Q and A: William Tsutsui

With Godzilla on My Mind (see review, LJ 9/1/04), William Tsutsui has crafted a unique tribute to the giant lizard on the 50th anniversary of his first attack on Tokyo. LJ talked to him about the dual nature of the beast—and his image in the post-9/11 world.

What is the key to Godzilla's longevity?

Although Godzilla is a huge, radioactive reptile from Japan, he is a character that moviegoers from around the world find easy to relate to: a classic strong, silent type. He's an unlikely hero, a no-nonsense monster with attitude who puts up a good fight and usually comes out on the winning end. But Godzilla is no goody-two-shoes: he embodies a desire, which I think all of us feel sometimes, to break lose, follow our inner compass, and trash a city just because we can.

What is your favorite Godzilla movie and why?

When I was a kid, my favorite was Godzilla vs. the Thing, one of those Technicolor 1960s films with lots of monster wrestling and Godzilla's first tangle with Mothra. As I've gotten older, however, I've come to appreciate the original Godzilla film, 1954's Gojira, as a complex and profoundly moving work. Though much more somber than later Godzilla offerings, that remarkable debut presents a chilling vision of nuclear holocaust and evokes a profound sympathy for the monster as well as his human victims. The heavily edited American version, released in 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters, is a chilling film, yet it lacks the emotional power of the Japanese original.

Godzilla was created to remember the terror of the atomic bomb and nature's revenge. In the wake of global terrorism, will that affect the image of Godzilla?

I think all Godzilla fans in America find it a little harder to watch cinematic scenes of urban destruction in the wake of 9/11. That said, just as the Godzilla films of the 1950s helped Japanese audiences confront and exorcize some of their fears of nuclear Armageddon, so watching giant monster movies may eventually help Americans deal with the psychological traumas of terrorism and war.

Do the fans in the United States view the movies differently than their Japanese counterparts?

While many American viewers tend to chuckle at the campy delights of Japanese monster movies, Japanese audiences often focus on the serious side, perceiving Godzilla as a threatening and truly scary monster rather than as a rubbery comic hero. Japanese filmgoers may be better able to appreciate the sober subtexts of the Godzilla movies, which have dealt not just with nuclear anxiety but also with timely issues of environmental degradation, political corruption, and even school bullying. American viewers tend to have access only to poorly dubbed and clumsily edited export versions of the films.

Rosalind Dayen, South Regional Broward Cty. Lib., FL