail. This was because out of all the reports on films in production in the Japanese industry, the censors pulled only the one on Tiger’s Tail and failed to submit it to the G.H.Q. As a result, it became an “illegal” unreported film, and G.H.Q. shelved it.
Three years later, however, the head of the film division for the G.H.Q. saw Tiger’s Tail, found it very interesting and lifted the ban. Something interesting is interesting, no matter who sees it—with the exception, of course, of boring people.
The American censors are worth a comment. Japan lost the war, and the Allied Occupation of the country was carried out by the U.S. military. Democracy was glorified; freedom of speech was recovered (within the limitations permitted by General MacArthur’s military policies). As these things occurred, the film industry came to life again and flourished. For us, of course, the rout of the censors in the Ministry of the Interior was a delight beyond measure.
We who had been able to express nothing of what we were thinking up to that time all began talking at once. Right after the end of the war I wrote a one-act play called Shaberu (Talking). Setting it in a fish shop on an urban street, I wrote a comic treatment of such Japanese who all begin talking at once. My play aroused the interest of the head of the G.H.Q.’s drama division. He called me in and we spent almost a whole day talking.
I don’t know what this American’s name was, but he seemed to be a drama specialist. He had made notes on the blocking for every single line of my play and asked me very minute and elaborate questions on every detail of the directing. He sometimes smiled and sometimes sputtered with mirth over my answers.
The reason I am writing about this now is that this was an experience of a strange kind of pleasure I had never felt during the war. Rather, it wasn’t strange at all, but a kind of pleasure that we should always be able to feel. This man did not insist on any one-sided viewpoint, but set the desire for mutual understanding as a pre-condition for our talk. My meeting with this American censor is a heart-warming memory.