The genius of James May
I have an affection for anything Japan that all started with anime. I wish to travel there in the future that’s why I always entertain myself with travel documentaries about it. One random weekend, I stumbled upon James May: Our Man in Japan in Amazon Prime Video. I know James May as one of the trio in Top Gear/The Grand Tour and I particularly like his sense of humour on those shows. So I hit play. I was hooked.
Already, I’m on episode 4 (“Hey Bim!”) and was watching with my kids. James May rode his fancy motorcycle to meet up with REPLACE_NAME, a painter. The section is titled “Bus” and I have no expectations besides hoping that this bit will be fun. Cut to scene and they are found by a rocky beach, and two easels. Quite the predictable setup here, they paint Mt. Fuji and talk about “meaning” that Sakarai-san is trying to find. I stopped the episode there. I thought it was boring and decided to play video games instead.
Now later that night, my wife who shared the same fascination as me towards Japan, asked to watch that James May travelogue together. I hit up Prime Video and just resumed the episode. I realised that she had no context on what is happening, so I rewinded back to the start of the “Bus” section. Then this time, I listened and tried to understand the conversation, putting myself to the actor’s shoes.
Near the end, James May’s work was shown, yeah it doesn’t really look that great. And back to the painter, James was awed but personally I thought it’s average, too cartoonish for my taste. But wait, I thought to myself, there must be something else here that James is seeing that I’m not. Then I had a eureka moment. And James proceeded to expound more about the same thought that I had.
“Yours has life”, James described Sakarai-san’s painting. He added he would give up everything to have that painter’s skills. And somehow I understood what James has been saying, what he thought he lacked as compared to the artist. And that when James asked Sakarai-san what’s the meaning he’s trying to find, he didn’t actually deflect the question, but instead implied that he’s not trying to find it but the meaning he knows already and he’s just perfecting his way of interpreting that meaning through his art.
What people call an artist is someone who interprets meaning in the form of art. And meaning is nothing but a story that people tell about something that is or has happened. As Sakarai-san said, Mt. Fuji for Japanese people is a backbone. And life is about giving meaning to these things. James was humbled by the artist, and likely he realised that the point of the show is to convey this meaning of Japan, but what they did is a portrayal from their own eyes and mouth. It’s skewed. And to have spent that much effort and resources already at that point must have really been upsetting.
What he said he’s having an artistic tantrum, I thought otherwise. As he clearly had a change of perspective and tone from the initial episodes of the series compared to this turning point and the episodes after this.
But my most favourite part is on the episode’s final minutes, where James stands in the middle of a bamboo forest. Spoiler alert, he found the meaning the series is ought to convey to its viewers. At episode 4 out of 6 to boot. And that is “bamboo”, just like how it’s 42 in HHGTTG. As bamboo can be made to anything, anything except a CD player, he added. And the haiku is the cherry on top.
Just like how he found his purpose of finding that meaning, he found that the meaning is nothing. James May is a genius and this episode is perfect.
