{"id":62029,"date":"2020-09-08T04:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T01:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/35-things-we-learned-from-sydney-pollacks-the-yakuza-commentary\/"},"modified":"2020-09-08T04:16:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T01:16:00","slug":"35-things-we-learned-from-sydney-pollacks-the-yakuza-commentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/35-things-we-learned-from-sydney-pollacks-the-yakuza-commentary\/","title":{"rendered":"#35 Things We Learned from Sydney Pollack\u2019s \u2018The Yakuza\u2019 Commentary"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a288a9781b6c\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a288a9781b6c\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/35-things-we-learned-from-sydney-pollacks-the-yakuza-commentary\/#The_Yakuza_1974\" >The Yakuza (1974)<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/35-things-we-learned-from-sydney-pollacks-the-yakuza-commentary\/#Best_in_Context-Free_Commentary\" >Best in Context-Free Commentary<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/35-things-we-learned-from-sydney-pollacks-the-yakuza-commentary\/#Final_Thoughts\" >Final Thoughts<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#35 Things We Learned from Sydney Pollack\u2019s \u2018The Yakuza\u2019 Commentary<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div><i data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Welcome to\u00a0<\/i><b data-stringify-type=\"bold\"><i data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Commentary Commentary,<\/i><\/b><i data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> where we sit and listen to filmmakers talk about their work, then share the most interesting parts. In this edition, Rob Hunter heads back in time to the glorious \u201970s and the under-<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>reciated classic thriller, The Yakuza<\/i>.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<\/hr>\n<p>Sydney Pollack\u2019s career as a filmmaker sometimes took a backseat to his on-screen appearances \u2014 his turn in <em>Eyes Wide Shut<\/em> (1999) remains an all-timer \u2014 but his filmography remains impressive. He tackled all kinds of material resulting in a string of both hits and critically acclaimed <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">movies<\/a> including the likes of <em>The Way We Were<\/em> (1973), <em>Three Days of the Condor<\/em> (1975), <em>Absence of Malice<\/em> (1981), <em>Tootsie<\/em> (1982), and more. Of course, he also directed films that garnered far less attention.<\/p>\n<p>His 1974 film <em>The Yakuza<\/em> is among the latter, but it deserves a re-evaluation as a solidly crafted, respectful, and dramatic thriller. Pollack recorded a commentary track for the film upon its DVD release, so we\u2019ve finally given it a listen. Keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary track for\u2026<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Yakuza_1974\"><\/span>The Yakuza (1974)<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Commentator: Sydney Pollack (director, producer)<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.<\/strong> \u201cI was drawn to this material right away,\u201d he says, adding that he was most intrigued by the \u201cculture clash\u201d at its heart. He was attracted to the differing morals and traditions between East and West.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2.<\/strong> The opening scene shows a traditional yakuza greeting with two men extending their empty hands to show that they\u2019re not holding a weapon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3.<\/strong> Roughly ninety-five percent of the film was shot in Japan with the remainder being filmed in Malibu, CA.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4.<\/strong> \u201cThis title sequence was quite extravagant at the time,\u201d and it was accomplished with reflections and ink in water activated by fans and propellers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5.<\/strong> This was Pollack\u2019s first film with composer Dave Grusin, and they went on to collaborate several more times.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6.<\/strong> The original screenplay was written by Paul Schrader and Leonard Schrader. \u201cThey wrote a script that had lovely, lovely ideas in it,\u201d but Pollack found it to be too straightforward as a fight film. He brought in Robert Towne to soften it but still leave it as a genre film.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7.<\/strong> He loved Brian Keith and describes him as a sadly underrated actor for most of his life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>8.<\/strong> Robert Mitchum \u201cwas a pretty good drinker\u2026 but he was also an amazingly complicated man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>9.<\/strong> The film always reminded him of Robert Frost\u2019s poem \u201cStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.\u201d He sees it being about keeping promises and fulfilling honor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>10.<\/strong> His search for an actor to play Eiko led him to Japanese born Keiko Kishi who was living at the time in Paris with her filmmaker husband. She spoke English but was still authentically Japanese.<\/p>\n<p><strong>11.<\/strong> The studios in Japan at the time were \u201cdirt floor\u201d studios, and \u201cI\u2019m just remembering as I\u2019m watching this how freezing cold they were.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>12.<\/strong> The conversation between Wheat (Herb Edelman) and Dusty (Richard Jordan) was \u201ca risky thing to do at the time\u201d as it\u2019s talky and features a montage of Harry (Mitchum) walking the streets of Tokyo. The latter shots were \u201cstolen\u201d by hiding the cameras in large crates being wheeled around so no one would see them. \u201cIt\u2019s a long sequence with an awful lot of talk in it, and the hope here was that the visuals in a way would carry it and allow you to get all of this background without doing flashbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>13.<\/strong> Pollack spoke no Japanese, and his cinematographer, Okazaki Kozo, spoke no English. \u201cWe communicated in a very strange but effective way.\u201d They each had a gray-scale card going from white to black in ten stages, and they used that to communicate light density in various areas of a shot. \u201cHe did a lovely job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>14.<\/strong> He has endless praise for production designer Stephen Grimes (who also worked as second unit director on the film). Grimes walked \u201cfor hours\u201d throughout the city in search of the perfect locales, and any he couldn\u2019t find he would have built.<\/p>\n<p><strong>15.<\/strong> Ken Takakura was \u201ca Japanese McQueen\u201d to Pollack who goes on to describe the actor as wonderful, talented, traditional, and extraordinary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>16.<\/strong> While the West and Christianity carry a belief that confession can absolve you of sin, \u201cthe Eastern cultures find that completely absurd.\u201d Those of us with common sense agree with the East, as \u201cif it\u2019s that easy to atone for something, then the atonement doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>17.<\/strong> He was concerned that American audiences \u201cdon\u2019t really like to read subtitles,\u201d and Warner Bros. was hoping he could avoid using them all together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>18.<\/strong> As producer, Pollack tried to sub-contract as much of the labor as possible \u2014 rather than hire individual crew members, he paid a local studio to provide most of them along with studio space, advisors, extras, and more. \u201cIt was a long haul to work it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>19.<\/strong> \u201cHe was capable of a lot,\u201d says Pollack about Mitchum, \u201cbut you had to push him.\u201d He thinks the actor, who often referred to himself as \u201can actress,\u201d didn\u2019t consider himself to be all the good without being ridden hard. \u201cHe was a real mule. He would give you what you wanted, but you had to beat him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>20.<\/strong> \u201cI think I was a little subversive, to be honest,\u201d he says regarding his approach to what WB saw as \u201cstrictly a martial arts picture.\u201d The studio expected more gunfights, explosions, and action, but while he kept some of that he was far more interested in the characters, cultures, and East meets West storyline.<\/p>\n<p><strong>21.<\/strong> The two yakuza seen at 50:44 in their binding undergarments show what all yakuza wear beneath their clothes \u201cto keep their intestines intact when a knife cuts in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>22.<\/strong> Pollack felt \u201cmore freedom to go slow\u201d with his films in the \u201970s then he feels today \u2014 with today being 2006 or so when he recorded this commentary. \u201cThe \u201970s was kind of a free for all time when anybody could try anything. I think it\u2019s one of the reasons we had so many good and interesting films in the \u201970s. I think it was a terrific decade for film.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>23.<\/strong> He didn\u2019t preview any of his films via test screenings and focus groups until 2005\u2019s <em>The Interpreter<\/em>. It was his final film.<\/p>\n<p><strong>24.<\/strong> People were actually singing \u201cMy Darling Clementine\u201d in the club, so he added the brief scene as it cracked him up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>25.<\/strong> \u201cI keep wanting to stop talking and watch it because I haven\u2019t seen in it so long.\u201d And he does.<\/p>\n<p><strong>26.<\/strong> Pollack seems most fascinated with the differing sense of obligation felt by people in the East and West. It\u2019s the concept of \u201cgiri,\u201d meaning duty and obligation that isn\u2019t learned necessarily but is instead simply felt.<\/p>\n<p><strong>27.<\/strong> US critics at the time found the film \u201cexotic and strange\u201d while European audiences embraced it wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>28.<\/strong> He\u2019s tried hiring storyboard artists in the past, but he never found it to be much of an aid in his process. Instead, he finds himself on the set and begins to work out his shots one step at a time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>29.<\/strong> Pollack filmed everything in widescreen until 1985, and that includes interior scenes. Studios often questioned his judgment, but \u201cit\u2019s such a great format for transmitting information. I can give you more story and content in widescreen than any other way.\u201d He eventually stopped when he realized that pan and scan edits on home video were killing his movie.<\/p>\n<p><strong>30.<\/strong> \u201cKen is a relic leftover from another age, another country,\u201d says a character in the film about Tanaka (Takakura), and Pollack sees Mitchum at this point of his career in a similar light. \u201cThere\u2019s something quite noble to me about both of these men and what they represented.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>31.<\/strong> He recalls the difficulty staging the end action sequence with Harry and Tanaka fighting a group of yakuza, and he adds that the prep work began a couple of years prior, on <em>Jeremiah Johnson<\/em> (1972), where he found himself choreographing action sequences in balletic ways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>32.<\/strong> Pollack sees his past work with Burt Lancaster (<em>Castle Keep<\/em>, 1969; <em>The Swimmer<\/em>, 1968; <em>The Scalphunters<\/em>, 1968) as a rehearsal of sorts for working with Mitchum. He says they were clearly different yet similar in many ways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>33.<\/strong> The end scene with Harry making his finger sacrifice as an apology to Tanaka was \u201cmost troublesome for audiences,\u201d and that saddens Pollack. He finds the scene moving and was disappointed that US audiences had such issues with it. Pollack also had Mitchum redo the scene ten times \u201cbecause he didn\u2019t have enough pain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>34.<\/strong> The shot of Harry and Tanaka walking as they say goodbye was filmed with a lens that Pollack had Panavision make special for him. It was a 360mm lightweight short lens, which they had never made in anamorphic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>35.<\/strong> \u201cThere\u2019s something emotionally very solid about the reasoning in saying it\u2019s too easy to say I\u2019m sorry. It costs you nothing. Based on the idea, you can hurt someone very badly physically, emotionally, and say I\u2019m sorry and you\u2019re absolved. And then you even say look, I said I\u2019m sorry, what do you want me to do, is a phrase you hear all the time. Well, the Japanese would say I want you to hurt yourself. I want you to feel what I felt. So I\u2019m fascinated by these rituals.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Best_in_Context-Free_Commentary\"><\/span>Best in Context-Free Commentary<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\u201cDepending on the part of society that you belong to, they\u2019re either heroes\u2026 or they\u2019re gangsters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was a whole exotic new world for me to learn about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitchum, of course, was like working with the history of cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was still the days where everybody smoked in movies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can cut your hand off with this next move.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitchum was an actor who was always a touch embarrassed by being an actor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a scene that\u2019s way too long for most movies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did a very bad thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Final_Thoughts\"><\/span>Final Thoughts<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><em>The Yakuza<\/em> remains a fantastic film, and Pollack\u2019s commentary shows that he agrees. The track was recorded just two years before his death in 2008, but his memories are clear. He offers up both anecdotes and insight into its production with a clear affection for both the characters and the main theme of honor that runs throughout.<\/p>\n<p>Read more Commentary Commentary from the archives.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/social-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>if you want to watch Movies or Tv Shows go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/dizi.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/the-yakuza-commentary\/#utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-yakuza-commentary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#35 Things We Learned from Sydney Pollack\u2019s \u2018The Yakuza\u2019 Commentary&#8221; Welcome to\u00a0Commentary Commentary, where we sit and listen to filmmakers talk about their work, then share the most interesting parts. In this edition, Rob Hunter heads back in time to the glorious \u201970s and the under-appreciated classic thriller, The Yakuza. Sydney Pollack\u2019s career as a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[65746,1354,22447,1361,65747],"class_list":["post-62029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-35-things-we-learned-from-sydney-pollacks-the-yakuza-commentary","tag-columns","tag-commentary-commentary","tag-movies","tag-the-yakuza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}