The Final Act of Tatsuya Nakadai

Nakadai Tatsuya, the actor I most respect in the history of Japanese cinema, passed away on the 8th of this month.

He was not an actor who pushed through with an “overpowering persona” typical of his contemporaries like Mifune Toshiro or Yorozuya Kinnosuke. He was incredibly malleable, freely traversing the medium of film itself, and was a rare creator capable of redefining and reconstructing Japanese cinema through his very way of living. This “creation” does not merely mean that he was deeply involved in film production or left behind numerous works; it means that his way of life itself—his actual practice (pratique) of what he thought and how he lived day to day—was of extreme importance in that it brilliantly re-edited Japanese cinema itself into a new dimension.

The departure of the actor Nakadai Tatsuya signifies the “complete conclusion” of the rise of Japanese cinema that began around the 1930s, suggesting that we have entered a symbolic phase of a completely new “Era of the Individual,” no longer defined by traditional filmmaking or archaic values. His way of life was a philosophy in itself, scattered with crucial lessons for us living in these chaotic modern times. Fortunately, we can still deeply learn this philosophy through his works preserved on film, which is arguably the greatest strength of visual media. The brilliance of recorded images lies in the ability to transcend time and space, allowing us to assimilate the life of a single human being as philosophy into our present selves. If we perceive this as a “Hyper-Temporal Remix,” we must fully ingest these lessons to newly construct a “richness” suited to each of us in this 21st century.

Until the 20th century, one could proceed through life simply by consuming the values and definitions of richness presented by “someone else,” but to survive the era ahead, we must not merely review these old values but fundamentally replace the very bedrock, like a crustal deformation, and this must be done by each individual. Viewing the Great Information Age positively, we are fortunate to live in an era where, for the first time in human history, we can touch and learn from an unbelievably vast archive of “memories,” not limited to film, and there is no reason not to utilize this.

Here, I want to focus on two theses that Nakadai placed at the center of his philosophy as an actor: “An actor must become the Other,” and “The basis of an actor is to possess the eye to observe humans.” These two philosophies were thoroughly enforced at the “Mumeijuku” (Nameless School), the actor training institute he presided over, which explains the background from which excellent actors like Yakusho Koji emerged; and now, I wish to focus particularly on the perspective that he placed “possessing the eye to observe humans” at the foundation of “becoming the Other.”

This is highly suggestive because what modern people have significantly lost over the last 20 to 30 years is precisely this act of “seeing people”—the essential ability to build human relationships nurtured throughout human history. A great revolution will occur if individuals reclaim the act of “seeing people” because, at its root, the neglect of “seeing people” has led to the current situation where the connection to the society formed from it is slighted or ignored. Recovering the act of “seeing people” can become the most important antithesis to the modern age; this will carry a very avant-garde meaning leading up to the 2030s and will take on extreme importance as a survival strategy for the new era.

As automation by AI and the technological singularity accelerate, we are already aware that, as a reality, no one can avoid the repercussions of the “unmanned” trend; however, in the 2030s, when this automated society develops and human mental and physical states destabilize on a global scale, the vital element for survival will ultimately converge on the sincere ability to “see people.” Often, regarding survival in the AI era, only technical aspects tend to be highlighted, but since our genes have changed only about 0.1% from 10,000 years ago, we should place more importance on such essential parts. To simplify for the modern context: individual human beings, who have become too selfish, must deeply reflect on that “selfish era (the 20th century),” and from there, question the very perspective of how to reclaim altruistic relationships and build a vision for the next society; at this juncture, even the perspective of “constructing” society feels outdated, so the point will be the perspective of “transforming” into the next society.

However, because the histories of nations and ethnic groups differ greatly, a case that succeeded in a certain country or city is not necessarily exportable as is; globalization committed a major mistake in slighting and misreading this point, and in fact, this is exactly the problem facing every aspect of Japan today. Personally, as I travel to various places, what I strongly feel is that there are very few humans capable of “seeing people.” It feels as if it has been forgotten, but fundamentally, Japan differs greatly from the West in historical background, and the context of culture and values nurtured is in a different position; considering the historical relationship between Japan, Korea, and China, the historical relationship between Japan and the West is merely that of an infant, and within that, mutual understanding is fraught with difficulty and countless malfunctions. How to understand and sublimate each context in the modern day is a major factor, but a common misunderstanding here is to look first at the large matrix of “society,” “state,” “ethnicity,” or “world,” and try to change that; it seems this tendency has been strong for the last 100 years or so, but I see the root of this in the “anxiety” of the individuals themselves—specifically, a shallow attitude of thinking that one just needs to act without reaching the introspection that one must first revolutionize one’s own interior.