Themes: Interracial/Cross-Cultural Romance, First Love, Culture Clash
Main Cast: Ethan Hawke, James Cromwell, Richard Jenkins, James Rebhorn, Sam Shepard, Eric Thal, Max von Sydow, Youki Kudoh, Rick Yune
Release Year: 1999
Country: US
Run Time: 126 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Nine years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a small town in the Pacific Northwest still struggles with the troubling legacy of U.S. policies against Asian-Americans. In December 1950, just off the shores of San Piedro Island in Washington, a Japanese-American man named Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune) stands accused of murder after his close friend Carl Heine (Eric Thal) is found drowned in icy waters. As the trial gets under way, with Alvin Hooks (James Rebhorn) prosecuting Kazuo and Nels Gudmundsson (Max Von Sydow) defending him, reporter Ishmael Chambers (Ethan Hawke) covers the proceedings for the local newspaper. It's difficult for Ishmael to view the trial objectively, as his first love was a Japanese-American girl named Hatsue (Youki Kudoh), who later married Kazuo. Now, Ishmael has discovered that, when the Japanese-American residents of San Piedro Island were sent to internment camps during World War II, Carl's mother used their incarceration to scuttle a land purchase by Kazuo's family. This could suggest a motive for murder, but Ishmael is reluctant to step forward with the story. Snow Falling on Cedars was based on the best-selling novel by David Guterson, adapted for the screen by Ron Bass and writer/director Scott Hicks. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Snow Falling on Cedars is one of those films that earns itself a viewing simply on the strength of its gorgeous look. Scott Hicks's follow-up to Shine might have been shot by Ansel Adams, so lush are its images of the Pacific Northwest circa 1950. The cinematographer is actually the great Robert Richardson (Eight Men Out, The Horse Whisperer), and his expert brushstrokes make the film a more profound meditative experience than it ought to be. Not a particularly interesting or suspenseful plot structure, the central murder trial exists more as a window to the memory of Ethan Hawke's Ishmael, who mentally catalogues so many past time periods that the viewer becomes desperate to sort them out as the scenes blend seamlessly from era to era. Some flashbacks seem like screenplay leftovers -- unexplained, existing more as dreamy fragments. The performances are mostly understated, in keeping with the largely visual agenda of the film, but the result is that it's hard to develop an emotional tie to either Ishmael or Hatsue (Youki Kudoh). The film wins points for exploring the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans, a topic too little understood and generally ignored by filmmakers. Further, it's always nice to see the talents of the wonderful Max Von Sydow continuing to be utilized. Though undoubtedly flawed, as pure visual stimulus, Snow Falling on Cedars is delicious candy. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Jan Rudes - Ole Jurgensen; Celia Weston - Etta Heine; Max Wright - Horace Whaley; Arija Bareikis - Susan Marie Heine; Zeljko Ivanek - Dr.Whitman; Caroline Kava - Helen Chambers; Zak Orth - Deputy Abel Martinson; Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa - Zenhichi Miyamoto; Daniel Von Bargen - Carl Heine Sr.; Reeve Carney - Young Ishmael Chambers; Anne Suzuki - Young Hatsue Imada; Frank C. Turner - Juror
Credit
Doug Byggdin - Art Director, Bill Arnold - Supervising Art Director, Kerry Heysen - Associate Producer, David Rubin - Casting, Richard Vane - Co-producer, David Guterson - Co-producer, Renee Ehrlich Kalfus - Costume Designer, Katterli A. Frauenfelder - First Assistant Director, Scott Hicks - Director, Frank Marshall - Second Unit Director, Hank Corwin - Editor, Carol Baum - Executive Producer, Lloyd A. Silverman - Executive Producer, James Newton Howard - Composer (Music Score), Jeannine Oppewall - Production Designer, Robert Richardson - Cinematographer, Ronald Bass - Producer, Kathleen Kennedy - Producer, Frank Marshall - Producer, Harry Ufland - Producer, Jim Erickson - Set Designer, Eric Batut - Sound/Sound Designer, Seth Arnett - Stunts, Ronald Bass - Screenwriter, Scott Hicks - Screenwriter, Raymond Stella - Second Unit Camera, Michael Dennison - Costumes Supervisor, Lindy Taylor - Post Production Assistant, David Guterson - Book Author
Set on the fictional San Piedro Island in the northern Puget Sound region of the state of Washington coast in 1951, the plot revolves around the murder case of Kazuo Miyamoto, a Japanese American accused of killing Carl Heine, a respected fisherman in the close-knit community. The trial occurs in the midst of deep anti-Japanese sentiments following World War II. Covering the case is the editor of the town's one-man newspaper, Ishmael Chambers, a World War II veteran who lost an arm fighting the Japanese. Torn by a sense of hatred for the Japanese, Chambers struggles with his love for Kazuo's wife, Hatsue, and his conscience, wondering if Kazuo is truly innocent.
Spearheading the prosecution are the town's sheriff, Art Moran, and prosecutor, Alvin Hooks. Leading the defense is the old, experienced Nels Gudmundsson. An underlying theme throughout the trial is prejudice. Several witnesses, including Etta Heine, Carl's mother, accuse Kazuo of murdering Carl for racial and personal reasons. Etta is a stereotypical anti-Japanese person; she represents the part of America that persecuted Japanese Americans during the Second World War. This stance is not without irony, as Kazuo Miyamoto (a decorated war veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team), experienced prejudice because of his ancestry, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As Etta Heine is a German American, by the same standard she could be blamed for Nazi war crimes.
Also involved in the trial are Horace Whaley, the town coroner, and Ole Jurgensen, an elderly man who sells his strawberry field to Carl. The strawberry field is contested in the trial. The land was originally owned by Carl Heine Sr. The Miyamotos lived in a house on the Heines' land and picked strawberries for Mr. Heine. Kazuo and Carl Heine Jr. were close friends as children. Kazuo's father eventually approached Heine Sr. about purchasing 7 acres (28,000 m2) of the farm. Though Etta opposed the sale, Carl Sr. agreed. The payments were to be made over a ten-year period. However, before the last payment was made, war erupted between the US and Japan following Pearl Harbor, and all islanders of Japanese ancestry were forced to relocate to internment camps. In 1944, Carl Sr. died due to a heart attack and Etta Heine sold the land to Ole Jurgensen. When Kazuo returned after the war, he was extremely bitter towards Etta for reneging on the land sale. When Ole Jurgensen suffered a stroke and decided to sell the farm, he was approached by Carl Heine Jr., hours before Kazuo arrived to try to buy the land back. During the trial, the disputed land is presented as a family feud and the motivation behind Carl's murder.
Ishmael's search of the maritime records reveals on the night that Carl Heine died a freighter had passed through the channel where Carl had been fishing at 1:42am, five minutes before his watch had stopped. Ishmael realises that Carl was thrown overboard by the force of the freighter's wake. Despite the bitterness he feels at Hatsue's rejection, Ishmael comes forward with the new information. Further evidence is collected in support of the conclusion that Carl had climbed the boat's mast to cut down a lantern, been knocked from the mast by the freighter's wake, hit his head, then fallen into the sea. The charges against Kazuo Miyamoto are dismissed.
