Godzilla (1954 film)
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| Godzilla | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Ishirō Honda |
| Produced by | Tomoyuki Tanaka |
| Written by | Ishirō Honda Takeo Murata Shigeru Kayama |
| Starring | Akira Takarada Momoko Kōchi Akihiko Hirata Takashi Shimura |
| Music by | Akira Ifukube |
| Cinematography | Masao Tamai |
| Editing by | Kazuji Taira |
| Distributed by | Toho |
| Release date(s) | November 3, 1954 (Japan) May 7, 2004 (USA) |
| Running time | 98 min. |
| Language | Japanese |
| Budget | $1,000,000 US |
| Followed by | Godzilla Raids Again, The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla 2000: Millennium, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, Godzilla: Final Wars |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Godzilla (ゴジラ Gojira?) is a 1954 Japanese science fiction film, produced by Toho Film Company Ltd. Directed by Ishiro Honda with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, it was the first of many "giant monster" movies (known as kaiju) to be produced in Japan, many featuring Godzilla. This film is also widely considered by fans to be the best Godzilla film ever.[citation needed]
When first released in wide distribution in the U.S., its footage was reworked and supplemented with new footage featuring Raymond Burr (Perry Mason) for general commercial release as Godzilla, King Of The Monsters in 1956, and the giant monster would be known outside Japan by the name "Godzilla" ever after. In 1957, the American version even worked its way back to Japan, where the Godzilla name also took root. This American version was the only version represented on North American home video until the release of the Gojira DVD in September 2006 (which, incidentally, contains both the unedited Japanese theatrical version and the reworked U.S. version).
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[edit] Plot summary
The Japanese fishing boat Eiko-Maru is attacked by a flash of lightning from the water near Oto Island and sinks. A rescue boat, the Bingo-Maru is sent out to investigate the accident but meets the same fate as well. A second search boat is sent out and finds a few survivors in the area, and like the other two boats, is also shipwrecked.
Meanwhile, on Oto Island, the natives of the fishing community are unable to catch anything. “Then… Godzilla must have done it,” an elder says. Godzilla is a monster god that lives in the sea that comes from the ocean to feed on humankind. During the old days, whenever fishing was poor, the natives used to sacrifice girls to prevent Godzilla from attacking the village.
A helicopter arrives on Oto Island with reporters to investigate. The natives all believe that the recent disasters were caused by a monster, but the reporters remain skeptical. That night the natives perform an exorcism in hopes that Godzilla will not attack again. As the natives are sleeping, a storm arrives and a dark monster attacks the small village, causing death and destruction.
The next day, the witnesses are brought to the Diet Building in Tokyo. Paleontologist Dr. Kyohei Yamane requests that a investigative party be sent to Oto Island. The ship is sent out and arrives safely on the island. Yamane finds giant footprints contaminated with radioactivity. Suddenly, the village alarm is set off and the villagers run for the hills. Suddenly, a huge, frightening, reptilian creature pops its head over the hill and roars. The villagers flee for their lives. The monster then retreats back into the ocean.
Yamane studies the evidence and discovers that the monster, who somehow survived the prehistoric times, was awakened by the recent atomic explosions. The sediment from the monster, which Yamane named “Godzilla,” after the Oto Island god, had contained a massive amount of Strontium-90, which could have only have come from an atomic bomb. After Yamane’s presentation, a man from the crowd suggests that the information should not be made public. Since Godzilla is the product of atomic weapons, the truth might cause some bad consequences, since world affairs are still fragile. A woman though objects Mr. Ooyama’s suggestion because the truth must be told. After calling Ooyama an idiot, chaos breaks loose in the Diet Building.
Godzilla’s origins though are still revealed to the public. An anti-Godzilla fleet is immediately sent out and uses depth charges against Godzilla. In his home, Yamane sits alone in the room with the light out. Yamane is a zoologist and does not want Godzilla to be killed but studied.
That night, Godzilla suddenly rises in Tokyo Bay in front of a party ship. Within a minute, the monster descends back into the ocean but still causes panic across the country. The next morning, officials ask Yamane if there is a way to kill the monster. A frustrated Yamane explains that there isn’t since Godzilla has already survived a massive dose of radiation. Yamane believes that the monster should be studied to see what keeps him alive instead.
Yamane’s daughter, Emiko, is engaged to Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, a colleague of Yamane’s. Emiko, however, is in love with Lieutenant Hideto Ogata of the Nankai Steamship Company. While visiting Serizawa to tell him of her love for Ogata, Serizawa instead reveals to her his own dark secret. Shocked by the revelation, Emiko leaves Serizawa, promising not to tell anybody of what she witnessed.
That night, Godzilla appears again out of Tokyo Bay and attacks the city. While the monster’s attack was relatively short, it had caused much destruction and death. The next morning, the military hastily constructs a line of 30-meter high barbed-wire fence along the coast of Tokyo that will send 50,000 volts of electricity through Godzilla when it arrives again. Civilians are evacuated from the city and put into bomb shelters. The military then prepares a blockade along the fence line.
When night falls, Godzilla surfaces from Tokyo Bay again. The monster easily breaks through the giant electric fence, without receiving any injury from that or the bombardment of shells. As Godzilla breaks through the high-tension wires, it spews an atomic ray that ignites anything in its path. The tanks and military are hopeless against Godzilla. By the end of the night, the entire city is in a sea of fire, killing and wounding thousands of innocent civilians in its path. As Godzilla wades into the sea, a squadron of jets fire missiles at the monster but have no effect as it descends into Tokyo Bay.
By the next morning, the city is in absolute ruins. Hospitals are overrun with victims, many exposed to heavy doses of radiation. As Emiko sees the many victims of Godzilla’s attack, she takes Ogata aside and tells him Serizawa’s dark secret, in hope that she can do something against Godzilla. Serizawa had revealed to Emiko a destructive super-weapon called the “Oxygen Destroyer,” a weapon that dissolves all oxygen in the water and disintegrates any form of life surrounding its path. The weapon is even more destructive than an atomic weapon. In conducting his research on oxygen, Serizawa came across the destructive power of what became the Oxygen Destroyer. Shocked by his discovery, Serizawa had vowed himself never to release his research in its present form, so that he may find a way that it would benefit society and not destroy it.
Ogata and Emiko visit Serizawa to ask that they use the weapon against Godzilla. Serizawa refuses and storms down to his basement to destroy his creation. Ogata and Serizawa shortly fight each other until Ogata receives a wound to his head. As Emiko treats the wound, Serizawa apologizes. "If the Oxygen Destroyer is used even once, politicians from around the world will see it. Of course they'll use it as a weapon,” Serizawa says. “Atomic bomb versus atomic bomb, H-bomb versus H-bomb, and now a new super-weapon to throw upon us all. As a scientist, no, as a human being, I cannot allow that to happen."
Ogata tries to convince Serizawa that he is the only one who could save the world. “Humans are weak animals,” Serizawa argues. “Even if I burn my notes, the secret will still be in my head. Until I die, how can I be sure I won't be forced by someone to make the device again?”
A grim television program appears on the air, showing the devastation caused by Godzilla, along with prayers for hope and peace. Torn by what he’s witnessing, Serizawa ultimately decides to use his only Oxygen Destroyer, but only once. Serizawa then burns his research, knowing that this will be for the better of society.
The next day, a navy ship takes Ogata and Serizawa to plant the device in Tokyo Bay. Serizawa requests that he be put in a diving suit to make sure the device is planted correctly. Ogata at first refuses but soon gives in. Ogata and Serizawa then descend into the water and soon find Godzilla awake but resting. Seemingly unaware of the divers, the monster slowly walks around the ocean floor. Serizawa signals Ogata to surface as he plants the Oxygen Destroyer. As Serizawa watches Godzilla dying from the destructive weapon, he cuts his cord and dies with Godzilla, sacrificing himself so that his knowledge of the horrible weapon will surely not be known to the world. A dying Godzilla surfaces, lets out a final roar, and sinks to the bottom, disintegrating into the ocean.
Although Godzilla is dead, the tone is still grim. “I cannot believe that Godzilla was the only surviving member of its species,” Dr. Yamane ponders. “If we keep on conducting nuclear tests, it’s possible that another Godzilla might appear somewhere in the world, again.” As the people aboard the ship look to the sun, it is uncertain whether the death of Godzilla is either the end or the beginning an apocalyptic era.
[edit] Analysis
The monster Godzilla is seen by some as an allegory for the atomic bomb: an unstoppable force, powered by radiation, that lays waste to Japan in a manner similar to what occurred in World War II. It could also be an allegory for America as a threatening nuclear power; this movie was made only nine years after Japan's defeat, and only a few months after the Castle Bravo/Daigo Fukuryu Maru nuclear testing accident which had a great psychological impact on Japanese society. Unlike later movies in the "giant monster" genre, Gojira was filmed in a completely serious manner. Ishiro Honda, the director, was a second-unit director on several of Akira Kurosawa's films, and his stark black-and-white cinematography seems more realistic, harsh, and terrifying than many of the later color kaiju movies.
[edit] Box Office
In Japan, the film sold approximately 9,610,000 tickets, and was the eighth best-attended film in Japan that year. It remains the second most-attended Godzilla film in Japan, behind King Kong vs. Godzilla. It grossed approximately 152 million Yen ($2.25 million USD).
[edit] 2004 Re-Release
On May 7, 2004, the film was released theatrically for the first time in its original Raymond Burr-less form in North America in two theatres. It grossed a commendable $38,030 USD ($19,015 per screen) in its opening weekend. It was in release until December 2004, never playing on more than five North American screens at any given point. By the end of its run, it grossed $412,520 USD.
[edit] DVD Releases
Apart from the US re-cut of the movie Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, the original Gojira film was not released in the United States on DVD until September 6, 2006, although the original had earlier appeared on DVD in Japan on 2002 on TohoRegion 2. The quality of the print used for the Japanese release was partially restored and remastered, including 3 Audio Tracks (the original mono track, an isolated audio track, and an isolated track & SFX track), and an interview with Akira Ifukube, in a expensive sell price. In 2004 the movie was re-released in Japan as part of the Final Box DVD Boxset following the premiere of Godzilla Final Wars. The disc quality was the same as the 2002 release, and included the US version of the Film (GKOTM or Godzilla, King of the Monsters, which was re-entitled in japan as Kaiju O Gojira). In the fall of 2005, BFI theatrically released the original Japanese version in the UK; this was similar to the Rialto Pictures release in the US, and by the end of the same year, the movie was released on DVD by BFI. The quality of the print was very good (but not perfect), the DVD including the original mono track and several new extra freatures, such as documentaries and commentary tracks by Steve Ryfle, Ed Godziszewski and Keith Aiken covering production details and changes and trivia. The differences between the Japanese and US versions were discussed, and rare production stills, sketches and storyboards, unfilmed or filmed and lost scenes and early Godzilla sculptures. The DVD also includes a docummentary about the Lucky Dragon 5, the Japanese fishing boat caught in an American nuclear blast, which was one of the isnpirations of the creation of the movie. This release was received very well, and released in Australia Mad Man Co Ltd in Region 4.
[edit] Critical reception
The 2004 North American re-release of Godzilla was highly praised by critics, few of whom had ever seen the film in its original, Raymond Burr-less form. Its approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes is currently at a stellar 91% (and 88% among the 'Cream of the Crop').[1].
In Entertainment Weekly, Owen Glieberman, who gave the film an A- rating, wrote:
"Godzilla, an ancient beast roused from the ocean depths and irradiated by Japanese H-bomb tests, reduces Tokyo to a pile of ash, yet, like Kong, he grows more sympathetic as his rampage goes on. The characters talk about him not as an enemy but as a force of destiny, a god. The inescapable subtext is that Japan, in some bizarre way, deserves this hell. Godzilla is pop culture's grandest symbol of nuclear apocalypse, but he is also the primordial spirit of Japanese aggression turned, with something like fate, against itself."[2]
In the Dallas Observer, Luke Y. Thompson wrote:
"A lot of people are likely to be surprised by what they see. The 1954 Japanese cut is shot like a classic film noir, and the buildup to Tokyo's inevitable thrashing is quite slow by today's standards. The echoes of World War II are very strong, and the devastation wrought by Gojira (played by Haruo Nakajima) is not sugar-coated--it eerily mirrors that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the deaths and injuries are dwelt upon. The monster himself is not fully revealed for quite a while, and even when he finally shows up, he's a malevolent black predator with glistening skin, who stays mostly in the shadows, many times more fearsome than the green-skinned cookie monster who showed up in the various sequels to layeth the smacketh down on the candyasses of numerous alien invaders in ugly leotards."[3]
One of the few negative reviews was written by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Ebert admitted the film was "an important one" and "properly decoded, was the Fahrenheit 9/11 of its time, but he also says:
"In these days of flawless special effects, Godzilla and the city he destroys are equally crude. Godzilla at times looks uncannily like a man in a lizard suit, stomping on cardboard sets, as indeed he was, and did. Other scenes show him as a stuffed, awkward animatronic model. This was not state of the art even at the time; King Kong (1933) was much more convincing. When Dr. Serizawa demonstrates the Oxygen Destroyer to the fiancee of his son, the superweapon is somewhat anticlimactic. He drops a pill into a tank of tropical fish, the tank lights up, he shouts 'stand back!,' the fiancee screams, and the fish go belly up. Yeah, that'll stop Godzilla in his tracks."[4]
[edit] Follow up
For a limited time, the original version of Godzilla was released in the United States with subtitles, and confined to theaters catering to Japanese-Americans. This same version was later released in the 80's and as recently in 2004 has been issued through Rialto Pictures. In the fall of 2006, Rialto lost control of the distribution rights to the film as the original version was released for the first time on home video in North America via Classic Media.
When first released in wide distribution in the U.S., its footage was reworked and supplemented with new footage featuring Raymond Burr (Perry Mason) for general commercial release as Godzilla, King Of The Monsters in 1956, and the giant monster would be known outside Japan by the name "Godzilla" ever after. In 1957, the American version even worked its way back to Japan, where the Godzilla name also took root. This American version was the only version represented on North American home video until the release of the Gojira DVD in September 2006 (which, incidentally, contains both the unedited Japanese theatrical version and the reworked U.S. version).
[edit] External links
- Barry's Temple of Godzilla
- Toho Kingdom
- Kaijuphile: Monster Site. Monster Obsession.
- Monster Zero News
- Sci-Fi Japan
- Godzilla Stomp
- The Godzilla Shrine
- Godzilla at the Internet Movie Database
- RottenTomatoes.Com list of Gojira reviews.
- Roger Ebert review of Gojira.
- 'Godzilla,' Uncut and Unmatched by Desson Thomson.
- 'Godzilla': Not Your Daddy's Dinosaur by Stephen Hunter.
- It's the Bomb: We're off to see the lizard by J. Hoberman.
- http://www.petitiononline.com/ak5ke823/petition.html Petition to get original novelization of Godzilla translated into English
- Gojira's Sanctuary- Info and forums
