The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms came out in 1953. It tells the tale of a giant reptilian monster that is awakened by an atomic bomb test in the Arctic, whereupon it heads south to terrorize the North Atlantic, and finally, New York. Ray Harryhausen's special-effects were a real box-office draw, and the film was a hit.
Legend has it that the success of 20,000 Fathoms convinced producer Tomoyuki Tanaka to make Godzilla.
Indeed, they have superficially-similar stories. Atomic testing in the Pacific awakens Godzilla, a 164-foot-tall dinosaur with the ability to repel artillery attacks and breath radioactive fire. After sinking several ships and wiping out dozens of island communities, Godzilla arrives in Japan and wreaks havoc on Tokyo.
But where the two films differ (and why I believe Godzilla is the better film) is that such a nuclear-generated attack actually happened to Japan just nine years earlier. It isn't difficult to spot the parallels between the plot of Godzilla and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and even the firebombing of Tokyo in 1945, which was not a nuclear attack but claimed many more lives than either nuclear attack).
A film like 20,000 Fathoms is fueled by speculation. It takes the worries of the day and extrapolates from them the most dramatic outcome. What writer/director Ishiro Honda gives us in Godzilla,however, is not speculative -- it is a real event, that actually happened, dramatized so as to make it watchable. It is an attempt to bring about not just diegetic closure but catharsis for the viewer. What 20,000 Fathoms presents is mere entertainment.
Stated another way: 20,000 Fathoms is history in the hands of the showman. Godzilla is history in the hands of the artist.
Dr. Strangelove, too, was an acute filmic response to the new nuclear age. In many ways, it was America's Godzilla. America and Japan were playing vastly different roles in the post-war nuclear world, and so one could have expected both films to be vastly different. One is a somber monster movie, the other a madcap satire. But where Dr. Strangelove lets us laugh at the expense of a happy ending, Godzilla is somber and ultimately offers a solution to the terror.
This is a film with a production history that's almost as fascinating as the film itself. At the time, it was the most expensive Japanese film ever produced. It was a box office hit, though most critics issued negative reviews, with some going so far as to say that the filmmakers were exploiting the pain of those affected by WWII.
The original intent was to animate Godzilla with stop-motion effects, as was the titular creature in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, but it was judged that the costume-builders in Japan were better at their craft than any of the animators.
The original title of the monster, "Gojira," is a combination of the Japanese words "gorilla" and "whale."
Frankly, it's kind of rare for Criterion to release such a popular title. Godzilla is so popular, in fact, that it was already released on blu-ray back in 2009 by Classic Media. This is the superior release by leaps and bounds (especially in the AV department), but with such an iconic film, it's impossible to include every supplemental feature ever created.
What I mean to say is that the Criterion release doesn't have the largest batch of extras out there, but what's there is great stuff, including a new audio commentary by author David Kalat, four interviews with cast and crew members totaling 105 minutes (three of which were recorded in 2011), and three short features on the visual effects of the film, its cultural impact, and a real-life nuclear accident which inspired parts of the film.
Additionally, there is an incredibly well-thought-out essay by critic J. Hoberman that is included with the film that I found greatly illuminating.
Of course, perhaps the most substantial "extra" is Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the 1956 re-edit of the film for American audiences. An American reporter played by Raymond Burr was concocted, filmed, and inserted into the film, while all the references to radiation-poisoning were edited out.
This was the version that most people in the United States only ever saw until the original Gojira was finally given a substantial release -- in 2004.
Criterion's release represents the best possible AV specs available anywhere in the world, and the inclusion of both films makes for an interesting study of competing cultures. If you haven't seen this, the king of all the monster movies, I'd recommend you do so immediately.
Please note: this video is not meant to represent the AV quality of the Criterion release.
--Serge
0 comments:
Post a Comment