52-59 / BD 36-37, 71-72 Late Mizoguchi: Eight Films, 1951-56

[Tomas]

Mizoguchi came late to historical films -- only starting to do these during WW2. (He did make some Meiji era films prior to this, but that was a very different genre from typical historical films) -- more like contemporary home dramas, but a bit more more melodramatic. Of his surviving films....

1920s -- Meiji or contemporary - 2; historical - 0
1930s -- Meiji or contemporary - 8; historical - 0
1940s -- Meiji or contemporary - 4; historical - 4
1950s -- Meiji or contemporary - 6; historical - 6

Great info, thank you Michael. Its changes my perspective on Mizoguchi.
I would like to ask, if you or someone else knows with which film Mizoguchi started using sound? I checked imdb and went through the list of movies. If I'm not wrong it should be Aizo toge (1934) AKA The Mountain Pass of Love and Hate. So it seems that he was faster than Ozu- 1936 (I know Ozu was among the last film directors to adopt sound and color in his films). I don't know if there is any record about the movie- maybe its lost- but if there is, how was his first sound film received?

[Michael Kerpan]

I believe Mizoguchi's first attempt at a sound film was "Downfall of Osen" in 1935. It didn't work out -- so this turned into a film with pre-recorded score and benshi narration as a soundtrack. His next film "Maria no oyuki" was a talkie. As to "Aizo toge", this is "lost" -- so I don't really know much about it. I would guess that it might have been a standard transitional film -- with recorded score and sound effects but no dialog.

Ozu started making his first sound film in 1935 -- the documentary Kagamijishi. His first talkie drama was "Only Son" in 1936. He really did not trail very far behind some of his contemporaries at Shochiku. Hiroshi Shimizu also seems to have begun making talkies in 1936, though Gosho and Shimazu started a bit earlier. While Gosho did make the first Japanese feature length talkie in 1931, he continued to also make silent films until 1933 or so (even for prestigious films such as "Dancing Girl of Izu"),

[ptmd]

Actually, Mizoguchi directed Japan's first (mostly) sound film, "Furusato" (Hometown) in 1930, but he considered it only a partial success and then went back to directing silent films until 1935. Admittedly, Fursato is an unusually static Mizoguchi film and I can certainly understand his concerns about the new technology. If anyone is interesting in seeing this, the National Film Center in Tokyo has a print of this and they normally show an early scene on a continuous loop in the "film history museum" on the 2nd floor.

[Michael Kerpan]

In reading about the 1930 Furusato, my sense was that this had a lot more in the way of music than it did dialog -- and that it still used intertitles. It sounds (from the description) more like a transitional film such as Shimizu's "The Boss's son Goes to College" than to a full-fledged talkie.

Have you actually seen/heard the whole thing?

[ptmd]

Yes, I was fortunate enough to see the whole thing. There are intertitles, but the majority of the film is done in long takes with spoken dialogue recorded using a procedure called "MinaTalkie." Perhaps uniquely among Mizoguchi's works, it also includes musical numbers! It's not a great film, but it is an interesting one and I would love to see it again (as I understand it, there is only one extant print and it almost never circulates, although I vaguely remember hearing that James Quandt had a subtitled print struck for the Cinematheque Ontario retrospective a few years back).

[Michael Kerpan]

Do you know -- Was MinaTalkie a system that used recording on film -- or on phonograph records? (I presume the current print has the sound on the film, regardless).

[ptmd]

That I'm not sure about. The print I saw did indeed have sound on the film, but I'm not sure if that is also true of the original release. Nevertheless, the introduction I heard before the film (which I could only partially understand) suggested that it was a system that recorded sound directly on film. I'm also fairly certain that the process was rarely, if ever, used again after Mizoguchi's film.

[ltfontaine]

as I understand it, there is only one extant print and it almost never circulates, although I vaguely remember hearing that James Quandt had a subtitled print struck for the Cinematheque Ontario retrospective a few years back).

From Quandt's program notes:

We are extremely grateful to the National Film Centre, Tokyo, and The Japan Foundation for collaborating on making, from the only surviving print of this important work, an English subtitled copy of Mizoguchi's first sound film. . . Hometown is important for many things, especially for revealing the beginnings of the mature Mizoguchi style with its emphasis on long takes. A must for all Mizogucheans, film historians, and lovers of Japanese cinema.

[Kenji]

What an excellent informative thread! The Kinoshita article is very useful. The box set is surely essential to any collection. The crown jewel, i.m.o, is Sansho. There's certainly room for another equally good Mizoguchi set, which could include The Water Magician, Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion, Straits of Love and Hate, Story of the Late Chrysanthemums, The Loyal 47 Ronin, Five Women round Utamaro, My Love has been Burning, Lady of Musashino, The Life of Oharu and Tales of the Taira Clan. Of course each film deserves its own individual DVD release.

Mizoguchi may have been selfish and domineering, but there's very little to object to in his films, full of humanity and consistently seeking to combat injustice. Modern criticisms for conservatism, aestheticism, accepting pessimism, hysterical melodrama and lack of genuine female empowerment are much too harsh. Mizoguchi female characters certainly do not all conform to a (meek) self-sacrificing ideal; they can be proud, defiant, resourceful and challenging, and the historical settings do not necessarily limit the impact or relevance of their suffering from oppressive patriarchal and social practices.

Mizoguchi is not easily pigeon-holed. He was an experimenter as well as classicist. His films do not aestheticise suffering but rather portray suffering and beauty as two major and powerful facets of life. At his best, the films are emotionally powerful, radiant and almost transcendental. The scene with Anju in the water in Sansho (a likely influence on one brief moment in Malick's The New World, and i'm delighted it's been displayed here) is perhaps the most sublime in not only Mizoguchi's career but the whole world cinema canon, even surpassing the film's wonderful ending.

I'm disappointed by some responses to Taira Clan (i love it!), whereas Chikamatsu Monogatari, which i saw again yesterday, still seems to me to fall short of Mizo's best.

[Michael Kerpan]

On reason I really like Utamaro is that Mizoguchi seems to dissect his own behavior -- using Utamaro as a stand-in.

I cannot begin to understand a preference for the mediocre "Taira Clan" over the absolutely extraordinary "Crucified Lovers". ;~{

(I might reconsider TC if I ever see a version with more convincing color than the drab and lifeless-looking French DVD -- but I really don't think my displeasure with the film is primarily color-related -- the flat and thin performances of most of the men in the cast is far more significant).

[Kenji]

Well, my Taira Clan is the BFI video, and technically the colour's certainly not perfectly refined or natural, but i'm still with Rosenbaum- i find the rich colours- ruby, amber, plum etc- ravishing, and strikingly different from the usual Hollywood. The film has more life and, for me, more interesting issues than say Yang Kwei fei, which is a precious miniature, a sort of chamber work, probably too precious and slow for its own good. Bertolucci enlarged on some of YKF themes in The Last Emperor, without avoiding some similar faults. Generally, i tend to prefer Mizo's exteriors, his love of nature's beauty- more to the fore in Sansho than Chikamatsu, though of course that does have some strikingly beautiful outdoor sequences and scenery, and that marvellous crane shot over the hill when Kiyoko Kagawa follows Hasegawa over the rim and down. Somehow i feel less fully engaged now, on repeat viewings, with the tragic couple.

[peerpee]

In consultation with a number of Mizoguchi scholars, we have decided to use the following naming strategy (original Japanese title, followed by the English translation and any other well-known English names):

[01] OYU-SAMA [Miss Oyu] (1951)
[02] UGETSU MONOGATARI [Tales of the Rain and Moon] (1953)
[03] GION BAYASHI [Gion Festival Music, aka A Geisha] (1953)
[04] SANSHO DAYU [Sansho the Bailiff] (1954)
[05] UWASA NO ONNA [The Woman in the Rumour] (1954)
[06] CHIKAMATSU MONOGATARI [A Tale from Chikamatsu, aka The Crucified Lovers] (1954)
[07] YOKIHI [Imperial Concubine Yang, aka Yang Kwei Fei] (1955)
[08] AKASEN CHITAI [Red Light District, aka Street of Shame] (1956)

[Michael Kerpan]

Peerpee -- There surely must be some idiomatic way to render "uwasa no" -- literally "of the rumor". It certainly is used for a number of films -- including one by Naruse. My sense is that it means someone who is being "gossiped about" (and I believe "uwasa" can denote "gossip"). I have the feeling that unless this film can get an intelligible-sounding title, it will never get the recognition it deserves (not as good as "Gion Festival Music" or "Red Light District", perhaps -- but far from negligible).

[peerpee]

Michael - UWASA NO ONNA: "Uwasa" means 'rumour', "no" is the possessive particle, and "Onna" means 'woman' of course. So the most literal of all translations would be "Rumour's Woman". We have also seen A WOMAN OF RUMOUR many times, and wondered what it is supposed to mean: It isn't really English, and maybe that's what some people like about it: the hint of foreignness. THE WOMAN IN THE RUMOUR is our attempt to tease out the intended meaning in actual English.

[Michael Kerpan]

Michael - UWASA NO ONNA: "Uwasa" means 'rumour', "no" is the possessive particle, and "Onna" means 'woman' of course. So the most literal of all translations would be "Rumour's Woman". We have also seen A WOMAN OF RUMOUR many times, and wondered what it is supposed to mean: It isn't really English, and maybe that's what some people like about it: the hint of foreignness. THE WOMAN IN THE RUMOUR is our attempt to tease out the intended meaning in actual English.

I know this is one literal reading -- but I strongly suspect "gossip" is better than "rumor" in this context. And, it seems that "uwasa no" is used in more or less this way in one of Yamada's Tora-san films -- where it it is translated as "talk of the town".

For what its worth, I will try asking the assembled scholars on the KineJapan mailing list whether they know of any more colloquial (and hopefully less stilted) connotations for "uwasa no". I should have done this long ago. ;~{

[evillights]

I know this is one literal reading -- but I strongly suspect "gossip" is better than "rumor" in this context. And, it seems that "uwasa no" is used in more or less this way in one of Yamada's Tora-san films -- where it it is translated as "talk of the town".

For what its worth, I will try asking the assembled scholars on the KineJapan mailing list whether they know of any more colloquial (and hopefully less stilted) connotations for "uwasa no". I should have done this long ago. ;~{

I think you're getting closer to the mark, with the flavor inherent to "talk of the town". "Uwasa no" as a phrase suggests something more colloquial, as you indicate, à la "much-discussed" or "the [much] talked-about."

[ltfontaine]

The Woman in the Rumour does simultaneously insinuate the matrix of secrets in the film—the revelation that leads to Yukiko's suicide attempt, Hatsuko's surreptitious affair with Matoba, the evolving relationship between Yukiko and Matoba, etc.—and suggest Hatsuko's tragic inability to escape the consequences of her disreputable social position. She is, in this sense, perpetually trapped in her role as “the woman in the rumour,â€

[Michael Kerpan]

[Anything is better than the film's alternate existing title, The Crucified Woman.

I wonder who the hell dreamed that monstrosity of a misnomer up?

Rumor really is the wrong word here -- all the same.

[Awesome Welles]

To me A Woman in the Rumour doesn't really, grammatically make sense to me, A Woman of Rumour seems to make better sense to my mind. Meaning she is the subject of gossip. However I haven't seen the film so I reserve my judgment until that time.

In time for Christmas I hope?

[ltfontaine]

I wonder who the hell dreamed that monstrosity of a misnomer up?

Who comes up with any of these disfigurations?

I'm glad to see MoC reinstate A Tale from Chikamatsu, rather than perpetuate use of The Crucified Lovers, although the latter is not inaccurate or overtly objectionable. Mizoguchi took the intricacies of literary adaptation very seriously, even consulting with writers of the original work when they were available. When he explicitly invoked the name of an author in the title of his film, he did so for a reason. The contemporary Japanese audience encountered a film called Chikamatsu monogatari or Saikaku ichidai onna (Life of Oharu, but literally, Life of a Woman by Saikaku) with certain expectations in place--expectations that, in the case of the latter film, for example, Mizoguchi would completely confound, with subversive and devastating effect.

[Michael Kerpan]

Sources for Mizoguchi's "Chikamatsu monogatari":

Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Daikyoji mukashi goyomi (1715) (called "The Calendar Maker"), and Ihara Saikaku's "Osan Mouemon," the third episode of Koshoku gonin onna (1686).

(Just in case anyone was curious)

[manicsounds]

Oh let's stop making the title even more confusing. There already are a few different English titles for this film, and something just a bit more literal or poetic won't change it all that much at this point.

There are so many films that have weird titles all over the world, when translated, and makes it more confusing by rereretranslating the titles (Duck You Sucker/A Fistful Of Dynamite or Deadly Is The Female/Gun Crazy, and those are just within the same language!)

I say let it be with "The Woman In The Rumor"

"Uwasa o shinjicha ikenai yo....." can't remember who sang that.....

[feckless boy]

Uwasa o shinjicha ikenai yo.....

Wasn't it Linda Yamamoto who urged us not believe the rumour?

[ltfontaine]

Sources for Mizoguchi's "Chikamatsu monogatari":

Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Daikyoji mukashi goyomi (1715) (called "The Calendar Maker").

... and Ihara Saikaku's "Osan Mouemon," the third episode of Koshoku gonin onna (1686).

I was initially excited to read that Mizoguchi had drawn on Saikaku's Koshoku gonin onna, as well as Chikamatsu's Daikyoji sekireki, in creating Chikamatsu monogatari, which I've always seen attributed exclusively to the play by Chikamatsu. Given the director's customary close attention to his source texts, it could be intriguing to know more about how he had combined elements from the play by Chikamatsu and the story by Saikaku.

But I can find this attribution to Saikaku proposed nowhere but in the online précis of somebody's grad thesis. Michael, can you provide more information?

[Michael Kerpan]

I was initially excited to read that Mizoguchi had drawn on Saikaku's Koshoku gonin onna, as well as Chikamatsu's Daikyoji sekireki, in creating Chikamatsu monogatari, which I've always seen attributed exclusively to the play by Chikamatsu. Given the director's customary close attention to his source texts, it could be intriguing to know more about how he had combined elements from the play by Chikamatsu and the story by Saikaku.

But I can find this attribution to Saikaku proposed nowhere but in the online précis of somebody's grad thesis. Michael, can you provide more information?

I got this from the same source you mention. I need to see if I can access the whole document for free -- through my local library. I have read extracts from some Ph.D dissertations online this way -- much nicer than dealing with microfilm copies.

I must say that there are aspects of Mizoguchi's film that _feel_ Saikaku-ish.

I haven't been able to find a translation of the Chikamatsu play -- which would answer at least some questions...