Blogging By Cinema-light: Don't Make a Scene: Ikiru (1952)

Sunday, February 12, 2023

Don't Make a Scene: Ikiru (1952)

Why haven't I re-published this "Don't Make a Scene" from Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru? I don't know. But, an anglicized version of it—Living, starring Billy Nighy—is now in theaters, and maybe now is an appropriate time to publish it. There's never a good time.

The Story: In an early episode of "Inside the Actor's Studio," host James Lipton (as he typically does) asked his guest Gene Wilder the customary questions* that end the interview. When he asked Wilder "What is your LEAST favorite word, the comic actor's answer snapped back, bitterly, and with the clear-eyed directness of experience.

"Cancer."

No comment was necessary.

This is a scene about cancer. And medicine. And doctors. Seen lots of scenes like that in movies (there'll be one like this one, half a world and many genres away next week—a curious reflection of this film, as commonly happens with Kurosawa's films and his way of telling relatable tales**). But it is also about indifference, and that is unusual in movies, even today. The director-writer of the film is Akira Kurosawa, and so it is also infused with the Master's combination of humor and tragedy, pathos and cruelty, something he learned in the translations of the Elizabethan and Russian writers that so informed his style of story-telling. It is ironic in that the the man being informed of his disease (by, ironically, not being informed of his disease) is a government functionary—an ineffectual paper-pusher—Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura), whose way of dealing with a problem is the bureaucratic answer to everything: ignore it, and maybe it will go away.

So, what he receives at this doctor's office is a taste of his own medicine. And it is a bitter pill.

Action!

PATIENT: Stomach?

PATIENT: Yeah, my stomach's bad, too. It's what they call "chronic."

PATIENT: These days I hardly feel alive unless my stomach hurts.

NURSE: Suzuki-san!
SUZUKI: Yes!

PATIENT: That man over there -

PATIENT: His doctor told him he has a bad ulcer. But trust me, it's stomach cancer.

PATIENT: In a word, that very thing.

PATIENT: And stomach cancer is practically a death sentence.

PATIENT: The doc usually says it's just a mild ulcer. And that there's no real need to operate. And that you can eat as much as you want, as long as it's easy to digest.

PATIENT: If that's what he tells you, you've got a year at most.

PATIENT: But if you've got these symptoms you won't last a year:
PATIENT: First, if the pain is kind of heavy.
PATIENT: Second, if you can't stop burping unpleasantly.
PATIENT: And your tongue's always dry. You can't get enough water and tea.