By Joseph Gilson
In Don Delillo’s novel of a disemboweled American dream, Americana, his central character David Bell, whilst attempting to rediscover the heartland of his country by shooting numerous small towns with his 16mm film camera, begins to describe over the phone a scene from Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru as “the most beautiful scene put on film.” He says, “The scene I’m talking about is so beautiful that I always forget to study it, to see how he did it.”
Delillo’s book heralds the overwhelming power of the image, how it can transcend expectation, comprehension, even real life. David Bell attempts to resurrect the heart of the American mid-West by committing it and the lives within to celluloid, in hope that the images he captures will discover meaning, for himself and symbolically for his homeland. What he describes is the most poignant scene in which Kanji Watanabe, the old bureaucrat dying of cancer who wants nothing more as his last act than to build a playground in the city for the local kids, rocks back and forth on a swing in the falling snow, with tears in his eyes and the words of the song Gondora No Uta on his lips, in which the lyrics begin… Life is brief.
It is a scene, a series of images, which transcends the moment, which lingers there when you close your eyes at night, the old bureaucrat swinging in the snow, singing about the fleeting nature of all things.
In this segment – Fragments of Film – I’d like to reflect on and finally study those scenes that we see when we close our eyes. The ones that hold a place in our heart, perhaps because of the time in our past when we first saw them, the ones we see ourselves in, the ones that stun us, make us laugh, that amaze and overwhelm. The ones that could be an answer to the question of why we love film.
My Neighbours the Yamadas - Father as Role Model - 38mins 43secs:
Like Watanabe on the swing, the father of the dysfunctional and neurotic Yamada family, Takashi, lives his finest moment amongst the falling snow. He lines up his golf swing in the back garden of his home, his family inside watching the television, predictably, selfishly, he might add. He swings through, leaving an anticlimactic and underwhelming whoosh hanging in the frigid air. The disillusioned family dog witnesses this measly ritual and retreats into his kennel, the misanthropy lurking potently in his eyes. And the first snow of the season starts to fall.
Takashi excitedly hurries inside to suggest that the family should all take a photo in the untouched snow, only to be brutally taken down by the sardonic grandma: “You’re hardly children anymore.” It’s an affecting moment, and one which is so unnecessarily relatable. Takashi, here, is a child again, remembering, perhaps, how he used to roam in the first snow of the season and take photos that capture the essence of those moments. And with the cutting aside from his mother-in-law, the youthful abandon drains from his face, and from this point on he is on the warpath. How such a euphoric sensation of the first snowflake landing on his skin transforms into a revenge mission is testament to the intricacies of a family’s life, how around every corner lurks a danger to those bonds we tie between ourselves, and how we can either swat away those dangers or let them consume us.
Takashi’s family are watching a survival film on the television. Three distinct black marks somewhere on the face of a snow covered mountain, one holding onto a rope, the other two clinging onto the other end, dangling over the edge of a ridge as an avalanche pours down on them. Takashi, naturally, believes his battle to be somewhat akin to the scene playing out before his family’s eyes. He, the heroic figure holding onto the rope, his family the one’s dangling over the edge, an avalanche of irrationality pouring down on them.
He searches for his camera, still determined to get his photo. Between the first snowflake falling and now, however, his vision for the photo has changed dramatically. He positions the camera on top of the television, looks in the viewfinder to locate the perfect frame for his image, one that will perfectly capture the repellent cosiness of the family, and his heartlessly imposed isolation. Despite the staring eyes, his family are oblivious to Takashi’s scheming.
He purposefully strides back outside having set the timer on the camera. He shuts the glass sliding doors behind him, turns towards the television, and poses. For several moments, there is the image: the modern family, the bonds of love threatened by remotes acts of hostility and irrationality, the labyrinthine inner-workings of the suburban home. The image is captured, the moment inscribed by Takashi into the glacial shelves of time, absurdly and synthetically so. He collects his golf club and wanders back inside, perhaps, deciding that it is indeed too cold to be out in the snow. But he has his photo, his evidence, and most likely he’ll be bringing that out of the ether when next his family questions his own sense of wonder and youth.
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