Snow Falling on Cedars
USA 1999
Reviewed by Geoffrey Macnab
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
San Piedro Island, not long after the end of World War II. Local fisherman Carl Heine Jr has died at sea in suspicious circumstances. Kazuo Miyamoto, an American-born man of Japanese descent, is standing trial for his murder. Watching the case from the gallery is reporter Ishmael Chambers. As the trial progresses, the depth of the anti-Japanese feeling in this close-knit community becomes apparent. Years before, Kazuo's family had been offered the chance to buy seven acres of land from the Heines. With the onset of World War II, Kazuo's family were interned. When they came back, Carl's mother reneged on the deal. At the time of his death, Carl was contemplating whether or not to allow Kazuo back onto the land.
Ishmael, who was the childhood sweetheart of Kazuo's wife Hatsue, is still bitter about the loss of an arm in the war and Hatsue's abandonment of him. Nevertheless, he sees the flaws in the case against Kazuo and discovers that a freighter, passing by Carl's boat on the night of his death, may have caused him to fall from the mast. In court, Kazuo's lawyer Nels Gudmundsson makes an eloquent plea on his behalf, begging the jury not to allow themselves to be swayed by old anti-Japanese prejudices. With the jury in recess, Ishmael's new evidence is shown to the judge. The next day, the charges against Kazuo are dismissed.
Review
It doesn't come as a surprise to learn that director Scott Hicks (Shine) is an accomplished stills photographer. His screen version of David Guterson's 1995 novel Snow Falling on Cedars is beautifully crafted, full of lovingly composed images of mountains, woods, water and mist. The intention here seems to have been to emulate Guterson's prose with equally subtle and self-conscious camerawork and editing. As we're dealt slow-motion sequences and exposed to director of photography Robert Richardson's artful focus-pulling, it seems at times as if we're watching some sort of experimental film poem. The problem is that all this magical imagery goes hand in hand with some very uncertain storytelling. Strip away the varnish and what is left is a conventional, rather clunky courtroom drama.
In uncovering the anti-Japanese prejudice which gripped wartime America, Hicks isn't exactly breaking new ground. We've been this way before, both in John Sturges' magnificent latter-day western Bad Day at Black Rock (1954), and in Alan Parker's more solemn Come See the Paradise. The defence lawyer (a scene-stealing turn from Max von Sydow) tells us that the jury are "marking a report card for the human race", but this kind of blandishment has been trotted out in so many other courtroom dramas that it no longer has much resonance. Besides, despite von Sydow's persuasive efforts, Kazuo is acquitted not because of any jury's decision but because of new evidence.
Nor is there anything striking in the way Hicks excoriates what seems a peaceable little community, revealing the prejudices which lurk beneath the happy facade. When Horace, the weasel-like coroner, allows racism to contaminate his evidence, or the prosecutor invites the jury to look at the defendant's inscrutable face and to read guilt in it, they're behaving little differently from Robert Ryan and his small-town lynch mob in Sturges' film.
In probably the film's most heavy-handed scene, we see Japanese families rounded up as ominous drumbeats are heard on the soundtrack. They're wearing tags, just like concentration-camp inmates. We hear anonymous voices hurling abuse down the telephone at Chambers, the local newspaper editor who refuses to be caught up in the anti-Japanese hysteria which grips the town in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Hicks, however, is so busy filming seagulls and driftwood that his attempts at exposing the inhabitants as bigots lack bite.
Ishmael is an enigma. It's through his eyes that we see most of the flashbacks, but he is given precious little dialogue. He's bitter after losing his arm in the war and being deserted by Hatsue. On one level, the film is as much about his struggles to come to terms with his predicament as it is about Kazuo's trial, but he is so sketchily drawn that we're given little sense of his internal conflict. What Hicks offers instead are endless lyrical flashbacks and montage sequences. They're all exquisitely filmed but ultimately only serve to draw attention to the weakness elsewhere in plot and characterisation.
Credits
- Director
- Scott Hicks
- Producers
- Harry J. Ufland
- Ron Bass
- Kathleen Kennedy
- Frank Marshall
- Screenplay
- Ron Bass
- Scott Hicks
- Based on the novel by
- David Guterson
- Director of Photography
- Robert Richardson
- Editor
- Hank Corwin
- Production Designer
- Jeannine Oppewall
- Music
- James Newton Howard
- ©Universal Studios
- Production Companies
- Universal Pictures presents a Harry J. Ufland/Ron Bass production
- A Kennedy/Marshall production
- Executive Producers
- Carol Baum
- Lloyd A. Silverman
- Co-producers
- Richard Vane
- David Guterson
- Associate Producer
- Kerry Heysen
- Production Supervisor
- Paul Pav
- Production Co-ordinators
- Kaayla Ryane
- Washington/LA Crew:
- Heather K. Murphy
- LA Tank Crew:
- Lois Walker
- Unit Production Managers
- Patti Allen
- Washington/LA Crew:
- Charles Skouras III
- LA Tank Crew:
- John Schofield
- Location Managers
- Connie Kennedy
- Kendrie Upton
- Washington/LA Crew:
- Kristin Dehnert
- Post-production Co-ordinator
- Valerie Anne Flueger
- 2nd Unit Director
- Frank Marshall
- Assistant Directors
- Katterli Frauenfelder
- Jacquie Gould
- Paul Barry
- Andrew Robinson
- Blair Freeman-Marsh
- Washington/LA Crew:
- Wayne Witherspoon
- Rebecca Strickland
- Jennifer Wilkinson
- LA Tank Crew:
- Darrell Woodard
- Script Supervisor
- Christine Wilson
- Casting
- David Rubin
- Associate:
- Ronna Kress
- Canadian:
- Stuart Aikins
- Washington:
- Patti Kalles
- ADR Voice:
- Barbara Harris
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Ray Stella
- Underwater Camera
- Washington/LA Crew:
- Pete Romano
- Camera Operator
- Nathaniel Massey
- Special Visual Effects
- Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Bill Orr
- Washington/LA Crew Co-ordinator:
- Bill Aldridge
- Washington/LA Crew Supervisor:
- Guy Faria
- LA Tank Crew Supervisors:
- Michael Lantieri
- Louis Lantieri
- Associate Editor
- Paul Martinez
- Art Director
- Doug Byggdin
- Supervising Art Director
- Bill Arnold
- Set Decorator
- Jim Erickson
- Costume Designer
- Renée Ehrlich Kalfus
- Costume Supervisors
- Michael Dennison
- Set:
- Bren Moore
- Wardrobe
- Washington/LA Crew Men's:
- Ron Leamon
- Washington/LA Crew Women's:
- Sally Roberts
- Key Make-up Artists
- Rosalina Da Silva
- Norma Hill-Patton
- Make-up Artists
- Margaret Solomon
- Rita Ciccozzi
- Washington/LA Crew:
- Nadia Felker
- Prosthetics
- FXSmith
- Key Hairstylist
- James D. Brown
- Hairstylists
- Thom McIntyre
- Washington/LA Crew:
- Robaire Charbonneau
- Stephanie Keiler
- Titles/Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Solo Cellist
- Ron Leonard
- Shakuhachi Soloist
- Bill Shozan Schultz
- Conductor
- Artie Kane
- Choir Conductor
- Paul Salamunovich
- Orchestrations
- Brad Dechter
- Jeff Atmajian
- James Newton Howard
- Electronic Score Producer
- Jim Hill
- Supervising Music Editor
- Jim Weidman
- Music Editor
- David Olson
- Soundtrack
- "Moon over Burma" by Dorothy Lamour; "Would You" by Bing Crosby; "I Used to Love You (But It's All Over Now)" by Fats Waller; Mozart's "Laudate Dominum" by Aled Jones and the BBC Welsh Chorus; "My Blue Heaven" by the Canada Dance Band; John Philip Sousa's "Washington Post"; "Benny's Boogie" by C. Gault
- Kendo Choreographer
- Nicholas Harrison
- Sound Design
- Hank Corwin
- Production Sound Mixer
- Eric Batut
- Sound Mixers
- Roger Savage
- Gethin Creagh
- LA Tank Crew:
- Tom Brandau
- Re-recording Mixers
- Randy Thom
- Shawn Murphy
- Rick Kline
- Mix Technician
- Kent Sparling
- Re-recordist
- Mark Pendergraft
- Dialogue Editor
- Craig Carter
- Sound Effects Recordist
- Scott Heysen
- Supervising Effects Editor
- John Penders
- Effects Editors
- Antony Gray
- Frank Lipson
- Maureen Rodbard-Bean
- Danielle Wiessner
- ADR
- Voices:
- Steve Alterman
- Charles Bartlett
- Yoshio Be
- Brady Bluhm
- Doug Burch
- Chima
- Aria Curzon
- John Demita
- Brian Doughty
- Peggy Flood
- Doris Hess
- Miko Hughes
- Carlyle King
- Daamen Krall
- Tak Kubota
- June Kyoko-Lu
- Christopher Naoki Lee
- Hans Schoeber
- Akiko Shima
- Toshi Toda
- Sabriana Wiener
- Michael Yama
- Supervising Editor:
- Livia Ruzic
- Foley
- Artist:
- Gerard Long
- Recordist:
- Steve Burgess
- Mixer:
- Steve Burgess
- Military Adviser
- Mike Stokey
- Marine Co-ordinators
- US:
- Ransom Walrod
- Canadian:
- Dan Crosby
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Raleigh Wilson
- Cast
- Ethan Hawke
- Ishmael Chambers
- James Cromwell
- Judge Fielding
- Richard Jenkins
- Sheriff Art Moran
- James Rebhorn
- Alvin Hooks
- Sam Shepard
- Arthur Chambers
- Max von Sydow
- Nels Gudmundsson
- Youki Kudoh
- Hatsue Miyamoto
- Rick Yune
- Kazuo Miyamoto
- Reeve Carney
- young Ishmael Chambers
- Anne Suzuki
- young Hatsue Imada
- Arija Bareikis
- Susan Marie Heine
- Eric Thal
- Carl Heine Jr
- Celia Weston
- Etta Heine
- Daniel Von Bargen
- Carl Heine Sr
- Akira Takayama
- Hisao Imada
- Ako
- Fujiko Imada
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
- Zenhichi Miyamoto
- Zak Orth
- Deputy Abel Martinson
- Max Wright
- Horace Whaley
- Caroline Kava
- Helen Chambers
- Jan Rubes
- Ole Jurgensen
- Sheila Moore
- Liesel Jurgensen
- Zeljko Ivanek
- Doctor Whitman
- Seiji Inouye
- young Kazuo Miyamoto
- Saemi Nakamura
- Sumiko Imada
- Mika Fujii
- Yukiko Imada
- Dwight McFee
- bus driver
- Bill Harper
- Levant
- Xi Reng Jiang 'Henry O.'
- Nagaishi
- Myles Ferguson
- German soldier
- Noah Heney
- ship's doctor
- John Destrey
- bailiff
- A. Arthur Takemoto
- Buddhist priest
- Ken Takemoto
- monk
- Larry Musser
- gas station attendant
- Jamie Kang
- singing girl
- Lili Marshall
- strawberry girl
- Lisa Mena
- strawberry woman
- Jethro Heysen-Hicks
- parade boy with stick
- Tom Heaton
- Frank C. Turner
- Marilyn Norry
- jurors
- Peter Crook
- Ron Snyder
- Mark Ainsworth Farrell
- fishermans
- Jay Brazeau
- Tom Scholte
- Tim Burd
- reporters
- Gareth Williams
- Anthony Harrison
- FBI agents
- Adam Pospisil
- Johnny Brynelsen
- Heine children
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 11,472 feet
- 127 minutes 28 seconds
- Dolby Digital/ DTS/SDDS
- Colour by
- Eastman Color Film/Alpha Cine Laboratories
- Anamorphic [Panavision]