386 Sansho the Bailiff

[Michael Kerpan]

Mark LeFanu's "analysis" is mostly a re-statement of conventional wisdom. I submit that any careful watcher will learn more from simply seeing what Mizoguchi presents than one can glean from LeFanu's book. (And his level of insight into Naruse is even less).

[Gregory]

I do not understand the need to elevate great cinematic creators into the realm of "deep thinkers". Mizoguchi's "thoughts" are often quite superficial -- it is his sense of vision that is masterful (and sometimes sublime).

I'm not sure anyone is necessarily doing that. I certainly was not, and I tried to make very clear that I was interested in the texts of the films themselves and what we can glean and appreciate in them, which certainly is not limited to the director's ideas and what he intended the films to be (and is usually something we don't know much about). But with every post you express the discussion in terms of Mizoguchi himself and his own concepts of the films' import (and, again, with the assumption that because you found only superficialities that the films essentially are superficial, apart from a sort of abstract notion of aesthetic vision). Maybe a major difference of viewpoint regarding auteurism is causing us to misunderstand one another.

Unless the thematic content of a film (or opera) is affirmatively stupid or outright perfidious, I frankly could care less.

Anyway, I wouldn't think that one who claims, with few exceptions, to have no interest in the thematic content of film would be in a very good position to appraise that content let alone show so much of a tendency to do so. My point here is not that I'm extremely qualified to do this, though. I'm only trying to make some steps toward it. The question of feminism in Mizoguchi, which is how this came up, can be a good point of departure but not with regard to Sansho the Bailiff.

[Michael Kerpan]

I'm not sure anyone is necessarily doing that. I certainly was not, and I tried to make very clear that I was interested in the texts of the films themselves and what we can glean and appreciate in them, which certainly is not limited to the director's ideas and what he intended the films to be (and is usually something we don't know much about). But with every post you express the discussion in terms of Mizoguchi himself and his own concepts of the films' import (and, again, with the assumption that because you found only superficialities that the films essentially are superficial, apart from a sort of abstract notion of aesthetic vision). Maybe a major difference of viewpoint regarding auteurism is causing us to misunderstand one another.

My criticisms of certain Mizoguchi films here have reasonably specific -- and have had nothing (or almost nothing) to do with what I thought of Mizoguchi -- or what Mizoguchi said about the films. If I allowed what I thought about Mizoguchi the man to color my feelings toward his films, I would simply avoid the films.

What is the "text" of a film -- this sounds like the kind of terminology an English teacher would use. Mizoguchi is (mostly) about images.

Anyway, I wouldn't think that one who claims, with few exceptions, to have no interest in the thematic content of film would be in a very good position to appraise that content let alone show so much of a tendency to do so. My point here is not that I'm extremely qualified to do this, though. I'm only trying to make some steps toward it. The question of feminism in Mizoguchi, which is how this came up, can be a good point of departure but not with regard to Sansho the Bailiff.

I never said I was utterly uninterested in the thematic content of films -- only that it is not a primary concern (unless it interferes with my ability to otherwise enjoy a film). Perhaps I expressed myself poorly on this point. In any event, if the most interesting aspect of a film is its thematic content, it is not a movie I'm likely to want to see.

If you see the job of a cinematic auteur as being the creation of texts that can be thematically deconstructed, then we definitely have totally incompatible notions of the concept of "auteur".

[Scharphedin2]

I think the truly great works of art -- and I would consider Sansho such a work -- go beyond the prevalent cultural, ideological or political discussions of their times. Looking at the film, I think any such concerns are very obviously incidental to the film that Mizoguchi created. This is a tale set in feudal times, where such things as slavery and all manner of other inhumane practices (by any modern standards) were the order of the day. What the film does achieve (to me) is a profound sense of catharsis, and although I have seen the film only once, when I think back on certain scenes I can see the extent to which Mizoguchi's careful use of form (even down to the slightest movement of the camera in the final scene) was all employed to this effect. Furthermore, any thematic agenda on Mizoguchi's part (again, as far as I experienced the film) would appear to be of the most basic and understood -- respect for past generations and one's elders, self-sacrifice, and the acceptance of one's fate.

The debate on the relative greatness of various Japanese filmmakers is almost shameful. These directors beyond any doubt are all in the elite of all film directors that ever lived. And, my guess is that only a handful of the forum's members have seen anything near the majority of the films of even Ozu, Naruse, Mizoguchi or Kurosawa, let alone anything more than a couple of the works of a long list of other classical Japanese directors that are considered their equals. We can express personal preferences toward one or another of these people, but the outright dismissals and blanket statements on relative value or lack of such is both unjust,... and, actually mostly just amusing.

[Michael Kerpan]

What the film does achieve (to me) is a profound sense of catharsis, and although I have seen the film only once, when I think back on certain scenes I can see the extent to which Mizoguchi's careful use of form (even down to the slightest movement of the camera in the final scene) was all employed to this effect. Furthermore, any thematic agenda on Mizoguchi's part (again, as far as I experienced the film) would appear to be of the most basic and understood -- respect for past generations and one's elders, self-sacrifice, and the acceptance of one's fate.

Well, I thought I was trying to say something like this. Mizoguchi creates beauty, primarily through presentation of images, wit the intent of producing emotional effects. His themes need not be complex or sophisticated in order to accomplish what he needs to do. It is only when this themes get too blatant (as in some of the late 40s films), that one has a problem.

The debate on the relative greatness of various Japanese filmmakers is almost shameful. These directors beyond any doubt are all in the elite of all film directors that ever lived. And, my guess is that only a handful of the forum's members have seen anything near the majority of the films of even Ozu, Naruse, Mizoguchi or Kurosawa, let alone anything more than a couple of the works of a long list of other classical Japanese directors that are considered their equals. We can express personal preferences toward one or another of these people, but the outright dismissals and blanket statements on relative value or lack of such is both unjust,... and, actually mostly just amusing.

Well I've seen virtually all of Mizoguchi's (existing) work, all of Ozu's, most of Naruse's and over half of Kurosawa's -- and I would never dream of assessing relative "greatness" among these directors (and their important contemporaries). Picking favorites seems quite adequate. One wonders why some of the early commentators on Japanese cinema found it necessary to create all sorts of false oppositions (such as Kurosawa vs. Mizoguchi, etc.) -- and why decades later the same sort of intellectually unsound oppositions still persist.

[ellipsis7]

Mark LeFanu's "analysis" is mostly a re-statement of conventional wisdom. I submit that any careful watcher will learn more from simply seeing what Mizoguchi presents than one can glean from LeFanu's book. (And his level of insight into Naruse is even less).

No it confirms my analysis and differentiation several posts up between the clearly stated in Naruse's work, and the implied or hidden in Mizoguchi films, or indeed displaced as you confirmed with your ref to Ozu's plot events... This is a purely personal preference and not to imply relative hierarchy...

[Scharphedin2]

Well, I thought I was trying to say something like this. Mizoguchi creates beauty, primarily through presentation of images, wit the intent of producing emotional effects. His themes need not be complex or sophisticated in order to accomplish what he needs to do. It is only when this themes get too blatant (as in some of the late 40s films), that one has a problem.

First of all, sorry Michael, I did not mean to steal your point -- just trying to come to terms with my own feelings and thoughts on the film through writing. I think, the complexity and sophistication of Mizoguchi's films (those that I have seen, which aside from 47 Ronin, are all from the fifties) rise out of the fact that he talks about valules that are so deeply part of the human experience (and, to some extent, I suppose the particular Japanese experience) as to be more instinctual than anything else.

You say that Mizoguchi was creating beauty through images to create an emotional experience. I was wondering, if it is possible that Mizoguchi was actually doing the opposite? I hope this does not sound like a smart comment, because I am only too aware that my knowledge of Mizoguchi and his films is pedestrian compared to yours. However, it seems to me that a lot of the time, Mizoguchi's compositions and camera are very static, which is not to say that the scenes he depicts are not beautiful, of course. However, it seems to me that the most emotionally powerful moments in his films are accentuated by a sudden change in pace, a change in vantage point/composition, or movement of the camera. These breaks in the visual style to underscore the emotional impact then creates a particularly strong sense of beauty in his cinema, or, in any event, they are the moments that stand particularly strongly in my memory.

[Michael Kerpan]

First of all, sorry Michael, I did not mean to steal your point --

No problem -- I was just afraid I had been unclear. ;~}

just trying to come to terms with my own feelings and thoughts on the film through writing. I think, the complexity and sophistication of Mizoguchi's films (those that I have seen, which aside from 47 Ronin, are all from the fifties) rise out of the fact that he talks about valules that are so deeply part of the human experience (and, to some extent, I suppose the particular Japanese experience) as to be more instinctual than anything else.

A lot of the 50s films have a very fairy tale-esque feel -- especially the ones that are best known in the West. (Grimms' fairy tale -- not Hollywood "fairy tale, that is).

You say that Mizoguchi was creating beauty through images to create an emotional experience. I was wondering, if it is possible that Mizoguchi was actually doing the opposite? I hope this does not sound like a smart comment, because I am only too aware that my knowledge of Mizoguchi and his films is pedestrian compared to yours. However, it seems to me that a lot of the time, Mizoguchi's compositions and camera are very static, which is not to say that the scenes he depicts are not beautiful, of course. However, it seems to me that the most emotionally powerful moments in his films are accentuated by a sudden change in pace, a change in vantage point/composition, or movement of the camera. These breaks in the visual style to underscore the emotional impact then creates a particularly strong sense of beauty in his cinema, or, in any event, they are the moments that stand particularly strongly in my memory.

Well, static is not (in my book) incompatible with beauty. Mizoguchi _claimed_ that painting was one of his most important influences -- and his films often seem to corroborate this claim. I don't think that movement or position changes are "breaks" in his visual style, but rather key (albeit less frequent) elements. I think in all most all cases, emotional impact is built up pretty cumulatively.

Seeing _more_ Mizoguchi does not mean one's experience of any given film is any more correct. ;~} It just lets one see that no one film (or couple of films) can "typify" Mizoguchi's body of works.

[TheRanchHand]

I think it just becomes "cool" to critisize Kurosawa when you learn more about Japanese films since he is by far the most popular Japanese director in the western world. To say any are better than another is obviously far from true. But I get liking one over another as that is what film taste is all about. I am much more satisfied with Kurosawa's work but enjoy Ozu and Mizoguchi and Naruse all greatly.

[Scharphedin2]

Well, static is not (in my book) incompatible with beauty. Mizoguchi _claimed_ that painting was one of his most important influences -- and his films often seem to corroborate this claim. I don't think that movement or position changes are "breaks" in his visual style, but rather key (albeit less frequent) elements. I think in all most all cases, emotional impact is built up pretty cumulatively.

Seeing _more_ Mizoguchi does not mean one's experience of any given film is any more correct. ;~} It just lets one see that no one film (or couple of films) can "typify" Mizoguchi's body of works.

Static is certainly not incompatible with beauty in my book either, au contraire. I do feel that Mizoguchi drives home his emotional points through an exemplary understanding of the effects that he can obtain through what you describe as the "key elements" of his visual style. The resulting moments are sublime -- a synergy between emotional experience and visual perfection. This is what I was thinking of, when posing the question of whether the relationship being possibly reversed between the creation of beauty and the attainment of emotional effect. But, thinking about it now, if there is a distinction it is not really important, and the fact is that the visually more static stretches of his films brim with beauty as well. So, the most apt description is yours -- that of the cumulative effect -- maybe Mizoguchi can be said to be building up his films like music, reaching crescendos in the key moments/scenes described above.

Michael, thanks for having this exchange. It is very useful.

[Michael Kerpan]

maybe Mizoguchi can be said to be building up his films like music, reaching crescendos in the key moments/scenes described above.

I think you could be right. If I had to use a musical analogy, I'd say his style reminds me of a cross between Bruckner and Puccini -- not sure that this would work musically, but it certainly does work cinematically. ;~}

I am pretty certain that Mizoguchi was acquainted with Western opera -- and his "Story of Late Chrysanthemums" definitely evokes memories of Verdi's "Traviata" at some key moments.

Michael, thanks for having this exchange. It is very useful.

The pleasure is mine.

[Nothing]

Very few of these really present independent assertive women.

Feudal Japan being such a great place for independent, assertive female enterprise.

[Michael Kerpan]

Very few of these really present independent assertive women.

Feudal Japan being such a great place for independent, assertive female enterprise.

The films that were being discussed (in this context) had contemporary (or near contemporary) settings.

[BusterK.]

This will probably be the first time I'm passing up on the Criterion. I'm waiting for the MoC boxsets.

And how many MoC transfers are better than Criterion for the same release? That's what i thought.

[jt]

And how many MoC transfers are better than Criterion for the same release?

Kwaidan, Onibaba and Francesco giullare di Dio are currently the only MoC/ CC overlaps, and the MoC is better in every case...

[ltfontaine]

As others have commented above, Kurosawa's popular reputation is taking something of an overzealous beating as viewers become newly acquainted with Mizoguchi, Naruse, and a host of Japanese masters whose films are becoming widely accessible for the first time via DVD. But this excerpt from Gavin Lambert's report from the Venice Film Festival, appearing in the October-December 1954 issue of Sight and Sound, demonstrates that, even as Western observers were discovering Japanese films in the 1950s, critics were already drawing a specific kind of invidious distinction between Kurosawa and Mizoguchi:

Sansho Dayu, directed by Kenji Mizoguchi (whose Ugetsu Monogetari won a prize here last year), is a characteristic combination of history and legend sweepingly told and yet full of intimacy and tenderness. The kidnapping . . . is the first episode of a picaresque folk tale that illuminates many aspects of feudal life in the period; rich in observation and detail, it shows that Mizoguchi is one of the cinema's few real poets.

Akira Kurosawa is a brilliant artist in prose. His The Seven Samurai . . . is an adventure story of the best kind. As in Rashomon, one has the feeling of a modern eye looking back into the past, which is less re-created than evoked. There is much virtuosity in the handling . . . and hardly an image in the film which, like Mizoguchi's, is over two hours long, that does not seem freshly, excitingly composed. But it has the limitations as well as the virtues of brilliance, and for this reason is less satisfying than Sansho Dayu.

[Michael Kerpan]

Interesting that -- ever since the first "discovery" of Japanese cinema by the West -- there was a tendency to put everything in neat little boxes -- and that the level of analysis was so superficial.

[whaleallright]

In the 1950s, Cahiers critics constantly compared Kurosawa unfavorably to Mizoguchi. Rivette had the most memorable volley: "You can compare only what is comparable and that which aims high enough. Mizoguchi, alone, imposes a feeling of a unique world and language, is answerable only to himself...He seems to be the only Japanese director who is completely Japanese and yet is also the only one that achieves a true universality, that of an individual."

Also, to correct an earlier post, Burch didn't condemn Kurosawa's films as "Western." On the contrary, he celebrates Kurosawa's 1950s films (esp. "Ikiru" and "Record of a Living Being") over those by Ozu and Mizoguchi from the same period (which he decries as "academic").

In any event, I think such comparisons have outlived their usefulness.

[GringoTex]

Burch's theories (like those of many other Western critics) show a profound lack of knowledge about what the movie industry of 1920-1950s Japan was actually doing.

Burch's point was not that the pre-War Japanese filmmakers were unaware or not fans of Hollywood film style. But he tied film style to the prevailing socioeconomic superstructure, and so believed that the post-war U.S. occupation of Japan was responsible for the Japanese embrace of Hollywood (or institutional representative mode, as he called it) techniques. It's still a dubious claim, but shouldn't take away from his usual spot-on analysis of style.

[Michael Kerpan]

It's still a dubious claim, but shouldn't take away from his usual spot-on analysis of style.

His approach reminds me a lot of that of Levi-Strauss in anthropology. You start with a tiny dollop of fact -- and erect massive theoretical structures based on this. Yes -- he has plenty of insights (some even valuable) -- but I find him pretty unreliable -- at least in his discussion of films what I am familiar with. His ideological blinders clearly interfere with his ability to see clearly.

[jguitar]

It's still a dubious claim, but shouldn't take away from his usual spot-on analysis of style.

His approach reminds me a lot of that of Levi-Strauss in anthropology. You start with a tiny dollop of fact -- and erect massive theoretical structures based on this. Yes -- he has plenty of insights (some even valuable) -- but I find him pretty unreliable -- at least in his discussion of films what I am familiar with. His ideological blinders clearly interfere with his ability to see clearly.

That's a great comparison, Michael. Somewhere, I wish I could remember where (if anyone knows where this quote comes from, please enlighten me) Sato Tadao makes a comment about the attitude typified by Burch's approach. I'm paraphrasing wildly and possibly incorrectly, but Sato says that it's not so simple to think of democracy and other "Western" values as being imposed by the Americans; that the pro-democracy and other marginalized groups in Japan saw an opening with the American occupation to advance an agenda that had been largely suppressed in the past. Also, as many people have demonstrated (including Michael Kerpan in this forum), there were plenty of Hollywood models for Japanese cinema from the earliest years.

Lastly, I agree that the Kurosawa/Mizoguchi opposition has probably outlived whatever usefulness it ever had, but I still always think about that Bazin quote, where he says something along the lines that if one prefers Kurosawa to Mizoguchi, then he must be blind, but that if one loves Mizoguchi to the point of despising Kurosawa, then that person must have one eye.

[ellipsis7]

"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king...."

But where oh where is that land?....

[Matango]

I can't help but wonder if the worth of a Japanese director is not directly proportional to the number of DVD releases he has been given by Western companies. If only, say, Stray Dog and Seven Samurai had been released in the West, but everything by Mizugochi and Naruse was out there, I imagine there would be far more fawning over Kurosawa.

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

I can't help but wonder if the worth of a Japanese director is not directly proportional to the number of DVD releases he has been given by Western companies. If only, say, Stray Dog and Seven Samurai had been released in the West, but everything by Mizugochi and Naruse was out there, I imagine there would be far more fawning over Kurosawa.

This makes the presumption that 'people' are incapable of distinguishing on the grounds of quality...

It strikes me as an intellectual kop out along the lines of: it's fashionable to dismiss Kurosawa etc...

If you want to fight for the cause, Matango, fight for the cause... you could also say that popularity is a poor indicator of quality (would you measure Bresson on Box Office takings?).

Popular=vulgar???

[Michael Kerpan]

Mizoguchi's style, as great as his films may be, is far more old-fashioned than Kurosawa's. His films (from the 30s and after) were often old-fashioned even at the time they were made.

There is a wide gulf between the shimpa melodrama that Mizoguchi excelled at presenting (and which was still a new and exciting genre when he started making films in the 20s) and the work of Ozu and Naruse (who were heirs of early classic Hollywood cinema) and Kurosawa (who was also influenced by an even later stream of western cinema).