How much Ham could a Hamlet let if a Hamlet could let Ham?

Anyway, if you know Hamlet well, you may not enjoy THE BAD SLEEP WELL as much as someone who doesn’t. Toshiro Mifune (the GOAT) is an aggrieved secretary taking on a corrupt corporation, setting in motion a complicated plot to force confessions from sleazy profiteers who pressured a colleague into committing suicide amid an embezzlement scandal.

Akira Kurosawa’s Shakespearean noir borrows the broad strokes of the Bard, but in updating the setting for postwar Japan, it makes kind of inverse conclusions about its main character (and the way it changes Hamlet’s classic tragic ending).

Give to these causes in need during ICE’s occupation of Minnesota:

Support Minnesotans defending their communities from ICE: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
@sanctuarysupplydepot: Mutual aid group in Mpls getting basic necessities to our houseless neighbors https://linktr.ee/sanctuarysupplydepot
@mplsmutualaid: Clearinghouse of mutual aid for our neighbors: https://linktr.ee/mplsmutualaid
ISAIAH, an interfaith group fighting for racial and economic justice in MN: https://secure.everyaction.com/G8TCnxFlE0qd9zlUEYjjeg2
Show love to North Minneapolis families in crisis: https://www.gofundme.com/f/show-love-to-north-minneapolis-families-in-crisis

References:

“The Tragedies Play Well: Akira Kurosawa’s Three-Time Love Affair with Shakespeare” by Dan Howard for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
“Human Enough,” Harry Mackin’s piece for Perisphere, the Trylon blog, about BLADE RUNNER (1982), which played as part of the Bad Company series at the Trylon
“The role of Hamlet in Kurosawa’s ‘The Bad Sleep Well’” by A.A. Birdsall
“Thousand Words: Evil Behind the Mask of Respectability (The Bad Sleep Well, 1960)” by Andrea Grunert for The Big Picture Magazine
“The Japanese Myth: A Middle‑Class Society or a Reality Overwhelmed by Global Social Polarisation?” Nicola Costalunga
Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets
Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog

#BadCompany19FilmsFeaturingEvilCorporations #35mm

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Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro from THE BAD SLEEP WELL.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 374: THE BAD SLEEP WELL (1960)

2:10 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

5:26 - Adapting Hamlet for the new postwar Japanese social order

19:13 - Is the anticlimactic ending good, actually?

33:50 - Another light defense of the ending

47:57 - Where’s the color and flair of the Bard?

1:00:58 - It’s not written for the groundlings

1:06:19 - The Junk Drawer

1:11:34 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1960

1:15:47 - Cody’s Noteys: To Try; to Love (ranking animals by how much sleep they need)

1:46:13 - The results & the reveal