Red Beard (1965, Akira Kurosawa) (Patreon)

50/100

Arrogant young hotshot learns humility and empathy with the help of an older mentor played by a stone-cold legend. That doesn't actually describe any single early Tom Cruise movie (it's sort of a Rain Man/Color of Money combo), but I nonetheless found myself imagining an '80s Hollywood remake of this surprisingly earnest mega-parable, which feels broadly formulaic despite its period and cultural specificity. Then again, maybe a contemporary remake would make more sense, given that Mifune gets relatively little to do here apart from be gruffly compassionate...until it's suddenly time for this middle-aged country doctor to beat the living shit out of a dozen dudes who attack him simultaneously, breaking multiple arms and legs as if they were celery stalks. Neeson would take that role in a heartbeat. 

A bit flip? Perhaps, but after decades of anticipation—I vividly recall the Criterion laserdisc from my stint working at a specialty store in the early '90s, though the lengthy runtime meant that I never brought it home*—Red Beard proved a major letdown, much more conventional than I'd always imagined. (Never learned what it was about; Criterion's LD cover made it look like another samurai epic to me.) Come to think of it, there actually is a Hollywood version of sorts: The Doctor, starring William Hurt as an arrogant physician who discovers what an asshole he's been after he's diagnosed with cancer. While this film isn't quite so high-concept, its trajectory is very much the same, with Yasumoto slowly metamorphosing from an ambitious careerist furious at being trapped in the sticks to a selfless advocate for the dispossessed who's capable of forgiving the fiancée who dumped him (and marrying her ultra-meek sister instead). It's a nice touch that Red Beard disapproves of Yasumoto's decision to remain at the clinic rather than accept an offer to be the shogunate's doctor, repeatedly telling him that he'll regret it—ends the film on an agreeably spiky note, when it had been threatening to drown in schmaltz. Prior to that, however, the character serves primarily as a mouthpiece for observations about the direct link between chronic poverty and severe illness, which are unquestionably on point but get stated a tad bluntly for my taste. Kurosawa and Mifune's collaboration-ending rift had nothing to do with the quality of the latter's role, if you believe The Emperor and the Wolf (and I have no reason not to), but his protean gifts do seem squandered, except when shoehorned into cinema's most gratuitous fight scene.

Red Beard's anecdotal structure, consecutively relating the melodramatic backstories of various patients, does provide for some relatively self-contained excellence. Sahachi, the dude whose wife's corpse gets uncovered by a landslide, gets an extended flashback that works beautifully as a mini-narrative of its own, though his tale ultimately has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he's sick. Merely serves as moral inspiration for Yasumoto, who starts proudly wearing his clinic uniform immediately after learning why Sahachi had been so devoted to helping his neighbors. The devastating earthquake involved also allows for visual dynamism that's generally lacking elsewhere, Kurosawa reportedly having been obsessed with Edo-accurate set design that's barely or in some cases never seen in the frame. Wasn't as taken with the tragedy of Rokusuke and his daughter, which was evidently deemed too grim for flashbacks and so gets delivered as a monologue, shot for some reason at a dispassionate middle distance. (If you're gonna jerk tears, go for it.) Mixed feelings about the third hour being wholly devoted to a traumatized young girl rescued from a brothel, as I was intrigued until the subplot about Yasumoto's love life started to factor into it. On the whole, I'm glad I wasn't around in 1965, eagerly awaiting Kurosawa's followup to the towering masterpiece that is High and Low. On the other hand, I was somehow underwhelmed by High and Low the first time I saw it (28 years ago), so what the hell do I know. Maybe I'm wrong again.

* I'd forgotten this until now, but Laserland employees were allowed to just grab any disc from the sales racks and take it home to watch. The store would then include it among that week's many customer returns. I was working multiple jobs at the time, though, to save money for NYU, so it was hard to fit a three-hour movie into my schedule. Can still look at my film log for 1992 and pick out those I saw on laserdisc with ease: Elmer Gantry, Peck's Bad Boy, Capricorn One, A Place in the Sun, on and on. How did I get them home on the little Yamaha scooter I was driving at the time? Do not remember.