Mikio Naruse

[ltfontaine]

Yes -- the whole film is indeed edgy -- but there are other Naruse films with this quality

Naruse's consistent "edginess"--an overt stylistic diversity, not only within his own body of work, but in relation to the films of his contemporaries; and a propensity to experiment with an ever-shifting array of formal strategies and narrative configurations--is a hallmark of his practice that I find very exciting. If his lack of a consistent style has rendered Naruse's signature more inscrutible than that of Ozu or Mizoguchi, this very elusiveness, the sense of formal adventure and search for new means of expression, strongly contributes to my pleasure in exploring his work. If his films don't much resemble one another, right from the start, neither do they really look like those of anyone else.

(Although there is a startling resemblance between the opening passages of Not Blood Relations and Ozu's Dragnet Girl, from a year later--almost identical development of a complex gambit involving a pickpocket, a pursuing crowd and an intervening bystander who turns out to be something more. Drawn from a different source, the Ozu film appears to borrow directly from the Naruse picture, unless they both borrow from a common source with which I'm not familiar.)

[sidehacker]

Sudden Rain is a fascinating film, not least for what sidehacker describes as a “perfect blend of comedy and pathos,” although the comedy here is so muted and deadpan, and the sense of estrangement between the central couple so bleak, that the humor tends toward the dark side. (I do remember laughing aloud once, during a neighborhood grievance meeting that rings too true.) Michael rightly cites the performance by Hara as “edgy,” but I would extend that descriptor to the entire film. The narrative is so willfully discursive and inconclusive, the relationships between the various characters so tense and forcedly civil, and the spatial environments so oppressive, that the overriding effect is one of unease and unhappiness.

While, I'd like to agree with everything you wrote, but I don't see it as highly. To me, Sudden Rain resembles more of those screwball comedies that I don't particularly care for, but with Naruse's usual insight. I had great fun watching it but it didn't really make a big impression on me. Then again, Naruse's best have all taken a while for me to warm up to and multiple viewings always help. The lone exception for me here is Her Lonely Lane and in that case, I still needed some time to ponder.

Back to the humor. I think while that film certainly is funny, it's a bit of sugarcoating what's really happening, which is very rare coming frrom Naruse. I think and have always stated that one of Naruse's greatest cinematic strengths was humor. He and Tsai Ming-Liang are the best at bringing out humor in otherwise emotionally unsettling situations, but at the same time never shying away from what is actually happening. This isn't a comparison though, they both do this in very different ways. Tsai-haters can breathe a sigh of relief now.

Sidehacker, I’d rate both Ginza Gesho and especially Okaasan much higher than the bottom of the list among Naruse’s films.

Heh, listing those films at the bottom make me look a Tanaka-hater; I'm anything but. Ginza Gesho is great, but more of a general overview of a lot of his best films in the 50s. It's, to my knowledge at least, his first step towards his final stylistic period. At times, it even feels a bit like a parody. Okaasan is something I should probably revisit. I think I had surgery two days before my viewing, and around the same time I was falling in love with the Late Ozu boxset. My opinion of Scattered Clouds is likely to change as well since I watched it with terrible autotranslated subs.

[Michael Kerpan]

My personal theory is that Ozu and Naruse played cinematic tag back and forth through much of their career. More than any of the other Japanese directors of the era, they seemed to challenge (and inspire) each other mutually. One wonders if either would have developed as they did without the other's presence.

If Naruse doesn not have an easily definable style, I would still say that his films usually _feel_ quite distinctive. While there is a little overlap with Ozu and Shimizu from time to time -- one would rarely think a Naruse film was the work of either of the other two directors (or of Shimazu or Gosho etc).

[ltfontaine]

To me, Sudden Rain resembles more of those screwball comedies that I don't particularly care for, but with Naruse's usual insight. I had great fun watching it but it didn't really make a big impression on me. Then again, Naruse's best have all taken a while for me to warm up to and multiple viewings always help. The lone exception for me here is Her Lonely Lane and in that case, I still needed some time to ponder.

Sudden Rain doesn’t strike me as having much resemblance to a screwball comedy, except maybe The Great Moment, the least “screwball” of Preston Sturges’s films and another movie that blends undercurrents of humor and pathos to unsettling effect.

I agree that Naruse films especially benefit from repeated viewings, as it sometimes takes a run or two just to become oriented to the general drift of the mise-en-scene. (This is especially true if watching unsubbed, as so much of Naruse’s dialogue-heavy films rely on subtle verbal and gestural cues.)

Sidehacker, I certainly share your enthusiasm for Her Lonely Lane, especially on account of Takamine Hideko’s extraordinary, moving portrayal of Hayashi Fumiko. Her performance in the film is so distinct from her more characteristic screen persona that, initially at least, one forgets that is Takamine. A very beautiful film.

Back to the humor. I think while that film certainly is funny, it's a bit of sugarcoating what's really happening, which is very rare coming frrom Naruse. I think and have always stated that one of Naruse's greatest cinematic strengths was humor.

I think that, with Naruse, it’s less a matter of sugarcoating than attempting to summon the complex humanity of his characters. Given his dark view of human experience and the uncompromising depiction of it in his films, especially the later ones, the humor is more rueful than artificially buoyant (though no less funny for that).

My personal theory is that Ozu and Naruse played cinematic tag back and forth through much of their career. More than any of the other Japanese directors of the era, they seemed to challenge (and inspire) each other mutually. One wonders if either would have developed as they did without the other's presence.

An intriguing idea that makes one wish there were more biographical information available about both of these directors and the nature of their personal and artistic relationship. We know that Ozu encouraged Naruse and publicly spoke in support of his work, but is there more, in Ozu’s diaries, perhaps? Michael, I’d love to hear more about instances of this “cinematic tag” in the work of these two artists.

If Naruse doesn not have an easily definable style, I would still say that his films usually _feel_ quite distinctive. While there is a little overlap with Ozu and Shimizu from time to time -- one would rarely think a Naruse film was the work of either of the other two directors (or of Shimazu or Gosho etc).

Funny you should mention Gosho, whose film, Where Chimneys Are Seen, I was thinking, does feature some of the same carefully modulated balance of downbeat humor and pathos. (And what a cast! Tanaka Kinuyo, Takamine Hideko, Uehara Ken and the lesser known Akutagawa Hiroshi, who is equally first rate in this role.)

[Michael Kerpan]

We know that Ozu encouraged Naruse and publicly spoke in support of his work, but is there more, in Ozu’s diaries, perhaps? Michael, I’d love to hear more about instances of this “cinematic tag” in the work of these two artists.

Ozu's diaries indicate that he was utterly flummoxed by Floating Clouds. In addition, this is one of the few contemporary Japanese films that got repeated references in his diaries. Ozu was apparently relieved when Naruse followed this film up with the more "normal" Sudden Rain. Narboni (in his book on Naruse) feels that the dark tone of Early Spring and Tokyo Twilight might have been partly inspired by FC.

Green Tea and Early Spring both seem like (very different) rejoinders to Repast. End of Summer is sort of an Ozu version of Naruse films like Summer Clouds.

Traveling Actors looks very much like a (delightful and inspired) riff on a motif from Story of Floating Weeds. (The kabuki horse in Ozu's film becomes the "star", so to speak in Naruse's).

Tokyo Story's theme of affection between a daughter-in-law and her (somewhat negligent) parents-in-law was followed by the far bleaker Sound of the Mountain (which featured the same unusual relationship focus). Ozu made a film centered on kids in 1959 (Good Morning) and the next year Naruse came up with one of his rare kid-centered films (Approach of Autumn). Lots more instances -- but this is all I can recall off the top of my head.

Granted some of the correspondences might be sheer coincidence -- but there seems to be an ongoing pattern here.

Funny you should mention Gosho, whose film, Where Chimneys Are Seen, I was thinking, does feature some of the same carefully modulated balance of downbeat humor and pathos. (And what a cast! Tanaka Kinuyo, Takamine Hideko, Uehara Ken and the lesser known Akutagawa Hiroshi, who is equally first rate in this role.)

A wonderful Gosho film (one of his best) -- but it involves a lot more sentimentality and melodrama than one would have found in a Naruse (or Ozu) film involving a similar scenario.

[ltfontaine]

Provocative connections, Michael, especially those between Repast, Green Tea and Early Spring; and Tokyo Story and Sound of the Mountain, given the proximity in time between the connected films. It's telling that the Naruse films, perhaps excepting the grim Tokyo Twilight, are the more pessimistic variations on their respective themes.

And how intriguing that Ozu could have been sufficiently impressed by Floating Clouds (though who can blame him) to care about the trajectory between Floating Clouds and Sudden Rain, and to color his own subsequent films in response. Got to buckle down to that Narboni book, French-English dictionary in hand.

Sometimes such resonances can be compelling even when not demonstrably linked via influence. The relationship between the father and daughter in Mizoguchi's Poppy is strongly suggestive of those to follow in Ozu's later filims.

[Michael Kerpan]

Got to buckle down to that Narboni book, French-English dictionary in hand.

I would say this is as essential for Naruse fans as Hasumi's Ozu book (also available in French from CdC) is for Ozu ones. ;~}

Sometimes such resonances can be compelling even when not demonstrably linked via influence. The relationship between the father and daughter in Mizoguchi's Poppy is strongly suggestive of those to follow in Ozu's later films.

Don't forget Griffith's Sally of the Sawdust (aka Poppy) -- which (10 years earlier) involved a "father" having to push away a reluctant daughter -- so that she could be free to marry.

[sidehacker]

Sudden Rain doesn’t strike me as having much resemblance to a screwball comedy, except maybe The Great Moment, the least “screwball” of Preston Sturges’s films and another movie that blends undercurrents of humor and pathos to unsettling effect.

Well, I'm no expert on screwball comedy. In fact, I'd say I try to avoid them to a degree. Anyway, I guess the relentless back-and-forth wittiness didn't seem a far cry from those type of films, of course Naruse has something much more substantial to say, even in Sudden Rain.

Her performance in the film is so distinct from her more characteristic screen persona that, initially at least, one forgets that is Takamine. A very beautiful film.

My guess is that she was heavily influenced by working with Kinuyo Tanaka. If the film has one flaw, it's Naruse's attempt at making Takamine look "ugly."

I think that, with Naruse, it’s less a matter of sugarcoating than attempting to summon the complex humanity of his characters. Given his dark view of human experience and the uncompromising depiction of it in his films, especially the later ones, the humor is more rueful than artificially buoyant (though no less funny for that).

I agree 100% and that's why I think he's so great! It's just that I felt like he was coming a bit close to dodging what was really happening in Sudden Rain. Again, just a first impression. ;)

Haven't seen a Gosho yet. I know you two are rubbing it in my face. :D

[whaleallright]

Michael, can you give us a sense of what's in the Narboni book? Is it mostly interpretations of the films, or is there a lot of history that might be new to a Naruse fan?

Narboni, as editor of post-'68 Cahiers, was responsible for some of the more dubious Athusserian/Lacanian/structuralist-inflected pronouncements in its pages. But just looking at the book titles his name has been attached to in subsequent decades (Lubitsch, Renoir, Bergman, Naruse, etc.), I wonder if he went back to a more "classical" auteurist approach.

[Michael Kerpan]

Michael, can you give us a sense of what's in the Narboni book? Is it mostly interpretations of the films, or is there a lot of history that might be new to a Naruse fan?

He tries to get at how Naruse actually works (as opposed to the mostly unhelpful "conventional wisdom") -- and tries to identify elements that makes Naruse's films distinctive.

The last half of the book is more catalog-like, providing production data and plot summaries (lenghty ones for a couple dozen films). The brief plot summaries help a bit when dealing with the rarest of Naruse's films -- but some of these are inaccurate (though not so outlandishly as those found in Audie Bock's book on Japanese directors).

Narboni, as editor of post-'68 Cahiers, was responsible for some of the more dubious Athusserian/Lacanian/structuralist-inflected pronouncements in its pages. But just looking at the book titles his name has been attached to in subsequent decades (Lubitsch, Renoir, Bergman, Naruse, etc.), I wonder if he went back to a more "classical" auteurist approach.

His Naruse book seems mainly like good old-fashioned auteurist investigation to me.

[ltfontaine]

My guess is that she was heavily influenced by working with Kinuyo Tanaka. If the film has one flaw, it's Naruse's attempt at making Takamine look "ugly."

The two actresses worked together about ten times over the course of thirty years, beginning in 1931, the last time being in Her Lonely Lane/Wanderer's Notebook. By the ends of their respective careers, Takamine had made a few more films than Tanaka. Again, it would be great to have more biographical information about the relationship between these actresses and about the extent of their respective influence on each other.

Takamine's orchestration of her shifting personality and physical appearance in Lonely Lane is, for me, one of the most mysterious and compelling elements in the film. Her demeanor is so fluid, subtly fluctuating between homely and comely, misshapen and poised, downcast and playful, fragile and resilient. This is all rendered with such wit, grace and humility, not at all the stuff of a star-turn, the performance is something of a wonder.

Haven't seen a Gosho yet. I know you two are rubbing it in my face.

Nah, when it comes to classic Japanese film on home video, we're all just out here wandering in the wilderness.

[Michael Kerpan]

Tanaka and Takamine played big sister and little sister in earlier films; Wanderer's Notebook may be the only time where they played a mother and daughter pair.

I suspect the two actresses actually worked together more than 10 times, however -- because IMDB is so incomplete when it comes to Japanese cinema. Unfortunately JMDB does not allow one to do dual searches.

As to Gosho, I've seen at least a dozen of his films -- none (as I recall) with subtitles.

[the dancing kid]

What is the “conventional wisdom” surrounding Naruse’s films that is often referred to on this forum? As far as I know there isn’t much of a critical consensus on his work, and most of the individual scholars/critics or factions that are writing on his films generally address a separate body of work, depending on what their angle is.

In any case, I find it hard to believe that an auteurist study is the antidote to conventional wisdom surrounding a Japanese director. Isn’t auteurism the “conventional wisdom” that has shaped the popular perception of Japanese cinema for so long?

[Michael Kerpan]

The conventional wisdom as to Naruse -- he was dour and gloomy -- and so was his work. He had no real "style". He had a slump from 1936 to 1950, during which he created virtually nothing of importance. His work after "Woman Ascending" was mostly dispensable.

Most of the (cursory) things in English that you could find about Naruse -- until just recently -- recycled the same sort of stuff. Even Audie Bock, who was a proponent, bought into some of these assertions. Philip Lopate was one of the few people who wrote anything that was more nuanced. (Anderson and Richie liked some of Naruse's films -- but were a major source of misinformation as well).

I'm pro-auteurist -- and I have no interest in being drawn into a debate on the merits of the approach -- especially not here in this thread.

[sidehacker]

Hideko the Bus Conductor -- a seemingly lighthearted comedy that has a jaw dropping conclusion

Really? I must have missed it. A nice movie, but I don't see what is jaw-dropping about the ending. Mind explaining it a little?

[Michael Kerpan]

I'll send you a PM -- as this is a massive spoiler. (No spoiler tags for this board, I believe).

All I will say here is, that at the end, Naruse pulls the rug from under both his two lead characters and his audience.

[sidehacker]

As I suspected, wasn't missing anything. Thanks, anyway. I really hope that, one day, I'll be able to watch this wonderful film in a print where one can at least see the actor's faces.

[Michael Kerpan]

I guess you have a very different notion of jaw-dropping from mine. Shifting (radically) the entire mood and feel of a film in the last minute or two is sufficient for me.

[sidehacker]

I think the ending is the wonderful example of "that" Naruse type of humor, if you catch my drift. I'd consider an ending like that of Fat Girl to be jaw-dropping, or perhaps simply eyebrow-raising and kind of expecting something similar based on your description. Part of me was worried that the bus would abruptly blow up!

[Michael Kerpan]

Since films like Fat Girl are (totally) outside my range, my notion of jaw-dropping is undoubtedly tamer than yours.

When one considers the historical context of Naruse's film, the end has to be considered pretty unsettling.

[sidehacker]

Well, I certainly wouldn't disagree with that.

[ltfontaine]

The whole thing is less sunny than it initially appears, and the tone of the film shifts perceptibly with the appearance of the writer, whom we may regard as bearing some resemblance to Naruse himself. Even so, I think the conclusion is more disquieting than one had reason to expect.

Has the source novel, by Ibuse Masuji, ever been published in an English translation?

[Michael Kerpan]

You do get hints of the bus company boss's perfidy throughout the film, but....

Do you know the name of the original novel/story?

Offhand, I can't find any trace of an English translation.

[sidehacker]

Yeah, I was hinting at the "sunny surface and not-so-sunny reality" idea when I compared it to Arigato-san in my blog. (shamless whoring here, folks) I wonder if the bus genre ever took off in Japan...Michael, I'm looking at you here.

Perhaps the blow was softened (for me) by the boss' exchange with the young man before his final decision.

"Girl, get me a drink."
"Sir, she was fired."

Not funny? Oh well, Naruse always gets me with lines like these.

[Michael Kerpan]

There is an element of humor at the end, but it is sort of "gallows humor".

Not aware of any other Japanese "bus films" until the other Hiroshi Shimizu's Ikinai. It is very possible that Shimizu the younger (no relation, apparently) was aware of both Shimizu the elder's film and Naruse's one (or the source story). There are some points of similarity. Sadly, Ikinai never seems to have gotten a subbed release.