''Snow Falling on Cedars'' is a 1999 American legal drama film directed by Scott Hicks, and starring

Ethan Hawke Ethan Green Hawke (born November 6, 1970) is an American actor, author, and film director. He made his film debut in ''Explorers (film), Explorers'' (1985), before making a breakthrough performance in ''Dead Poets Society'' (1989). Hawke starr ...

James Cromwell James Oliver Cromwell (born January 27, 1940) is an American actor. Known for his extensive work as a character actor, he has received a Primetime Emmy Award as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for '' Babe'' ( ...

Max von Sydow Max von Sydow (; born Carl Adolf von Sydow; 10 April 1929 – 8 March 2020) was a Swedish and French actor. He had a 70-year career in European and American cinema, television, and theatre, appearing in more than 150 films and several television ...

Youki Kudoh is a Japanese actress and singer. She won the award for best newcomer at the 6th Yokohama Film Festival for ''The Crazy Family (1984 film), The Crazy Family''. She also won the awards for best actress at the 16th Hochi Film Award and at the 199 ...

Rick Yune Richard Yune (born August 22, 1971) is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, and martial artist of Korean descent. His most notable roles have been in the movies ''Snow Falling on Cedars'', the first ''Fast & Furious'' film ''The Fast and ...

Richard Jenkins Richard Dale Jenkins (born May 4, 1947) is an American actor. He is well known for his portrayal of deceased patriarch Nathaniel Fisher on the HBO funeral drama series ''Six Feet Under (TV series), Six Feet Under'' (2001–2005). He began his c ...

James Rebhorn James Robert Rebhorn (September 1, 1948 – March 21, 2014) was an American character actor. Rebhorn appeared in over 100 films, television series, and plays. Rebhorn portrayed George Wilbur in '' My Cousin Vinny'', Dr. McElwaine in '' Basic In ...

, and

Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, ...

. It is based on

David Guterson David Guterson ( ; born May 4, 1956) is an List of American novelists, American novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist, and essayist. He is best known as the author of the bestselling Internment of Japanese Americans, Japanese American ...

PEN/Faulkner Award The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living Americans, Green Card holders or permanent residents. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of ...

-winning

novel of the same name A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of '' ...

, with a screenplay by Hicks and Ron Bass. The film received mixed reviews. It was nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Cinematography The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work on one particular motion picture. History In its first film season, 1927–28, this award (like others such as the acting awards) w ...

, and five

Satellite Awards The Satellite Awards are annual awards given by the International Press Academy that are commonly noted in entertainment industry journals and blogs. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards. The award ceremonies take place ...

, including Best Motion Picture Drama.

Plot

Set on the fictional San Piedro Island in the northern

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...

region of the

Washington state Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...

coast in 1950, the plot revolves around the murder case of Kabuo Miyamoto, a

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian Americans, Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 United States census, 2000 census, they have declined in ...

accused of killing Carl Heine, a

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

fisherman. The trial occurs in the midst of deep

anti-Japanese sentiment Anti-Japanese sentiment (also called Japanophobia, Nipponophobia and anti-Japanism) is the fear or dislike of Japan or Japanese culture. Anti-Japanese sentiment can take many forms, from antipathy toward Japan as a country to racist hatr ...

s following

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Covering the case is the editor of the town's one-man newspaper, Ishmael Chambers, a World War II veteran who lost an arm fighting the Japanese in the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...

. Ishmael struggles with his childhood, and continuing, love for Kabuo's wife, Hatsue, and his conscience, wondering if Kabuo is truly innocent. Spearheading the prosecution are the town's sheriff, Art Moran, and prosecutor, Alvin Hooks. Leading the defense is the old, experienced attorney Nels Gudmundsson. An underlying theme throughout the trial is prejudice. Several witnesses, including Carl's mother, Etta, accuse Kabuo of murdering Carl for racial and personal reasons. This stance is not without irony, as Kabuo, a decorated war veteran of the

442nd Regimental Combat Team The 442nd Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment including the 100th Infantry Battalion is best known as the most decorated unit in U.S. military history, and as a fighting unit composed almost ent ...

, experienced prejudice because of his ancestry following the

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the tim ...

. By the same standard, Etta, a

German American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...

, could be blamed for

Nazi war crimes The governments of the German Empire and Nazi Germany (under Adolf Hitler) ordered, organized, and condoned a substantial number of war crimes, first in the Herero and Nama genocide and then in the First and Second World Wars. The most notable of ...

. Also involved in the trial is Ole Jurgensen, an elderly man who sold his strawberry field to Carl. The strawberry field was a contested issue during the trial. The land was originally owned by Carl Heine Sr. The Miyamotos lived in a house on the Heines' land and picked strawberries for Carl Sr. Kabuo, and Carl Jr. were close friends as children. Kabuo's father, Zenhichi, eventually approached Carl Sr. about purchasing of the farm. Though Etta opposed the sale, Carl Sr. agreed. The payments were to be made over a ten-year period. However, before the last payment was made, war erupted between the U.S. and Japan, and all islanders of Japanese ancestry were forced to relocate to internment camps. In 1944, Carl Sr. died and Etta sold the land to Ole. When Kabuo returned after the war, he was extremely bitter toward Etta for reneging on the land sale. When Ole suffered a stroke and decided to sell the farm, he was approached by Carl Jr., hours before Kabuo arrived, to try to buy the land back. During the trial, the land is presented as a family feud and the motivation behind Carl's murder. Ishmael's search of the maritime records reveals that on the night that Carl Heine died a freighter passed through the channel where Carl had been fishing at 1:42am, five minutes before his watch had stopped. Ishmael realizes that Carl was thrown overboard by the force of the freighter's wake. Despite the bitterness he feels at Hatsue's rejection, Ishmael comes forward with the new information. Further evidence is collected in support of the conclusion that Carl had climbed the boat's mast to cut down a lantern, been knocked from the mast by the freighter's wake, hit his head on his boat's gunwale, then fallen into the sea. The charges against Kabuo are dismissed. Hatsue thanks Ishmael by allowing him to hold her "one last time."

Cast

Production

Filming took place primarily in locations around

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, Canada and

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

state. Several scenes were filmed in

Greenwood Green wood is unseasoned wood. Greenwood or Green wood may also refer to: People * Greenwood (surname) Settlements Australia * Greenwood, Queensland, a locality in the Toowoomba Region * Greenwood, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth ...

, where a lot of the older extras were Japanese-Canadians who were interned during World War II. Though portraying an island town, Greenwood is actually 275 miles from the coast, confusing tourists who read "Harbor" and "Ocean" signs placed there by the production. Scenes of Maine's

Portland Head Light Portland Head Light is a historic lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The light station sits on a headland at the entrance of the primary shipping channel into Portland Harbor, which is within Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine. Completed in 1791, ...

were filmed during the

ice storm of 1998 The North American Ice Storm of 1998 (also known as the Great Ice Storm of 1998 or the January Ice Storm) was a massive combination of five smaller successive ice storms in January 1998 that struck a relatively narrow swath of land from eastern ...

. The film includes a clip from the documentary ''Topaz'', a home movie shot by

Topaz War Relocation Center The Topaz War Relocation Center, also known as the Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz) and briefly as the Abraham Relocation Center, was an Internment of Japanese Americans, American concentration camp in which Nisei#American Nisei, Americans ...

internee

Dave Tatsuno Dave Tatsuno (born Masaharu Tatsuno August 18, 1913 – January 26, 2006, in San Jose, California) was a Japanese American businessman who documented life in his family's internment camp during World War II. His footage was later compiled into ...

. The film was the debut performance of

Anne Suzuki is a Japanese actress. Career Suzuki co-starred in Shunji Iwai's '' Hana and Alice'' with Yū Aoi. She voiced the title character Ray Steam in Katsuhiro Otomo's animated film ''Steamboy''. Suzuki played a supporting role in Andrew Lau and Al ...

, who plays the younger Hatsue.

Reception

Critical response

''Snow Falling on Cedars'' received an approval rating of 39% on the review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on 92 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 5.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Though ''Snow Falling on Cedars'' is beautiful to look at, critics say the story becomes dull and tedious to sit through." On review aggregator website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film holds a 44 out of 100 based on 31 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Film critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...

'' awarded the film three and a half out of four stars and wrote that "''Snow Falling on Cedars'' is a rich, multilayered film about a high school romance and a murder trial a decade later" and that it "reveals itself with the complexity of a novel, holding its themes up to the light so that first one and then another aspect can be seen."

Kenneth Turan Kenneth Turan (; born October 27, 1946) is an American retired film critic, author, and lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He was a film critic for the ''Los Angeles Times'' from 1991 ...

of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' wrote, "While there are things to like about this film, the poetic realism of obertRichardson’s cinematography and

Jeannine Oppewall Jeannine Claudia Oppewall (born November 28, 1946) is an American film art director. She has worked on more than 30 movies in such roles as production designer, set decorator and set designer, and has four Academy Award nominations for Best Art ...

’s production design high among them, Cedars''' has to fight to hold our attention and it doesn’t always succeed. That’s because it’s a film without a hero, at least a hero that can function in an acceptable cinematic manner". Turan did praise the film's "extensive and sensitive treatment of

Manzanar Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one ...

exile Hatsue and her family...

here Here may refer to: Music * ''Here'' (Adrian Belew album), 1994 * ''Here'' (Alicia Keys album), 2016 * ''Here'' (Cal Tjader album), 1979 * ''Here'' (Edward Sharpe album), 2012 * ''Here'' (Idina Menzel album), 2004 * ''Here'' (Merzbow album), ...

the film’s poetic realism is a strength". Other criticisms cited the film's two-hour runtime, use of different time frames, and its focus on white characters like Ishmael, Gudmundsson, and Hooks at the expense of the

character Kabuo. Edward Guthmann of the ''

SF Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

'' wrote, "Cedars''' never brings the viewer inside the Japanese American experience -- even though its primary aim is to strip the facade off anti-Asian bias and make a plea for racial tolerance".

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

External links

* �
Official website”

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

. Archived from th
original
on 2003-03-03. * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Snow Falling on Cedars 1999 films 1999 drama films American legal drama films Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States American courtroom films 1990s legal drama films 1990s English-language films Films scored by James Newton Howard Films about interracial romance Films about race and ethnicity Films about the internment of Japanese Americans Films based on American novels Films directed by Scott Hicks Films produced by Kathleen Kennedy Films produced by Frank Marshall Films set in 1950 Films set in Washington (state) Films set on islands Films about Japanese Americans Films with screenplays by Ronald Bass The Kennedy/Marshall Company films Universal Pictures films Asian-American drama films 1990s American films