Movies - Memoirs of a Geisha

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Memoirs of a Geisha

	Movies - Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel tells the story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before World War II. An Academy Award-winning film adaptation of the novel, directed by Rob Marshall and starring Zhang Ziyi, was released in 2005. It garnered the most Academy Award nominations of any film that was not nominated for Best Picture in 2006. It won three Oscars in Costume Design, Art Direction and Cinematography.

Novel

Before her mother dies, the main character, Sakamoto Chiyo, and her older sister, Satsu, are taken to Gion by one Mr. Tanaka. Satsu is sold to a brothel; Chiyo is sold to an okiya, a house for geisha.

With her unusual blue-grey eyes, Chiyo is to train to become a geisha, but is constantly antagonized by Hatsumomo, the resident (and only) geisha of the Nitta okiya. The arrogant Hatsumomo recognises Chiyo's potential and is upset at any hint of competition. Due to Hatsumomo's machinations, Chiyo is reduced to becoming a maid in the okiya, ostensibly with no future of becoming a geisha.

An encounter with the wealthy and benevolent Chairman changes her luck. Soon after, Chiyo wins the eye of Mameha, the most successful geisha in Gion, who is despised by Hatsumomo because she outshines her in every aspect and, having earned her independence as a geisha, unlike Hatsumomo, cannot be toppled. She takes Chiyo in as her younger sister and protege and trains Chiyo to rival Hatsumomo. Chiyo's entrance into apprenticeship is marked by being given a new name: Sayuri.

With her success and her virginity sold, Sayuri not only becomes a highly successful geisha, but she also manages to pay off all the debts that bound her to the Nitta okiya when she was a maid and is adopted by the mistress of the okiya. Sayuri and Mameha destroy Hatsumomo's reputation entirely thereafter and Hatsumomo leaves the okiya.

The outbreak of World War II, a theme foreshadowed by growing reference to the Japanese military, represents, structurally, another major challenge for the heroine. Her successes are quickly made irrelevant, and her physical beauty is tarnished by manual labour and malnutrition. The life of luxury is replaced by a new reality: her personal dark valley.

During her time as a geisha before the war, she encounters the Chairman again, but finds it impossible to get close to him as she desires. Instead, she finds herself constantly being pushed to be with Nobu, the Chairman's most trusted friend. It is Nobu that saves Sayuri from the harsh labour of the war until Gion is able to open again on the condition that she will allow him to become her patron, despite the fact that it is the Chairman she desires.

However, it is not until she puts herself in an undesirable position that Sayuri's desire to be with the Chairman truly frees her to pursue her own destiny. When the Chairman frees her from the okiya to become his mistress, she sets up a lavish teahouse for Japanese businessmen in New York so that he may save face in Japan when his daughter is about to marry a man set to be the Chairman's heir.

Controversy

After Memoirs of a Geisha was published, Arthur Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha he had interviewed for background information while writing the novel. According to the plaintiff, Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity if she told him about her life as a geisha. She had requested this because of the traditional code of silence about their clients. Yet when the novel was released Golden thanked "Mineko Iwasaki, one of Gion’s top geisha in the 1960s and 1970s" in the acknowledgements.

Aside from failing to protect her identity and privacy of her clients, Iwasaki complained that Golden had inaccurately portrayed geisha as high class prostitutes. In the novel, Sayuri's virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder. This plot point particularly offended Iwasaki, who stated that not only had this never happened to her, but that no such custom existed at all in Gion. Moreover, the character Sayuri in the novel seems obviously modelled on Iwasaki, with many of the book's main characters and events having parallels in Iwasaki's life. These people and experiences are often portrayed negatively in Memoirs, even when their real-life counterparts were positive for Iwasaki. Iwasaki received several death threats and was accused of dishonoring her profession for her involvement with Memoirs of a Geisha.

In 2003, Iwasaki and Golden settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.

Film adaptation

A movie adaptation of the novel, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and directed by Rob Marshall, was released in the United States on December 9, 2005. It starred Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Youki Kudoh, and Suzuka Ohgo. (In reality, Watanabe and Kudoh are Japanese, while Zhang and Gong are Chinese and Yeoh is Malaysian of Chinese descent.) Ohgo plays the younger Sayuri in the movie, which was filmed in southern California and in several locations in Kyoto, including the Kiyomizu-dera temple and the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Memoirs of a Geisha ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Memoirs of a Geisha; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay

Movies - Memoirs of a Geisha

Novel

Contents

Controversy

Film adaptation

Searches on eBay