Questions on Kojima's chapter from Christy

1. Kojima focuses on a paragraph from Hear the Wind Sing. He draws connections between this paragraph and many of Murakami’s works. He discusses their connections as ‘his poetics of requiem.’ How intentionally do you think Murakami was with these connections? Can you think of any other subtle connections in his other works? 
2. He discusses the opposing relationship between France and Germany. Each represents the parallel worlds of the dead versus the living. Did you notice the connection between these countries when reading? If you didn’t specifically notice France and Germany’s relationship, were there any other opposing forces you noticed that represented this idea of opposing worlds?  
3. Kojima discusses how Debussy’s Piano Jardins sous la Pluie might have been a more suitable title due to the atmospheric presence of France. Do you agree? Why or why not?
4. As we know, Norwegian Wood is a song by the Beatles. Using cynical wit, the narrator sings about his efforts to have sex with a woman. He realizes she was only leading him on, so he sleeps in the tub by himself. It's implied he burns her house down the next morning, unclear if she’s still inside, as a little revenge. Do you think there are any parallels between the lyrical context of the song and the context of the novel? If so, do you think Norwegian Wood is or isn’t a suitable title?
5. Are there any specific points you think Kojima missed? Is there anything you wish he would have expanded on?

 

Norwegian Wood Movie Reflection

Upon watching the film version of Norwegian Wood, there are some aspects of the film that I enjoyed and there are some that I didn't. On the positives, I thoroughly enjoyed the cinematography. I thought that the film was beautifully shot. There are some camera angles and pans that I liked from an artistic perspective. One vivid scene was when Kizuki committed suicide in the car. The color scheme reminded me of Wong Kar-Wai's Hong Kong films which oftentimes employ all warm colors or all cold colors in one shot to fill the entire screen. I think the colors and the smoke really worked to create the feeling of hellish suffocation but also peaceful Nirvana. Another scene that I really enjoyed cinematically was the snow mountain scene with Toru and Naoko. I thought the stillness of each shot in that scene which was slower and more steady than other scenes represented an important, reflective moment in the plot line. A similar background against the snow and shot (mostly still with a slow zoom in) was used for Toru and Midori's conversation, creating a parallel between the two women who Toru is involved with. Additionally, for the most part, I believe that the characters/actors/actresses were pretty well-chosen (with the exception of Reiko). Toru was depicted plain, innocent-looking student whereas Nagasawa was clearly represented as a playboy type with slick-hair. Naoko was depicted as very slim, weak, and soft-spoken whereas Midori was more playful (although I envisioned her to be more provocative). Hatsumi was fitting in the film and Storm Trooper in the film really brought the writing to life. Overall, I thought the character selection was great. Reiko really did not fit my perception of the character after reading the book. I had a disconnect because not only did the film not mention her disturbing backstory with the 13-year-old girl but I felt like the actress did not encapsulate the unsettling, worn-down feeling the character. 

In terms of things that I did not enjoy as much, I felt like the scenes did not particularly encapsulate the same essence from the book. For example, I was incredibly disturbed by the sex scene with Naoko and Toru. Although Murakami uses sexual intercourse in quite interesting ways in his works, the particular one portrayed in the film took away some of the deeper feelings that the characters had developed for each other. Each scene was short and abrupt. They certainly didn't capture the deeper, meandering progression of Murakami's writing that is more reflective and lingering in the readers' minds. In the ending scene, in between Reiko and Toru's sex and Toru walking Reiko to the station for departure, there is a short transitional scene. After Reiko and Toru's sex, the scene cuts to Toru sitting on a tree branch. The camera then pans to Naoko leaning onto a scene and then slowly to Reiko next to the tree, kneeling by the water. When reading the book, I didn't give too much thought to Reiko and her connection to Toru. I thought the ending sex was just a coping mechanism for both people over the loss of a common friend (a relatively straight-forward and naive interpretation). But this transitional scene linking the three people together made me question if there is actually some deeper and darker interpretation between the relationship of Reiko, Toru, and Naoko. 

Yiqin Zhang

Norwegian Wood: Book versus Movie

     While watching Norwegian Wood, I found much of the dialogue and mood of the movie to feel accurately reflective of the content of the book. However, the major points of discrepancy between the book and movie which stood out to me were in the portrayal of Naoko’s mental illness as well as the relationship between Toru and Reiko in the final scenes.            

Naoko’s mental illness first surfaces as expected, with her crying and then having intercourse with Toru on her 20^th birthday. After that, she falls off the map until she finally allows Toru to visit her at Ami Hostel. It is at this point that I started to feel the movie inaccurately represented her psychological state as well as her relationship with Toru. There are two times when Toru is visiting in the movie that she becomes upset and has a breakdown. In both, she becomes hysterical, screaming and crying, and Toru attempts to physically restrain her and hug her to calm her down. However, in the book, Naoko’s breakdowns typically involve her and Reiko alone, with Reiko providing comfort and Toru sent away where he won’t interfere with Naoko’s processing. In general, it feels that the movie downplays Reiko relationship with the two, while in the book, that relationship feels integral to the movement of the plot and depth of the characters.

            On that same note, when Reiko comes to visit Toru after Naoko’s death, the movie completely scraps the second funeral they throw for Naoko and makes it appear as if Toru is not fully on board with sleeping with Reiko. However, in the book, the funeral is an important turning point for Toru while he processes Naoko’s loss and leads fluidly into his sleeping with Reiko, a development which she suggests, and he admits to having been thinking the same thing. This is completely different from the portrayal in the book. I can imagine that explaining these events may have been too nuanced and time-consuming to make sense for the movie, but I also feel that the movie leaves out important parts of the book that lend themselves to the authentic, messy, human experience Murakami is so known for writing about.

Natalia Kelley

Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Forest from a Cinematic Perspective

Looking at the Norwegian Wood from the perspective of the film gives me the greatest feeling that they are limited in many things. First of all, I think that literature and words bring people more imagination and a sense of substitution. To a certain extent, movies solidify people's thinking and limit their imagination. As far as the Norwegian Wood are concerned, people's sense of substitution is not so strong. I think this is an important question to consider for all literary works made into films. It is clear that every actor who plays a character in the novel is given a fixed concept. For example, when I read the novel, I would imagine the appearance and characteristics of each of them based on Murakami's description of Watanabe and Naoko Midori. This kind of imagination is an important thing that reading can bring, and the film is to solidify the appearance and clothing of the actors. Every time I watch a movie when I see the faces of Watanabe and Naoko, I get a stronger impression in my mind. This leaves me with a preconceived notion and loses a lot of the intertextual stuff. I think it's better to think about the characteristics of each character in the text than the movie brings. Also, the film Norwegian Wood gave me the impression that the whole time they lived in is not like the 1980s described in the book, although the overall environment of the film, such as the environment of the dormitory, the restaurant, and the bookstore, greatly created the atmosphere of the 1980s. I didn't feel the 1980s as described in the book, but it might be more like the beginning of the 21st century. 

Watanabe portrayed in the movie is often read with a novel, and many scenes are switched to the scene after he sleeps with a woman. These make me feel that it is not so real, but a deliberately created atmosphere to shape Watanabe's image. Including the sex scene of Watanabe and Naoko that night made me feel very different from what was described in the book. I think the inner activities and thinking of the characters in the book are difficult to fully express in the film. If the movie has too many narrations in the hearts of the characters at that time, it will destroy the atmosphere, and if there are no words and the idea of ​​​​shaping the hearts of the characters by acting alone is a bit abrupt. It's hard to strike a balance. But one thing is that movies can convey some feelings. What I think the film succeeds in relative to the book is the scene where Kizuki commits suicide in the car. He committed suicide that way, and waiting to die in the car was very painful. The footage shows him choking when the co-pilot starts the engine to let the gas enter the car, which makes me imagine how painful it is to wait quietly for death in that closed environment and for a long time. There was no expression on the actor's face, and I don't know what he was thinking at the time. He was probably too uncomfortable and climbed into the back seat of the car, he took off one of his shoes. I think these portrayals are more impressive to me than just two or three sentences in the novel summarizing Kizuki's death. Relatively speaking, I prefer the more detailed descriptions in the novel, just saying that the film can make my visual memory last longer. Novel and text may make me forget details over time, but I was super excited to read it at the time. However, when I watched the movie, I was not so excited, maybe I was constantly comparing the details in the novel with the details in the movie.

Junze Shan (Andrew)

Norwegian Wood Film vs. Book

     I was pleasantly surprised by the film adaptation of Norwegian Wood. I don't think I had realized just how hard a story it is to tell, but this film navigated the elements of the story extremely well. One of my favorite aspects of the film was Kenichi Matsuyama's performance. He really humanized Watanabe in a way that the book did not necessarily prescribe, but certainly benefit from. Additionally, Kiko Mizuhara was excellent as Midori. Midori is one of my favorite Murakami characters, and Mizuhara was perfect in allowing the brightness of the character to shine.

    I only have two big complaints:

    1. Reiko and Nagasawa were both underdeveloped and unfairly portrayed as one-dimensional. Reiko's backstory is very important to her character and omitting that left her to only be a Watanabe-related plot device. On this most recent reading of the book, I found Reiko to be manipulative and a negative force in the story, and she wasn't given enough depth in the film to be properly considered. Nagasawa was also too predictable. I love how his character was such an asshole, but also funny and somewhat wise, but in the film, he seemed too cold. He had no charisma at all, and was way too far on the "asshole" side of the pendulum.

    2. The music! I love Jonny Greenwood, and his score here was excellent. No complaints with the OST, but in terms of pop music specifically mentioned in the novel, there's only Norwegian Wood. Music was not nearly as important to the movie as it was the novel, and I think that is a critical underestimation of a central theme.

    The film made me appreciate even more how important Midori is to Watanabe. The ending scene should have been impossible to translate to film, but the performances clarified it. Her character was so clearly the "living" side that Watanabe chooses, even after all his trauma and meaningless sex. I'd like to think he finally commits to her, and the film seems to agree with that reading. Sure, the film somewhat forces that interpretation onto the viewer, but I have no qualms about that. Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised, and I think the film serves as a worthy companion piece to the wonderful novel!

-John M. Spaulding

"Norwegian Wood" On Screen

 It is difficult to translate the interiority of a novel into film. This is evident in the 2010 adaptation of "Norwegian Wood" directed by Tran Anh Hung. Part of what makes the novel so compelling is the sense that we know Toru. Through first-person narration the reader has access to his thoughts and feelings which the film lacks.

I enjoyed watching the film, but maybe the close proximity to which I finished the novel and started the film emphasized its shortcomings. Where was Naoko's butterfly barrette, or Reiko's messy hair and wrinkles? Small details start to feel like major omissions with the book fresh in mind.

Music plays a significant role in the novel and its film adaptation. Johnny Greenwood is a prolific composer and I adore his scores for Paul Thomas Anderson's films. In "Norwegian Wood," however, his scoring felt somewhat dissonant. Maybe it would be more appropriate to include particular songs dotted throughout the novel in the track list, though questions of music licensing inevitably come into play. Still, I would've loved to hear Kind of Blue played on repeat like Toru describes in a letter to Naoko. It was great to hear songs by Can and a nice touch that they would have been released during the time period in which the novel is set.

Since film is a time-based medium, its pacing obviously differs from that of a book. Certain things need to be left out and others rushed through. One of my favorite scenes is the book is when Toru offers to sit in the hospital with Midori's father. In the movie it feels rather abrupt and it is Midori who requests that Toru sit with him, not the other way around. I also felt that leaving out Reiko's backstory made her feel like a two-dimensional character on screen.

I think book-to-film adaptation succeed when they take a stance: The director's voice and aesthetic vision resonate clearly in the space of the film while still resembling the original. Maybe "Norwegian Wood" needed to take more artistic liberty instead of merely summarizing its source text. It's always fun to see a book play out on screen instead of just in our minds, but adaptions should provide a different lens into the novel.

Bella

Norwegian Wood Film Review and Book Comparison

 Upon watching Norwegian Wood, it felt like it was a slimmed down version of the book without any extra information. It was like a piece of meat with the fat trimmed off. I noticed that there were many details missing from the film, but it kept the overall meaning or message from the book and didn't stray too much from the main objective of the story that was being given. With this being the case, we didn't see much of Storm Trooper or really go in-depth with the character as much as the book does. We also didn't see as much detail for the surroundings, the flag raising, and even the school riots that the book gives us in comparison. What was given to us were brief interluding segments that detailed what was happening, but nothing was explored in such a way that strayed from the main objective of the story in a picturesque way. It was also more focused on Watanabe and his connection to Naoko, Reiko, Midori, and Nagasawa. Everyone else was left out of focus in the big picture or played a fleeting role in the film.

Other than the details that were left out of the film, I appreciated the cinematic value the film had and the richness to the story it kept true. However, I thought there were moments with how they depicted Naoko that made me feel a bit creeped out or uncomfortable. For example, when Naoko is watching Watanabe sleep at night and when she leans in super close to his face and sniffs him. I felt like it was very odd behavior, but also foreshadowed her mental illness that would worsen as the movie went on until she ended up committing suicide. It was overall a sad movie and kept the same atmospheric feeling that the book gives the reader when they read and imagine the scenes from the writing in the book. There were scenes in the movie that were shown how I thought they would be from the book and there were other scenes that were shown that I didn't really imagine to how the film had it. Although, it was good to see it in the way that was shown in the film, because it changed my perspective of what I imagined from the book and it was intriguing to see it in the way the producers and directors of the movie created it to be.

As per movie ratings go on a movie critic scale, I'd give it a 4 out of 5 stars.

~ Jonathon Little