(2 of 3)
The movie's narration begins, "A story like mine should never be told," and on screen it almost wasn't. Not long after the book became a sensation, Steven Spielberg signed on to direct; five years and many scripts later, he bowed out while staying on as a producer. Lucy Fisher, a producer, jokes that her next choice was David Lean, "but he wasn't available," having died in 1991. Other directors expressed interest, but none stuck. Then, in 2002, Fisher and her producing partner Douglas Wick saw Chicago and figured they had their man. "Geishas are trained much like dancers, and as a choreographer and a former dancer who understands disciplined training, Rob had a natural affinity for their life," says Wick. He and Fisher pursued the director as one would a geisha--sending him bottles of sake, antique prints. "I tried to put the gifts away," says Marshall, "but I couldn't. They hooked me."
Having made the first movie musical smash since Grease 24 years before, Marshall was ready to try something old (since Geisha is also a star-is-born saga, like 42nd Street) that was, for him, radically new (a drama set in a foreign culture he knew little about). "As a director, you should choose a project that will educate you and enrich your life, because you're going to be doing it for two years. And I thought, 'This is that for me.' The scariest part was being able to be educated enough about Japan and the world of geisha to be able to interpret it."
Spielberg doesn't question the choice of Marshall either. "When I saw Rob's version of Geisha," he says, "I realized that he was a much better choice than me. I like that it was like Kabuki theater. The pauses, the looks of the characters, were all little moments of directorial authorship. The close-ups of the hands in pouring the tea. The shots of the geishas' kimono trains wriggling like the tail of a fish through a stream. Rob took the liquid metaphor of the water in Sayuri's eyes and created a river of images. It seemed to be planned by the heart. But it was planned. He had a picture in his mind, and he fought until the picture was on film."
Shooting mostly in California, with a few locations in Japan (including a Kyoto temple whose head monk granted access because he was a fan of Chicago), Marshall got beautiful performances from his cast. Suzuka Ohgo, as the young Chiyo, brings an elfin gravity to the first 40 minutes of the film. Zhang, 26, blossoms persuasively from a girl of 15 to a woman in her early 30s, and Watanabe lends his warmth and regal machismo to the Chairman. But it's Gong Li, in a Bette Davis bitch-goddess role, who strides away with the picture. Her stiletto stare can burn in passion or turn on a rival with Freon fury. Facing it, one child extra started sobbing and had to be replaced.