Japan

The West “discovered” the Japanese cinema when Kurosawa’s Rashomon won the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival of 1951.

Pre-world War II

• One of the largest industries in the world, modeled on the American studio system of five major studios with dominant (paternalistic!) directors training apprentices, period films & contemporary films (with subgenres in each)

1896 – 1926

Longer primitive period due to persistence of

• kabuki (overwrought, highly stylized melodrama) so early films kabuki plays—conventions became conventions of mainstream Japanese film
• Oyama – female impersonators (so not realistic)
• Benshi – actors who stand at side of stage and narrates the action for the audience; early films were voices and character—later just dialogue
  • The presence of the benshi was a fact that filmmakers could assume during production, allowing them to make films w. ambiguous spatial and temporal transitions or undermotivated plots with the knowledge that the benshi would be present to provide whatever narrative coherence was lacking.

1923

• earthquake and rebuilding caused a turning away from past native traditions and
•  style to a more western orientation (think of post WWI US)  –oyama disappeared, advent
• of naturalism and expressionism—BUT benshi remained well after advent of sound (committed suicide when replaced by sound)

1925

By 1925 kabuki-oriented plots replaced by

1. Jidai-geki- period film set before 1868 (marking the abolition of feudal Japan)—includes swordfight film w. samurai warrior; historical romance, ghost
2. Gendai-geki- film of contemporary life & ordinary people (Ozu)
   • Lower middle class comedy/drama
   • shomin geki; children’s film (in which inanities and corruptions of adult world satirized by presentation of child’s POV
   • yakuza-eiga or modern gangster film

1926-32

• first major works and sound—since benshi talked no problems with formal retardation—sync sound actually accelerated films by lib from benshi though silent films thru 1937

World War II

• The Government takes over: ten major studios were consolidated into three
• Except for other fascist films of Germany and Italy, foreign films were banned.
• Filmmakers were pressured to make movies glorifying such values as nationalism, militarism, class distinctions, self-sacrifice, submission to authority, and the sanctity of the family unit.
• Those who opposed the values of the military junta did so discreetly, by retreating into period genres (like American filmmakers of the 1950s

Post -World War II

• American occupation 1945 to 1952 resulted in surprisingly eager acceptance of democratization (so individual rights!)which meant films to conform to democratic principles no more period films.
• Anything ‘traditional’ was suspect; anything “modern” encouraged.

Characteristics:

Key concept is MONO NO AWARE: a Zen Buddhist formulation roughly analogous to the stoical acceptance of things as they are, as they must be, whether we like it or not. Involves the traditional Japanese view that wisdom consists of yielding gracefully to what can’t be changed.  All that an individual can do in the face of life’s transience and inexorable indifference to human suffering is to accept one’s fate with dignity and quiet resignation, to do one’s duty without complaint or vulgar remonstrance. Unhappy endings are common in Japanese movies, and many of them end on a note of loss.

AKIRA KUROSAWA (1910-1998)

To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes. –Kurosawa

• Most western (so modern) of Japanese filmmakers
• Sympathized with the individual…
  • the protagonists often choose to fight against the odds, rather than yield to the fatalistic resignation implied by mono no aware.
  • Consistently championed the equality of human emotions, whether they are found in noblemen or beggars.
• Kurosawa specialized in the period samurai film, which he infused with more depth and thematic complexity.
• Often turned to Western sources for inspiration, especially to literature, often doing literature adaptations (ex. Throne Of Blood is Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”)
• Known for his exacting production standards
  • he often had sketches for the costume and set designs, which he insisted must be executed exactly as rendered.
• Master of the widescreen which he used as an epic canvas;
  • used multiple cameras for photographing scenes, so encouraged more natural performances from his actors, who are thus unable to play to the camera, since they were never sure which camera was photographing the actions.
• Unlike most Japanese filmmakers, his editing style was often brisk; split-second shots, hurtling the viewer into a chaotic explosion of shifting perspectives.
• Painstaking in use of sound maintaining “cinematic sound is that which does not simply add to, but multiplies, two or three times, the effect of the image.”

WATCH: Kurosawa: The Last Emperor^[1]

With closed captions

KENJI MIZOGUCHI (1898 -1956)

• Between the modernity of Kurosawa and the traditionalism of Ozu is Mizoguchi, who with his masterpiece Ugetsu won the Silver Lion Prize at the Venice Film Festival of 1953.
• Admired for the very qualities that had been considered passe by the Japanese–his use of traditional story materials to create universal truths.
  • There is a pronounced emphasis on ritual and symbolism. In stories… often based on legends, mythology, and fables.
• Fantasy elements such as spirits, dreams, and omens are common.
• Trained as a painter, Mizoguchi exceled in the creation of mood–especially in his period films–in which he presented characters within a richly textured environment…
• His mise en scene was often breathtakingly beautiful with the frequent use of such dreamlike elements as enchanted landscapes, fog, mist, and shadows–suggesting psychological and spiritual states.
• Seen in his fluid camera movements, and his elegantly choreographed lengthy takes (sequence shots) for an entire scene–dollying, panning, or tilting the camera rather than cutting to separate shots. he generally cut within a continuous take only when there was a sharp psychological shift within the scene.
• In his contemporary films, the images were realistic, and rarely striking in beauty: cold facts take precedence over aesthetic allure.
• Mizoguchi’s main concern was usually w. the problems of women in Japanese society.
  • who are treated as 2nd class citizens, and his recurrent theme is that man’s soul is saved by a woman’s love, and without it he is damned.
  • Ex. The Life of Oharu (1952) deals with the downfall of a wealthy court lady who is eventually reduced to becoming a common prostitute to survive.

YASUJIRO OZU (1903-1963)

• Champion of traditional values in film –manifest by his exclusively working in the home drama subgenre, usually in a contemporary setting. Generally, they fall back on social convention, the accumulated wisdom of consensus: Young people should marry and raise children. Old people should be revered.  Everyone should do his or her duty, regardless of personal feelings.  Authority and tradition should be respected.  The inevitable should be accepted with dignity and stoical resignation
• He speaks for the conservative majority, especially for parents. For the most part, his characters are ordinary middle-class Japanese–conscientious, hard-working, and decent.  Most of them are devoted to their families–eager to do their duty for them.
• But his movies are not cheerful endorsements of family life… Most of his films deal with the dissolution of the family, often in the form of a marriage, when children leave their families to start their own, or–less consolingly–when a loved member of the family dies. In Tokyo Story (1953), for example, an elderly couple decide to visit their children and grandchildren in Tokyo but find them too busy to offer them anything but the most perfunctory attention, and they are utterly incapable of relating to their parents as people
• Everyone should do his or her duty, regardless of personal feelings.  True, the characters generally have the satisfaction of having performed their duty faithfully.  But in so doing, they often must suffer the ironic consequences: solitude and loneliness.  The inevitable should be accepted with dignity and stoical resignation Ozu’s movies usually conclude on a tender note of bittersweet loss.
• No other filmmaker embodies the essence of mono no aware as profoundly as Ozu.
• His style embodies the Buddhist ideals of simplicity, restraint, and serenity.  Ozu detested plots, preferring to explore character by portraying people in their normal course of activities and to adhere to the rhythms of nature. He also often used the same actors, the same character types, the same techniques, and the same story elements in his fifty-six films.  More concerned with the emotional significance of an event rather than the event for its own sake.  Nuance is all

WATCH: Why did Ozu cut to a vase?

• Only the details vary. But in the rarified cinema of Ozu, the details–no matter how small–are everything.  Like Chekhov and Vermeer, Ozu concentrated on the commonplace minutiae of everyday life.  Paradoxically, from these apparently unpromising materials, he was able to fashion a profoundly philosophical cinema.
• He explored through detail vs. dramatic confrontation.
• His style embodies the Buddhist ideals of simplicity, restraint, and serenity. Restricting himself to only a few basic techniques, he has been described as a minimalist, rejecting all superflous adornments in favor of the utmost economy of expression.  “Less is more” might well be described as his artistic credo
• Thus his films are characterized by an extremely slow pace and Spartan camera work. Virtually every shot is photographed from the same angle: three feet off the floor, the position that a person would view a scene if seated on a tatami mat.  And the camera never moves–a detached observer.  Utilizes classical compositions emphasizing harmonious arrangement, but rarely striking, emphasizing the tranquil.
• Editing style is spare, usually employing medium shots, cutting from one character to the other as they speak. Rarely uses closeups and employs extreme long shots only for nature scenes and cityscapes. He often begins a scene on an empty set, creating a sense of anticipation in the viewer, while we wait for the characters to enter and confront each other.  Sometimes Ozu holds the camera on the set after the characters have left, creating a poignant sense of desolation, of emptiness.  Between scenes, he often cuts to the outside landscape, suggesting the sublime indifference of nature.  Life goes on, despite the problems of the characters.