Kenji Mizoguchi

[tojoed]

Thanks Tomasso. Yes, I have the CC "Sansho" and "Ugetsu", but I don't mind double dipping if that's the way to go. And, as you say, with the MoC booklets and all it's no pain.

[Michael Kerpan]

I want to join in the praise for Uwasa no onna (which is an essential part of a uniformly wonderful triptych, along with Gion Festival Music and Street of Shame).

I also want to say me to as to the wonderful Portrait of Madame Yuki. While I bear no ill will towards Oyu-sama, I definitely love Madame Yuki considerably more.

I also consider Chikamatsu monogatari on a different level from Sansho -- but because it is on a considerably higher level (for my purposes, at least). ;~}

I don't know that I would say the Love of Sumako the Actress is the best Mizoguchi film of the 40s -- as I like Utamaro at least as much and am very fond of his little Musashi Miyamoto film. And his 47 Ronin is awe-inspiring (though I don't think I could honestly say I love this film).

[sidehacker]

his little Musashi Miyamoto film.

Is this only 53 minutes because the rest of the film was lost, or was it originally this long?

Good to see other people are as fond of Madame Yuki as I am. Wonderful visuals, as one would expect from Mizoguchi, but also a great performance from Michiyo Kogure. It's not quite my favorite Mizoguchi film, but it's probably one of the most ideal Mizoguchi films. This is probably as visually appealing as his more canonized works, but also interested in human relationships, rather than fairy tales.

[myrnaloyisdope]

"Oyu-Sama" is NOT in the Eclipse set, but is only available as the second film on MoC's "Ugetsu".

Thanks for clearing that up, I have the MoC disc, and for some reason thought Oyu-Sama was in the Eclipse set too.

[tojoed]

...It looks like I'm going to have a separate Mizoguchi kevyip.

[Michael Kerpan]

his little Musashi Miyamoto film.

Is this only 53 minutes because the rest of the film was lost, or was it originally this long?

Film stock was in short supply when this was made. I don't see much sign of anything missing. It really provides an interesting variant of one piece of the MM story.

Good to see other people are as fond of Madame Yuki as I am. Wonderful visuals, as one would expect from Mizoguchi, but also a great performance from Michiyo Kogure.

Probably one of Kogure's best performances.

[sidehacker]

Has anyone found a copy of Maria no oyuki better than the French VHS? For some reason, I was under the impression that it had some sort of DVD release.

[ptmd]

sidehacker,

It's included on the Kenji Mizoguchi: Les Annees 30s set that Carlotta put out a year or so ago, under the title "Oyuki la vierge." It's probably as good as the film is likely to look for the foreseeable future.

[Fan-of-Kurosawa]

Who has the rights to these very early Mizo films from the '30s? Does anybody know? I guess not Janus.

Because I really want to see them and I am thinking about buying the French set.

[lubitsch]

I've seen the five available Mizoguchi's from the 30s, but yet no later one. I admit I'm a bit puzzled by his films and his style. I liked pretty much every Ozu from the 30s, the Shimizus, HUMANITY AND PAPER BALLOONS, but here's a hard nut to crack.

First as some have noted Mizoguchi seems firmly rooted in the homegrown melodrama tradition which has its pitfalls, ORIZURO OSEN really isn't much different from a standard western melodrama and the women remind me dangerously of the massive idealization by Borzage. Especially ZANGIKU MONOGATARI (where I found both actors quite unremarkable) goes a bit too far and it seems to actually support the sacrifice of the woman and to fall back behind OSEN and WATER MAGICIAN with the rebellion of the young actor to be integrated harmonically into a repressive society. That's a very far cry from the other directors mentioned above where the strong emphasis on characters and casual development of story makes them stand out from 30s melodrama mill.

Second and that's even more grave, Mizoguchi's style is too detached. I'm not surprised to hear that critics of the time critizised him for being old-fashioned in his long takes, but even it being a deliberate style, the camera is positioned so far away from the actors that the scenes bedome hard to decipher regarding the acting. Especially ZANGIKU MONOGATARI was suffocating in this respect. While I support the idea of the long take which gives the actors time to interact and disagree with the modern trends to break everything up in meaningless single shots, Mizoguchi's films push the style to another extreme without enough use of space and actors body language. Additionally I was also quite bewildered by OSAKA ELEGY's abrupt cutting and elliptic narrative. Both in OSAKA and ZANGIKU I had less the feeling of watching a story of individuals than some kind of ritual.

I liked SISTERS OF GION very much, nevertheless Mizoguchi's films are among the most challenging from the 30s I've seen (and that's roughly 700 features).

[Tommaso]

Additionally I was also quite bewildered by OSAKA ELEGY's abrupt cutting and elliptic narrative. Both in OSAKA and ZANGIKU I had less the feeling of watching a story of individuals than some kind of ritual.

I'm not sure about this at all, but I always had the feeling that the abrupt cutting and occasional 'jumps' in "Osaka" were due to frames or even larger sections of film missing. Your observations on "Zangiku" are to the point, but I see the distancing as an advantage rather than as a shortcoming. After all, the film is about theatre, and the camera positioned at a distance reflects a theatre experience (ritual) to a degree. The de-individualisation also makes it possible to regard what is happening to these characters as an 'example' of a general situation. I don't know whether Mizo really supports "the sacrifice of the woman" and the re-integration of the actor into "a repressive society". He is simply showing these things, without giving any sort of judgement. In this respect the film is indeed quite different from "Humanity and Paper Balloons", but not necessarily from Ozu, though my knowledge of 30s Ozu is limited to just a handful of films and I see this 'distanced' (but not un-emotional) quality more in Ozus late works anyway. But the styles of both directors are so different that I find it difficult to compare them, really.

I guess this certain non-judgemental quality can even be seen in some of Mizos 50s works, "Ugetsu" especially. Things happen by 'fate', but that fate is not some supernatural agent but the result of the nature of human beings (the striving for power or for beauty in the case of "Ugetsu"). By comparison, there is even an emphasis on the influence of a specific situation caused by the set-up of society in both "Osaka Elegy" and "Chrysanthemums", though it's not as strong as in "Women of the Night". But if you haven't seen any of his later works and you're looking for a more 'engaged' and engaging film, be sure to check out "The Life of Oharu" next. It might be exactly what you're looking for if "Chrysanthemums" leaves you cold. Quite apart from "Oharu" perhaps being his very best film.

[lubitsch]

Additionally I was also quite bewildered by OSAKA ELEGY's abrupt cutting and elliptic narrative. Both in OSAKA and ZANGIKU I had less the feeling of watching a story of individuals than some kind of ritual.

I'm not sure about this at all, but I always had the feeling that the abrupt cutting and occasional 'jumps' in "Osaka" were due to frames or even larger sections of film missing. Your observations on "Zangiku" are to the point, but I see the distancing as an advantage rather than as a shortcoming. After all, the film is about theatre, and the camera positioned at a distance reflects a theatre experience (ritual) to a degree. The de-individualisation also makes it possible to regard what is happening to these characters as an 'example' of a general situation. I don't know whether Mizo really supports "the sacrifice of the woman" and the re-integration of the actor into "a repressive society". He is simply showing these things, without giving any sort of judgement.

I agree mostly and still wonder what's missing. I think in ZANGIKU it really bothers me that the woman is such a devoted slave, the man hardly worth the all the trouble (it doesn't help that the extended theatre performance we witness is enigmatic to western eyes) and I really hated it when the Grand Master sentimentally said that he'd like to thank the woman for her efforts. This moment really made me feel that the sacrifice is worthy. The close ties to shimpa melodrama of his early 30s work automatically lead into the old discussion if melodrama is an essentially conservative genre and when it becomes subverted into the exact opposite. While OSAKA and GION are obviously examples of the latter concept, I'm not so sure about WATER MAGICIAN, OSEN and ZANGIKU. Tadao Sata explains on a DigitalMeme disc how the fact that the men for whom the women have made a sacrifice are unable to help them (OSEN) or even more ironically have to persecute them (WATER MAGICIAN), but I'm not so sure that this sufficiently proves that their sacrifice was misguided since they achieved what they wanted. ZANGIKU seems to me the worst of the five films in this regard.

As for the camera work it may be detached, an objective observer, but isn't it nevertheless troubling to see your characters like small ants miles away (slight exaggeration)? Doesn't that automatically imply a reduction of their humanity? It's not that I want a cloying close-up every minute, but I think the whole artistic set-up doesn't work.
I was glad to see that Jacoby at sensesofcinema also is sceptical about the film and it's unfortunate that we can't see STRAITS OF LOVE AND HATE for which he and Michael Kerpan make such a strong case. Here's a gap I'd love to be filled in some kind of Mizoguchi box by MoC or Criterion.

[Michael Kerpan]

Tale of Late Chrysanthemums owes LOTS to Verdi's La Traviata -- and many of your objections could also be leveled at that (IMHO very great) work as well. I suspect this works better screened than seen at home.

Straits of Love and Hate is isnteresting because it presents a more Naruse-esque heroine -- who gets tired of being a door mat eventually.

[Michael Kerpan]

Michael Kerpan, are you aware of this release?

I can post caps if requested...

I blogged it back in 2006:

http://rozmon.blogspot.com/2006/09/watc ... -2006.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This was back before I started doing screen caps for my articles...

;~}

[lubitsch]

Straits of Love and Hate is isnteresting because it presents a more Naruse-esque heroine -- who gets tired of being a door mat eventually.

Had the opportunity to see STRAITS in a version with incredibly bad subtitles and OYUKI also crossed my paths. A shame that these films are so hard to see because they significantly shift the balance from the suffering shinpa women to more resolute heroines. I was barely able to follow STRAITS' dialogues but was nevertheless rather impressed by the way the heroine gains freedom within the theater and even satirizes her experiences in a play. OYUKI's prostitutes also are refreshing for a change in this Boule de suif variation with another story arc added later on. I still have mixed feelings about 30's Mizoguchi and remain sceptical about his long takes shot with the camera miles away from the action, but it's pleasing to see that he has a broader range than one would suspect.

[Tommaso]

I was barely able to follow STRAITS' dialogues but was nevertheless rather impressed by the way the heroine gains freedom within the theater and even satirizes her experiences in a play.

I have seen neither "Straits" nor "Oyuki", but was lucky enough to see an English-subbed version of "Sumako the Actress" recently, and had a quite similar feeling about that film. Admittedly, this is a post-war film which might have made it easier for Mizoguchi to address these issues;

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still I was surprised about how the Tanaka character claims independence from the beginning on, even going so far as to struggle openly on the street with her husband and then leaving him. That the ending seems to fall back into a more conventional pattern, with the actress committing suicide because of her new partner has died, is a point that has to be admitted.

Still, both characters try to act independently from the dominant social rules whose impacts are felt very much throughout the film.

It seems to me that Mizoguchi throughout his career tried to show the effects of those social rules from different angles, at times expressing hopelessness about the chance to overcome them, at other times taking a more optimistic stance. "Late Chrysanthemums" perhaps would fall in the first category, "Sumako" in the latter.

[Michael Kerpan]

In Sumako, Mizoguchi was constrained by the real facts. While there is some fictionalizing, pretty much all the key events in the film really happened.

I think Straits presents Mizoguchi's independent (and most Naruse-like) heroine.

[lubitsch]

It seems to me that Mizoguchi throughout his career tried to show the effects of those social rules from different angles, at times expressing hopelessness about the chance to overcome them, at other times taking a more optimistic stance. "Late Chrysanthemums" perhaps would fall in the first category, "Sumako" in the latter.

After watching 47 Ronin I have the bad feeling that Chrysanthemums fits very well into the official sacrifice propaganda line. It's among the most unpleasent films I ever watched including Kolberg or Morgenrot regarding its determined death drive. Alexander jacoby writes in sensesofcinema that Ronin is "so restrained in tone as to subvert its own propagandist intentions". quite the contrary, Mizoguchi's distant, ceremonial handling illustrates the mood of these people very carefully and glorifies them even more. A classical action chanbara would have missed the point of this propagandistic piece. Yes it was a military dictatorship, but needed Mizoguchi really put so much effort in the film? This and Chrysanthemums are surely nadir I encountered in Japanese classical filmmaking before 1945. Not that this is much of a statement cause I've only seen 11 Ozu's, 8 Mizoguchi's, 4 Shimizu's, 2 Kinugasa's and one film by Yamanaka, Suzuki and Ito. There's a box of Shimizu and some films left in the benshi series, but that's it, no Gosho, no Shimazu, no Naruse, no Uchida and so on. Couldn't such a rich country make a bit more of its heritage available?

[Sloper]

Lubitsch, are you saying you find these films objectionable because they glorify people who commit suicide, or rather who go willingly to their deaths for the sake of a principle? If so, what do you think of The Passion of Joan of Arc? I realise that wasn't made under a military dictatorship, but in the light of films like Sansho and Chikamatsu, it seems to me the self-sacrifices going on here have more to do with Mizoguchi's interest (not unlike Dreyer's) in characters who look beyond this world and try to live up to a higher set of standards, while everyone around them flails about in the mire. My memory of Chrysanthemums is hazy, but I got the impression that

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the woman is glorified not so much because she 'gives up her life', but because her selflessness shows up the self-absorption of her husband (they are married, right?) - in this respect it's not unlike Ugetsu. I seem to remember the final shot was of the actor, finally successful, but realising too late that he had lost the only really valuable thing in his life. This isn't A Star is Born, whose conclusion is, I think, genuinely creepy in some ways. The dead woman's fate is more tragic than heroic, and if it teaches you anything it's that you should be less selfish, not go out and kill yourself. That makes the film sound sanctimonious, but you get my point.

And sorry but I just can't take seriously the idea that 47 Ronin is militaristic propaganda - I'm sure someone else (maybe you) can present a good argument for why it is, but I think what's being glorified here is not violence or suicide, but the calm, clear-eyed determination to do the right thing, in spite of the cynicism and undirected anger of the clamouring mob.

The lack of violence does seem to put this film in the same class as the later films; it shows that Mizoguchi wasn't interested in either the taking of revenge, or the suicide ritual itself, but rather in the characters' moral odyssey, to which the violence is pretty much incidental. And the slow pace, the tracking shots, the scenes that go on forever... It's incredibly reductive to just say that these 'glorify' the death-seeking characters. Nor do they seem 'ceremonial' to me. They seem instead to impose on us, the viewers, that sense of a higher perspective on things, that serenity and refusal to be hurried or provoked or put into a rage, which Oishi sustains almost throughout the film. He is indeed glorified, but so quietly and subtly that I can't imagine anyone coming out of this film fired with a sense of militaristic zeal.

I think there was a similar discussion about Die Nibelungen a while ago - as to whether it made for effective propaganda or not - but in this case I'm not sure what there is in Mizoguchi's film that could rile you up so much... It sounds like you're talking about Triumph of the Will. But I'd be interested to hear more, from you or some other knowledgeable person...

[Michael Kerpan]

Story of Late Chrysanthemums gets more than a little inspiration from Verdi's La traviata (and the ending is _particularly_ indebted to that opera). Care to tell us, lubitsch, how Verdi fits into the encouragement of Japanese militarism?

I have mixed feelings about this 47 Ronin. I find many parts quite impressive -- but I feel pretty uncomfortable with the whole saga (not just Mizoguchi's film) in terms of concept. In any event, once again Mizoguchi was not creating out of whole cloth -- he was condensing Seika Mayama's recently completed (philosophical and comparatively action-less) kabuki play cycle (10 plays).

As to pre-50s Japanese cinema on DVD -- other films are slowly appearing. Shimazu's Our neighbor, Yae-chan has been out for a while. Gosho's Madamu to nyobo and Shimazu's Potrait of Shunkin are due out soon (along with Nomura's Aizen katsura).

[lubitsch]

Lubitsch, are you saying you find these films objectionable because they glorify people who commit suicide, or rather who go willingly to their deaths for the sake of a principle? If so, what do you think of The Passion of Joan of Arc? I realise that wasn't made under a military dictatorship, but in the light of films like Sansho and Chikamatsu, it seems to me the self-sacrifices going on here have more to do with Mizoguchi's interest (not unlike Dreyer's) in characters who look beyond this world and try to live up to a higher set of standards, while everyone around them flails about in the mire....

You're absolutely right, I find Dreyer's film equally problematic. The point aside that it's an ordinary melodrama of good vs. evil with the good one played by a young girl and the evil ones by old, ugly men, I find it rather dubious that I have to root for a complete fanatic believing to be chosen by god and lead their people in a pointless war. After all, in this time wars were power struggles between different aristocratic powers and the ordinary people the cattle to be slaughtered on the battle fields.
So I have a big problem with artefacts presenting us people with an unbroken spirit and holy mind who know exactly what to do and go to the last limits to achieve it because that's essentially also true for Hitler and the 9/11 bombers. There has to be at least some breaking up and questioning of this attitude by the director and screenwriter.
In Mizoguchi's film there's something more going on, it's an fanatic eagerness to fullfil a code for no reason at all. If the samurai believe the shogunate to be corrupt, then they would do well to plot against it and fight to the end instead of willingly surrender to satisfy the samurai code. The adherence to and the resulting glorification of hollow codes instead a sympathy for the basic rules of humanity, that's most disturbing.
As for your interpretation of Chrysanthemums it's a possible one, but I doubt it. The whole point of the film seems to be that the young actor has to become a wiser man and better actor and the woman is the doormat which helps him to achieve it suffering to the nth degree. The father thanks the young woman at the end for all the sacrifices, the young man sheds a few tears thinking what a wonderful companion he had, but he's matured by now and may profit artistically from these experiences. The woman in Chrysanthemums has definitively not enough presence in the film to win our attraction. Compare it to Sisters of the Gion and Osaka Elegy where we follow the women and watch their defeats or the harrowing end of Orizuro Ozen where it simply isn't possible to read the sacrifice by the woman as positive because it's too devastating. In Chrysanthemums however we spend much of the time with the man, the sacrifice is successful and the woman remains dimly in the background (which is enhanced by Mizoguchi's distant camera positions).

And sorry but I just can't take seriously the idea that 47 Ronin is militaristic propaganda - I'm sure someone else (maybe you) can present a good argument for why it is, but I think what's being glorified here is not violence or suicide, but the calm, clear-eyed determination to do the right thing, in spite of the cynicism and undirected anger of the clamouring mob.

The lack of violence does seem to put this film in the same class as the later films; it shows that Mizoguchi wasn't interested in either the taking of revenge, or the suicide ritual itself, but rather in the characters' moral odyssey, to which the violence is pretty much incidental. And the slow pace, the tracking shots, the scenes that go on forever... It's incredibly reductive to just say that these 'glorify' the death-seeking characters. Nor do they seem 'ceremonial' to me. They seem instead to impose on us, the viewers, that sense of a higher perspective on things, that serenity and refusal to be hurried or provoked or put into a rage, which Oishi sustains almost throughout the film. He is indeed glorified, but so quietly and subtly that I can't imagine anyone coming out of this film fired with a sense of militaristic zeal.

I think there was a similar discussion about Die Nibelungen a while ago - as to whether it made for effective propaganda or not - but in this case I'm not sure what there is in Mizoguchi's film that could rile you up so much... It sounds like you're talking about Triumph of the Will. But I'd be interested to hear more, from you or some other knowledgeable person...

The comparison to The Nibelungen is not bad, but the story of Nibelungen is notoriously convoluted and put together from different tales. It is absolutely impossible to get a coherent reading of the saga and you have to distort it massively to bend it to propagandistic effect, there are extremely right wing adaptations, e.g. by Felix Dahn in the late 19th century glorifying the Nibelungentreue, but in order to gto that and praise the loyalty of the Nibelungen you have to cut the pre story of Siegrief and the whole betrayal. Lang's film also doesn't make any sense at all if you try to read it in any coherent ideological way. Consider e.g. that the Nibelungen epos (which is or was for Germany the national epic like Wilhelm Tell for the Swiss) is in fact a total apocalypse leading to the annihilation of all characters, so it's pretty nuts to chose that as your national epic and praise the Nibelungen loyalty if it leads only to hell and destruction.
The 47 Ronin on the other hand seems to follow a clear agenda. Michael has clearly stated that Mizoguchi had to follow the story and I guess the tale doesn't translate well for modern audiences and it would be probably better for Japan if the tradition died out as did The Nibelungen myth in germany after 1945. Surely the film isn't even remotely aggressively nationalistic and militaristic as is e.g. Kolberg or Morgenrot. But I see clearly the same mentality at work here, the same stoic acceptance of death for a cause and an unquestioning loayalta which reminds me very much of the men in the sunken submarine in Morgenrot or George in Kolberg being eager to fight on though his city is already reduced to rubble.
So you don't leave the theater with the wish to exterminate your enemies, but with the clear order to follow rules and to subordinate yourself totally to your superiors. The comparison to Triupm of the Will is therefore not that wrong, after all the samurai sit in nicely geometric rows listening to Oishi and following him to the end, with only the hot-tempered ones not recognizing his greatness.

Story of Late Chrysanthemums gets more than a little inspiration from Verdi's La traviata (and the ending is _particularly_ indebted to that opera). Care to tell us, lubitsch, how Verdi fits into the encouragement of Japanese militarism?

I didn't associate Chrysanthemums with militarism, I connected it with an sacrifice ideology which runs rampant through German films of the time and I guess through every totalitarian society's artistic output. But these tendencies are old and often unquestioningly reprodeced. La Traviata is essentially La Dame aux camelias by Dumas and both exploit a sacrifice story for tearjearking stuff instead of a sharp analysis what's behind this sacrifice ideology. Stella Dallas is another example that comes to mind. So there's a potential in popular culture for this rather dubious attitude of mind which only has to be activated and encoraged by totalitarian governments.

As to pre-50s Japanese cinema on DVD -- other films are slowly appearing. Shimazu's Our neighbor, Yae-chan has been out for a while. Gosho's Madamu to nyobo and Shimazu's Potrait of Shunkin are due out soon (along with Nomura's Aizen katsura).

But not in any subtitles versions or am I missing anything? I'd like at least to see Wife be like a Rose ...

[Tommaso]

Yes it was a military dictatorship, but needed Mizoguchi really put so much effort in the film?

Wait till you've seen "The Famous Sword Bijomaru" (1945), which lets the propaganda in "Ronin" appear extremely subtle by comparison (though you could argue that in the case of "Bijomaru" Mizoguchi really didn't put any artistic effort in the film).

I have to agree with you that "Ronin" indeed uses the stateliness and 'honourable' behaviour of its characters for propagandistic purposes, but as usual, this is only a small irritation for me when viewing the film. I would also say that the theme of self-sacrifice is something very typical for Mizoguchi . It's already very much visible in "Taki no shiraito", which plays almost like a companion piece to "Chrysanthemums" in this respect, but where I also see the motivation being along the same lines as what Sloper writes in his 'spoiler-obscured' passage above. But the idea of selflessness and sacrifice also probably extends to Japanese cultural history or a traditional Japanese self-image in a more general way. "Ronin" doesn't feel so 'alien' with that context in mind as films like "Kolberg" or "Opfergang" feel to me when watching them now. The idea of self-sacrifice, though in this case for the sake of humanistic purposes, can also be found in Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai", very obviously. However, the idea apparently did become much more unfashionable in Japan since the 60s, as might be seen in the reactions to Mishima's death if one disregards the right-wing believers for a moment.

It's incredibly reductive to just say that these 'glorify' the death-seeking characters. Nor do they seem 'ceremonial' to me. They seem instead to impose on us, the viewers, that sense of a higher perspective on things, that serenity and refusal to be hurried or provoked or put into a rage, which Oishi sustains almost throughout the film. He is indeed glorified, but so quietly and subtly that I can't imagine anyone coming out of this film fired with a sense of militaristic zeal.

Perhaps the zeal is of different sort, and mixes favourably (for the government) with the militarist ideals. I would agree with Lubitsch when he writes later on that such ideas in popular culture can easily be taken over and made use of by a government, but that is because they are emotionally charged to a high degree. And the idea of sacrifice is obviously very intimately connected with religion or rather strong religious – and thus emotionally charged -beliefs. In Buddhist practice, a sacrifice for the right reasons might bring you better karma, for instance.

But just because something is emotionally charged and thus difficult to control intellectually, it doesn't mean it's per definition worthless. Lubitsch, you may object to showing religious belief in a positive light as in Dreyer's "Jeanne", but I still think that by tackling the issue from a modern atheist point-of-view you're missing a lot of the mental (read: religious) reality of the 15th century. You might argue that the film shows us too little about the political and social reality of that 15th century, focussing entirely on Jeanne and her situation during the trial (not dissimilar to Bresson's version). But that is because Dreyer was interested in a specific mental problem having to do with faith and with the mind, and not with any social issues. Dreyer's Jeanne probably isn't very much like the historic Jeanne (if we ever got to know how she really was); Dreyer more or less uses the historic person and/or legend to tackle issues very much his own, and which run through more or less all his later works. But if you want to see a more 'realistic' version, check out Rivette's film and Sandrine Bonnaire's much more 'human' Jeanne.

So I have a big problem with artefacts presenting us people with an unbroken spirit and holy mind who know exactly what to do and go to the last limits to achieve it because that's essentially also true for Hitler and the 9/11 bombers.

"The greatest artwork of all time...". Thus spoke Karlheinz Stockhausen. But megalomaniacs who are also great artists aside, it might at least be argued that the idea of unbroken spirit and 'holy mind' could also be seen as a positive example if it comes to fighting precisely those fanatics or unjust social circumstances you seem to have in mind. Pasolini's "Vangelo" seems to operate along these lines, for instance. And with respect to the idea of 'sacrifice', I'd really like to hear your opinion about Tarkovsky's film of the same name, and probably about "Nostalghia", too. Would you dismiss these so easily, too?

The adherence to and the resulting glorification of hollow codes instead a sympathy for the basic rules of humanity, that's most disturbing.

Yes, it is disturbing, but as I said above, it probably would be less disturbing if we had the whole Japanese cultural background with us.

The comparison to The Nibelungen is not bad, but the story of Nibelungen is notoriously convoluted and put together from different tales. It is absolutely impossible to get a coherent reading of the saga and you have to distort it massively to bend it to propagandistic effect, there are extremely right wing adaptations, e.g. by Felix Dahn in the late 19th century glorifying the Nibelungentreue, but in order to gto that and praise the loyalty of the Nibelungen you have to cut the pre story of Siegrief and the whole betrayal. Lang's film also doesn't make any sense at all if you try to read it in any coherent ideological way. Consider e.g. that the Nibelungen epos (which is or was for Germany the national epic like Wilhelm Tell for the Swiss) is in fact a total apocalypse leading to the annihilation of all characters, so it's pretty nuts to chose that as your national epic and praise the Nibelungen loyalty if it leads only to hell and destruction.

I completely agree, and that's why I argued in the "Nibelungen"-thread that a coherent interpretation of Lang's film would be along the lines of recognizing that the second part 'ideologically' supersedes the first part, and that the apocalyptic character of that second part shows the hollowness of the ritual and the symmetry of Pt.1. Everything that is built up in "Siegfried" and which could be seen as national(istic) praise is taken back in "Kriemhilds Rache", revealing the monstrosity beneath, almost wallowing in what to me feels almost like a 'deserved' apocalypse. Again, I can only assume that Goebbels missed that point completely.

[Sloper]

Thanks for a very thoughtful post, lubitsch. As I suspect, you're better informed on this subject than I am. Anyway, here's a few thoughts.

So I have a big problem with artefacts presenting us people with an unbroken spirit and holy mind who know exactly what to do and go to the last limits to achieve it because that's essentially also true for Hitler and the 9/11 bombers.

It’s also true for a lot of very good people, surely? But I guess you’re saying that you have a problem with the idea of martyrdom as such, and I can understand that. I just don’t see these films as exhorting people to sacrifice themselves – certainly with Dreyer, you have to look at the Joan of Arc story in the context of his other work, which is all about the spirit overcoming the body. It's not really about the literal events - and indeed was, I think, quite frustrating for those expecting the 'ordinary melodrama of good vs evil' - but about the spiritual struggle underneath, which anyone can identify with. It also, as in Mizoguchi, involves women sacrificing themselves for men, but again since the focus tends to be on the self-sacrificing character this doesn’t strike me as saying that women should be ‘doormats’ – if the woman in Chrysanthemums is quiet and in the background, that doesn’t mean she’s marginalised by the film, just by the people, and the world, depicted in the film. I remember her being the most important character... But I’ll defer to you on that one, since it’s been a long time since I saw it.

There has to be at least some breaking up and questioning of this attitude by the director and screenwriter. In Mizoguchi's film there's something more going on, it's an fanatic eagerness to fullfil a code for no reason at all. If the samurai believe the shogunate to be corrupt, then they would do well to plot against it and fight to the end instead of willingly surrender to satisfy the samurai code. The adherence to and the resulting glorification of hollow codes instead a sympathy for the basic rules of humanity, that's most disturbing.

I’m not sure what you’re saying the Ronin should have done exactly – or in what way that course of action would be better – but I don’t think they believe the shogunate as such to be corrupt, just that there are one or two corrupt lords. The machinations Oishi goes through are quite complicated – I doubt it’s just the lousy subtitles on my edition that make it hard to follow – but what is clear is that there is a lot of sympathy within the shogunate for the ronin’s plight. The hot-blooded ones who just want to murder Kira are working on the assumption that true justice can’t be achieved except through violence, whereas Oishi wishes to clear his master’s (and his clan’s) name in the eyes of the rest of the world, and in order to believe that’s possible, he has to hold onto his faith that the shogunate is essentially just. But I realise this respect for authority is part of what you find disturbing in the film.

As for fulfilling a code for no reason – well the fetishising of ‘honour’ makes me uncomfortable too (and see Kobayashi’s great Harakiri for an extended critique of this honour code), but again there are different points on the spectrum. At best, the concern to preserve honour is what stops people from cheating, lying or generally trying to get what they want through unscrupulous means, and it’s at the heart of Oishi’s concern to clear his master’s name, rather than mindlessly kill the man who sullied it. But yes, when the concern to preserve honour operates in the context of blood feuds, duels, or self-immolation, then it becomes problematic.

So does your idea of fighting a corrupt system, though – what else were Hitler and the 9/11 bombers trying to do?

And I wouldn't go as far as to say that your own impatience with artworks that deviate from your rather rigid value system is exactly reminiscent of the Nazis, or Stalin, but by your own logic this feeling that such offensive films ought not to have been made (that kind of seems to be what you're saying) is the thin end of a wedge that gets very dangerous and sinister at the other end.

Surely the film isn't even remotely aggressively nationalistic and militaristic as is e.g. Kolberg or Morgenrot. But I see clearly the same mentality at work here, the same stoic acceptance of death for a cause and an unquestioning loayalta which reminds me very much of the men in the sunken submarine in Morgenrot or George in Kolberg being eager to fight on though his city is already reduced to rubble. So you don't leave the theater with the wish to exterminate your enemies, but with the clear order to follow rules and to subordinate yourself totally to your superiors. The comparison to Triupm of the Will is therefore not that wrong, after all the samurai sit in nicely geometric rows listening to Oishi and following him to the end, with only the hot-tempered ones not recognizing his greatness.

I think the film does take full account of, and have some sympathy for, the difficulty of following Oishi’s plan unquestioningly. He himself loses faith in what he's doing at times (what does the drunk scene do to your idea that the film mindlessly idolises an authority figure?). And those who trust him do so because they know him and believe him to be honourable, not because he shakes his fist and whips them up into a cheering, unthinking mob. What he asks of them is precisely to be thoughtful and intelligent, rather than just charge on their enemies. The fact that it’s the hot-tempered ones who don’t trust him surely indicates that there’s a long and large difference between this and a Nazi rally?

I just think there’s a lot more to this than stoically accepting death. Insofar as this is a story that advocates revenge, and later an honourable mass suicide, that does make me uncomfortable (Michael, I assume this is your problem with it too?), but it’s clear that those aspects of the story don’t interest Mizoguchi at all. He’s impressed by stoicism in the face of frustration, humiliation and injustice, and by patience, intelligence and prudence. I don’t see how the film exhorts us to obey authority unthinkingly, on the contrary it seems to insist on the importance of making informed, balanced judgements about what the right course of action should be. After all, it’s Oishi we identify with, not – as in the Riefenstahl film – the slavish crowd listening to him.

Edit: I see Tommaso has come in and said a lot of this better. Indeed, I think the modern-day atheistic viewpoint often misses the point of religiously charged texts, blinded by the concern to write off all religious sentiment as irrational and dangerous. You don't have to believe in God (I don't, and I'm not sure Dreyer always did) to find something moving and true in Joan of Arc's story. It is, as you say, a question of detaching oneself from 'social issues' and seeing the more fundamental drama going on inside the character's mind (if you don't want to call it a soul). That detachment, and that interiority, are central to the drama in Dreyer's (and to some extent Mizoguchi's) work.

[Tommaso]

Another great post, Sloper, and allow me to disagree when you say that I did formulate things better. I was just a little faster...

Just some additional thoughts:

The hot-blooded ones who just want to murder Kira are working on the assumption that true justice can’t be achieved except through violence, whereas Oishi wishes to clear his master’s (and his clan’s) name in the eyes of the rest of the world, and in order to believe that’s possible, he has to hold onto his faith that the shogunate is essentially just.

Yes, that's a good point, and it goes for everyone who is fighting or acting for a 'cause' (which might be political, intellectual, philosophical, or even aesthetic). The question is simply how much the cause is questioned by those who follow it. But even the questioning might form a part of the propagandistic intent of a film. I haven't seen too many of the Third Reich's more infamous propaganda films, but recently did some reading about the issue. And from that it seems to me that many of these films show the central hero struggling with his 'faith' and 'political ideals', being led astray for a moment, only to return to the 'right path' more convinced in the end. Lubitsch surely knows much more about this, but I assume something like this might be at work in "Ronin", too. Showing the hero's 'weakness' (as in the drunk scene you mention) might only work for a better identification with the hero character. It simply makes him more human, more like 'one of us'.

But yes, when the concern to preserve honour operates in the context of blood feuds, duels, or self-immolation, then it becomes problematic.

So does your idea of fighting a corrupt system, though – what else were Hitler and the 9/11 bombers trying to do?

Now this is getting somewhat tricky. I'd agree that the 9/11 bombers were trying to fight a system they thought was corrupt (though their alternative suggestions make me shudder), but I'm not so sure with Hitler. The Third Reich operated very well along the lines of the capitalist system their protagonists officially seemed to be opposed to before they came to power. Also, Hitler surely never questioned the misguided ideals he was following; if a democrat decides to fight a corrupt system there surely has been some more reflection going on before; democracy with its daily shortcomings is especially prone to being easily dismissed on an emotional level, so if you decide to preserve it, you generally have better reasons than your usual fanatic.

After all, it’s Oishi we identify with, not – as in the Riefenstahl film – the slavish crowd listening to him.

I think in "Triumph" we are asked even more to identify with Hitler than with the crowd, I'd say. A lot of the crowd scenes in "Triumph", especially those not situated on the Rally ground proper, simply lack the filmic impact the low-angle shots of Hitler and other visual trickeries have. Hitler appears as a 'messiah' – literally from the clouds above in the first sequence – and as such the audience is asked to listen to him devotedly. It's foremost the god-like character with which he is endowed (not just by the film alone, but also by the whole system of the time) which makes the crowd so slavishly hang on to his lips. Psychologically speaking, the crowd wants to become like him. Again, basically a perverted play on religious feelings by those in power.

Indeed, I think the modern-day atheistic viewpoint often misses the point of religiously charged texts, blinded by the concern to write off all religious sentiment as irrational and dangerous. You don't have to believe in God (I don't, and I'm not sure Dreyer always did) to find something moving and true in Joan of Arc's story. It is, as you say, a question of detaching oneself from 'social issues' and seeing the more fundamental drama going on inside the character's mind (if you don't want to call it a soul). That detachment, and that interiority, are central to the drama in Dreyer's (and to some extent Mizoguchi's) work.

In the light of what I just wrote one could even argue that religious sentiment IS potentially dangerous; but you might equally argue that it can be extremely helpful and positive, too. There are historical examples for both effects, and the same thing goes for almost everything in this world (the internet being my favourite example). If I believed in God, I might perhaps even find the Jeanne character far less interesting than I do, as I would probably find her way of thinking and her determination completely 'normal' and nothing I would have to think about for very long. My fascination for Dreyer or Tarkovsky comes precisely from their tackling of fundamental questions to which I, not being a believer, don't have an easy answer. And I don't think their films GIVE that answer, which is their greatest quality. I'm not sure whether "Ronin", by contrast, doesn't give an answer in the end, but I'd agree that if it does, the audience has been given a lot of time to think for themselves; still they might have been pushed a little by the film

[HerrSchreck]

[You're absolutely right, I find Dreyer's film equally problematic. The point aside that it's an ordinary melodrama of good vs. evil with the good one played by a young girl and the evil ones by old, ugly men, I find it rather dubious that I have to root for a complete fanatic believing to be chosen by god and lead their people in a pointless war. After all, in this time wars were power struggles between different aristocratic powers and the ordinary people the cattle to be slaughtered on the battle fields.
So I have a big problem with artefacts presenting us people with an unbroken spirit and holy mind who know exactly what to do and go to the last limits to achieve it because that's essentially also true for Hitler and the 9/11 bombers. There has to be at least some breaking up and questioning of this attitude by the director and screenwriter....

This is one of the strangest posts I've ever read on this board. I've never seen the crux of an aesthetic biscuit--the point of the matter-- not just missed, but so energetically and fanatically missed.

Several issues: first I have no idea what the point of the following is-- "in this time wars were power struggles between different aristocratic powers and the ordinary people the cattle to be slaughtered on the battle fields."

In "this" time? Do you mean the 1400's in Europe specifically, or what? Since when was war NOT the product of aristocrats, with the working and underclass paying the price on the battlefield in blood? Even in the case of revolution, where the "people" take up arms for a righteous cause versus a ruling (aristocratic) class, for that revolutionary side to have any velocity along the road to victory, an outside or hidden aristocracy or its modern day equivalent will likely be found somewhere at some point pouring arms and finance along a slushline to prop up a rebellion for it to have half a chance. And in half the cases where this is so, this covert actor is merely using the "rebel" force in a civil or revolutionary scenario to fight a proxy war (as in Vietnam or Korea ie US v USSR, or with various aristicratic fiefdoms in the middle east funneling money to rebel groups like Hamas or Hezbollah) rather than risk a head-on, public confrontation... so that in the end it's the same old scenarios, with two power brokers duking out while making millions, with the disenfranchised underclass footing the bill in blood and brains and heartbreak.

That said, your post seems to deprive the right of the common individual to have an actionable opinion in a conflict, and ridicules the right and the desire of the masses of the Occupied to dislodge the armed force of an invading Occupier, simply because this occupying force has made its entree' at the behest of rulers who sit upon the safely-guarded cushions of the upper class and pull the strings. What would be an acceptable narrative response, then?-- the noble Do-Nothing who says "Go ahead and take my property, disrupt my way of life, my livelihood and my land and my posessions.. it is beneath me to acknowledge your criminal and violent tresspass & occupation, because I only take up arms against divisions led by peasant generals... whereby should I fall by the sword it shall not be blood shed for and by the ruling class, but for and by my class equivalents in the proletariot."

There is a conceit in your critique and aesthetic desires for the Dreyer film which you're perhaps not aware of: you imagine that the tragedy of Joan's squandered life, the cruelty and disorder of the time, and the unusual figures-- like Joan, like the bizarre men of the interrogating clergy-- that such a time produced, and the awful waste of life, preposterous obsessions, vesting of authority in ridiculous individuals, national and political ideas, belief systems and institutions, are not perceived by others besides yourself... or are at least not perceived acutely enough whereby it is the responsibility of the director to "break up and question" the extremity of these socio-ephochal byproducts. Whereby if this "breaking-up and questioning" of Joan's medieval politico-religious mindset and obsession, etc, does not take place, folks are going to exit the theatre or snap off their DVD players looking behind picture frames and behind bathroom doors for visions of archangels & saints, and seeking out for tresspass the footprints of their next-door neighbors, so obsessed to oust an occupier will they be.

That which you think is missing is that which I and many others feel most powerfully in the film. The shock of the narrative is not, say, Awe for the size of Joan's holy glory-- it's the shock of beholding such an incredible tragedy, such a senseless, stupid, frightening play of agony and violence for no substantive reason whatsoever beyond gross arrogance and superstition. It is a story of a number of people, talking something out within the confines of a church architecture, each and every one of them caught up incredibly deeply in the spirit of their time, and hewing to its religious paradigm. Simply because they trod a different epoch, does not require that views the film to accept those paradigms, does not mean the viewer can't look beneath the superstitions and see the common human being in each of them. The extreme tragedy of the era, the senseless dance of agony and death for the most absurd of religious and political principles; the vesting of such absolute power in the hands of a cadre of complete utter morons, the threat and commonplace utilization of torture for non-adherance to the rituals and performance art corresponding to the Very Special Ghost Story Which Is Taken Very Very Seriously (where an improper recitation of your lines will see one killed), the wholeness and completeness with which even decent folk embraced this Very Special Ghost Story... believing they have seen the Special Ghost, heard voices from Helper Phantoms called "angels" and "saints" etc...

...and the recognition of the fact that our modern era contains equivelants to these byproducts of the 1400's which are not all that far off. That this penchant for human stupidity is extremely powerful and undying when the elements of church and nationhood/war come into play.

You ridicule Dreyer holding up as a positive emblem "people with an unbroken spirit and holy mind who know exactly what to do and go to the last limits to achieve it because that's essentially also true for Hitler and the 9/11 bombers."

Who, then, is safe for portrayal in the zone of The Achiever Who Is Confronted With Adversity-- people with a broken spirit and sewer of a mind who don't have a clue what to do and will halt at the first sign of failure? Or someone somewhere in the middle?

If anyone sounds kind of like a fascist or what-have-you, it's you-- you have your own Special Program for the arts.. you object to free portrayal & expression of certain subject matter without guaranteeing a certain audience response via material's manipulation and editorialization, its "breaking up and questioning"... director and screenwriter have an editorial obligation when treating history... there must be a slant added For A Healthy Citizenry, the lives of certain unusual historical figures must be handled carefully so that the audience will be prevented from admiring them.

Your "unbroken spirit / holy mind" paradigm incidentally also describes John Coltrane, Malcom X, Andrei Tarkovsky, Col. Stauffenberg, The White Rose, Philip K Dick, Carl Dreyer, Mother Theresa, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix, FDR, Abe Lincoln, Ghandi, Jean Epstein, and any other self-posessed individual who persevered in the face of adversity, threat, etc. I find it fascinating that you view exuberant self-posession the exclusive real estate of the mass murderer/religious-fanatic.