CRITERION REVIEW: #594 GODZILLA (dir. Ishiro Honda) 1954 CRITERION CORNER RELEASE OF THE MONTH!
THE FILM: If this Criterion Collection release of Ishiro Honda’s enormously formative film has accomplished anything, it’s that many of us will never again be surprised to rediscover that Godzilla is a genuinely great film. Its allure diffused by the the cultural detritus that the atomic-breathing post-nuclear icon has left in his path of destruction, (not to mention the cottage industry of kaiju films for which Honda himself would eventually be responsible), Godzilla doesn’t need to be rescued from its own appeal, but rather re-appreciated for its art.
The monster movie that perfected the formula, Ishiro Honda’s earth-shaking introduction to the scaly, pre-historic scourge of post-war Japan is a sublime piece of entertainment, mitigating its layers of accrued kitsch with the undeniable force of its storytelling. The opening twenty minutes, which begins with a fishing boat meeting a violent end and follows as all of the vessels sent to investigate vanish into the same stretch of sea, succinctly nails the pace and scale by which an unseen terror matures inside of our collective imagination, providing someone like J.J. Abrams with the template from which he and Matt Reeves would extrapolate Cloverfield some 50 years later. The horror that Godzilla visits upon the shores of Japan and, later, the neon streets of downtown Tokyo is actually enhanced by the archaic effects — the miniature work is nearly immaculate, and the visual of a monster who is obviously just a man in a latex suit (man in suit! man in suit!) carries a discomforting thematic heft of which animatronics and CG have deprived contemporary disaster films. The horrors of the atomic age that Godzilla so obviously represents are man-made, emblematic of the pivotal moment at which humans wrested control of our species’ fate away from powers beyond our understanding.
Of course, Ishiro Honda (who served as both friend and assistant to Akira Kurosawa), used giant monsters to become one of the cinema’s great humanists. For Honda, Godzilla was merely a warning for the kind of problem that’s able to be ignored only because it’s so big — the enjoyably facile slideshows that paleontologist Kyohei Yamane (world’s greatest actor Takashi Shimura) uses to explain Godzilla’s existence are all the more damning as a result of how hilariously childlike they appear to modern audiences. Violence begets violence, and the extent to which Honda charts Godzilla’s transition from folklore to apocalyptic threat imbues Godzilla with a gripping suspense, the Japanese psyche effectively becoming the film’s true protagonist. In fact, Honda so skillfully aligns the viewer’s perspective with that of an entire country that the canned individual dramas feel completely superfluous, and the film stops dead in its tracks whenever it pauses to check in on the woefully undercooked love triangle that he uses to contextualize the story’s forward lurches.
Perhaps the film’s most memorable scene finds a troop of radio reporters broadcasting the impossible terrors they’re witnessing — as Godzilla heads towards them and their deaths become imminent, they’re helpless to do anything but narrate their own destruction. Their only legacy is to narrate the horror, and hope that their message is heard. That ethos has endured to this day — a few years ago I visited Hiroshima on the anniversary of the bombing, and there I encountered no talk of right or wrong, no attempt to cast blame or wallow in victimhood. Instead, the day was devoted to a future free of such evils, to a world in collective agreement that the destruction dropped onto Japan must be a lesson and not a precedent. Standing under the A-Bomb Dome, surrounded by families who will continue to suffer from the fallout for generations to come, it was reassuring to see that Godzilla was gone but not forgotten.
THE TRANSFER: The Godzilla negative has seen better days, and Criterion has definitely inherited a number of scratches and artifacts, but fortunately they don’t prove to be all that distracting (the commentary track assures that the presentation here is very similar to how the film looked when it premiered in 1954). Overall, the visuals here is stellar, clear and precise enough to launch a thousand reconsiderations of this classic film. To Godzilla’s immense credit, the details revealed by this Blu-ray don’t mock the effects work, but actually call attention to the supreme craftsmanship responsible for them. Fans of the film will be in heaven.
THE SPECIAL FEATURES: Criterion didn’t mess around with this one. This thing is stuffed to the gills (does Godzilla have gills?) with extras, including exclusive interviews with several of the film’s surviving actors and special effects technicians, an interview with the man responsible for that unshakable theme music, an interview with film critic Tadao Sato, a much-needed new subtitle translation, and a 10-minute featurette on the visual effects that makes it that much easier to appreciate the meticulous model work required to create the film’s pivotal scenes of destruction.
THE BEST BIT: I can’t imagine that Criterion would have ever released Godzilla without including Terry Morse’s 1956 reworking of the film (the only version of film to play in American cinemas prior to the 2004 re-release of the original), but they’ve gone above and beyond, completely restoring the bastard cut and providing it a dedicated commentary track. The re-edit, which cuts in footage of Raymond Burr as an American reporter, unquestionably defuses the film’s power, but it’s a vital chapter of Godzilla’s legacy as well as a fascinating example of the cinema’s malleability. Film historian David Kalat also provides an exclusive commentary track for Ishiro Honda’s official cut of the film, an animated, impassioned oratory that nicely compliments the tone of the film. Kalat loves this stuff, and though I imagine he might be grating to some, I think he provides some of the most engaging Criterion commentaries in some time.
THE ARTWORK: Criterion had a bit of fun with this one, dumping austerity and opting for a sea of fire and a maximalist bid to reclaim Godzilla’s badass cool. It works. And in an unprecedented move for the company, the package goes 3D when you peel it open and the city-stomping monster sticks his head out of the cardboard. Sure, it’s an iteration of Godzilla that wouldn’t appear until decades after Honda’s original film (oops), but whatever, it’s an awesome touch.
THE VERDICT: 90 / 100
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