Godzilla
Monsters
Giant gorillas or dinosaurs do not figure in traditional Japanese folklore. Indigenous monsters tended to take the form of snakes or spiders, foxes or hairy humans. Godzilla was inspired by two Hollywood monsters – the giant gorilla, King Kong, and the radio-active re-awakened dinosaur in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). King Kong was originally made in 1933 but re-released world wide in 1952, to popular acclaim. It was very much admired by the Toho studio special effects specialist, Eiji Tsuburaya, who constructed special rubber suits for the actors who played Godzilla, as well as a radiation-breathing puppet head and torso for close-ups and a small-scale full-length remote-control puppet for long shots.
Toho film company
Toho was one of the major Japanese film companies. It was very active in the production, distribution and exhibition of films, and employed a regular team of actors, directors and production assistants on contract to the studio. The director of Godzilla, Inoshiro Honda, had worked for Toho since the mid Thirties, where he was trained as a director, working as an assistant to Yamamoto and then Kurosawa. The actor Takashi Shimura, who plays the palaeontologist, Dr Yamane, was a regular member of Kurosawa’s team of actors, and played leading roles in Ikiru (1952) and The Seven Samurai (1954).
Historical context
Censorship
Under the American Occupation, Japanese films were closely monitored by film censors who did not allow any reference to the atomic bomb, because they feared it would arouse anti-American feelings. The Americans had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of WWII, causing hitherto unimaginable destruction. The victims who were not killed suffered from radiation disease. The Occupation ended in 1953, allowing Japanese filmmakers to raise the subject. The dinosaur Godzilla has become a lethal predator, destroyer of people and cities, as a result of atomic explosions that have re-awakened him and rendered him radioactive.
The Cold War and nuclear armaments
With the emergence of the Cold War after WWII, the US and Soviet Russia engaged in an arms race and both countries sought to develop more lethal atomic weapons. In 1952 and 1954, the US exploded hydrogen bombs, a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the Pacific, and in 1953 Soviet Russia exploded its first hydrogen bomb. These developments were viewed with alarm in Japan. The anti-nuclear movement was very strong in Japan, because Japan had been the only country to suffer directly from the use of nuclear weapons.
The Fukuryu Maru Incident
In March 1954, the US exploded a fifteen-megaton H-bomb in the Pacific. This explosion resulted in radioactive fallout: 28 military personnel and 239 Marshall Islanders, who were presumed to be at a safe distance from the explosion, were exposed to high levels of radiation. A Japanese fishing boat, the Fukuryu Maru, was also hit by fallout. The entire crew developed radiation sickness, and one died soon after. Japanese protests against the tests escalated and interest in the victims of Hiroshima was revived. Godzilla’s first appearance to seamen on the high seas clearly echoes this event; and the later scenes of the destruction s/he wreaks on the city of Tokyo clearly revived memories of the destruction of their cities by allied bombing at the late stages of WWII in Japanese audiences.
Socio-political context
Self-sacrifice
Godzilla is impervious to all conventional military weapons. Dr Serizawa, the Japanese scientist who has developed the only weapon that can neutralize him – the so-called “oxygen-destroyer” – is reluctant to use his lethal weapon but finally succumbs to pressure. He is a self-sacrificing Japanese hero. By destroying all his notes, he makes sure the life-destroying formula cannot be employed after he dies, and he deliberately joins Godzilla in death. He sacrifices himself in order to save Japan from destruction, to save the world from his life-destroying scientific discovery, and to free his fiancée to marry the man she loves.
The American alliance veils villainy
Although the Americans were responsible for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and for further endangering Japanese lives by exploding hydrogen bombs in the Pacific in 1952 and 1954, the film does not demonise the Americans. There are no ugly Americans in it. The destructive power of America is transferred onto Godzilla. But the plight of the Japanese as victims is dramatically emphasised and the Japanese are also represented as peace-loving heroes. At the end of the Occupation, Japan signed a treaty with the US and supported it in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, politically if not militarily.
American version of Godzilla
In 1956, an English-language version of the film was produced and distributed in the US. The original footage was shortened, and a new character was introduced - an American journalist, played by Raymond Burr, who functions as a guide to the action and a means of interpreting the Japanese dialogue and strange events. They changed the title and the name of the monster from Gojira to Godzilla, they dubbed some of the original dialogue, and they shot some new scenes situating Burr in the action. But, most significantly, the dangers of nuclear weapons were played down. References to Nagasaki, radioactive rain, contaminated food and bomb shelters were deleted, as was a children’s hymn calling for nuclear disarmament. The specific connection between Godzilla’s first appearance and the series of H-bomb tests conducted by the Americans in the Marshall Islands was played down.
Geographic context
Japanese reception
The original Gojira took six months to produce (abnormally long for a Japanese film at that time) and cost about 30 times more than the average Japanese film of the time. But it broke all box office records on its release. An instant hit, it was seen by over ten million Japanese.
American reception
The American version of the film was a big success, and the first Japanese film to be released widely in mainstream US movie theatres. But it was marketed as a horror movie, not as an anti-nuclear movie. The original Japanese version of the film was not seen in the US until 1982.