The old innkeeper: the decent human being
I thought the old man in Yojimbo was pretty interesting. As with most of the movie, he fills an archetype of the old and good man who cannot perfectly understand the hero. I think that he is the only human in the film. The rest of the characters are divorced from their humanity, whether because they are evil and we can’t accept them because they are evil, or in Sanjuro’s case, because he is a force of nature. The old man is the only decent human being in the movie. Even the family Sanjuro frees makes him sick, as the husband lost his wife through gambling. And when they mess with the decent old man, that’s when Sanjuro gets really pissed off. I think Sanjuro goes to save the old man immediately because the old man is the only person Sanjuro encounters that doesn’t make him sick. The town is his toy until the innocent and the good are threatened: then Sanjuro gets deadly. The old man reveals Sanjuro’s morality. I’d like to be a little weird and go on to say that the old man is most directly tied with the audience. He often says exactly what we are thinking, things like “you fool! you shouldn’t do that!” Of course, we are thinking something more like, “you fool! you shouldn’t do that! But I’m going to really like watching you do that!” Our faith in Sanjuro and the action movie makes us less human than the old man, wanting to see Sanjuro go lay down some slayin’ on the evil men of the town. Because really, the old man is the only one who seems to want the town to heal. We the audience are like Sanjuro: only interested in watching the surgery without sticking around to watch the slow recovery.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
hmmmmmm…nice point about the old man/audience connection, tyler. there’s quite a lack of student-to-student comments on these blogs. (almost like a certain lack of updates on your blog, kiddo…haha not that I’m one to talk.)
but seriously-I didn’t actually think about that…I talked about the old man as the archetype on mine too (…sort of, though I was actually just rambling long enough to put on the shoddy high school replica clip on my blog) but I actually think there is a great tie between the old man and the viewers. high five!
April 30th, 2007 at 4:32 am
[...] I believe Tyler and his title-that-says-it-all blog, “The old innkeeper: the decent human being” has got something good here. The old man is the voice of reason, although Sanjuro has his own reasons for doing things and Gonji is always left unheard. But he is the voice of the audience, telling Sanjuro what we would like to tell the wandering samurai. When Sanjuro is brutally beaten by Ushitora’s thugs, he crawls to Gonji’s tavern and the old man hides him and eventually takes him to safety. Through Gonji, we are essentially protecting Sanjuro while he’s in the most vulnerable state he has experienced thus far. We, the audience, want Sanjuro to be alright, since he is the one trying to preserve a better world for Gonji, and essentially all mankind, to live in. Gonji is the most human character in the film, and when he is captured, the entire world of good, reason, and innocence is put into danger. This is why Sanjuro comes back with the fury of millions; he is no longer a ronin wandering around. He had found his cause, even if was only temporary; Sanjuro was battling for the good of the world and his only true friend, Gonji. Gonji represented the world Sanjuro had apparently vowed to protect; and Sanjuro would have gone to the death for that man, because, at that point in time, Gonji was his master. « The Original Invisible Woman | [...]