culturally clueless film based off a culturally clueless book.
yea i said it
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MovieChat Forums > Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) Discussion > culturally clueless film based off a cul...
First off, it's a work of fiction. That doesn't mean the author is culturally clueless, it just means that what he wrote wasn't supposed to be real. You are a fool for expecting fiction to be non-fiction.
Second, it is perfectly possible to have blue eyes if you are Japanese. It's just rare.
I've seen productions of Hamlet where the lead was not actually Danish. In fact EVERY Hamlet I have ever seen has been performed by a non Danish person.
Oddly enough Danes do not go bonkers about this.
I haven't a clue whether this book and film are themselves 'clueless' because I was not a Geisha in the 1940s. My guess is the people who actually were are the only ones who can make the call. I doubt many are still around and even less are going to wander onto this thread to set the record straight.
Having said that the story was written by a young American man in the last gasp of the 20th Century. He was also sued for defamation by the woman he interviewed for the core of the story. So the chances of it being authentic? Pretty much zero.
But returning to my original point, it's fiction. You can even have walking and talking trees in fiction. The problem is when writers claim it is 'historical' fiction as tho it is some sort of authentic document. They, and their publishers, really should cut that crap out.
I AM A JAPANESE CANADIAN FILM MAKER IN THE INDUSTRY AND I HAVE TO SAY THE FOLLOWING:
Memoirs is an unfortunate result of the Hollywood Industry that is continually trying to understand its audience. The failure for a film to not cast authentic Japanese Actors for the lead roles is not a result of the inability to find the Japanese Actresses, it is directly an issue of what size audience the film may be able to attract. Those Chinese Actors that were cast had already broken into the market as viable performers with some form of production success in the past and performance capabilities. There are hundreds of good viable Japanese Actresses in the market but none with a solid history compared to those Chinese cast. Hollywood would never think about putting a multimillion dollar film in the hands of an unknown or even a Japanese Director who hasn't helmed a film this size for an American Studio. For an American Director to venture into the telling of such a culturally shrouded portion of the Japanese was also a sad mistake. The Geisha are a distinct part of the Japanese Culture and played such a unique part of Japanese society it really needed someone who fully understood it. Rob Marshall is an iconic and well respected Director and by no means did this film wrong as a story teller but what was distinctly missing was the understanding of what a Geisha was to the Japanese men and to the Japanese women and its society at that time. What gets lost in the film is what the Geisha were to a male dominated society and the level of respect and desire to employ one. The greatest part of this story is the love relationship that was not supposed to be allowed by the very position she was in. What is lost with Chinese Actresses was not the performances of emotion but the elegance, the formality the delicate moves and fragility of what made a Geisha desirable. That is the missing "Art" This part of the Japanese woman at the time was integral to what was/is taught to them as children and even more so to a trained Geisha. Its easy for a film like The Last Samurai to bully up and throw Tom Cruise back to an age of sword swinging and honour bound warriors when the culture tapped into a time of man vs man in Japanese lore because it was a society based on men (Even then, they managed to cast the Japanese men as Japanese) Telling a love story, first of all, in a time in society that placed love as an emotion not to be seen or expressed or a part of Society that lorded the Geisha as symbolic of idolizing is a very difficult thing. Hollywood sadly was it's own worst enemy. The Studios don't think an audience is smart enough to expect anything more than "They all look alike" and where's the popcorn. The very title Geisha was the key to the entire story and sadly the one part missing.