Japanese director Masayuki Suô’s 1996 romantic comedy, Shall We Dance? Follows Shohei Sugiyama (Kôji Yakusho), an accountant who is surprisingly discontented. Despite his successful career and a wife and daughter who love him dearly, there’s something missing in Sugiyama’s life. On his daily commute, he spies from the train a woman perched in the window of a building. To his surprise, this mysterious woman will draw him into the world of competitive ballroom dancing and help him reconnect with his family.
Shall We Dance? is Suô’s sixth feature. He made his directorial debut with 1984’s Abnormal Family (Hentai kazoku: Aniki no yomesan), a “pink film” that imitates Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari). The director’s successive films, including the comedy dramas Fancy Dance (Fanshî dansu) and Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t (Shiko funjatta), the musical comedy Lady Maiko (Maiko wa redî), alongside Shall We Dance? Are far removed from the pink films’ softcore sexual content and position it as a surprising entry in his filmography.
The 4K, uncut 136-minute restoration of Shall We Dance? Was undertaken by the Kadokawa Corporation and reinserts 17-minutes of material cut by Miramax on its original US release.
Speaking with Movies We Texted About, Suô discussed the importance of curiosity and exploring other worlds. He also reflected on cinema’s influential presence and how the traditional idea of cinema is dead.
The Interview with Masayuki Suô on Shall We Dance
[Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.]
Paul Risker: In nearly thirty years since Shall We Dance’s release, have your impressions or hopes for the film changed?
Masayuki Suô: Back in the day, I wanted people to really vibe with the film and to go along for the ride. But now, being this far removed, I have more of an objective point of view. Rather than wanting people to feel a certain way, I’m more curious as to how people will respond to the film and what it will give them.
Paul Risker: Is this the case with your other films?
Masayuki Suô: Yes, I’m very aware of an increasing sense of objectivity regarding my prior work.
Paul Risker: What was the seed of the idea for Shall We Dance?
Masayuki Suô: To go back to the genesis of the film, I found myself on the train noticing that in these multi-use buildings surrounding Tokyo train stations, there were dance schools all over the place that had been there for a long time. And yet here I was at thirty-something years of age and I didn’t know a single person that went to these dance schools. So, I wondered what on earth was going on in these schools. That was what drew me into researching ballroom dance.
Then, building on that, there are going to be commuting workers who are always going to be in the same place at the same time on their train journey to and from work. I found myself imagining someone on the train seeing a beautiful woman in the window of one of these dance halls and having the thought, ‘Wow, I would love to dance with her, even if it was just one time.’ And then I explored the idea of what if the guy didn’t just wait for the doors to close and pass on but actually stepped off the train and went into the dance school? The what if of that, and where that adventure would lead, was the beginning of a journey.
Paul Risker: People-watching is an inherent part of human nature and the genesis of this film appears to tap into the wandering human gaze, and the people or things of interest it picks out.
Masayuki Suô: Absolutely! Voyeurism and the people-watching aspect as well as curiosity about other worlds are a fundamental part of my films. They are about stepping out of your own world and into unknown worlds, and through that, showing people these other worlds that do exist. And that’s a very important part of cinema at large.
It’s not so much that it’s a conscious design on my part to explore these other worlds, but in Fancy Dance we see a young man’s entry into the world of Buddha and him coming to understand the world of Buddhism. Then, In Shall we Dance? An accountant enters the world of social dance, and I Just Didn’t Do It (Soredemo boku wa yattenai) is an exploration of the world of the Japanese legal and justice system. So yes, it stems from this curiosity, and it’s all about exploring new worlds.
Paul Risker: Researching the film, I read that at the time of production, Japanese society saw western ballroom dance as a social taboo or something that was met with condescension. Is the film an attempt to challenge certain points of view and encourage cultural change through art? Do you see art as something that can create change?
Masayuki Suô: Right from the start, part of my appreciation of movies, of which I watched many, was the realization that my work, my modes of thinking, and my sense of values were shifting. The influence of cinema led me to sense and understand the power of films. And so, for a film like Shall We Dance? if through that film, people who ballroom dance could stand tall and say, “Yes, I’m a ballroom dancer”, and they don’t feel embarrassed by it anymore, then that’s marvelous. And the great thing about films is that they do have this incredible power to shift cultural values. So, it’s something I’ve always appreciated myself and I believe in.
Paul Risker: A topic of conversation appears to be about how cinema is no longer the dominant art form. The undercurrent is that cinema is in an existential crisis. Is it as bleak as some suggest?
Masayuki Suô: In a manner of speaking, a film in the style of what the Lumière Brothers came upon, that’s created on film, edited within two hours and is viewed in a two-hour sitting, is in a sense the 20th century format of film. That has now gone, it has disappeared, and it has died. But what’s happening now? We are in the 21st century and everyone in the world is again in the process of rediscovering or reformulating what cinema is. It’s like we’re in the early days of cinema for the new era. And we’re rediscovering with everything becoming digital.
Through the likes of Netflix and other streaming platforms, what we call film now might be chopped up into an eight-part limited series, each episode an hour long. Well, maybe that is the new film and the new format. In a sense, it’s an era of rediscovery and reformulation.
One piece of evidence for the former argument is that Clint Eastwood’s most recent film [Juror #2] didn’t get a theatrical release in Japan. For film fans here, it was a case of ‘Wow, we can’t see Clint Eastwood’s new movie on the screen.’ So yes, film, in a certain sense, is dead.
The 4K theatrical restoration of Shall We Dance? opened at New York City’s Film Forum on May 30th. A theatrical expansion will follow courtesy of Film Movement.
Learn more about Shall We Dance? at the Film Movement site for the title.
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