Unfortunately this is one of the VERY lesser releases from The Criterion Collection. First, the video transfer, in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio, is from a really bad source, and the film is at a mediocre ten year old VHS tape quality, laden with lines, scratches, ghosts, blobs, and assorted other imperfections- the worst reel is the 'dream sequence.' What is puzzling is how Criterion has boasted , in the past, of restoring film quality to films that were far better, to begin with. As example are the re-releases for Seven Samurai and Federico Fellini's Amarcord, whose initial releases had a quality of 90-95 (on a scale of 100, and the rerelease upped that about 5 points. By contrast, this release of Drunken Angel is at a substandard 55-60. Granted, the costs of this would be far more daunting than the tweaks given to the other films, but
.is not that the supposed stated reason Criterion exists? If all we were to get was a half-assed job, then perhaps this could be an Image Entertainment release? The audio portion of this release is not much better. Naturally, no English language dubbed track exists either, and Criterion continues its misguided policy of using white subtitles for a black and white film which often makes reading them an exercise in eyestrain.
The supplements are a bit better, with a 31 minute long making of documentary on the film, part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful To Create. It has some interesting information, but the better feature is Kurosawa And The Censors, a 25 minute long video piece that looks at what Kurosawa faced from American propagandists, while shooting the film, and how that was similar yet different from the censorship he faced under the militarist years of Japan. There's also an insert booklet with an essay by cultural historian Ian Buruma, and excerpts from Kurosawa's memoir, Something Like An Autobiography. Then there is an audio commentary by the hit and miss Japanese film historian Donald Richie, who relates how he was on the set for the filming of Drunken Angel, the first time he was ever invited to do so, and where he first met Kurosawa. It's an OK commentary from Richie, who manages to be hit and miss within a single commentary- usually he's on the mark or rambles off into his own hermetic world of memories. While almost never scene specific with comments, Richie does make some good points, but he also makes some key errors. As example, he feels the film is a bit didactic and preachy, but this really isn't the case. Dr. Sanada is didactic, but the film is not. The film is rather impassive toward its inhabitants. On the other hand, the film does have some flaws, like reveling in American gangster clichés, that Richie does not expound upon. He does pick up on something that I noticed right away, that the film is set in summer, but was filmed in January- thus why characters are seen in light wear, but their breath is visible in the air. But then he gaffes by claiming Sanada and Matsunaga are opposite sides of the same coin. But they are clearly not. Sharing some similarities does not make a pair of individuals part of the same coin. The two men have differing temperaments, philosophies, habits, and goals. Overall, though, it's a solid performance by Richie.
The same can be said for Drunken Angel. It has flaws (as I've detailed above), and they are manifest; the worst of them being a dream sequence where the consumptive Matsunaga emerges from a casket to chase himself on a shoreline. This was done better a decade later, in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries, and over three decades later in Kurosawa's own Kagemusha. But, it also deftly uses symbolism, visual and musical, and this overcomes its occasional fall into gangster clichés. Kurosawa, himself, felt that this was his first 'real' film, the first unencumbered by interference from outside sources. Thus, it is like its creator, a thing aborning, and while that fact does not mitigate the film's flaws, it does add a bit more to some scenes and actions, for the cineaste, for it adds a duplicity to them: one sees both the flaw and imagines how the older, better Kurosawa would have handled such a scene. And, let's face facts; given that it's Kurosawa, even his biggest flaws are better than the greatest merits of many lesser filmmakers. Thus, the word interesting has more aptness than good, bad, or variants thereof. Take that not as a copout, but an observation, flaws notwithstanding.
The supplements are a bit better, with a 31 minute long making of documentary on the film, part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful To Create. It has some interesting information, but the better feature is Kurosawa And The Censors, a 25 minute long video piece that looks at what Kurosawa faced from American propagandists, while shooting the film, and how that was similar yet different from the censorship he faced under the militarist years of Japan. There's also an insert booklet with an essay by cultural historian Ian Buruma, and excerpts from Kurosawa's memoir, Something Like An Autobiography. Then there is an audio commentary by the hit and miss Japanese film historian Donald Richie, who relates how he was on the set for the filming of Drunken Angel, the first time he was ever invited to do so, and where he first met Kurosawa. It's an OK commentary from Richie, who manages to be hit and miss within a single commentary- usually he's on the mark or rambles off into his own hermetic world of memories. While almost never scene specific with comments, Richie does make some good points, but he also makes some key errors. As example, he feels the film is a bit didactic and preachy, but this really isn't the case. Dr. Sanada is didactic, but the film is not. The film is rather impassive toward its inhabitants. On the other hand, the film does have some flaws, like reveling in American gangster clichés, that Richie does not expound upon. He does pick up on something that I noticed right away, that the film is set in summer, but was filmed in January- thus why characters are seen in light wear, but their breath is visible in the air. But then he gaffes by claiming Sanada and Matsunaga are opposite sides of the same coin. But they are clearly not. Sharing some similarities does not make a pair of individuals part of the same coin. The two men have differing temperaments, philosophies, habits, and goals. Overall, though, it's a solid performance by Richie.
The same can be said for Drunken Angel. It has flaws (as I've detailed above), and they are manifest; the worst of them being a dream sequence where the consumptive Matsunaga emerges from a casket to chase himself on a shoreline. This was done better a decade later, in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries, and over three decades later in Kurosawa's own Kagemusha. But, it also deftly uses symbolism, visual and musical, and this overcomes its occasional fall into gangster clichés. Kurosawa, himself, felt that this was his first 'real' film, the first unencumbered by interference from outside sources. Thus, it is like its creator, a thing aborning, and while that fact does not mitigate the film's flaws, it does add a bit more to some scenes and actions, for the cineaste, for it adds a duplicity to them: one sees both the flaw and imagines how the older, better Kurosawa would have handled such a scene. And, let's face facts; given that it's Kurosawa, even his biggest flaws are better than the greatest merits of many lesser filmmakers. Thus, the word interesting has more aptness than good, bad, or variants thereof. Take that not as a copout, but an observation, flaws notwithstanding.