- Original theatrical poster - image courtesy of Tokyo Five
Before countless sequels, parodies, rip-offs and remakes would reduce him to a kiddie matinee babysitter, Godzilla was the walking, fire-breathing manifestation of the terrors that haunted Japan since World War II--not just the eradication of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all that lingered in their wakes, but also the strategic firebombing that destroyed nearly 70 major cities in the months leading up to those attacks. The makings of a future movie star are here, but for the time being, the prehistoric baddie is equal parts death incarnate and childlike inquisition, an amoral force stripped to its demonic essence.
Inspired in part by the American production of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms the year before, Godzilla, aka Gojira, was among the first of its kind in combining genre filmmaking with overt political commentary, a task that the similarly themed Them! achieved the same year stateside.
Director Ishiro Honda, who also co-wrote the script with Takeo Murata, doesn't have to bring up the effects of the bombs to make his point (a tossed-off comment about fallout shelters is telling of public sentiment), as the image of the 50-meters-high creature clumsily laying waste to his Tokyo surroundings more than drives the point home. The film itself feels like a necessary act of national exorcism.
Even with a tone of unrelenting solemnity, Gojira was effective and popular enough to establish the template that would be used for virtually every film of this kind to follow. This one is among the more successful in incorporating the citywide destruction with paralleling human drama, the two threads interwoven and dependent enough on the other that interest doesn't waver when the monster is off screen.
Awoken from his prehistoric den by nuclear tests, Godzilla makes his way inward for a series of increasingly devastating visits to the mainland, culminating in the disturbing image of a city horizon engulfed in flames. Having absorbed enough radiation that his dorsal fins glow as he emits his dragon breath, Godzilla's virtually indestructible at the hands of conventional weapons.
Godzilla's tragedy is a touching enough reflection on the moral quagmires of burgeoning technology, but it's the personal elements of Gojira that give the film its lingering humanist power. At times suggesting a chamber drama, the funereal tone fits the intense responsibility burdened by Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), whose invention, dubbed the "oxygen destroyer," is another Pandora weapon that mustn't be let out of the box, except that it's also the only thing capable of stopping the destruction at hand.
This dilemma is a fabulous manifestation of the moral questions of discovery common to science fiction, from the prose of Mary Shelley to Jeff Goldblum's pointed observations about the responsibility of scientists in Jurassic Park.
Gojira is less technically proficient than its place in history might suggest, but the ragtag feel is apropos for a film that's manifest of the long-term effects of nuclear warfare. The making of Godzilla himself couldn't be more modest, the effect achieved primarily through the use of a man in a suit (actually two men, Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka), while a hand puppet was used for several close-up shots. Shots of his scorching Tokyo were acheived through both animation and the use of a fine water mist that looks quite menacing on film.
Many of these scenes are without accompanying score, but Akira Ifukube's masterful cues provide the film with a mythic drum march that spills over into even these more ponderous stretches.
There's some disconnect present in this footage, particular between the puppet work and full body shots, but by shooting Godzilla mostly at night, the cover of darkness disguises many of the proverbially showing threads, adding the elemental terror of a nighttime raid to boot. The occasional layering of images grounds the footage in human tragedy, although a view of the titular creature's eye from the vantage point of a caged bird is most memorable.
Frayed ends notwithstanding, the centerpiece destruction of Tokyo is a sequence that's rarely been rivaled in the kaiju genre, so much that even in the context of the substantially reworked American version of the film, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, the footage retains the bulk of its sobering power.
A closing monologue, about the continued testing of nuclear weapons and the possibility of more side effects to come, is as much a cautious reflection that which man has sewn in the world (I'm waiting for the reboot that makes use of the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi for its metaphorical roots) as it is an open-door invitation to the nearly endless stream of "versus" sequels just over the horizon. Many would prove equally entertaining, but none can match this sledgehammer of a film.
Gojira. Dir. Ishiro Honda. Perf. Akira Takarada, Momoko Kochi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura, Fuyuki Murakami, Haruo Nakajima, Katsumi Tezuka. Toho, 1954. Running Time: 95 min.
