Japanese Portraits: Pictures of Different People

by Donald Richie

  But sometimes these fall sort. Just when he is being his most reasonable and straightforward, the gaze will withdraw, the laugh will sound empty. One guesses that these distractions are personal. One feels that they are permanent.

  Mifuné has had his problems: his company and its ups and downs; his divorce proceedings, messy ones; his friend—twenty-five years younger—and the child she bore him; the uproar when he took her to a 1974 state dinner attended by Gerald Ford and the emperor, and the actor was accused in the press of an act of lèse majesté, of flaunting his mistress in the imperial presence. All this and then the break with Kurosawa.

  Yet, since he has not changed in the last forty years, since the withdrawn eyes and the empty laugh were there when he was twenty-five, the problems—if that is what they are—must be deeper, more complicated.

  One of Mifuné's problems is that he wants to do the right thing in a world that is plainly wrong. I know nothing about the reasons for the divorce but I think it possible he might have infuriated his wife by trying to be good, by trying to do right, by being so eternally such a nice guy.

  The world does not like nice guys. Not really. They always come in last, says Western wisdom. And Eastern wisdom acts as if they do. They are charming, fun to be with, absolutely trustworthy, and so what? So says the world.

  Mifuné has been cheated in his business dealings, has been victim of fraud and misrepresentation, and, finally, has been misunderstood in the most important emotional relationship he ever had—that with Kurosawa.

  In Mifuné Kurosawa found his ideal actor, one so open and so intelligent that he understood at once, instantly embodied the director's intentions. Kurosawa in his autobiography mentions this: If I say one thing to him, he understands ten. I decided to turn him loose.

  And he may have thought he did. But it was always Kurosawa himself who was molding the performance.

  Mifuné has appeared in almost a hundred and twenty movies by now and yet only in the sixteen Kurosawa films is he a fine actor. It was unpleasant Kurosawa who drew from pleasant Mifuné these performances—Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai, Nakajima in Record of a Living Being, Sutekichi in The Lower Depths, Sanjuro in Yojimbo and Sanjuro. If we do not recognize the Mifuné before us in these shadows on the screen it is because he does not either—and Kurosawa did.

  Perhaps only a man as self-effacing, as thoroughly nice, as Mifuné could have put up for so long with all that it takes to be an object of attention to Kurosawa. The object is, naturally, never seen for what it is, only for what it is capable of. Like any good director Kurosawa sees people in terms of how they can be useful to his project—his current film.

  The break between director and actor is commonly thought to have begun with Red Beard. Mifuné, in his own beard for over two years, was unable to take on any other work—yet unable to work on this film because Kurosawa kept delaying—in debt, worried, yet, with all of this, behaving well.

  There were, however, words. And when Kurosawa, like many directors, senses defection of any kind, he will then push until an open break is achieved. In this he was successful. The last time I spoke to him about using Mifuné again—now that the director was making Ran and Mifuné was the right age for the part—Kurosawa said brusquely that he wouldn't have anything to do with actors who appeared in the likes of Shogun.

  That Mifuné more and more appears in the likes of Shogun is because he needs the money. Also, he needs to be working, like any actor. And he knows this feudal warrior role so well that he can do it easily. Moreover, he is a very nice man who finds it very difficult to say no,

  Perhaps that is the permanent worry behind the absent gaze and the empty laugh. It is the look of a person who is doing his best to be good in a world that is not. Mifuné has no drive for perfection, he has a drive for virtue.

  How otherwise transparent the man is. His office has plaques on the walls, trophies. It is the room of any Japanese business executive. One expects golf clubs or racing-car pictures. His living room has lots of beaded lampshades, an onyx coffee table on gilt legs, an overstuffed chair like a throne, embossed wallpaper, diamond-patterned carpet, ludicrous crystal chandelier. It is all in the ordinary taste (or lack of it) of the newly rich in Japan, but there is nothing in it of Mifuné.

  He is not concerned with office and house. Someone else designed, chose, bought for him. He is interested only in how well he does, how true he is, how understanding he can be.

  The devotion to virtue is a terrible thing. It also accounts for Mifuné's being no different from what he once was. Being good is the ambition of a certain kind of child—the child who graduated from being bad but who never went on to being both, the usual definition of maturity.

  His distracted gaze, his laugh, his concern that the conversation continue on its meaningless way, his acquiescence, his understanding, distant but there. Being all good seems to be as difficult as being all bad.

  Being all anything is hard. As I look at him and again he laughs, briefly, looking down at the table, I seem to hear his parents saying what a good boy Toshi-bo is. And I can see Kurosawa, that bad parent, turning away from this good son who loved him.

  Then Mifuné suddenly smiles. Not laughs. Smiles. The smile is something else. His face lights up, his gaze returns. He looks at you as though he sees you and is amused—by you, by himself, by life. The smile is many things—it is also a sign that for a short time Mifuné has forgotten about Mifuné.

  Ruriko Otani

  - May I help you?

  She was smiling, holding the menu with both hands in front of her. She knew me. That is what the smile said. It both welcomed and presumed.

  And I knew her but could not remember from where. She was a tall woman, just middle-aged, large brown eyes, a mole between them over the bridge of her nose, and wearing a pink sari. The menu was held by large, capable hands.

  Then I began to remember. Whenever she saw me she looked up with the same smile, but she was always wearing white.

  - I thought it was you when I saw you come in. And I said to myself: Well, he'll really be surprised to see me here. This is the last place he'd expect to see me.

  And I associated an odor with her as well—a clean, fresh odor... something medicinal.

  Medicinal... medical... hospital... and I had placed her. Every other month for some years I had seen her, been greeted with: Hello there, Mr. Richie. Let's see, yes, here's your file. Are you in a hurry today? I could phone down and have them get your medication ready now. That way you wouldn't have to wait.

  Head nurse at the eye clinic, an important position. Nurse Otani, that is what I had heard her called. She assisted the doctors, told the other nurses what to do, ran the place, and yet always had time to smile and ask how you were and if she could help.

  And here she stood in a pink sari, wearing copper bracelets, her nails crimson. She was telling me about the tandoori chicken special just as a year before she had told me about my new glaucoma drops.

  - And lhasi comes with it—that's yoghurt with cucumber in it—and nan.

  She knew as much now about Indian food as she had known about medicine, and she spoke of it in the same neutral and nurse-like way.

  The tables were filling up. It was lunchtime and Indian food has become popular in Japan. Nothing else Indian is popular; Japan has otherwise as little interest in that country as it has in the rest of Asia. Perhaps it is because the food is cheap. Perhaps it is because of the rice.

  She glanced at the other waiting customers as she had glanced at patients in the waiting room at the hospital. She seemed to be calculating just how much time each would take. I ordered quickly, aware that at the clinic I always signed my slips in a hurry. She smiled—a professional smile but a wide one.

  Later, dawdling over my canned mango, I looked up to find her standing by the table and asking if there was anything else she could do, just as at the hospital she always asked if she could help. The customers were thinning out, her duties were over for the moment, a
nd so I asked her what had happened.

  She looked down at her pink sari, pulled at one transparent corner, and said: Yes, it is quite a difference. You must remember me only in my nurse's uniform. Well, I don't have any now. Gave them all away.

  In small doses, I was told what had happened. I remembered old Dr. Igarashi, didn't I? Yes, he was head of the eye clinic there at the hospital. Well, he was quite old, actually. And so he finally retired.

  Head Nurse Otani, over fifteen years on the job, hard-working, cheerful, popular, was called in by the administrative head. She had thought it was for notice of transfer. It wasn't. It was for notice of dismissal.

  - But that wasn't fair, I said: You worked there for years and you were so good at your job.

  She looked at her strong hands with their bright red nails, looked at them as she might have looked at the hands of a stranger. Well, yes, she said, and smiled: But, you know, that isn't the way it is. That isn't what counts.

  Yes, I knew that. What one does, even who one consequently is, is not what counts. What counts is who you are connected with, who you work for.

  - And the new eye doctor, well, he had his own staff, his own head nurse. And the old doctor, he had no more use for me. The other girls, the other nurses, they got transferred, but I'd belonged to Dr. Igarashi, because I was his head nurse, you see. So I was associated with him. When they saw me, they thought of him. And he had retired, so naturally I ought to retire too. Otherwise, it would be as though he hadn't retired at all. Well, I could understand all that.

  I couldn't, sitting there in front of my canned mangoes and looking at this capable person in her silly pink sari and her stupid red nails. I knew things like this happened, even knew why, but I did not understand them. To understand would seem to accept.

  Then I saw whom she resembled, standing there in her Indian dress, her Indian bangles. She looked like an Indian widow. Husband dead. On her way to suttee. A stupid sacrifice. Her fine brown eyes suddenly seemed bovine.

  - You ought to sue, I said in my Western way.

  She smiled, almost fondly: Can you see me doing that?

  No, I couldn't. I could only imagine her successfully relieved of the position she had filled so ably, the work she had done so well. And all because of a strange tribal custom which removed all members of the court once the master was dead.

  She looked at me, still smiling, not at all ashamed of her calamity, for it had not, after all, been her fault. I noticed her mole.

  - The mole is in just the right place for an Indian, I said: It looks like a caste mark.

  - High class, I hope, she added. Then: Working in this costume I get to feel that I'm almost a foreigner.

  I knew what she meant and what, whether she knew it or not, she was implying. But I did not want to dwell on her loss, so I said: I know what you must be feeling.

  She blushed, a delicate pink which matched her sari.

  - Oh, I didn't mean you, she said.

  - I understand, I replied, and smiled to show that indeed I did: You know, being a foreigner, or feeling like one, you can understand a lot more.

  - Can you? she asked doubtfully.

  - With a little practice.

  She removed the empty mango dish.

  - Well, in that case, she said, I have plenty of time.

  Then, reverting to herself as she was, her head-nurse manner again visible, she told me: Our lunch menu changes every day, you know. Tomorrow is sag mutton. Very nutritious, and quite cheap as well. If you came every day, each day would be different. And it would be good for you too.

  Kunio Kubo

  After he had been bantam-weight champion (and, oh, that had been the life: picture in the papers, carried shoulder-high by the crowd, different girl every night), they asked him to take over the organization. It was small, just a group really, not a proper gang, couldn't be compared with any of the really big kumi, but he'd been friends with old Sunada who had, after all, been one of his earliest sponsors and so he did have some obligation now, didn't he?

  This was how Kubo entered the underworld. In his boxing days, admittedly, he had had a good view of it. Sporting circles are just as involved in this world as are construction companies and political factions of the extreme right. Also, he had known many people in it because a boxing champion attracts gambling money. But he had never formally entered. Now he did so.

  - I thought I knew all about the yakuza, he said: But I didn't. I expected them to act like in the movies. You know, code among men, sincere, kind to the poor, violent but polite. Maybe once it was like that but not now. A gang organization is like any other company these days. I don't know why I agreed to take charge of this little group. I just never had a business head. If I had I'd never have become a boxer.

  Those who chose Kubo, however, knew what they were doing. They needed someone popular, a good figurehead, and they wanted someone expendable, that is, someone not from the ranks of the gangs. The exboxer would attract new recruits and at the same time would not interfere with ancient ties. And, as for his motivation, well, a has-been boxer can open up a gym if he has a backer or he can take his chances if he hasn't.

  The small group that Kubo was now nominally heading was composed of young men who wanted to get on in the underworld. The way this is done is to encroach on the territory of other small gangs, provoke a confrontation, fight, and then take over. The men of the beaten gangs always come over peacefully and so your group gets twice as big and has twice as much territory. And you do this, gang by gang, district by district. That's how really big outfits—like the Wada-gumi and Shimizugumi in Shinjuku, or the Kyokuto-gumi in Ikebukuro—got started after the war.

  - Like samurai, I said: Changing sides all the time.

  Kubo smiled: Yes. I think that's why these chimpira punks like to talk about the old-time yakuza, about loyalty, and why they go see old action movies when they can. If you come from nowhere it's good to find a home and a history.

  I wanted to know if it was true about little fingers, that one was cut off as atonement, that you cut it off yourself to show your sincerity.

  - Maybe. I never saw it done. Maybe that's movie-talk too. For a while one of the punishments was to hold the guy down and then rip the nail off one of his big toes with a pliers. It didn't show, you see, if you had your shoes on. A missing little finger is pretty visible, right? Then there's the candle.

  - What's that?

  This was also used for punishment or intimidation. The culprit was put in the middle of a circle of members and all his clothes were taken off; then a candle was lighted. It was moved toward him and when he backed away he was pushed back into the middle and got burned. He'd turn around to escape, and get pushed back and burned again. They burned him just anywhere. Under the arms when he held up his hands to plead. Or under his behind, or his balls, when he bowed for forgiveness. Not on the face, though. Burns on the face would show.

  - The strange thing was that it was so quiet. Just his whimpering. Then he'd try to break out of the circle and he'd be pushed back and this little candle would be waiting. I never held the candle but I was once one of those who did the pushing. And in about five minutes the poor guy was crying, tears running down his face, but they didn't stop. They burned him till he just lay there and didn't move. It hurts all right, but it's only skin. It heals and doesn't leave much of a scar. Discipline was important, you see, because without it you had a loose organization and loose organizations don't make money.

  Money. You made it in a number of ways. Protection, intimidation, blackmail, or you got a franchise on something—peanuts or lemons, say—and made all the bars in the territory buy from you at stiff prices. But the main way was expansion. You got concessions from neighboring gangs. You forced them, for example, to hand over their bars, or their laundries and dry cleaners.

  He had had some experience of this. A bigger gang had wanted some concessions from his area and tried to frighten him into giving them.

  - I was alone. I'
d come in good faith, you see. Maybe I'd seen too many yakuza pictures. But once I was there they held this pistol at my back. But before that they made me take off my trousers and shorts. I wondered why, I remember. Then they made me kneel, and with the gun still there at my back, they tried to make me agree. I wouldn't.

  So then the leader of the other group lost his temper. He signaled to two men standing on either side. They took out their knives—katana, they called them, though they weren't swords. And they slowly shoved those two six-inch blades into him as he knelt there, half-naked.

  One on each side, they pushed them into his buttocks, pushing slowly until the handles met the skin.

  - I didn't move. It felt cold more than it hurt. It didn't hurt till later. If I'd moved they might have shot me too. When the knives were in they asked again and I didn't answer. Then they took out the blades and pulled me up, put bandages over the cuts, got me into my trousers, and shoved me out the door.

  They hadn't got their concessions and he had saved his own gang from a possible takeover. As for the wounds, the one on the right side was clean and healed well enough. The other guy, though, had twisted the blade and made a hole.

  - Here. Look.

  Kubo stood up and lowered his trousers and shorts. There on his left buttock was a large scar.

  - I'm just lucky it didn't get infected. Some of those katana can be pretty dirty.

  This was in 1960, a summer afternoon, Kubo standing there, half smiling at the stories he had been telling me, that faintly apologetic smile which people have when they have been talking about themselves, looking at me with the simplicity you find in people who have worked their bodies to make a living.