Word: hobo
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...Last Bohemian, a conformist who chose to cleave to a tradition of dissent. Rexroth has some thing like Chamber of Commerce status in San Francisco, safely beached on the shore where the last wave of American radicalism washed up. He is a legend as poet, horse wrangler, hobo, perpetual avant-gardesman, painter, and finally, at 60, Grand Old Man of what used to be called the Youth Racket...
...genuine urge to become a bum? The modern world is tougher on the vagrant than all previous civilizations. Hitler herded Europe's gypsies into Dachau and Buchenwald along with the Jews; the Soviets liquidated the bez-prizornye; the Welfare State frowns on the free-roving tramp; the American hobo has nearly died out, and even the Australian swagman, so mournfully celebrated in the national song, has become almost extinct...
...Hobo. This Japanese song of the open road involves a clever tramp, a lady tramp, and two waifs who tramp along with them on the road to Tokyo. Seemingly inspired more by Italian comedy than Nipponese realism, Hobo nonetheless makes some sharp comments on the present state of prosperous, overly Westernized Japan...
Junpei is a hobo full of heart and uncommon ingenuity. He wears a remarkable garment fitted out with pockets for everything: tools, utensils, pots, food packets, soy sauce and a jar of Ajinomoto brand monosodium glutamate. And taped over his liver, like a mustard plaster, is a wad of 80,000 yen. Junpei prefers to live by his wits instead of his money, and hits the road to put the touch on all who cross his zigzag path. On his travels he encounters Komako, a female swindler with a grisly gimmick: she begs by posing as a Hiroshima maiden, although...
...Hobo is filmed in carefully composed color, and although often selfconsciously sentimental it gives a candid look at contemporary Japan while commenting on two of its prime problems: the increase in materialism and selfishness as prosperity makes its mark, and the fear of another nuclear war. Little of the tea-ceremony tranquillity of picture-book Japan comes before the camera's eye, but one scene evokes the flavor of tradition. Junpei makes a pilgrimage to a Buddhist shrine where a procession of monks, carrying enormous torches, winds below a pounding waterfall. Kneeling, he makes his confession: "O Lord Avatar...