Abstract This paper analyzes the movie "The Last Samurai" with an emphasis on embellishing historical facts for pure entertainments reasons. It looks at how, even though the film was a blockbuster success, the screenplay fails in terms of the factual portrayal of a part of Japan's history by romanticizing the Samurai myth.
Outline
The Real Samurai vs The Movie Samurai
The White Samurai
Conclusion
From the Paper "The character of Captain Algren was pro-Samurai, not necessarily as a supporter of their ideology but a follower of their values of discipline and loyalty. Algren's pro-Samurai inclination was obviously meant to show how, in the face of the modern Japanese man being coaxed by Americans, there was still some good left in the "white" man. Algren's character was simply too good to be true. He was a "victim" of the Civil war that saw him traumatized by the inhumane actions which he was forced to do against Native American Indians since he was a member of a cavalry tasked to exterminate the breed. Then, without explaining further that Algren and the American contact of the Japanese were civil war buddies, Japanese officials are forced to take a drunken excuse for a former soldier as a trainer of an army planned to quell the Samurai rebellion."
Abstract This paper brings forth the elements of pre and post-production, which was an important aspect of "The Man with the Golden Arm" in the 1950s. By understanding the basis of the film in relation to drug addiction, it is clear that Preminger offers an insightful and modern interpretation of drug use in the post World War II period. The paper shows that the histrionics of drug use in relation to war veterans brought about a conscious attempt to humanize and understand drug addiction, as well as the characterizations of drug abusers in the film.
From the Paper "This film study will examine the nature of the crime genre as depicted in the Transition Era of filmmaking in regards to the film The Man with the Golden Arm. Through this aspect of Hollywood filmmaking, one can realize the aspects of innovation that create a movie based on deviant acts through the drug induced behaviors of its central characters. By exploring this genre of filmmaking that gave license to the horrors of drug addiction in the 50s, one can realize the impact on culture and society this film created. Through the auteur sensibilities of shooting this film through moving cameras and stark scene depictions of drug related crime, the crime genre was taking stylistics and techniques of film noir into a new formatting for film."
