(My Geisha, 1962, Paramount Pictures.)
I had been feeling a little morose lately, and so, as is often the case, I began to long for the time I had spent in Japan. In order to comfort myself, I purchased My Geisha (1962) from Google Play Movies. It is one of a number of different films produced by Western film companies during the 1960s. It seems that traditional Japan held a great deal of fascination for the American viewing public at the time. While most contemporary viewers might fear watching such films for how poorly they might manage racial politics, I find I am pleased to watch them. They offer a small glimpse into the Japan of the mid-Showa period, and it is "most interesting" to learn how people in the West regarded Japan at the time. I find that films made by Western film companies but set in Japan frequently seem to have Western people as their main characters interacting with other Western people. As a consequence, we gain a very narrow insight into Japanese culture and social norms of the period, and there is little engagement with the local populace. Frustratingly, this seems to have remained the same over time, from Lost In Translation (2003) to Bullet Train (2022). However, My Geisha (1962), and some other films of the period, were made when the exposure the West had to Japanese culture was sufficiently scant that they had less opportunity to form their own conception of it. Also, at the time, kimono was still in common use as day to day clothing. And so, perhaps ironically, it is much easier to find authentic examples of Japanese traditional dress in these films than is often the case now. Somehow it seems as though contemporary films feel this pressure to reinterpret the kimono into something decidedly not like a kimono at all. Which to me is baffling, as the original garment, at least aesthetically, requires no improvement. In fact My Geisha (1962) over all is a feast for the eyes. I was surprised at how remarkably Japanese the cinematography was in its use of colour and balance. Until I looked at the credits and saw that the cinematographer was Shunichiro Nakao. So it seems that when we view this film we are seeing Japan not only through the eyes of Western people, but also through the eyes of a Japanese person.
The Plot
(My Geisha, 1962, Paramount Pictures.)
Shirley MacLaine plays world famous comic actress Lucy Dell, wife of Paul Robaix, a director humiliated by her success. Dell and Robaix are very much in love, but the fact that Dell is so much more successful causes strain in their relationship. Robaix intends to film his own version of Madame Butterfly on location in Japan using a real Japanese actress to play the titular role, a feat which, surprisingly or not, has never truly been done in the real world as far as I could find. His intent is that it will be his first great film without his wife in it, and so, he will finally be able to prove he is the man in his marriage.
However, his manager, played by Edward G. Robinson, soon finds that without his wife in the film, Robaix's film won't be able to obtain any of the funding it needs to be the film he hopes for it to be. Both he and Dell travel to Japan meaning to talk Robaix into allowing Dell to be in the film so that the studio will properly fund it. Both the manager and Dell are concerned at seeing Robaix being entertained by geisha. Proud and jealous, Dell decides to dress up as a Geisha with some help and she manages to convince her husband that she is a Geisha named Yoko Mori, and manages to be in his film. But then the question remains: Should she reveal who she really is to her husband? Or should she keep it a secret?
The Costumes
(My Geisha, 1962, Paramount Pictures.) I found the costumes worn in the film to be surprisingly accurate as a depiction of Kimono in Western cinema, as I had already said. But the colour composition, the style chosen, was so delightful. It wasn't quite like authentic dress, as you never see any of the Geisha wearing truly casual kimono, even when they are off-duty. Also, some of the hair ornaments worn by the characters don't accurately represent the different seasons and stations of geisha-hood. But look at the image above. There Shirley MacLaine is dressed as a Geisha on a train wearing a shima or striped kimono, which is quite believable as a type of travelling kimono for a Geisha at the time. But then look at the colour coordination between the white of the collar of her nagajuban, the train seat and the man's shirt. And then the coordination between the red in her hair ornament, her lips, the stripes and the man's tie. Then the colour of her skin with the cream stripes of her kimono. And the golden colours of her ornament with the tawny of the man's suit. Despite how the film is about clashing cultures, careful attention has been made to create a kind of visual unity between the disparate characters.
But looking closely at the way the kitsuke, or dressing of the kimono outfits, has been done, it isn't like the ultra strict, ridgid styling you'd expect to see from a kimono studio dresser. Nor is it like an unknowing stage-hand slapped the outfits together. The quality of the dressing is much as though she were dressed by someone who wears kimono themselves, as an ordinary way of dressing. However, the way the outfits are colour coordinated to me looks as though they were chosen by someone who better understands Western tastes and has little concern for the traditional rules. In some scenes, it looks to me as though the characters are even wearing pre-WW2 antique kimono, which, while easily obtained at the time, simply weren't usually worn in contemporary dress at the time. But the end result is such a visual feast, I honestly didn't care that much. I just loved it.
The Culture
It would seem to me that the distinction between geiko and maiko are missed in the film, as well as the concept of okiya and geisha mothers. These concepts are dodged by having MacLaine's character stay in a traditional hotel and meeting a "geisha trainer" which turns out to be an old Japanese man. No such figure exists in Japanese culture, and I'm not sure why the role was invented. But I am, none the less, quite proud of the scene where the Geisha trainer is met. He explains what a Geisha is in such as way that no one could disrespect the concept. The rumours of geisha as prostitutes is vaguely alluded to in the film. But no one who saw the scene and believed it could go on thinking that Geisha are prostitutes and nothing more.
They even bothered to show the geisha in the scene, played by the delightful Yoko Tani, performing a traditional tea ceremony in the background. I was amused when Tani's character was recruited to accompany Dell and train her on the go. In truth, this is how true apprentice geisha are trained; by working with a more qualified Geisha until they learn all they need to know.
The clip above shows only a small excerpt of the scene, leaving out what I feel was the best part. However, I think it well conveys the respect and dignity that the film brings to the concept. Geisha are most certainly not prostitutes, nether in reality nor in the film. Another thing that impressed me was that even though many of the things Shirley MacLaine's character had to say about geisha sounded viciously racist to me, when she would play Yoko Mori, she seemed to very convincingly speak Japanese words and phrases for much of the film. Admittedly, she was often using the phrases out of context, so that it would be clear to a Japanese listener that she didn't really know Japanese. But she did it so convincingly that I'm sure most Western listeners would have no idea.
The depictions of geisha in the film are inaccurate, but the film does not suffer for it. One scene depicts many geisha on the set of the film, where they are filming the marriage of Cho Cho San to Lieutenant Pinkerton. While a geisha getting married in the period of Madame Butterfly would have been set would likely have had few or any non-geisha connections, to have so many geisha on the set of an actual film at once would have simply been astronomical as an expense. So I prefer to imagine that these are not meant to be real geisha, even in the world of the film, but are simply extras dressed as such, which would still be an expensive undertaking, even with the costume inaccuracies seen. But to look at, the scene is so impossibly beautiful. One could scarcely be too critical of it.
(My Geisha, 1962, Paramount Pictures.) However, the film is keen to make us aware that Japan isn't all traditional houses and women in kimono. When Robaix is trying to perform auditions to find his Cho Cho San, he finds that Japan's women are so modern and trendy, he is struggling to find anyone traditional enough to play the part. Again, I found this level of honesty refreshing. Usually American films are so keen to depict Japan as strange that the ways in which they resemble America usually go denied.
The Sexual Politics
To me it seemed that setting the film in Japan and surrounding a production of Madame Butterfly were tools for discussing the changing roles of women in America. I can't help but feel that making the lead Male role a French man was a way to avoid potentially offending the American male ego. The film does contain scenes where Robaix seems to be volleying for his masculinity and failing. I would not like to spoil the film for those who have not seen it. But I can imagine that for men of the early 60s, the idea of being married to a very successful woman while your own career flounders would have been embarrassing. Placing his predicament in a country where women still struggle to have equal rights and freedoms as men was an interesting way of creating commentary on the problem.
The actor selected to play Lieutenant Pinkerton is a long-term colleague and close friend of both Dell and Robaix. But he is such an oily lothario throughout the film, praising Japanese women only because he thinks they are unaware of alimony and kill themselves when abandoned. And for these reasons alone, he decides he would like to marry Yoko Mori. I found all of the scenes containing this character uncomfortable, as he seems to be there to represent all of the worst things of masculinity, from his keenness to communally bathe with women, to his unbridled efforts at molesting Mori. His inclusion might be so that the Robaix character, in his efforts to have a career away from his wife, seems less cruel and selfish. But I'd go so far as to say that one scene ought to have a trigger warning for rape.
As I've said, I would not like to spoil the film, but given the time where the film was made, the resolution might be sad and disappointing by contemporary standards. Those who value marriage above career and personal pride might enjoy it. It depends on what you believe in.
The Location
(My Geisha, 1962, Paramount Pictures.)
It will come as no great surprise that the opportunity to see a Japan of yesteryear was titillating for me. In old films depicting Japan, we have some chance to see a Japan that doesn't exist anymore and never could again. In particular, the Tokyo of the 1960s is long gone, with some remnants on display at the Tatemono En. So if Japan's history and changes over time fascinate you, seeing this film might be interesting.
One of the things said by the Robaix character is that he was desperate to capture the traditional Japan which seems increasingly lost to modernity. Willingly or not, the film succeeds in capturing snippets of a lost Japan. Even if I would tell the character to go and see the films of Mizoguchi, Kurosawa and Ozu. But we also get to see a perspective on Japan that is peculiar to the times. One that isn't all ninja, samurai, Godzilla or giant robots. One that seems interestingly more nuanced. You get to see the neon lights of modern city streets. But you also get to see a landline telephone sitting on a tatami floor. And you get to see part of a traditional bath house too, though how that scene plays out might be far from reality.
Conclusion
I think for many Asian children born in Western countries, films similar to My Geisha (1962) will have informed our own perspective on Asian culture. As an Eurasian child, seeing Shirley MacLaine so convincingly dress up as a Japanese woman held endless fascination for me. Over the course of the past 10 years I've probably looked up images of her dressed as Yoko many times, pleased a the way a wig and some makeup made an already somewhat Asian-looking actress look all the more so.
I somehow imagine that were the film made today, it would play out very differently, with MacLaine's character handing the part over to the true Geisha after realising she can't really perform the part herself. Robaix would have to learn that thinking he has to dominate his wife to be a good husband is wrong. And the male actor character would probably endure some sort of horrible shame or punishment for his crimes. But such a film probably wouldn't be made today at all, sad to say. But given how inaccurate the much more recent Memoirs of A Geisha (2005) was, I don't think we can expect to see a more accurate depiction of Geisha life or Japanese society from Hollywood any time soon.
The better thing might be to hop on to Tubi and watch Sisters of Gion, by Kenji Mizoguchi for free.
If you would like to supplement your virtual experiences of Japan with wearable objects and homewares, you could try perusing my online store. I try to keep my prices reasonable, and my products a blend of the fun and practical: