The Last Samurai: Nathan Algren - Tom Cruise's Best Performance
The Start of the Movie
In the West there are few movies that at the time of 2003 served to better introduce a western audience to the Samurai as a concept, and few actors better selected for the starring role than Tom Cruise. This movie took a great many inspirations; one was the Tale of the Red Knight from Arthuriana, and another was the historical Jules Brunet (who really deserves his own film or tv series jointly made by France & Japan).
But the tale fictional as it is, is a fascinating one. Arguably, in the aftermath of the American Civil Wars, America historically must have felt as Algren did at the start of the film; drunk, bitter and broken. In many ways Nathan Algren is the embodiment of the America left behind by Abraham Lincoln, after the terrible vicissitudes of the Civil War that the South calls the ‘War of Northern Aggression’ and the North claims to be a war to liberate slaves. In reality the South sought to liberate itself from heavy tariffs, top-heavy government and the North sought to keep the Union alive, believing it best for all.
The Civil War is a complex topic, and the ensuing Indian Wars are an equally tempestuous topic. One which tends to divide Americans just as much as the Civil War of the 1800s, with these two wars tragic affairs which serve to divide even people in Canada who fall either on the side of the Natives, or the American forces (Quebecois tend to be utterly indifferent).
Therefore in light of these two major conflicts, is it any wonder that a character like Nathan Algren would be a broken man? Now it is not stated that he participated in the Civil War, but the shadow of that conflict does loom over the story. The reason, one can cautiously assume it lies in Algren’s past is a throw-away line later about leaving his family farm (likely to go to war), while the other reason to assume he had is due to his age.
The movie takes place during 1876-1877. Algren is approximately early to mid-30s. So therefore, assuming he left to go to war at 14 or 15 years old, it stands to reason that that would have meant around 1860 or so, he participated in the Indian Campaigns. But then given that the Civil War was waged from 1861 to 1865, he would have had to participate in this other conflict.
In the film he is a veteran of these two conflicts. During both he would have seen the atrocities ordered against the South as a Union soldier, and given that he seems fairly disgusted with his own nation, it is likely that the tragedies he was forced to inflict on his fellow Americans traumatised. Many Union soldiers were probably of a mind that they were doing the right thing, but others such as Bagley (the villain of the movie, who serves as an antithesis to Algren) likely had little in the way of compulsions towards inflicting massacres against his fellow Americans.
Then there was the Indian Wars that continued after the Civil War (it lasted until 1890), so that Algren must have spent some time amongst them after his Civil War service. This is just conjecture, but likely given the strange bond between Katsumoto & Algren, while Katsumoto fought in the Meiji Restoration around 1868-9 it should be assumed that as this was the time Katsumoto waxed in strength and glory, Algren likely waned around that time.
Spending likely a year in the tribe he massacred and so strongly regretted massacring, the only reason to juxtapose this event with that of Katsumoto’s participation in the Restoration, is simply a matter of themes. Katsumoto was at his peak during that time, with Algren seeking redemption by infiltrating the one tribe, wherefore he waned. After the Meiji Restoration it happens that Katsumoto also waned in political importance. The fact is that the movie the Last Samurai is about how the two men were in decline and how they handled it, and found brotherhood in that fact. The difference is that Katsumoto had handled his decline with dignity, Algren had not. But at the end Algren takes into himself the lessons Katsumoto as the elder brother of sorts sought to teach him.
But back to the start of the movie. At the start, we see that Algren’s personified to Katsumoto in a vision as a tiger, but with Algren being shown presenting a rifle, for a gun-company we must make the connection that he’s little more than a ‘circus animal’ at this point.
Algren is visibly drunk during the presentation, miserable and even angry. Resentful of how he is being made to sell a gun, and profit from the death of his comrade in arms who fought valiantly, his foes who did so also. Is it any wonder that he is broken?
What makes it even worse is that he is in his thirties, and already seems three times his age, thrice as bitter and full of hatred for the crowd of gaping, stupid onlookers. Mocking them, he humiliates them even as they humiliate him.
The scene feels like one is watching the violation of a tiger that has been stripped of its fangs and claws. One can almost see Algren weeping, and shrinking away in a way, so that one can imagine this has been going on for quite some time.
His drunkenness and visible attachment to his whiskey bottle, makes him seem all the more pitiable. Angry, broken and sorrowful, he seems akin to how Gawain might have been had he survived the death of his beloved uncle Arthur.
Obviously Algren is the shadow-warrior archetype, that is to say the masochist who dwells in shadows and regrets. Drinking away his sorrows, and unable to overcome his inner demons, as he seeks to hide from the world even as those around him (such as Bagley) treat him like a cheap prostitute, or a used dirty-rag.
Algren cannot resist his employer, the amusement of the crowd or even Bagley simply because he cannot. Drowning in booze, he is a defeated warrior who has been unmanned by victory, destroyed by the death of his fellow man, deprived of his honour by modernity as much as the many crimes he has committed and with little about him but the broken glass of his shattered dreams cutting his fingers and knees to ribbons.
In a word, he is the definition and image of depression, of melancholia itself.
The only friend he has, is Lieutenant Gad, a irrepressible, masculine and cheerful Irish man. The Irish at this time were subhuman, were trash in the eyes of the law and all Anglo-societies. Hated and despised, he is perhaps the only man who could understand Algren, and has done well for himself by fighting for the US, as he has reached the rank of Lieutenant.
There is a profoundly likeable quality about the Irish man, and a virtue that shines about him. At the start he is obviously Algren’s mentor of sorts, he attempts to stir him constantly away from conflict that might harm Algren or his interests, constantly putting his neck on the line for him, and clearly treating him like the son he likely never had.
Algren in turn very evidently adores him, and depends on him. One can even see in a few scenes, a hint of pity and sorrow in Gad’s demeanour, as he clearly hates seeing his ‘boyo’ take to drink, but he still seeks to support and shield him. Love as the old adage goes is blind, and in this case he has let affection blind him to the fact that Algren doesn’t need blind support, but rather some tough love to wean him off the bottle.
It is in this torn and shattered state that Algren is recruited to help train the Meiji army, to kill the Samurai. A job that Algren at once dreads, as he hates Bagley but more than that he complains, ‘clearly this is the only line of work for which I am suited’. The ship-room he is given feels like a prison cell when he says this, as he tries on his uniform with a face burning with shame and depression.
Honestly, this is a haunting scene, and a haunting role. It is Cruise’s best. Cruise is a great actor, much better at character roles in my view than simple action roles, but this film combines his love of action with a deep character role.
His portrayal of Algren is mesmerising, incredible and deeply troubling as we see a man who has served as a soldier, be forced to destroy what he loves, regret it only to sign on once more for it. The reason? He doesn’t know any other life. It is akin to a kind of welfare cheque he can’t escape from.
Make no mistake Algren is in purgatory and hell at once. He cannot escape from his own sins, and the betrayals he has heaped all for an Empire that cares little for him. That said, he doesn’t belong amongst her enemies for he could never be one of them. Or so he thinks.
It isn’t that he should seek to destroy his people, but the truth is urbanism, modernity are not the place for a man such as he. He is a rural beast, one who needs time in nature, and to surround himself by men and women with basic human decency that cannot be found in the urban settings he has lived in since his time in the army.
Even his time in Tokyo is unhealthy for him, so that it hardly serves to pull him out of the bottle.
Next time, I’d like to examine the battle against Katsumoto and how Algren begins to shift from Western-man to an adopted Eastern one. Changing to a adoptive son of Japan, and make no mistake he could never be Japanese. Japanese is both an ethnicity and a culture, but in Algren’s case as a man who marries into the culture and people, he can become an adoptive son, as many men have found since WWII when they’ve moved to the finest nation of the Orient.
Part 2:
Highly underrated movie. Hans Zimmer composed one of the best soundtracks of all time. Ken Watanabe was incredible as well. Thanks for doing it justice with this review.
Couldn't agree more. This was by far his best performance.