Home > Metrospective

Oh no, they say he's got to go
By Adam Goldstein
goldstea@mscd.edu

Courtesy of Toho Studios

In 2004, American audiences gained a new perspective on a familiar cinematic leviathan with the American release of the original, unedited version of Gojira.

Two years later, the DVD release of Ishiro Honda’s 1954 tale of a giant monster born of human hubris expands this perspective and solidifies the film’s role as a quintessential parable of the Atomic Age.

What’s more, the DVD’s bonus material speaks volumes about the morbid specters of the nuclear bomb. The influence of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki over both Japanese and American culture in the decades following World War II serves as a dark subtext for the film.

The two-disc set contains two separate versions: The first disc holds the original 98-minute Japanese film Gojira; the second, the highly homogenized, highly edited 79-minute American version, titled Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

The subtle differences between the two films point to a cultural gap distance as vast and unsettling as a mushroom cloud.

King of the Monsters is told in flashbacks from the viewpoint of an American journalist played by Raymond Burr. With transparent dubbing and shoddy transitions, the American adapters tell the tale of the mutated sea monster in the well-trod format of the 1950s horror flick. The edit is straightforward: Godzilla emerges from the sea, obliterates downtown Tokyo and is foiled by a one-eyed scientist and his invention, the Oxygen Destroyer. When the giant monster is destroyed, Burr’s character breathes a sigh of relief.

“The menace was gone,” he affirms.

The original, however, is steeped in references to the H-Bomb, which were left on the Western cutting-room floor.

When the monster goes on his rampage through the city, an anonymous woman says, “I hope I didn’t survive Nagasaki for nothing.” Another young woman offers solace to her daughter: “We’ll see daddy in heaven.” Finally, the Japanese ending is much more unsettling. The character of Dr. Yamane predicts, “If we continue testing H-bombs, another Godzilla will one day appear.”

Where the American edit plays like a typical sci-fi monster flick, the original serves as a cinematic social commentary, an exorcism of a nation’s collective horrors. Indeed, in Honda’s vision, the towering, lumbering beast is a transparent stand-in for the bomb itself.

In addition to the film’s stirring social messages, the DVD spotlights the innovative special effects and cinematography that brought the giant monster to the screen. Produced under a limited timeframe and budget, special effects coordinator Eiji Tsuburaya stretched his resources and created a visual vocabulary that would become iconographic. The featurettes explore the making of the rubber suit, detailing miniatures and the extensive storyboards used for the film’s most memorable sequences.

The discs also include commentary by authors and film historians Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski, who provide anecdotes and historical and biographical facts about the movie’s stars and filmmakers.

The release of Honda’s original artistic vision should mark a long-overdue reappraisal of Japan’s most famous monster. Godzilla is an icon that has long been associated with cartoonish destruction and kitsch. With the DVD release of Gojira, his true origins in one of history’s most deadly and destructive acts of warfare become clear.