MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA – Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Direction: Rob Marshall
Screenplay: Robin Swicord; from Arthur Golden’s novel
Cast: Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Watanabe, Koji Yakusho, Youki Kudoh, Mako, Tsai Chin
There are some movies that are released before their time. Only years or decades later, do they come to be appreciated. In the case Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha, based on Arthur Golden’s bestseller about the life and love of a young geisha in pre-World War II Japan, it’s the other way around. It is a movie released after – way after — its time.
As long as its makers chopped off about a third of its 145-minute running time, Memoirs of a Geisha would have worked beautifully as a silent film, with intertitles decorated with red and blue lanterns, floating kimonos, Japanese scripts, and abstract drawings of Buddhist temples. Tsuru Aoki would have played the geisha; Sessue Hayakawa would have been her lover.
As it stands at the dawn of the third millennium, this sumptuous, highly melodramatic film looks just about right, thanks to the fairy-taleish Japan created by cinematographer Dion Beebe, art director John Myhre, set decorator Gretchen Rau, and costume designer Colleen Atwood.
But once someone decides to say something — anything — the classy-looking Geisha is immediately dragged down into the gutter. And like the lowliest of streetwalkers, there she lingers, courtesy of atrocious dialogue delivered in a sort of pidgin-English dialect that even Warner Oland’s Charlie Chan and Peter Lorre’s Mr. Moto would have deemed unacceptable.
No matter how capable or how beautiful Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh, and Gong Li are — and they are three of the best and most stunning-looking actresses around — there isn’t much they can do to save this film. Though, as good troupers, they sure do try.
Now, had Memoirs of a Geisha been both shorter and silent…
3 Academy Award Wins
Best Cinematography: Dion Beebe
Best Art Direction: John Myhre (art director); Gretchen Rau (set decorator)
Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood
3 Academy Award Nominations
Best Original Score: John Williams
Best Sound Editing: Wylie Stateman
Best Sound Mixing: Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell, Rick Kline, John Pritchett
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Tags: Dion Beebe, Film Reviews, Gong Li, John Williams, Ken Watanabe, Memoirs of a Geisha, Michelle Yeoh, Oscar 2005, Oscar Movies, Period Movies, Rob Marshall, Robin Swicord, Ziyi Zhang
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