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Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

Posted By: Someonelse
Date: 31 Mar 2015 19:28:00
Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956)
2xDVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:36:21 + 01:20:49 | Artwork | 7,57 Gb + 7,71 Gb
Audio: Japanese in 1954 and English in 1956 - AC3 1.0 @ 384/192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Action | The Criterion Collection #594

Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira) is the roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama, made in Japan at a time when the country was reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing in the Pacific. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning almost thirty sequels. A thrilling, tactile spectacle that continues to be a cult phenomenon, the original, 1954 Japanese version is presented here, along with Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the 1956 “Americanized” version.

Gojira (1954) - IMDB
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956) - IMDB
Criterion

It is too easy to take Godzilla for granted. Having been a cornerstone of international popular culture for nearly six decades, in the process spawning 27 official sequels and too-many-to-count remakes, rip-offs, and spin-offs in every medium imaginable (not to mention Blue Öyster Cult’s 1977 tongue-in-cheek rock anthem), the original marauding monster movie is so familiar to even those who have never seen it that we are constantly in danger of losing sight of both its innovative nature and its socio-political daring.

Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

The original Godzilla (Gojira) was, after all, the most expensive Japanese film ever made at the time and the first attempt by Japanese filmmakers to produce a significant science fiction monster movie. More importantly, though, it was a brave attempt to integrate current issues, specifically the heightened fears of the atomic age, into a genre film. For all its rubbery fakeness and sometimes silly plotting, the film nevertheless cuts right to the bone of nuclear anxiety, which is all the more chilling given that it was produced by the only country to have ever suffered the ravages of nuclear attack.

Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

The film opens with a direct reference to the Daigo Fukuryū Maru (Lucky Dragon 5), a Japanese fishing vessel that made the mistake of sailing too close to the Bikini Atoll where the U.S. military was testing its newly developed hydrogen bomb. The boat was rained on with radioactive ash (later called shi no hai or “death ash”), and all the crew members developed acute radiation poisoning, with the radio operator dying seven months later. For Japanese audiences at the time, whose memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less than a decade old, the film’s opening must have felt like a docudrama recreation, with the fisherman on a fictional vessel screaming in anguish as they are enveloped an intense light from the ocean.

Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

Alas, it is not a bomb in this case, but rather the prehistoric Godzilla, who has been stirred to action after his deep underwater lair was decimated by atomic testing. Thus, even though he is the film’s monstrous threat, he is also immediately rendered sympathetic, especially to those who had suffered atomic devastation. Godzilla’s rampages through the Japanese mainland, especially Tokyo (which had been extensively firebombed during World War II), become not just mindless destruction, but the angry lashing out of a primordial beast drawn against its will into the horrors of the modern age.

Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

Director Ishirô Honda, who started his career with Toho working as an assistant under Akira Kurosawa, plays the material with humanist sincerity, which means that the various characters emerge as more than just cardboard victims. The screenplay by Honda and Takeo Murata (from a story by Shigeru Kayama) isn’t always the most elegant or eloquent, but it is quite adept at lacing the action with contemporary political rhetoric about Japan’s identity in a world of atomic anxiety. The primary character is Hideto Ogata (Akira Takarada), a scientist whose girlfriend, Emiko (Momoko Kôchi), is the daughter of a renowned paleontologist (Takashi Shimura) who wants to study Godzilla, rather than annihilate him. Exactly how one would go about studying Godzilla is never elaborated, but his stance plays as an effectively moving plea for understanding, rather than more destruction.

Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

Of course, destruction is the name of the game, and all the socio-political critiques in the world can’t detract from the primary pleasures of Godzilla’s numerous scenes of mass devastation. “Pleasures” is probably not the best word because it doesn’t adequately encapsulate the varied reactions one can have to the havoc on display as Godzilla rips through power lines, tears apart train tracks, knocks over buildings, and sets most of Tokyo on fire. Viewed through modern eyes wedded to the photorealistic wonders of CGI, the obviousness of the model sets and the man in a rubber suit renders the violence slightly silly at times, although the temptation to such condescension, while understandable, ignores both the innovation of the effects at the time (they were literally inventing them as they went along) and the manner in which those effects terrified contemporary audiences by aligning sci-fi thrills with recent historical atrocity. For every special effect that we notice, there are half a dozen that we don’t (matte paintings, optical effects, miniatures), and the film remains a touchstone of large-scale spectacle.

Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

Interestingly, there were virtually no predecessors to Godzilla; it was almost completely unique in its time. In the U.S., Willis O’Brien had helped pioneer stop-motion animation with rampaging dinosaurs in The Lost World (1925) and, of course, the giant gorilla in King Kong (1933), but those films had virtually no imitators until the 1950s. Godzilla was immediately preceded in the U.S. by The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), which also featured a mammoth prehistoric reptile (brought to life by the incomparable Ray Harryhausen) wreaking havoc after being rudely awakened from its watery depths by atomic testing.

Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

Yet, the setting in Japan and the explicit references to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the ill effects of nearby nuclear testing (one character laments the presence of “atomic tuna”) immediately sets Godzilla apart and imbues it with a solemnity that Honda respects while also recognizing the thrills of make-believe cinematic devastation. The rest of the decade was choked with atomic monstrosities in both Hollywood and Japan, good and bad, and they all owe a debt to that big rubbery lizard that lumbered out of the ocean and became a legend by single-handedly embodying the era’s most distinct fears and sorrows.
QNetwork
Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]

Special Features:
- New high-definition digital restoration of Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Terry Morse’s 1956 reworking of the original
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic J. Hoberman

DISC ONE:
The Film (Japanese Version with optional English subtitles)
Audio Commentary with film historian David Kalat
Original Theatrical Trailer (in Japanese with optional English subtitles)

DISC TWO:
The Film (US Version)
Audio Commentary with film historian David Kalat
Cast and Crew Interviews (in Japanese with optional English subtitles):
-Akira Takarada (actor)
-Haruo Nakajima (actor)
-Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai (special effects technicians)
-Akira Ifukube (composer)
"Photographic Effects" featurette (with introduction by special effects director Koichi Kawakita and special effects photographer Motoyoshi Tomioka) (in Japanese with optional English subtitles)
Interview with Japanese film critic Tadao Sato (in Japanese with optional English subtitles)
"The Unluckiest Dragon" audio essay with historian Greg Pflugfelder describing the tragic fate of the fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryu Maru, a real-life event that inspired Godzilla (in English)
US Theatrical Trailer (in English)
Godzilla (1954) + Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) [The Criterion Collection #594] [Re-UP]


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