The Devolution of Yojimbo and Obsolescence

It seems that there are seven basic types of plot

1. Rags to riches – a steady rise from bad to good fortune
2. Riches to rags – a fall from good to bad, a tragedy
3. Icarus – a rise then a fall in fortune
4. Oedipus – a fall, a rise then a fall again
5. Cinderella – rise, fall, rise
6. Man in a hole – fall, rise

and...

7. Yojimbo

I only say this because it has been copied so many times. The film itself is not really an original, as it is (apparently) derivative of the novel Red Harvest. Yojimbo is a nice case where all the detective work has been done for us. There are websites that debate true origins and true copies. The details need not detain us.

There are three films I shall consider here. Yojimbo (1961). A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Last Man Standing (1996). The first two films are surprisingly similar with quirky and somewhat odd music and a sense of humor which winks at the audience. The Last Film is a dour noir.

There is an old band called DEVO. Their name represents the de-evolution of man. Basically, they were predicting Idiocracy in the 1970s as an art project. I don't say this because DEVO has anything in particular to do with these films, aside from noting that the copies seem to get weaker rather than stronger. Much as I love Sergio Leone, Yojimbo is the better film. Last Man Standing, as much as it honors the original film (it is an official copy that didn't have to get sued) lacks the playfulness of the original. It is a definite third-place finisher.

An interesting theme in Yojimbo is obsolescence. Yojimbo is set in 1860 at the tail-end of the Edo period in Japan. Our hero is a Ronin, reflecting the changing times, the displacement of once-honored roles. The town he plays has fallen into moral decay, another sign of the changing times. A samurai is inseparable from his sword (at least in the movies) and our hero's swords is also facing obsolescence - his only competent adversary carries a Smith and Wesson Model 2 revolver. What can a sword do against a pistol?

In A Fistful of Dollars, this turn is played off as The Man With No Name (although he's called "Joe" more than once in this film) finds his deadly skill with a Colt 45 challenged by his only competent opponent, who carries a Winchester rifle and boasts of its particular effectiveness. Both films have a great climax with these mismatched weapons.

Last Man Standing features a less interesting twist on this with Bruce Willis and his 1911 pistols vs. Christopher Walken (Hickey) and his Thompson sub-machine gun. The showcase showdown is let down in this case, as the tension rides on a gag along the lines of "Ya' wouldn't hit a guy with glasses would ya?" that doesn't really have any tension (despite being set up earlier in the film).

It is interesting to note that in Yojimbo, the obsolescence of the sword mirrors the obsolescence of the samurai and the entire moral order which has fallen into decay. In A Fistful of Dollars, that message is no longer present as the Colt and the Winchester are contemporary weapons. However, in this case, the asymmetry is played for a gag (that is played out now, but was relatively fresh at the time) in which our hero deals with the asymmetry. In Last Man Standing, the devolution is complete. Bruce Willis is shooting everything that moves, laws of physics be damned. Reloading be damned.

Just passing comments. I am sure that some of you here know more about these films than I do.

That said, the victory of good old tech versus modern tech is quite commonplace in fiction (and reassuring, in a soothing conservative* way : we won't be replaced by these arrogant newcomers and their odd novelty devices, the old trusty ones that we're already used to are good enough).

Fascinatingly, it's become the case with James Bond. Formerly all high-tech and avant-garde, he now plays it old battleship, old trusty methods, old cauldron in which we make the best soups. He's anchored in time, and went from modern to ancient without leaving his status as a movie's hero.

But good old lightsabers (ancient weapon from more honorable times) still beat blasters. And an analog Galactica cannot be hacked by Cylons. Old decommissioned Battleships even beat aliens at sea. Better take your old shotgun with you when pulse rifles won't do under an explosive generator. For two reasons. On one hand, sentimentalism and familiarity. People will relate to it, even if just to its expression (who cares about the beretta itself ? what endears Bond to us is his reluctance to leave it for that weird new PPK, we identify to the feeling more than to its object). On the other hand, it defines the underdog, that people root for. Beyond the familiarity vs novelty aspect, there's the fact that outdated, inferior tech means overcoming bad odds. Same with mere age, if we go by all these gangster movies that pit semi-retired "noble" criminals against the immorality of the youngest generation ("they have no code anymore nowadays").

Counterpoint 1 : Spiegel brings a gun to his fight against Vicious's sword, and is evenly matched.
Counterpoint 2 : Harrison Ford's dysentry.

Perfect balance : Manco and col. Mortimer discussing their weaponry after having shot each other's hats at various distances. Love how the older-looking Van Cleef is more uptodate than Eastwood's character.

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* Meant apolitically : it's a reaction to devices that may represent either change or wealth.

Good stuff!

I think you've got it just right with "bad odds." Our hero is a whiz with that heroic weapon, but the baddie appears to better off. Will our hero prevail? Obsolescence is a great way to set up that pattern.

I think there is also a sense of loss which is expressed in the pattern. Where have these great heroes gone? The genre of the Western is obsessed with the transient nature of the age, depicting the age passing into obsolescence (the frontier being replaced by fences and law-and-order). We pine for the old west, and find bittersweet nostalgia in seeing the west die even as we visit it (kind of like how dinosaur films seem to be more fixated with their extinction than with their dominance - even though their time on the planet lasted more than 150 million years). James Bond, of late, appears to be rather concerned with its own obsolescence, as you have observed.

In old literature (epic poetry) there was a bit of an obsession with swords breaking at inopportune moments. Even the finest blade might break, leaving one exposed to ruin. Tolkien gives this tradition a nod with Narsil shattering in battle against the dark lord. The Song of Roland reverses this pattern with the dying Roland desperately trying to break Durendal against rocks before the Saracens arrive on the scene (they will surely steal the super-sword). In all cases, however, there is a tight link of identity/destiny between wielder and sword and uncertainty about the weapon reflects uncertainty about our hero (Is Aragorn fit to be the King? Until he is sure, the sword Narsil remains in shards. When he claims the mantle, the sword is reforged into Andúril). Is it fear of death? The death denial crowd would probably say yes. Is the sword a phallic representation of the fear of erectile dysfunction? Freudians would probably have something to say about this. Either way, the theme is uncertainty. Our hero can die. There is newer and bigger and faster that is looking to crowd him out.

We take a greater interest in our greatest heroes because we can see the crack in the vase, the mortality that will overcome us all (or we can refer back to the phallic image and have a laugh), represented in the weapon itself, but the weapon is still good enough to get the job done.