A man to remember: two film adaptations of Kokoro

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates two film adaptations of Kokoro, one by Ichikawa Kon in 1955 and the other by Shindō Kaneto in 1973, to uncover transformations of male bonding in different contexts. Responding to the new libidinal economy of the Meiji era, Sōseki’s novel envisions the heteronormative future while corporeal desire between men is relegated to the past. The Meiji reconfiguration of sexuality and male bonding is transcoded to the 1950s post-war period in Ichikawa’s version and the post-protest 1970s in Shindō’s adaptation. The 1955 Kokoro emasculates the male characters as passive subjects who can only obediently follow shifting conventions of masculinity. Ichikawa’s contribution is to expose how social pressure is enforced upon people whose desire to deviate from the norms needs to be kept in secrecy. On the other hand, the 1973 Kokoro contributes to the homosocial imagination of political activism as a lamentable loss through which firm bonding between men is formed whereas the marital union is denied. In the analyses of the film adaptations of Kokoro, a transformative quality of male bonding inevitably exposes what the patriarchal system latches onto shifts as the times change.