The Last Samurai

When I got back to the house Sib said she was going out. I had seen that look on her face before. While at Skoob we had seen a secondhand copy of The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, the brilliant four-volume updated version which had come out in the early 80s, an amazing bargain at just £100. We had had a long argument in which Sibylla had said I ought to have it and I had said we could not afford it and Sibylla had said it was a superb work of scholarship which no home should be without and I had said we could not afford it.

I said: You know we can’t afford The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ. Sibylla said she was going to Grant & Cutler. I said we couldn’t afford to go to Grant & Cutler and Sibylla said I didn’t have to come. The last time Sibylla went to Grant & Cutler alone—actually I don’t want to think about the last time Sibylla went to Grant & Cutler alone. I said I thought I’d come too.

You’re right, she said. We can’t afford it

and she turned on the computer and then sat curled up in a chair not doing anything at all.

I thought: This is insane. I thought: Who cares what’s wrong with Lord Leighton? We’ve got to get out of here. But I still didn’t know where she kept the envelope.

I had to do something, so I went out on my bike to Blockbuster Video to see what I could find. At last I found something.

I went back to the house. Sibylla was still sitting in the chair. I said: I got you a video, and I put the cassette in the TV and turned it on.

A copyright warning came and went.

Sib sat up.

OHHHH, said Sib, Tall Men in Tight Jeans!

What? I said.

I haven’t seen this in YEARS, said Sib.

It says on the cover that it’s a western based on the story of Seven Samurai, so I thought you’d like it.

LIKE it! said Sib. I ADORE it. You KNOW how much I like the Tyrone Power school of acting.

Do you want me to take it back? I said.

But it was too late. Sib was sitting alertly on the arm of her chair like a terrier with its eye on the ball. Ball flies through air, terrier flies over ground; terrier gets ball, terrier barks insanely, terrier spends hour growling if anyone tries to get ball & whining if no one shows interest. No sooner had the film begun than gleeful Sib pounced on some point in which it was inferior to Seven Samurai and for the next hour there was an almost constant stream of comment, interrupted only by howls of laughter at each appearance of the recruit from the Tyrone Power school of acting & by occasional silences in which I was meant to disagree so she could argue some more. There may have been some dialogue—if there was, I couldn’t hear it.

Brynner began to recruit men for the job.

It’s a difficult assignment, said Sibylla. It will be hard to find so many tall men in tight jeans.

Will you shut up? I said.

I’m sorry, said Sib shutting up.

Isn’t there ANYTHING you like about it? I said.

How can you ask? said Sib. Not ONE but SEVEN tall men in tight jeans—it’s simply MAGNIFICENT.

Never mind, I said.

And it’s so easy to follow, you can tell which one is the mercenary because he has a stomach.

Never mind, I said.

The villain is the short one, said Sib. The starving peasants are fat. If they were tall and lean it would be too confusing.

I looked at the screen without saying anything.

James Coburn, said Sib. I always like watching James Coburn. And Eli Wallach is brilliant. And then, one of the problems with Seven Samurai is that none of the actors has the faintest idea of how to do Oriental inscrutability. Mifune is HOPELESS, and are the rest any better? Shimura, Kimura, Miyaguchi, Chiaki, Inaba, Kato, Tsuchiya—pathetic. It’s only when you see Tall Men in Tight Jeans that you realise what a handicap it was to Kurosawa in not being able to draw on the genius of Charles Bronson. If he had had an actor with a face like a Japanese woodcut who knows what he might have achieved—

I’m trying to watch the film, I said.

I won’t say another word, said Sib. I’ll be as silent as the grave.

And suddenly I knew where she kept the envelope.