The success of the novel and the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha"

Résumé du document

When it was first published in 1997, the novel "Memoirs of a Geisha" written by Arthur Golden has already met a huge success: it ranked during a whole year in the New York Times top 10 best-sellers list. In 2005, the big screen adaptation of the book, produced by Steven Spielberg, also had a huge success through the world, making the universe of Geisha and history of Japan more accessible to the western audience. Both the novel and the movie literally fascinated the westerners, so the point here is to try to find out the reasons of such a success.

Also, one has to observe that both the movie and the novel have western authors: it was by the westerners, and for the westerners. Shall we then say that the principal reason why we take interest to the story of Geisha Sayuri is that her story was "adapted" to our expectations... In other words, we are shown exactly what we wanted to see, a romanced world of Asian beauty and mystery, which might not stick that much to historic reality... As far as the movie is concerned, what is sure is that many elements from the book were modified, which proves that once again the world of Geisha that we enjoy will never be exactly faithful to reality.

Extraits

[...] Sayuri's dance show A very central element of the novel was changed in the movie: the color of the protagonist's eyes. In the novel they are supposed to be gray, if someone had poked a hole in [her] eyes and all the ink had drained out”. In the movie, however, the actress wears light blue contacts. One can question why take liberties for such a central element of the story. Blue eyes refer to Westerners, of course, and is impossible for a pure Japanese. [...]

[...] From paper to screen: Memoirs of a Geisha, the movie. The adaptation of the novel on the big screen, as expected, generated controversial opinions: from readers of the novel, from the Japanese, etc. The main critics were about the fact that the movie was not able to transcript most exactly the universe of Geisha that was quite present in the novel. However, it is difficult to recreate the magic of a novel of hundreds of pages into a movie, and although many Japanese were quite critical, the movie was a tribute to this enchanting aspect of their history. [...]

[...] And finally, one of the most controversial elements of the movie: most of the actors in the movie (including the actress who portrays Sayuri, the principal character) are not Japanese but Chinese! The choice from the direction may have come from the idea that anyways, to a Western audience, this doesn't make a difference. In Japan and China, the movie had quite bad criticism because of this liberty, fueled by the tensions between the two countries when the movie was released. References Memoirs of a Geisha : Arthur Golden Barry, Richard Lloyd (March 30, 2006). "The Queen and the Geisha". The Times (UK). http://timesonline.typepad.com/times_tokyo_weblog/2006/03/the_queen_and_t_1. html. [...]

[...] Throughout the movie, the Geisha, Hatsumomo, appears as very sensual in an occidental way. In some scenes of the movie, she wears her kimono hanging low on her hips, and has a quite glamorous attitude in a western point a view. Sayuri's dance show: the scene taken from the novel was one of the most expected by the readers. The result was very appreciated by the audience and, still in a western point of view, she looks attractive, with her hair long, wearing a very occidental eye makeup . [...]

[...] The success of the novel and the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha” When it was first published in 1997, the novel “Memoirs of a Geisha” written by Arthur Golden already met a huge success: it ranked during a whole year in the New York Times top 10 best-sellers list. In 2005, the big screen adaptation of the book, produced by Steven Spielberg, also knew a huge success through the world, making the universe of Geisha and history of Japan more accessible to the western audience. [...]