the dwelling is essentially "immobile" ...

rather than ON ARCHITECTURE

"mobile" ... sensitive residential space in its most appro-
priate substantiation is arresting rather than driving; it is
static.' Apropos of the Japanese house, Engel maintains,
contrary to the usual view that its architecture is one of free
spatial flow, that 'the two different orders of space define-
ment and space control- the vertical planes for marking the
individual rooms, the horizontal planes for marking the
house interior- are the keys for understanding Japanese
space. In spite of all openness, the quality of space, though
easily transformable, remains static and crystallinely
defined. There is no interchange of space between exterior
and interior, nor does space flow from room to room; there
is no "continuity of space" ad infinitum in one direction.
Instead there is either a succession of space, or a fusion of
space with two or more units being joined into one space.' 3
Let us now suppose that we have set up a camera in a
traditional Japanese house, at a medium height and equip-
ped with a moderately wide-angle lens. We will discover
that we can close off our field of view to the dimensions of a
medium close-up or open it for a long shot by the simple
expedient of manoeuvring the sliding doors between our
camera and the far end of the house. We may also divide
the pro-filmic field into several rectangular or rhomboidal
cells, of different sizes and at different distances from the
camera. We may open 'windows' into the garden in almost
any part of the field. Characters, when we introduce them
into our set, can be brought into the shot from any side and
at almost any distance from the camera. In theory, at least,
we are dealing with a fully developed deep space, far more
exploitable as such than any but the most cunningly con-
trived Western set. It is this aspect of the space before us
which corresponds to the common opinion that Japanese
space is one of 'free flow'. However, if we look into our
view-finder, we will find that Engel's thesis is also very
relevant. In the composition as it appears, now on the
ground-glass, later on the screen, the overwhelmingly
dominant features are rectangles (or rhomboids, if we are
not at Ozu-like right angles to the set) of all sizes and in all
sorts of patterns, formed by intersecting horizontal and
vertical lines: the frames and ribbing of the shoji, the posts
and lintels, balustrades, lattice-work, etc. Even the fore-
shortened trapezoids of the tatami borders (except in tem-
ples, the mats are staggered in patterns that avoid long
straight lines) are part of the system. Any Japanese film set 3· Engel, Heinrich, The Japanese
House: a Tradition for Modem
in a traditional interior offers Mondrian-like patterns, Architecture pp. 24&-8. I am indebted to
many large or small sections of which may at any time slide one of my students at New York
University, Barry H. Novick, for having
back to reveal a new,framed element: a person, a fragment called my attention to the importance of
of a garden, a paintedjUsuma, etc. And although a shadow this study.

199
IRON TREES, projected on a shoji may occasionally designate the seg-
GOLDEN FLOWERS ment which is about to open, no purely architectural trait
marks it out as 'door' or 'window'.
Most often, especially in jidai-geki (where 'period eti-
quette' calls for kneeling and other ritual gestures for open-
ing and closing, exits and entrances), these new vistas are
produced not as adjuncts to an infinitely extensible deep
space, but as cellular sub-divisions of the screen-surface.
For, despite its plasticity, the dominant aspect of Japanese
architecture is, as Engel puts it, the 'static and crystalline'
definition of space. In the projected image of it, depth cues,
such as axial character movement and receding, converging
lines are, in the most common instances, over-ridden by the
effect of surface, due primarily to the predominance of the
quadrilateral. Thus, the filmic image becomes, predomin-
antly, the planar projection of the three-dimensional cells,
static in each of their successive arrangements, which con-
stitute the pro-filmic dwelling-space. Predominantly, but
seldom exclusively: movement of characters and camera,
as we shall see in the films of Ishida and Mizoguchi, intro-
duce an effect of spatial flow, in contradiction, we might
say, to the primary character of Japanese dwelling-space,
and which is an important source of formal and dramatic
tension in the work of these and other masters.
The fact that a closed 'door' or 'window' is not desig-
nated as such until the moment of functioning - nor an
opening as a potential 'wall' - also gives the traditional
interior a kinetic potential which directors are often at
great pains to exploit. One of the most radical instances of
this kind of work is found, curiously enough, in Kurosawa's
Lower Depths ,4 shot in a quite untypical interior (the col-
lective space of a theatricalized flophouse), exploited
nonetheless according to the mode of traditional domestic
architecture.
The general predilection of Japanese film-makers for the
long shot cannot be explained merely by the particularities
of their native architecture. Yet architecture has undeni-
ably played a role, together with attitudes towards narra-
tive representation at variance with Western ones, as
analysed earlier. Ozu, considered the most 'montage-
conscious' of all the classical masters, rarely used true
close-ups, and was always careful not to lose the geometri-
cal, planar character of the traditional interior, even in his
closest shots.
On the other hand, we cannot ignore the importance of
other kinds of architectural setting, and especially the
closed, corridor-like verandas in which head-on shots pro-
duce a predominance of converging diagonals and a famil-
4. See Chapter 24. iar effect of perspective. The film-makers most sensitive to

200
this issue - among the classics, Ozu; among the contem- ON ARCHITECTURE
poraries, Yoshida Y oshishige- use such shots as dialectical
'break-throughs', as suspensions in that projection of cellu-
lar space as tessellated surface that is otherwise so typical of
interior shots.
One final observation on the 'standardization' of Japan-
ese architecture is in order. 5 In Western cinema the set-
designer has primarily been given the task of setting the
scene, of 'expressing' not only the social status but even
the inner psychology of the characters, and 'reflecting' the
mood of the narrative. Only rarely or incidentally does he
produce a framework designed to suit a specific mode of
image composition. This, however, is the main function of
the Japanese set. Variations on an expressive register are
severely limited by standardization, so that the designer's
effort is chiefly devoted to the linear and planar composi-
tion. He can deal more freely with the abstract elements of
architecture than his Western counterpart, and because of
the very nature of architectural abstraction, he will think in
framed terms. Modern film-makers, especially Kurosawa,
have sought to introduce expressive possibilities into
Japanese set-design, often by adopting Western-style
interiors (as in The Idiot). The standard Japanese films-
and many which are not standard at all - continue, how-
ever, to use the traditional interior as an all-purpose form,
as a basis for surface design. The Japanese interior has,
without doubt, inflected the nation's cinema as a whole, in
an entirely unique manner, confirming it as a cinema of
5. For this insight I am also indebted to
surface. Barry H. Novick.

201
 19.1shidaTamizo

I know almost nothing of Ishida Tamizo except that he

began his career in 1926, made eighty-three films and
retired from the Toho Company in 1947. I know, too, that
he was Ichikawa Kon's 'teacher' and had close relations
with a Western-style theatre company called Bungaku-za
('Literature troupe'), politically less radical than other
similar troupes (it seems to have functioned right up to the
Second World War) and specializing in the art-theatre of
Europe (Tchekhov, Strindberg, etc.). Ishida may even have
staged productions for the Bunfiaku-za. Both films dis-
cussed here were originally plays, performed by that troupe
and written for it by Morimoto Kaoru. They also have in
common the fact that they are set against major, inter-
related political upheavals of the nineteenth century: the
Meiji restoration war of the r86os and the Satsuma rebel-
lion a decade later.
Fallen Blossoms (Hana chirinu, 1938) is set in a geisha
house in the Gion quarter of Kyoto, and the action takes
place (as an opening title specifies) between the evening of
17 July 1866 and midnight of the following day. During
those two days, soldiers of the Choshii clan, who formed
the military spearhead of the Restoration movement,
turned back the bakufu troops sent to punish the rebel
clans, and entered Kyoto. This was to be a turning-point in
that sporadic civil war. Ishida's film is one of the most
remarkable community portraits ever filmed. 1 It has half a
dozen major characters plus a kind of chorus, consisting of
all the other inmates of the house, and any resume of the
1. And, of course, the form has narrative is bound to be misleadingly reductive. Characters
mushroomed in every Hollywood are not, strictly speaking, of equal importance. However,
genre, from Grand Hotel and
Stagecoach to the catastrophe films of so exceptional is the formal/dramatic integration of the
the 1970s. whole, that the 'main character' really is the social group,
2.Normally Akira is a man's name. Like rather than any individual. The prominence of the two
those of the other characters, it is a characters who are most often on the screen is due as much
sobriquet. These were customary in
geisha houses, but at the same time to their rank in the hierarchy of the house as to the need to
Akira displays independence and
indeed aggressiveness which in Japan
centre the diegesis around an individual. These two charac-
are still exceptional for a woman. ters are the house madame (okahan) and Akira, 2 the new

202
'star' of the house (and one strand of narrative is the ISHIDA TAMrzo
deepening embitterment of Harue, the former 'star', who
has turned to drink). Akira has fantasized a great love for a
young samurai of the Choshii clan. On the basis of a brief
and not very recent affair, she is convinced, despite general
scepticism, that one day he will pay her debt and perhaps
marry her. This obsessive fantasy rises to fever pitch as
news reaches Gion that the Choshii men are entering the
city. As the fighting develops, it becomes clear that the
women will have to leave; already, the other houses in
the district are being abandoned. Most of the film takes
place after the decision has been made but before it is
carried out. This sense of 'dangling' is developed at every
level throughout. Finally, the moment of departure comes,
but Akira refuses to go. Alone in the house with a dead-
drunk Harue, she gazes out at the battle-torn city, at last
aware, perhaps, that her 'lover' will never come.
This resume, however, is extremely misleading insofar as
it creates the impression that the film is centred about
Akira. This is not ultimately the case. There are many
characters with long scenes centred about them, in which
Akira either does not appear or appears only incidentally.
There is Matsuba, who had left with a man and now, tired of
him, wants to come back; Miako, a plain-looking servant,
jealous of the geishas' beauty, while lucidly pitying them;
Kichiya, a lovely, sentimental lesbian, forever worried
about her lover, Michyo; and, of course, okiihan and
Harue, already mentioned.
The mood and construction of the play are reminiscent of
Tchekhov, which is not surprising considering the work of
the Bungaku-za. Tchekhov, it should be stressed, was one
of the most popular European dramatists among the
Japanese intelligentsia. This was probably due to the for-
mal relationship of his plays with the narrative tradition
that ultimately produced shomin-geki, to their household
settings and low-key dramatizations, rather than to the
psychological and philosophical subtleties which endear
them to Westerners.
Yet although Fallen Blossoms is much more authenti-
cally a film about a community than the comparable West-
ern product- in which the 'community' is nearly always an
allegorical ersatz, a Ia Vicki Baum -it is certainly a much
more 'psychological' film than, for example, any by Ozu.
This is so if only because the author's decision to describe a
moment of temporary breakdown in the social system has a
dissolving action on the group and is a 'revealer' of person-
ality. (The characters of classica!shomin-geki, on the other
hand, are signs in a system of behaviour before they are
psychological individuals.) It is this conflict between unity

203
IRON TREES, and diversity which provides one of the keys to the film's
GOLDEN FLOWERS formal organization.
Three very strict, seminal choices characterize Ishida's
work. Two of them clearly derive from theatrical produc-
tion; one is specific to film. First, the camera never leaves
the geisha house and its garden; all of the on-screen fiction
develops within them, while the historical action (street-
fighting, etc.) takes place off-screen. It is evoked through
sound-effect or dialogue-description, and appears only
briefly and dimly across the rooftops at the very end of the
film as distant flame and smoke. Second, no man ever
appears on the screen. This is a universe of women, and
when, as in the film's opening sequence, there are still
patrons in the house, they are kept off screen; their pre-
sence is signified only by voices. The specifically filmic
choice, maintained in close dialectical relationship with the
other two, consists in the absence of any single repeated shot
in the entire film. 3 (It contains 371 shots, which is quite
average for a 'normally' edited film of less than an hour and
a quarter.) This combination of a restricted, unified setting
and continual renewal of the imagery, through camera
movement, as well as editing, is to my knowledge unparal-
leled in the history of the conventional narrative or strongly
diegetic film.
In Western cinema the repeated shot has a number of
sources and implications. It is economical. Shooting a
single take, which, in the editing, will become half a dozen
shots as in the classical reverse-field series, saves time and
money. In this sense, the long, non-repeating reverse-field
sequence described below represents an enormous waste.
However, the repeat must not be seen merely as a con-
sequence of the law of profit. In the reverse field (or the
cross-cutting figure from which it derived) and the equally
classical recurrence (often throughout a film) of a given
shot associated with a given pro-filmic location, the repeat
has its own special efficacy, dialectically related though it is
to the principle of material economy.
In the Primitive cinema, where each setting corres-
ponded to one and only one frame, the recurrence of a
given setting mechanically produced the recurrence of
quasi-identical images, and this mechanical quality of the
repetitions in Primitive films had to be eliminated from the
new art in order to achieve organic 'transparency'. And
the introduction of narrative editing (by Hepworth, Grif-
fith, et al.) did not mean simply the more-or-less arbitrary
3· With three or four patently random
variation of angle and shot size; it meant that each succes-
exceptions, due almost certainly to sive composition was endowed through angle and size with
contingencies unforeseen during
shooting and which had to be coped with a given function (or set of functions) in the chain of signi-
in the editing by stop-gap means. fiers (the 'situational' long shot, the 'presentational'

204
medium shot, the 'introspective' close-up, etc.). 4 Themes- ISHIDA TAMIZO

sages thus conveyed are, of course, rudimentary. The bur-

den of elaborating upon them is entrusted to the actor's
pantomime and words, spoken today, but originally printed
on the film. This rudimentary character is related to the fact
that a relatively sharp contrast between shot-sizes is
required to produce pertinently discrete, i.e. meaningful,
differences. The poverty of this code, due ultimately to the
fact that it is a reductive transposition of a 'natural', in other
words cultural, code, is an important factor in the rationale
of the repeated shot. The tendency to repeat a given frame
literally, rather than to introduce minimal variants, below
the threshold of pertinent differentiation and therefore
diegetically redundant, corresponds to a principle of
semantic economy which meshes admirably with the selec-
tive thrift of that bourgeois creed, the law of profit.
Objectively, Ishida's strategy is a rejection of this par-
simony. It is the introduction of a surplus of signs, useless
for the transmission of the diegetic messages. These signs
form a parallel mode of discourse- parallel because 'over-
rich'- but also one rooted in the primary signifying process,
since the shot-changes as such continue to convey the
elementary spatia-temporal messages essential to the con-
stitution of the diegesis.
Another function of the repeated shot, within the
economy of the dominant cinema is to reinforce the center-
ing of the diegetic effect. A repeated shot, especially in the
reverse-field or cross-cut contexts, carries this message:
'You have been here before; pay no attention therefore to
what you have already seen (i.e. in a medium or long shot,
the quasi-totality of the iconographic signs) but only to
what is new (i.e. possible changes in the actor's expression,
and of course the dialogue) since this is where the message
is concentrated'. It is against this perceptual alienation that
some recent European film-makers (Kurt Kren, Jean-
Daniel Pollet in Mediterranee) employ strategies of repeti-
tion ad nauseam. Ishida, in absolute contrast, offers some
soo systematically and often minutely differentiated tab-
leaux (one arrives at this figure if one takes into account the
fact that a single shot often involves several fixed composi-
tions). Each of these develops an entirely fresh itinerary
through the multiply articulated space of the geisha house.
The film's spatial progression is a labyrinthine circuit in
which we repeatedly go over the same ground, without ever
being provided with the compo5.itional cues that are the
4- For a discussion of the codifications of
guarantee, in film, that 'we have been here before'. social distance which is very relevant to
Fallen Blossoms, then, like the doll theatre or the films of film theory, see Hall, Edward T., 'A
system for the notation of proxemic
Ozu, constantly elicits a double reading. This, of course, behaviour', in The American
cannot be merely reduced to two parallel lines. Nor is the Anthropologist, 65, 1963, pp. 1003-26.

205
clearly demarcated as such than is the Western doorway- ISHIDA TAMIZO
for nine seconds the frame remains empty (we hear the
strumming of a shamisen and laughter off-screen); two
women enter from the right (Pl. Ib ); they are Akira and a
young servant from a neighbouring house, where Akira has
been helping out for the evening; Akira removes her clogs,
the servant crosses and goes out right
- she lays the clogs in their proper place (Pl. 2a), turns to
say 'Good night' (Pl. 2b) and exits right
- she reappears again in the background of the next shot
(Pl. 3a) before her final exit; pan with Akira to the left; she
meets Ochio, okiihan's assistant, and they kneel to
exchange greetings (Pl. 3b); Akira then turns to the left to
greet someone off-screen (Pl. 3c)
- in a long-shot of okiihan (on left) and herself, Matsuba
greets Akira (off-screen left) (Pl. 4); all this time the music
off-screen continues as before and the cries and laughter
grow louder
- Akira, still on her knees, inquires what the noise is and
Ochio tells her that it is the girls upstairs (Pl. sa); Akira
stands up and moves towards the back of the shot (Pl. sb)
- she starts up the stairs (more loud laughter); Akira:
'How gay they are!' (Pl. 6)
- she continues up the stairs but is stopped by an even

sa sb
207
architectural element. The transition from shots 3 to 4 ISHIDA TAMIZO
produces perhaps the strongest spatial hiatus thus far, since
the lack of any common architectural reference is maxi-
mized by an 'incorrect' eyeline match (3c/4).
The return to Akira and Ochio in Pl. sa involves a r8oo
reversal which certainly does not help relate the spaces
associated with the two groups. The next three shots match
'normally', but the return to the long shot (8) re-introduces
the previous ambiguity, since the staircase is off-screen.
The cut from 9 to ro introduces another hiatus, less radical
but quite real, due to the sharp contrast in shot sizes and
r8o 0 change. Match 12/13a introduces an ambiguous
eyeline relationship, since at first it appears that Miako is
watching Akira read her letter. 5
Belonging to a different but nevertheless related mode of
disjunction, the cut to the girls at the foot of the watch-
tower stairs (22/23), coming shortly after the end of the
music and applause, also frustrates the viewer's expecta-
tion in a manner common to all these disjunctions. We
might have supposed that this group (whom we discover as
they applaud Kichiyo's kabuki imitation) is the source of
those sounds, yet no instrument is present and the guests
are elsewhere ... and, as we are told, alone. Either an
ellipsis has occurred, or else the guests have been making
music for themselves. A similar ambiguity occurs in con-
nection with cuts 8/ga and roc/ I I a: Akira's change of
kimono implies that she has taken a bath, but there has
been perfect temporal continuity in the sound-track since
she first started up the stairs (to go where? in shots II and
I2 she is on the ground floor again).
The compact flow of the diegesis itself- the illusion of
temporal unity - is repeatedly articulated around disrup-
tive breaks, spatial or temporal or both, reinforced by the
labyrinthine use of architecture as in the first five shots.
These ambiguities are not an absolute rule; there is, in fact,
remarkably free interplay between the various possible
modes of shot-change, including the most classical ones,
and this freedom counterbalances the almost simplistic
strictness of the three basic strategies enumerated above.
The refusal to demonstrate any pro-filmic communica- 5. It would certainly be of great interest
tion between successive shot spaces is, as we have already to analyse this film from the point of
view of Eisenstein's concept of the
seen, particularly characteristic of Ishida's disruptive edit- montage unit as set forth in his teaching
ing procedures. In a later scene, Ochio sits in the kitchen and explored to some extent in
listening to the quarrel that is building between Akira and Potemkin, i.e. a dialectic of correct and
incorrect direction/eyeline/position
Harue in an adjoining hallway and which finally degener- matching and a division of the filmic
ates into an abortive fight. A truly hallucinatory tension is discourse into units determined by these
parameters and conceived as
created between the two spaces which the sound-track sub-divisions of (and of a different order
suggests as proximate. For, although the architecture does from) the sequence properly so-called.
(See Nizhny, Vladimir, Lessons with
implicitly situate them in a right-left relationship, they are Eisenstein, Chapter 2.)

2I3
IRON TREES, never seen to communicate. No shot ever shows both
GOLDEN FLOWERS Ochio listening and the two women quarrelling, nor does
Ochio's blank gaze into space provide an eyeline tie.
Another, somewhat different use of off-screen space,
occurring at the film's first important climax, illustrates the
relation between the decision to confine action to the house
and these de-centering strategies that are frequent at the
level of decoupage. A skirmish is taking place in the street
just beyond the garden wall. The women rush to the gate
and listen tensely as a wounded and pursued soldier pounds
on it to be let in. Akira in her delusion is convinced that her
'lover" has come for her at last and wants to unbar the gate.
The others drag her back and hold her until it is clear that
the soldier has been mortally wounded by his enemies. A
transposition of a theatrical mode ('history taking place in
the wings'), also used as a basis for the film's shot-by-shot
organization, provides the unifying principle of the entire
film. The exclusion from the screen of men, patrons or
soldiers, the other principal factor of formal unity, is also a
meaningful corollary of the exclusion of Japanese women
from the history of their country. 6
Ishida's graphic use of the architecture of his fine set
provides another element of unity. The cellular construc-
tion of the decoupage is related to that of traditional
architectural space and its rendering on the screen surface,
Figs. 22, 23. Ishida Tamizo, a relationship stressed by frame composition and editing.
Old Songs This film is exceptional by both Western and Japanese
standards. The sophisticated relationship of unity to diver-
sity is typical of Western musical form, for example, as
opposed to the reiterative forms of Eastern music - a
contrast homologous to the Ozu/Lang opposition. The
film, nevertheless, has traits essential to the Japanese
cinema: prevalence of long shot, 'irrational' approach to
matching, tenuous plot-line. The film's most fully Western
aspect is its dramatic form, the somewhat hackneyed device
of placing history 'in the wings' and presenting it through
the eyes of those who are in the wings of history. Japanese
writers, playwrights and film-makers, when attempting to
describe history in scientific categories (e.g. as powered by
class struggle) have systematically resorted to Western
forms, often in appropriately metaphorical terms. Here,
the impotence of these women, witnesses of a cataclysm,
was that of an entire generation of Japanese intellectuals,
including the emperor himself, long since relegated to his
beloved marine biology. The background for the credit
6. The feminist implications of this filrr
are remarkable for the period and for
titles provides a rich emblem: goldfish in an aquarium.
Japan. In this respect, the authors were Old Songs (Mukashi no uta, 1939) seems to have been
more 'radical' than Mizoguchi, whose
women, on the whole, are far less
Ishida's very next film. It bears, curiously enough, the same
conscious of their condition. relation to Fallen Blossoms as Antonioni's second film, La

214
20. Mizoguchi Kenji

Mizoguchi is known to have made no less than forty-one

films between 1922 and 1929. He is said, in particular, to
have made in 1923 an 'expressionist' film, Blood and
Soul (Chi to rei), influenced by Caligari, but we are
entirely dependent on hearsay and a few stills concerning
this period of his development. Judging by the subsisting
fragment of Tokyo March (Tokyo koshin kyoku, 1929), 1
he had by that time thoroughly assimilated the Western
codes of film-making just as he had those of painting (in
his late teens, he had studied briefly at the Aoibashi
Institute for European Painting in Tokyo). As already
indicated, Tokyo March was a 'tendency film', in which,
for example, distance between classes is symbolized by a
raised tennis-court overlooking a slum area. The film
does contain faint promises of preoccupations to come.
The camera is quite mobile and shots are relatively long,
but all of the basic principles of the Western system are
observed; a long shot is never without its 'complemen-
tary' close-ups, although the awkwardness with which
these are inserted inclines one to feel that they already
'bother' Mizoguchi, that he would prefer to keep his dis-
tance, as it were. Camera movements are properly 'invis-
ible', they cleave faithfully to the diegetic movement
(descriptive tracking, follow-shots, expressive dolly-ins,
etc.).
The first complete work available for study is White
Threads of the Waterfall (Taki no shiraito, 1933). This
silent film is an adaptation of a shimpa play and tells of the
stormy and ultimately tragic love of a beautiful stage-
performer whose specialty is water-jet juggling (mizu-
gei),Z and a timid, rather proper young man. Taki No
Shiraito (for this is also the heroine's stagename: a freer
translation of the title would be something like 'Miss
Waterfall') is the prototype of Mizoguchi's rebellious
women. Of dubious morals by Meiji standards, she r. Koshin Kyoku: 'march' in the sense of
strives for financial and social independence in a phallo- a piece of music.
cratic society, takes the initiative in sexual relations, etc. 2. Literally, 'water art'.

217
IRON TREES, The film is sophisticated dramatically, and while it
GOLDEN FLOWERS develops within the framework of the Western editing
codes, the camera tends increasingly to remain at a dis-
tance and to neglect, as it were, the requirement of shot-
change. The sequence in which Taki is beaten and kid-
napped by a scheming procurer is seen entirely in a single
tableau-shot, while the very lovely scene in which she
seduces the young Kin-ya is shot from beyond the shoji
delimiting a 'boudoir'. A screen masks half the acting
area; Taki retires behind it to ask Kin-ya to love her.
(The film is generally remarkable for its intense eroti-
cism, unparalleled even in Mizoguchi's last films.)
Another striking example, of both the film's socio-
psychological sophistication and Mizoguchi's emerging
tendency to shoot dramatic moments in long shot, is a
scene in which a rival performer begs Taki for money to
go to her dying mother. Taki refuses, and the woman
grovels at her feet: 'Then kill me,' she says. 'Why should
I?' is the brittle reply, 'and why should I give you
money? It's mine!' After a long pause, however, Taki
goes to the back of the shot to get the money. The
woman scampers after her and again grovels at her feet.
This last part of the scene takes place quite far from the
camera, and absence of any shot-change is perceived as a
clear departure from the norms of narrative editing. 3
Japanese and Westerners generally agree that White
Threads of the Waterfall is a finer achievement than Miz-
oguchi's other complete surviving silent film, 0-Sen of
the Paper Cranes (Orizuru 0-Sen, 1934). The earlier film
is certainly less rambling and more sophisticated as litera-
ture. At the same time, 0-Sen of the Paper Cranes is so
remarkably inventive, and such a vivid instance of Miz-
oguchi's system of representation at a critical formative
stage that it is for our purposes far more significant than
White Threads of the Waterfall and we will examine it at
some length.
Based on a novel by Izumi Kyoka, Baishoku kamo
namban, 4 the film tells a very involved tale which can be
only briefly summarized here. A young man, So-Kichi or
So-Chan (Little So), sets out from his village to enter
medical school but is diverted from his path by circum-
J. Needless to say, in these late silent
stances and is befriended when on the verge of suicide by
films of Mizoguchi, a shot which is 0-Sen, a lovely prostitute, played by Yamada Isuzu, the
interrupted by a title but resumes its
course afterwards is legitimately
remarkable leading actress in all of Mizoguchi's films
regarded as a single shot, conceived, between 1934 and 1936. 0-Sen is the somewhat reluctant
that is, as a whole.
accomplice of a particularly unscrupulous antique dealer
4· Untranslatable title, involving a cum pimp named Matsuda and his band of hoodlums,
presumably symbolic reference to a
duck dish of non-Japanese origin that
whose principal con-game consists in 'selling' 0-Sen to a
was popular during the Meiji period. customer and then simply taking her back by force. So-
218
Kichi is given menial work by 0-Sen's protectors, who MIZOGUCHI KENJI
treat him with sadistic brutality. At the crucial moment
of a particularly involved swindle, concerning a lascivious
bonze and a lost temple treasure, 0-Sen betrays the
whole gang to the police and flees with So-Kichi. Her
ambition is to send him to medical school. To do so, she
must (unbeknown to him) return to prostitution, and is
finally arrested for stealing a customer's watch. Years
later, when So-Kichi has become a prosperous doctor, he
accidentally comes across 0-Sen who has fainted in a
crowded railway station: he takes her to hospital, only to
discover that she is hopelessly tubercular ... and hope-
lessly mad.
This narrative material is worlds apart from the quoti-
dian banality of Ozu, Shimizu and the other masters of
shomin-geki; it is, however, not far from the narrative
substance of the masterpieces to come, Sisters ofGion and
Tale of Late Chrysanthemums. 5
Throughout his career, Mizoguchi was concerned not
only with tense emotional conflict, with pathos in the
strongest sense, but with emphatically dramatic narratives
illustrating such conflicts. However, as we shall see, his
development over the next decade was characterized by a
progressive abandonment of the Western mode of repre-
sentation and its dramatic functionalism. During this
period he developed a systemics which, in his supreme
(surviving) masterpieces, Tale of Late Chrysanthemums
and his version of Chushingura, functions as disjunctively
as the doll theatre or the films of Ozu. It is in this respect
that the work of these two masters, though almost
altogether different, may be said to converge in a manner
specifically Japanese.
The narrative construction of 0-Sen of the Paper Cranes
is quite complex, involving at least two levels of flashback
and a rather allusive and elliptical handling of antecedental
material; as already noted, a film of this sort would hardly
have been conceivable without the benshi's constant 'read-
ing' of the diegesis. 6 It begins in that railway station where
the mature doctor who was once So-Chan is waiting for a
delayed train. This sequence follows close-ups of waiting 5. It must not be thought that we are
passengers, among them people wearing festival masks. dealing solely with the influence of, say,
Balzac or Dickens. The popular
literature of late Edo already had much
- close-up of the doctor of the same flavour.
- medium-long shot of what appears to be a misty garden 6. A print of this film has recently been
(apparently a reverse field) rediscovered to which was added, in
1935, a benshi track complete with
- close shot of dead leaves blown across the ground by the horrible Western music. It may be
night wind; the camera pans with the leaves and we see the assumed that this was done in order to
play the film before the better-class
young So-Kichi, his head bowed in misery, leaning against a audiences of the sound-equipped
tree in a park theatres.

219
~ ~-1_- .
They are driven off by the formidable swords of Matsuda MIZOGUCHI KENJI
and his men who arrive in the nick of time.
This very remarkable commingling of two sets of
memories, overlapping as if by 'pivot-word' in that enigma-
tic 'garden' shot, is the last sophisticated editing pattern in
any subsisting film until The Love of Actress Sumako. The
film as a whole shows that Mizoguchi's mastery of narrative
editing was as great as that of any European director. This
is important when we consider his gradual disaffection for
the editing codes and the shot-change in general. As the
saying goes about Picasso, 'he knew how to draw'. This first
sequence also gives some indication of the freedom with
which Mizoguchi was using camera movement by that time
-often, it is true, as exclamatory signifier, but also, as we
shall see, in a baroque spirit reminiscent of Ito and anti-
cipating his own Chushingura.
The fact that Mizoguchi should have evolved from the
sober efficacy of White Threads of the Waterfall to the
frankly extravagant tracking of this film, paradoxical as it
may seem, is highly significant. For he was clearly moving
away from his camera's simple subservience to expressive
and/or functional requirements of pro-filmic action. In this
film the subservience is still largely intact of course, but it is
manifested with such a frantic excess of fidelity, with such a
plethora of waste motion, that the result was a partial
dismantling of the Western codes of movement. We will
consider one representative sequence, which takes place
soon after 0-Sen's return (with So-Kichi in tow) to Mat-
suda's house.

- A fade-in reveals a succession of architectural planes

occupying two-thirds of the screen: through a gap on the
right, we glimpse 0-Sen reclining in her room: she turns
towards the camera (title: 'I'll do nothing of the sort!') then
turns away again. The camera pulls back and we discover
Matsuda in the foreground; he goes towards her room and
pauses on the threshold (title: 'It's a big job, it could put
you on easy street'). She rolls over again (title: 'If you cheat
a bonze it's seven years bad luck!'), then leans forward and
shuts the shoji in his face. He jerks it open violently and we
see that 0-Sen is now sitting on her haunches (title: 'Still
being stubborn, eh?'). Matsuda quickly exits left; the cam-
era dollies after him, loses him for a moment, then catches
him again in the far-left corner of another room, where he
seizes a sheathed sword. Pan back to the right as he goes
through a hitherto unseen gap in the shoji and disappears.
The frame remains empty for several long seconds; dancing
shadows appear on the far wall, then the girl comes running
towards the opening, leans against the left-hand shoji (she
22I
IRON TREES, is only partly visible to the camera) and then, as Matsuda
GOLDEN FLOWERS appears with drawn sword, sinks to the floor. He glares at
her, sheathes the sword and coming into the foreground
(but still in head-to-foot shot) sits by a low table and pours
some sake (title: 'You'd better do as you're told!'). As he
drinks, the camera pans suddenly and quickly to the right:
in the entrance-way, one of Matsuda's henchmen is wel-
coming the bonze. He turns and calls towards the interior
(title to the effect that the bonze is here). A silhouette
passes in front of the camera, exits and enters again on the
far side of the low entrance-way screen which separates us
from the bonze; it is Matsuda. He greets the bonze and all
exit to the left. Pan away from them to an old servant and
So-Kichi peering out from behind a shoji. She turns to the
boy and shoos him away: it's none of his business.

Now, this scene, as I have suggested in my description, was

clearly conceived and most likely executed as a single shot,
even though Mizoguchi knew in advance that it would be
intercut with titles. This is indicative of the interest, of the
pleasure, he already seemed to take in organizing long
takes. 7 Moreover, not only could any and all of these
movements have been easily 'replaced' by cuts, but two of
them, the 'gratuitous' pan-aways to a different action,
would automatically have been so replaced in classical
Western practice. This is all the more interesting, as there is
absolutely no 'gain' in spatial coherence. Through most of
the film, the camera continually pans and tracks around the
house, and yet the correlation of the various frames thus
presented is no clearer than in the opening shots of Ishida's
Fallen Blossoms. Certain shots shift from interior to
exterior with no indication of the 'actual' articulation of the
two locations. This is particularly remarkable in a labyrin-
thine nocturnal scene in which 0-Sen, instead of admitting
the bonze into her bed as she was expected to do, has taken
So-Kichi. Long mysterious camera movements through the
dark house and garden culminate in the dramatic centre of
the entire film; in a gesture which momentarily seems to
destroy the structure of non-communicating cells (linked in
abstract chains by camera movement), Matsuda and his
men break down the shojis of her room.
The characters tend to desert the frame, or the camera to
desert the characters in accordance with a de-centering
principle which will assume other, less obtrusive forms in
the mature work to come. It is, however, already a fully
7. It is hoped that the reader will take
these and other traces of an
developed element of Mizoguchi's systemics, correspond-
intentionalist ideology which still ing to Ozu's pillow-shots and the tradition of 'uninhabited'
occasiona1ly informs this study as
inadequate metaphors for certain
shots associated with the Japanese cinema throughout the
textual evidences. I 930s. One of the most striking instances of this de-

222
centering, all the more radical to the present-day analyst's MIZOGUCHI KENJI
eye as it is unusually mechanical even for this film, occurs in
the sequence in which Matsuda's henchmen send So-Kichi,
whom they have been sadistically starving, to buy delicacies
for them. Though of course he is not supposed to spend any
of the money on himself, So-Kichi cannot resist the sight of
some inexpensive food in a stall which he passes on his way,
and he enters to buy. When he leaves the stall, the camera
remains with the vendor for a few seconds, then sets out to
catch up with So-Kichi (pan and truck), and we find him
gulping down his food and crying for shame (title: 'Forgive
me, grandmother'). From a differently angled shot of So-
Kichi, the camera now pans to a blank wall and tracks along
it, finally coming to rest on another stall where people sit
eating. After a moment, So-Kichi enters the frame again
and makes the purchase he has been ordered to make.
Here, even more clearly, where a transparent editing
scheme normally cuts, camera movements have been used,
spelling out that scheme in such a way as to assert the
physical presence of the camera. 8
Uneven though it is, this film is not simply a laboratory
experiment, a formal curiosity. Often enough, it is a splen-
didly baroque poem. It contains in particular some beauti-
fully outre sequences, such as 0-Sen's arrest when, stand-
ing in the street with her hand bound by the policeman's
traditional rope, she tugs a paper crane out of her kimono
with her teeth and blows it to her lover as a parting kiss.
Another such gem is the final hospital scene in which she
leaps from her bed to protect once again So-Kichi from his
persecutors, laying about her with a razor; then, when the
vision has vanished- and there is a poignant insert of leaves
blown across the ground - she returns to her room, climbs
serenely back into the bed and draws the covers to her,
utterly oblivious of her former lover kneeling with bowed
head at the foot of the bed.
The recently rediscovered Poppies (Gubijinso, 1935),
first seen in Europe in 1976, shows that the range of Miz-
oguchi's experimentation at this period was great indeed.
In the first place, this film, shot just before The Elegy of
Naniwa, is closer, perhaps, than any other Mizoguchi, to
the narrative norms of the shomin-geki of the period, even
though Mizoguchi's tale of an ambitious young man torn
between a self-serving mariage de raison with a sophisti-
cated older woman and the pure love of a delicate virgin,
characteristically involves a more bitter approach to the 8. This is something of an
traditional social structures than does any pre-war Ozu. over-simplification. 'Authorial
presence' might be a better description,
Above all, however, the film constitutes a radical departure as I suggest in an analysis of Dreyer's
Vampyr (Roud (ed.), Dictionary of the
from what already appeared to be the main thrust of Miz- Cinema) with which Mizoguchi's film
oguchi's developing stylistics, for it was shot almost entirely offers certain parallels.

223
IRON TREES, with a fixed camera and attempts, on the contrary, to
GOLDEN FLOWERS exploit to the full the possibilities of Western style dramatic
editing: reverse-field figures and medium close-ups
abound, while in one instance rapid-fire cutting is used to
stress a moment of special tension. The film is by no means
a negligible piece of work and was clearly the object of
considerable thought and care. It is as if Mizoguchi felt the
need to give the Western mode one serious, thorough-
going try before striking out resolutely in his own, Japan-
ese, direction.
0- Yuki, Alias Maria (Maria no 0- Yuki, 1935), not seen
by me till 1978, shows that Poppies was not unique. How-
ever, this adaptation of Maupassant's Boule de Suif does
not seem to have interested Mizoguchi very much, and his
use of the Western codes is, on the whole, passive and
uninventive.
Mizoguchi's next film, The Elegy of Naniwa (Naniwa
erejl, 1936), 9 is, in my view, rather problematic. Considered
by most Japanese critics to be Mizoguchi's first masterpiece
(on account of its socially significant subject, involving a
young switchboard operator whose employer sexually
exploits her need for money), by the criteria adduced here
it is a prefiguration of Mizoguchi's post-war decline. Pre-
sumably his first sound-film since his initial experiment
with the new medium five years before, it cleaves remark-
ably closer than 0-Sen of the Paper Cranes to the Western
codes of editing, and the occasional long take falls into the
established pattern of the virtuoso follow-shot (like those
of the Dreigroschenoper, for example). While the carefully
stylized shot composition gives hints of the work to come, 10
camera distance is almost always reduced early in a scene
and on the whole the film is densely edited. In short,
Mizoguchi seemed to be hesitating not between originality
and conformity- the classical Western choice- but rather
between East and West, in this era the crucial choice facing
the Japanese.
9. Naniwa is the old name for Osaka. His very next film made it clear what the option was to
The film has a contemporary setting,
and the use of the old name suggests the
be: Sisters of Cion (Cion no shimai, I936) 11 sets forth
permanence of tradition in what was Mizoguchi's mature systemics in all its pertinent traits, even
already by then a modern industrial
metropolis.
if Tale of Late Chrysanthemums must be regarded as a
more radical, possibly its most radical, instantiation. The
ro. Of course, for the ideology of
transparency this is already a defect: 'It
principal characteristics of this systemics are widely recog-
[The Elegy of Naniwa 1sounds nized: exceptionally long takes, systematic rejection of
melodramatic in description but was
actually very quietly told, its realism
editing in general, of the reverse-field figure in particular,
being only slightly vitiated by and of the close-up.
Mizoguchi's eternal concern for
pictorial beauty and atmosphere.'
(Richie and Anderson, op. cit., p. 103). The role of the long shot in the ongms of the Western
I 1. The character for 'sisters' in this title
cinema, its preponderance in Japanese cinema, not only
is sometimes read kyodai. through the 1930s but to this very day, has been made clear.

224
We have outlined the historical process by which the codes MIZOGUCHI KENJI
of narrative editing supplanted the primitive single-take
sequence in dominant Western cinema during the second
decade of this century. It is worth recalling at this point how
the long take has periodically re-emerged at the very centre
of dominant cinema, not to do away with the basic elements
of the established representational system, but to become,
for a time, their privileged support. The first massive reap-
pearance of the long take occurs in the earliest years of the
sound-film, only in part because of the technical difficulties
encountered in the first attempts to edit sound. The 'realis-
tic' vocation of sound - an article of faith shared by all but
the most unrepentant anti-realists (such as Sternberg) -
seemed to call for the elimination or at least the radical
curtailment of the discontinuities of editing, suddenly much
more visible to the 'average eye' when set against the
continuous flow of sound. To cope with this difficulty, the
editing codes were supplanted by a mode of organization of
the long take such that the semantic, expressive functions
of shot-change and especially of shot-size change, devolved
upon the 'blocking', the mise en scene. In a curious 'lesson
with Eisenstein', the Russian master sets forth the doctrine
of 'mise-en-shot', a transposition of the editing codes,
explaining how it is possible to organize a single-take se-
quence so as to recapitulate the standard model of narra-
tive editing, from long shot to close-up and from the
emphasis of the insert to the understatement of the empty
frame. 12
And indeed, while in the 1930s the majority of directors
soon abandoned the long take in favour of a refined
master-shot system which was more economical (as we
have seen) and better adapted to the needs of canned
theatre, in particular, it made a strong re-entry in the 1940s
through Welles, Wyler, Visconti, Hitchcock and the many
film-makers whom they may be said to have influenced. 13
While the use of the long take now developed, on the
whole, in compliance with Eisenstein's outline of a decade r2. Nizhny, Vladimir, Lessons with
Eisenstein, Chapter 4·
before, it also provided the basis for a number of experi-
ments (American tours de force such as Rope and The Lady 13. This second return was theorized by
Andre Bazin. For a critique of Bazin's
in the Lake but also such European masterpieces as doctrine which is wholly relevant here,
Cronaca di un amore or Les Vacances de Monsieur see Michelson, Annette,
'Screen/Surface, the politics of
Hulot). 14 And although Mizoguchi's own approach ulti- illusionism', in Artforum, ix, no. 1,
mately converged with that of Western academic film- September 1972, p. 58f.
makers, it is, in Sisters of Cion and above all in Tale of Late 14. At each of these periods of
Chrysanthemums, radically at odds with it. resurgence, Carl Dreyer produced one
of his rare masterpieces, and Genrud is
The dominant Western approach to the long take (if we perhaps the only Western film
except the baroque style, such as that of Ophuls' late work) comparable to mature Mizoguchi (see
my contribution on Dreyer in Roud
has been aimed at integrating the succession of frames, the (ed.), Dictionary of the Cinema
movements that link them, as 'organically' as possible into (forthcoming).

225
IRON TREES, the diegesis, in terms of both external, physical, and
GOLDEN FLOWERS 'inward', or psychological, narrative movement. It has
always been considered particularly important to reconsti-
tute the whole 'expressive' range of shot-sizes, as they
figure in the editing codes per se. The competent director
always contrives to organize his takes, no matter how long,
in such a way that the signifying chain of the 'Griffith codes'
is maintained intact.
Sisters of Cion does not completely eliminate close-ups,
nor even such heavily coded figures as the dolly-in for
dramatic intensification, as in the final shot of the injured
younger sister in a hospital bed. On the whole, however,
the film does tend to turn its back on the linear deployment
of the visual signifiers so e.ssential to the Western mode.
Many sequences already exemplify Mizoguchi's fast matur-
ing systemics.
Sisters of Cion as a narrative is also in many respects the
prototype of Mizoguchi's personal mythology. Two sisters,
the elder attached to tradition and resigned to the subordi-
nate role of women, the younger determined to make her
way in the world, share a house in Gion, the red-light
district of Kyoto, and practise a relatively low form of
prostitution. The elder sister becomes attached to a bank-
rupt merchant and invites him to live in the house, but the
younger sister, Omocha (Yamada Isuzu), feels this will
cramp her style and contrives to make him leave. At the
same time, Omocha has been flirting with a clerk in order to
obtain small favours. He lets her have a bolt of kimono silk
'on credit'. His boss learns of the affair and is brought into
contact with Omocha, who seduces him. The clerk is fired
and retaliates by melodramatically kidnapping Omocha;
she leaps from a speeding car and is seriously injured. As
she lies on her hospital bed, with sister weeping beside her,
she curses the lot of the prostitute.
The principle of camera distance is most stringently
observed in the scene in which Omocha, having contrived
to stay home alone one afternoon for the return of her
sister's friend, the ruined merchant, plies him with sweets
and then brazenly explains that her sister would rather he
didn't stay with them any more, because it's bad for busi-
ness; before the fellow realizes what is happening she has
helped him into his coat and out of the door. The entire
sequence is shot with a fixed camera placed at the inner end
of the sitting-room. The characters never come within a
head-to-foot shot of the camera; during most of the scene
they are seated at a tea-table so as to occupy only the lower
left-hand quarter of the screen. The implications of a com-
position such as this are considerable. The relationship of
sound (dialogue) to picture is totally different from those

226
we find in the dominant Western system, be it the edited, MIZOGUCHI KENJI
reverse-field variant (eminently suitable, 'on paper', to
such a scene) or the 'Bazinian' single-take sequence, with
the subtle displacement/variation of the codes that it
implies. The pro-filmic space depicted here offers a com-
plex iconographic syntagma, i.e. a large section of a specific
room equipped with specific artefacts, etc., and these signi-
fiers are at all times simultaneously represented on the
screen. The actors' movement and gestures, however
'expressive', are at all times meshed with a set of visual
signs which the eye must also sort out and decipher, all the
more so as in this shot - as so often in Mizoguchi - the
characters are not centred, there is 'too much room over
their heads', as a Western studio cameraman might put it.
This is a decisive factor, for these relatively small, distant
figures are thereby designated as part of a framed totality,
one which includes and is visually dominated by a profusion
of other signs. The whole of this procedure, the distance,
the de-centering, underlines, moreover, the ultimately
non-anthropocentric quality of Mizoguchi's mature style.
Most important is the fact that no editing pattern, in either
a narrow or an extended sense, reinforces the semantic
pattern of the dialogues as they unfold over the low table;
picture and text become virtually detached from one
another. To all intents and purposes we are watching a slide
show or, again, the doll theatre.
As for the role of camera movement, in what may both
literally and figuratively be called a distancing system, it
does, in several instances, serve simply to maintain dis-
tance. Omocha's other 'big scene' with an older man (which
takes place in the same room and in which she seduces the
merchant who is the boss of her young suitor) is a case in
point. When the merchant enters the parlour with Omocha,
they sit down near the door (the camera is in the middle of
the room, at a slightly elevated angle, and the figures are in
the lower left-hand corner). As they discuss the clerk's
dereliction, it becomes increasingly clear that the merchant
would not be averse to obtaining the favours he assumes
have been granted his employee. Omocha proposes tea and
rises. At this point, the camera draws back to a second
position at the back of the room, so that the frame now
includes the low tea-table. Omocha sits behind the table
(only her shoulders and the back of her head are visible,
low and small in the frame). After a 'decent interval', the
merchant comes and sits facing her; the camera is nudged
slightly as he advances, so that in the final composition, the
two of them still occupy the lower left-hand quarter of the
frame. Soon, Omocha rises and goes to sit on the same side
of the table as the merchant, and here the camera moves

227
IRON TREES, slightly forward, again so as to maintain their eccentric
GOLDEN FLOWERS position in the frame. Here, then, camera movement serves
to maintain both distance and the de-centred composition
which is its essential complement.
More importantly, we begin to see here that Mizoguchi's
systemics often involves as well a particular kind of 'mon-
tage within the shot'. In contrasting his method with the
cunning adaptation of the narrative editing codes to the
long take as practised at various periods in the dominant
cinema of the West, I do not mean to deny the obvious; in
all of his major films, from Sisters ofGion to Utamaro, each
given shot consists of a series of very precisely determined
and distinctly differentiated compositions. In Tale of Late
Chrysanthemums, as we shall see, he even contrives to
avoid camera nudges of the kind mentioned here.
In Sisters ofGion, Mizoguchi's montage method, in both
the narrow and extended senses, is not entirely worked out.
However, a variety of modes are already at work, and while
their interaction is more haphazard than in later films, the
principle of diversification is there. Occasionally, a single
reverse-field cut will be introduced into a sequence, never
seeking to isolate a character or to bring him or her into
close-up, but rather simply to introduce a caesura within
the sequence (for reasons, one suspects, which are often
purely practical). The sequence in the automobile during
Omocha's kidnapping is shot entirely in close-up, and is
dramatically remarkable; Mizoguchi succeeds in singulariz-
ing the sequence in such a way as to 'justify' what is
undoubtedly another concession to practical circumstances
(how do you shoot long shots inside a car?). One feels sure,
nonetheless, that the maker of Tale of Late Chrysan-
themums and A Tale of Loyal Retainers o fthe Genroku Era
would have contrived to eliminate this sequence altogether
rather than introduce the emphasis on personalization
which such an editing scheme invariably carries with it.
One of the most important modes of 'montage within the
shot' which first appears in this film can, despite the pre-
caution which should accompany parallels of this kind, be
compared with the painted hand-scroll (e-makimono ). The
two clearest instances of this procedure occur at the very
beginning and the very end of the film, a sign that Miz-
oguchi was working towards an organization of the 'modes
of montage'. The opening is a lateral truck shot through
which successive aspects of the auction which finalizes the
unfortunate merchant's bankruptcy arc unfurled, as it
were. From a frame filled with screen panels, the camera
tracks past a recess in which the auction proper is being
held. It then passes another, in which assembled creditors
are waiting, then a third (seen through a wooden grille) in
228
which men are preparing objects for sale. A pan takes us MIZOGUCHI KENJI
past a thick post, revealing another man carrying a bibelot
and we finally dissolve to a dolly-in on the merchant sitting
with his friends. The second shot, which appears as a kind
of vertical penetration into the surface of the 'scroll', also
has a symmetrical relationship with the final dolly-in on
Omocha, a shot which in turn follows another major
'scroll-shot' of a somewhat different conception. This is a
slow, circular pan around the interior veranda of the hospi-
tal, starting with the elder sister's entrance on the right,
following her to the door of the operating-room in the
centre and then, as Omocha is carried out on the back of a
nurse, continuing slowly to follow the little group around
the veranda to Omocha's 'room', an enclosed space which
is almost invisible behind a bamboo curtain ... and yet
where the action goes on without a shot-change for several
minutes longer.
In both these 'scroll-shots', the pro-filmic organization of
architectural space is such that the passing lens produces
successive tableaux which appear as both discrete and
inter-penetrating. This is a major effect of the e-makimono.
In these shots Mizoguchi achieves a corresponding fusion
of the two fundamental and opposite aspects of lateral
camera-movement as such: successive stages versus steady
flow.
During most of this film, the camera is slightly higher
than the usual (Western) eye-level. This may be due to the
fact that the rudimentary dolly used simply could not be
made lower. Considering Ozu's floor-level dolly shots inA
Story of Floating Weeds, made two years earlier (by
another production company, it is true), this is a bit hard to
believe. Whatever the case, this relatively high angle will
recur fairly often in the masterpieces to come, and it evokes
the traditional Japanese representation of interiors in
e-makimono. Receding verticals to the picture plane are
drawn at 45 a to the horizontal, producing a high-angle
effect to our eyes, though in fact other elements in the
image are not foreshortened, are seen head-on. The result,
in painting but also in film, is an ambiguous presentation of
the depth/surface relationship. For while the placing of the
figures low in the frame tends (in Mizoguchi as in Ozu) to
flatten the image, the high-angle camera, which emphasizes
the receding lines of the tatami borders, shoji rails, etc., has
the opposite effect. Moreover, while fixed frames in Miz-
oguchi give the classical effect of tessellated surface, his
camera movements tend to produce sliding effects of plane
against plane between the successive, fixed positions. Here
again the articulation of the surface/depth issue is exemp-
lary. Yet striking and frequent as the illustrations of these

229
 IRON TREES, principles are in Sisters of Cion, their development in this
GOLDEN FLOWERS film is only embryonic, by comparison with the monument
that was to come.
The presumed loss of the three films which Mizoguchi
made in 1937-8 is the most unfortunate loss in Japanese
cinema. We may never be able to trace the development
from Sisters of Cion to that supreme work which is Tale of
Late Chrysanthemums (Zangiku monogatari, 1939). Of
course, judging from his earlier career, we have no reason
to suppose that this development was linear. Nevertheless,
the links between the two films are many and direct;
indeed, the systemics that first crystallized in the earlier
film finds its ultimate development in the later one.
Tale of Late Chrysanthemums runs just over two hours
and contains, according to my count, 140 shots- as against
an average 400 to 6oo in a 'normally' edited film. While
relatively few sequences actually consist of a single take,
very few contain more than three or four shots. And while
the overall average shot-length is over a minute, this figure
is considerably higher (nearly two minutes) if we exclude
the three kabuki sequences, densely edited in accordance
with a system completely different from that which other-
wise prevails throughout (fifty-three shots for less than half
an hour of screen time).
The narrative, slender by Western standards for such a
long film, is set in the Meiji era 15 and concerns the life of a
kabuki actor, Gombei Kikunosuke, the adopted heir 16 to a
celebrated dynasty of actors. He falls in love with a servant,
Otoku, partly because she is the only member of his
entourage who dares tell him to his face what a bad actor he
is. When the family forces her to leave him, Kikunosuke
decides to leave his 'father's' Tokyo troupe and to polish his
acting in the hard school of obscure provincial tours, with
the support of Otoku, who becomes his mistress. After five
years, Kikunosuke is 'discovered' again by his family. He
has become a truly great actor and all is forgiven.
Kikunosuke is invited back to Tokyo and Otoku, realizing
that she is henceforth an obstacle to his career, again steps
out of his life. This is a blow to Kikunosuke, but he makes
15. This was a period of predilection for
the maturing Mizoguchi. White Threads
no effort to find her again. Finally, during the river proces-
of the Waterfall, 0-Sen of the Paper sion at which the public traditionally paid homage to their
Cranes and other films of that period
were Meiji~mono.
kabuki idols, Kikunosuke learns that Otoku is desperately
ill and goes to her side. She sends him back to the proces-
16. Still quite common in Japan is the
practice of the head of a family adopting
sion and breathes her last while Kikunosuke is bowing to
a grown man as son, either beca4-5e he the crowd from a flowered barge.
has none of his own or because he feels
the young man is especially apt to
The film's thematic substance has been described as
continue his name, art or trade. 'escapist' by the celebrated critic Iwasaki Akira 17 who,
17. Iwasaki Akira, 'Kenji Mizogushi' in
nonetheless, rightly regards Mizoguchi's concern with
Anthologie du Cinema, Vol. 2. p. 463. oppression of women as an objectively committed theme.
i >_' ••_, '~ c
IRON TREES, right and the elder son from the left; they sit down on either
GOLDEN FLOWERS side of the father (he and the mother are momentarily
hidden by the elder son: Pl. 2). As the movement continues
the group as a whole appears (Pl. 3). The father tells
Kikunosuke that he must behave himself in accordance
with his station, the mother that Otoku has ulterior motives
and the elder 'brother' that he mustn't trust women. The
latter rises now and walks out of frame to the right, soon
followed by the mother. Father and son are left face to
face. 18 There is a long silence. Then Kikunosuke rises and
walks to the right; pan with him to the opening in the shoji:
in the adjoining room, mother and brother are again seated
on the tatami. Kikunosuke joins them (Pl. 4) (though no
longer visible, the father's continued presence off-screen is
unmistakable) (Pl. 5). The discussion now becomes more
heated, as ifthe father were not within ear-shot: Kikunosuke
announces his intention of marrying Otoku, and when the
elder son reminds him of his career, his admirers, his oblig-
ations as an adoptive son, he declares he would prefer to
earn a reputation on his merits rather than owe it to his
family status. Unable to maintain his conventional reserve,
the father storms into the foreground (Pl. 6), furiously
orders his son out of the house and goes out of shot again.
Fig. 26. Mizoguchi Kenji, Tale The mother begs Kikunosuke to go and apologize to the
of Late Chrysanthemums father (Pl. 7). There is a long silence; then Kikunosuke
rises, comes into the near foreground, kneels again and
very formally asks permission to marry Otoku. 18 Silence.
We hear the father's pipe knocking against his tobacco tray.
Kikunosuke rises, exits left, kneels again off-screen (rust-
ling kimono, crackling tatami) and, as his brother and
mother listen aghast from the next room (Pl. 8), starts to
repeat his request. 'Don't speak,' his father shouts. 'I won't
listen!' We hear Kikunosuke rise and stride across the
room: sound and a play of shadows on the shoji tells us that
he has opened the outside door and left the house. The
mother and brother rise and the mother comes forward,
gazing off-screen (Pl. 9). Mother goes out offrame, brother
goes to follow her, and the camera pans ahead of him
towards the door. The father is still sitting on the floor on
the far right, while we find the mother standing in the
doorway, calling Kikunosuke's name (Pl. 10).

The demarcations in this shot between movement and fix-

18. Neither of these two important
ity (of both camera and characters) 19 define some dozen
stations could be included in the series separate tableaux. Moreover, the dramatic structure
of illustrations.
proper is such that the cellular division of space evident in
19. During the circular movement which the decoupage seems to be 'acknowledged', one might even
opens the shot, these stations are
defined only by character displacement,
say it is taken literally by the diegesis when the quarrel shifts
but are nonetheless quite distinct. 'out of the father's presence' (Pl. 5), at the moment of the

232
IRON TREES, father's angry intervention (Pl. 6) and Kikunosuke's dou-
GOLDEN FLOWERS ble plea (the second off-screen in Pl. 8). Furthermore, and
this is a trait of Mizoguchi's which is particularly noticeable
in this film, camera movements are plotted in such a way
that minimal displacements bring about maximal renewal
of frame, both in terms of content and composition. And
though this principle, along with that of a clear opposition
between movement and fixity, is abandoned in A Tale of
Loyal Retainers, it was partially maintained through the
immediate post-war period, and traces are to be found even
in the most academic of the late films, by which time,
however, it had become an incidental ingredient of that
'flowing elegance' which has been so admired in the West.
Earlier in this film, there occurs what I believe is the most
remarkable instance of the 'scroll-shot' in Mizoguchi's
known work. Depressed by what he knows was a bad
performance and having wearied of the conventional flat-
tery and futile intrigues of the geisha house, Kikunosuke
has decided to return home early. Near the house, he comes
upon Otoku, the servant who takes care of his brother's
baby. For this scene, the camera is placed considerably
lower than the road, at the bottom of an embankment. It is
characteristic of the scroll-like nature of this shot that the
characters never occupy more than the lower third of the
frame in height. Considering the importance of this
encounter, considering that this is Otoku's presentation in
the film, it is remarkable that the presence of the characters
is in fact ensured by voice alone. We first see Otoku by
herself, rocking the baby in her arms. She walks slowly to
the left for perhaps fifty yards accompanied by a dollying
camera. Kikunosuke's rickshaw enters from the left. Seeing
Otoku, he stops the runner, pays and dismisses him. There
now follows the long, slow walk back to the Gombei house
the way Otoku has just come. It involves several halts, in
particular to buy a wind-bell (several street vendors pass
them, and their cries, along with the sounds of wind-bells
and clap-sticks, provide a discreet punctuation for their long
conversation). This is the first real talk that Kikunosuke has
ever had with the servant, and he is immediately impressed
by her forthrightness; as soon as he asks for her opinion of
his performance, she tells him what no one else will: that his
acting is bad.
This splendid sequence, of indescribable delicacy, lasts
seven and a half minutes. Moreover, the same shot is re-
peated in abridged form later in the film, and is echoed in
another long 'scroll-shot' in the streets of Nagoya, where
Otoku and Kikunosuke meet after their first long separa-
tion. The concern with cyclical figures, already observed in
Sisters of Cion, is particularly in evidence in this film. One

234
striking example is provided by a succession oftwo camera MIZOGUCHI KENJI
set-ups, one in the entrance of the family house, the other in
the kitchen. These first occur early in the relationship be-
tween Kikunosuke and Otoku as a framework for a long
conversation about his acting, They appear again in the
same order near the end of the film, when Kikunosuke has
finally returned to his father's house and theatre. Miz-
oguchi pushes the symmetry far indeed, for while Otoku
was carrying the baby in the initial occurrence of the first of
these set-ups, the same child is playing on the floor in the
second version (Kikunosuke caresses him), while in the
very same corner of the kitchen frame where Kikunosuke
once cut a water-melon for himself and Otoku, a servant is
now cutting what might be a loaf of Western-style bread.
Aside from the general consistency with the principle of
motifs, this recall has the dramatic function of belying (or
perhaps criticizing) Kikunosuke's apparent resignation to
his separation from Otoku.
There are three kabuki sequences in the film; the longest
of these (forty shots, fifteen minutes) is the climactic per-
formance in which Kikunosuke shows his uncle and cousins
the progress he has made over the years. As I have indi-
cated, these scenes are edited in a thoroughly 'conven-
tional' way, and while both the performance which opens
the film and the one which marks Kikunosuke's Tokyo
triumph are almost entirely enclosed within the pros-
cenium space, the main sequence involves a very insistent
cross-cutting pattern, alternating shots of the play with
Kikunosuke's impressed relatives in the wings and Otoku,
tense with anxiety, backstage. I find it remarkably
significant of Mizoguchi's 'dialectical sense' that it should
be precisely and solely to provide a framework for this
eminently presentational art that he should have seen fit to
abandon utterly his own presentational systemics in favour
of the Western editing codes.
Actually the film does contain one other (partly 'presen-
tational') scene involving cross-cutting, and here the corre-
lation of a coded editing figure from the West with what is
perhaps the ultimate in 'camera discretion' offers a verit-
able paradigm of cultural distance, not unlike the citations
from Western films in Ozu. Having been advised by
Otoku's landlord that she is desperately ill, Kikunosuke
leaves the riverside festival to go to her. The shot in which
he finds her dying in the garret that they had shared years
before is one of the film's longest (a full ten-minute reel)
and certainly one of the most austere. It involves only three
camera positions (disposed along the arc of a quarter circle)
and even at the moment of most intense poignancy, the
camera remains at such a considerable distance from the

235
IRON TREES, quilt-covered figure of Otoku that we can hardly see her
GOLDEN FLOWERS face. And two repeats of this very same, profoundly 'primi-
tive' shot are subsequently included in the insistent 'dura-
tiona!' montage of the procession on the river, with
Kikunosuke bowing endlessly to his admirers on the banks:
the first simply shows the landlady fanning the recumbent
woman, while in the second she suddenly recoils, having
realized that Otoku is dead.
It might, of course, be argued that the 'Mizoguchi dis-
tance' is a kind of rhetorical reversal of the Western code of
shot size, i.e. the further the camera from the characters,
the more 'intimate' the message, the more intense the
emotion to be conveyed. However, this predominance of
the long shot is not peculiar to Mizoguchi. What is peculiar
to his work, at least among the important film-makers of
the 1930s, is a penchant for intense pathos, and if the
encounter with a specifically Japanese conception of pre-
sentational distance seems to result, to our eyes, in a kind of
reverse codification, it is at best only partial. Many com-
pletely undramatic sequences are filmed at distances as
great; an example is the three-minute frame in which
Kikunosuke changes to street clothes after a performance
in Nagoya. Moreover, the encoding process, if any, is quali-
tatively very different from the linearization characteristic
of the Western codes of shot size, for it involves a constant
surplus of iconographic signs rather than their progressive
elimination (through track-in, close-up, etc.). I will not
claim to settle this debate one way or the other, but as we go
on to examine what is in many respects Mizoguchi's most
ambitious film,A Tale of Loyal Retainers ofthe Genroku Era
(Genroku chushingura, 1943), 20 we may discover further
evidence to the effect that camera distance in Mizoguchi's
mature work involves much more than a purely 'dramatur-
gical' option.
Before dealing with Mizoguchi's film, a few words are in
order concerning the Chushingura theme which provides
its narrative fabric. The place which this theme occupies in
national legend is roughly equivalent to that of Joan of Arc
in France. Above all, however, it is typical of that fund of
narrative and symbolic material with which every Japanese
is so familiar and upon which the popular cinema (and the
traditional arts before it) have so heavily and repeatedly
drawn.
The events upon which the various theatrical versions of
20. The common title in the West, where Chushingura are based took place, as I have indicated, at
the film has never been distributed, is
The Forty-seven Ronin, but this
the very beginning of the eighteenth century. On the occa-
conventional translation of the classical sion of the arrival of two imperial envoys at the Shogun's
title, Chushingura, does not render the
historical specification of Mizoguchi's
palace in Edo, two daimyo (provincial lords) were
title. appointed to oversee the festivities. One ofthedaimyo thus
honoured in the year 1701 was Asano-Takumino Kami, MIZOGUCHI KENJI
Lord of Ako. Ignorant in the ways of Court, Asano was
reluctant to accept, but was assured that an experienced
courtier, Kira-Kozukenosuke, would advise him. Kira was
a courtier of relatively low rank who relied on advisory
positions of this sort to round out his income. As Asano
failed, half out of naivete, half out of pride, to offer the
customary bribes, not only did Kira deliberately misinform
him, but repeatedly insulted him during the three-day
ceremony. One final insult was too much to bear, and
Asano drew his sword and assaulted Kira. Although the
wounds were only superficial, Asano was sentenced to
commit ritual suicide for having drawn his sword in the
Shogun's palace, potentially an act of treason. As further
punishment, all of Asano's property was seized and his
retainers were stripped of their legal attachment to the
house and forced to become ron in. A group of these, how-
ever, led by Oishi-Kuanosuke, chief councillor in charge of
the castle of Ako, secretly swore vengeance against Kira,
and for months they plotted, going to extravagant lengths
to put Kira off guard. Finally, exactly one year after
Asano's death, the ronin stormed Kira's residence during a
New Year's tea ceremony and executed the villain. They
then made their way to a nearby temple; after a month of
house-arrest in the mansions of four daimyo, they were
allowed to commit ritual suicide instead of being executed
like common criminals. For already their courage and loy-
alty had fired the imagination of the entire country.
This saga exemplifies the typically Japanese conflict of
personal loyalty and national obligation, but its interest lies
less in the forty-seven's actual choice than in the fact that
they dramatized publicly a dilemma which, to the 'Japanese
mind', is in any case inextricable - Oishi would have dis-
creetly died of shame had he not avenged his master. It is
this detour through spectacular violence which explains
why Chushingura still stirs the Japanese heart. 21
More important to us, however, is the fact that aside
from the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
stage versions of this theme, Chushingura has been filmed
at least twenty times. One of the most celebrated versions
was a 193 r film by Kinugasa, unfortunately lost. The famil-
iarity of the theme no doubt helped to determine the
specific narrative modes adopted by Mizoguchi for his ver-
sion, the most sumptuous and ambitious of them all. It is
also an essential dimension of the Japanese cinema as a
21. The disturbing effect of both the
whole and, in particular, of jidai-geki, which even today suicide of the novelist Mishima Yukio
occupies a large place in both cinema and TV production. and the bloody exploits of the
'Trotskyite' Red Army on most
For the political and social struggles, the values and the Japanese radicals is no doubt
symbolism, and even the individual characters of the attributable to this feeling.

237
IRON TREES, Tokugawa period (and, to a lesser extent, certain earlier
GOLDEN FLOWERS periods) are so familiar to Japanese audiences that a great
deal more 'background' can be taken for granted in jidai-
geki than in its Western counterpart. Most important of all,
however, is the endlessly repetitive quality of such films,
grounded as they are in this shared heritage. Though this is
a ticklish subject on which to make definitive pronounce-
ments, it would seem that in a new film on an old theme the
average, untravelled, unsophisticated Japanese film-goer
still seeks not startling twists or even any novelty at all, but
rather a confirmation of the permanence of certain values,
certain symbols, certain structures.
A Tale of Loyal Retainers, which lasts nearly four hours,
is entirely devoid of anything remotely resembling spec-
tacular action, if we except one no performance and an
abortive combat described below. Its sumptuous austerity,
its hieratic stateliness border at times on academic formal-
ism. In some respects this is one of the few Japanese films
which reflects to any serious extent the mood and rhythm of
the classical no, although at the same time its lyrical scope
would almost incline one to a more exotic comparison with
Wagner's Parsifal.
Though played against elaborate reconstructions of vast
mansions and castles, nearly every scene in the film is either
a long discussion over such subjects as dividing up the
Figs. 27, 28. Mizoguchi Kenji, Asano fortune, the ethics of the vendetta, the politics of the
A Tale of Loyal Retainers of period (Fig. 27). or else is devoted to pure ritual: prepara-
the Genroku Era tions for suicide (Fig. 28), ritual hair-cutting, tea-ceremony,
a no play, a death commemoration, etc.
One feature of the film which distinguishes it sharply
from the previous masterpieces, is an emphasis on bal-
anced, generally centred framing observable in a majority
of shots and which contributes strongly to the film's hieratic
quality (symmetry is regarded by Japanese tradition as
suitable only to temple architecture). However, it would be
a mistake to infer that this mode of composition leads to an
occlusion of field and frame as does the subtle centering of
the Western system, since the very nature of Japanese
classical architecture, magnificently epitomized in these
sets, is so committed to emphasis on frame and surface as to
render such an effect unthinkable.
Perhaps most striking of all is the lavish extravagance of
so many camera movements: for the first time, it seems,
Mizoguchi had a crane at his disposal, though it would be
trivial to reduce this radical abandonment of the principle
of economy observed in Tale of Late Chrysanthemums to
this mechanical contingency. For when these movements
occur they adhere to a remarkable inner logic. The succes-
sive camera angles within a given shot previously tended,
IRON TREES, almost without exception, to form a centrifugal pattern in
GOLDEN FLOWERS pro-filmic space, i.e. the camera, in accordance precisely
with the principle of economy of means, tended to pivot
about a single point or line. InA Tale of Loyal Retainers, on
the other hand, the pattern tends to be centripetal, i.e. the
camera tends to circle about the characters and often in fact
effects one or more complete reversals during a single shot.
And while this analysis certainly does not account for all of
this monumental film, one does detect a systematic ten-
dency to introduce the two main figures of dominant narra-
tive editing- the concertina and the reverse field- into the
camera movements but at the same time to unfold them
with ostentatious slowness. As a result, there is absolutely
nothing of that 'organic' embedding in the diegesis
achieved by a comparable adaptation of the editing codes
to movement in the West. In fact, the extravagance of these
movements is such that ultimately they may be said to offer
an absolutely unique ceremonial commentary on the repre-
sentational system of the Western film.
One of the most spectacularly beautiful instances of this
procedure is the sequence in which Asano's wife sacrifices
her hair preparatory to entering widowhood. This five-
minute shot begins with a distant rear view of the lady, with
two of her ladies-in-waiting visible on her right. The only
sounds to be heard are the tolling death-knell and the
women's sobs. After a long moment, one of the women
rises carrying a knife on a tray and goes towards Lady
Asano. The camera starts to circle to the right and soon we
see that there are many other women in the room all bowed
and sobbing. One of the servants wraps the long hair in a
sheet of paper, the other cuts the tresses with the knife. The
camera completes its semi-circle. Facing the camera now,
the widow remains erect and dry-eyed while all the servants
prostrate themselves and sob even more desperately.
A far more elaborate example of this approach, almost
bordering on the pedantic, is to be found in the long con-
frontation between Tokugawa Tsunatoyo, a relative of the
reigning Shogun but who secretly sympathizes with the
plotters, and Tominomori Sukeyemon, a young retainer of
the late lord. The conversation in which Tsunatoyo affects
to persuade Sukeyemon to give up the vendetta, is set in a
large audience-room in Sukeyemon's mansion, and con-
sists mainly in two very ample circular movements which
produce the equivalent of two reverse-field 'cuts' spread
out over a period of five minutes! Similarly, slow forward
tracking movements seem to reproduce the concertina, but
within such restricted limits on the shot-size scale that the
principle of camera distance is at all times respected,
altogether eliminating the close-up, motor and target of the
concertina in the classical Western decoupage. When Oishi MIZOGUCHI KENJI

comes upon two vassals of Asano, the commoner Izeki and

his son, dying of self-inflicted wounds in front of the castle
of Ako, the first part of the scene is filmed from an extraor-
dinary distance; when Oishi whispers to the dying Izeki that
he intends to avenge their lord, the camera dollies in to a
head-to-foot shot, which might be said to stand in this
instance for a cut to a dramatic close-up. Taken on its own,
this example might of course suggest that there is an
'innate' Japanese code of shot sizes, parallel to our own and
merely less extended, but such procedures are too rare in
the Japanese cinema to explain such work in purely cultural
terms (not to mention the fact that this film was a commer-
cial failure). We seem rather to be dealing with a specific
transformation of a set of Western codes, comparable, at
the level of the individual artist, with those cultural modes
of transformation observed earlier.
Another remarkable example of distance, 'resolved' in
this case by an actual concertina, is the scene in which
Sukeyemon hot-headedly attacks Tsunatoyo as he pre-
pares to perform in a no play (Fig. 29, Pls. la, b, c, d, e, f, g,
and 2). The tiny face of Sukeyemon's wife appearing from
time to time in the background is typical of the way Miz-
oguchi demands that an audience read the image. A concer-
tina occurs in the midst of the two men's struggle (Pls.lg, 2)
as a prelude to the dialogue in which Tsunatoyo explains
that he in fact favours the vendetta and that Sukeyemon
must follow Oishi's lead and bide his time. It is indicative of
the displacement effect of Mizoguchi's basic distance
option on the editing codes in their literal use; but it also
demonstrates the director's new concern to introduce
established editing figures. For although very long takes are
again the rule in this film, the dilated analysis of the editing
codes through movement is matched by a relatively fre-
quent use of the actual figures (more predominant in the
first part of the film than in the second, however). What is
significant here is that their use usually seems to be defer-
red: often a scene will take place in very long shot for quite
some time and then, at a point in the narrative which may
seem quite arbitrary, a concertina (or other type of match)
will occur (of course, the example illustrated above was not
of this type).
Was it because audiences were disappointed in the com-
plete lack of violence? Was it because of the extreme
austerity of the narrative- for long inter-titles recalled the
episodes not shown (among them the attack on Kira's
mansion and the suicide of the forty-seven) and the diegesis
was almost exclusively discursive or ceremonial? These
explications are difficult to accept, because so many

241
successful films made until then had been equally eventless MIZOGUCHI KENJI
and austere, and this continued to be the case for years.
Whatever the reason, this inordinately expensive film was a
financial disaster. Possibly, of course, this lavishly austere
presentation of basic 'feudal' values did not mesh with the
historical mood and the material conditions which deter-
mined it.
The film was made during the Pacific War, in response to
government demands that Shochiku increase their produc-
tion of patriotic films ... and Mizoguchi seems to have
volunteered. He was always prepared, it seems, to respond
to this type of demand; in 1932 he had made The Dawn of
the Foundation of Manchukuo and Mongolia (Mam-Ma Fig. 29. Mizoguchi Kenji, A
kenkoku no reimei) and he collaborated during the last Tale of Loyal Retainers of the
months of the war in an all-star production, Song of Faith in Genroku Era
Victory (Hissho ka, 1945). These facts help us to relativize
the 'progressive' content of so many other of his films.
More generally, if one were to examine the political records
of most of the major film-makers of the 1930s, it seems
fairly clear that the suggestion made earlier that the fusion
of traditional values and militarist ideology was a major
factor in the development of a specifically Japanese
cinema, holds true at the level of the individual as well.
Mizoguchi's first post-war films were already increas-
ingly inflected by that fascination with the efficiency and
'effectiveness' oft he Western codes, an aspect of his career
which will be discussed later. Five Women Around Utam-
aro (Utamaro o meguro gonin no anna, 1946) -the first
jidai-geki, it seems, to be authorized by the American cen-
sors- is a remarkable exercise in dramatic efficacy, as are so
many of Mizoguchi's films. The long take is largely subser-
vient to the Western codes and there are frequent close-
ups. In general, it gives an impression of hesitation, not
unlike that observed in his work in the mid-1930s: one
observes both the temptation of the codes from the con-
quering West and the nostalgia for an exemplary past of
personal and national rigour.
The Love ofActress Sumako (Joyu Sumako no koi, 1947)
is probably the last of Mizoguchi's films to extend his work
of the pre-war era. It, too, deals with the theatre. This
theme seems important to Mizoguchi, though many of the
films illustrating it are lost- one especially regrets Woman
of Naniwa (Naniwa anna, 1940), shot with the collabora-
tion of the Bunraku Theatre. It tells of the love and of the
death of an actress and a director (Shimamura Hogetsu)
who were among the founders of shin-geki. Among many
remarkable innovations, this film displays a radical, quasi-
pedagogical contrast between the first reel - seen as a
umverse of men - and the rest of the film which is the

243
IRON TREES, domain of one woman. The introductory sequences show
GOLDEN FLOWERS Shimamura lecturing to a drama-school class, then holding
a conference with his colleagues. They are shot entirely
according to the reverse-field concertina mode. The
characteristic Mizoguchi systemics is then abruptly intro-
duced in a five-minute take in which Sumako thrashes her
husband and makes the acquaintance of her future lover,
who has been watching the scene. As in Tale of Late
Chrysanthemums, an effort is made to contrast the theatri-
cal scenes with the rest of the film, but here the use of
editing is more rigorously restricted; performances are shot
either in very long shot, with the stage barely visible at the
far end of the hall, or in medium close-ups which exclude
the proscenium arch. Dramatically, too, the film is one of
Mizoguchi's most accomplished, though it cannot compare,
on this score or any other, with the chiselled perfection of
Tale of Late Chrysanthemums.
Following The Love of Actress Sumako, which repres-
ents a plateau of excellence in the work of Mizoguchi, the
quality of his films declined in much the same way as the
standards of Ozu's films had fallen away. With what might
be regarded as a typically Japanese opportunism, he
appears to have discovered that his systemics were per-
fectly compatible with one of the dominant tendencies in
Fig. 30. Mizoguchi Kenji, Five Hollywood at that time: the long take ala Wyler. The social
Women Around Utamaro dramas which he made in the late 1940s are perfectly in
keeping with the general tone of that tragic period. By the
Fig. 31. Mizoguchi Kenji, The time he returned to jidai-geki, he had become a virtuoso
Love of Actress Sumako stylist. The elegance of a film like The Life of a Woman, by
Saikaku (Saikaku ichidai anna, 1952), 22 with its sensitive
adaptation of an eighteenth-century classic, though incom-
parably more sophisticated as literature than, say, Wyler's
The Heiress, is not to be compared in any way with his
earlier masterpieces. In particular, one observes in this film
and in the others of the 1950s such an utter absorption in
the aesthetics of the long take, its organization and compos-
ition, that it is as if shot-changes simply did not exist. Each
cut gives the same impression of perfunctorily 'turning a
page', as in, say, Visconti's I! Gattopardo. When the end of a
shot has arrived, we pass on to the next, and the spatia-
temporal event constituted by that change seems to be
regarded as non-existent, whereas even in Tale of Late
Chrysanthemums, where cuts were rare and were not the
object of any special effort, they were almost always pro-
duced as caesura. The camera in these later films was, of
course, as supple and free-moving as it had ever been
before, but totally subservient to a stylized version of the
22. Distributed in the West as The Life
dominant code. To the extent that there is 'editing in
ofOharu. movement' at all (for nudges are commonplace by now), it is

244
IRON TREES, practically identical with, say, that of Samuel Fuller in
GOLDEN FLOWERS Pickup on South Street.
One film,.A Story by Chikamatsu (Chikamatsu monogatari,
1954), stands out among the films of Mizoguchi's last years-
forreasons, however, largely unrelated to the main issue of his
pre-war work. I have described elsewhere and at some length
how Mizoguchi and the composer Hayazaka Fumio explored
in remarkable fashion the 'sound-track continuum', estab-
lishing frequent relays between music, sound effects (noise)
and the spoken word. 23 Though none of his later films
contains sustained work in this area, it was prefigured by
certain passages in Tale of Late Chrysanthemums.
Mizoguchi's last period will be given some consideration
in the context of post-war cinema and its critical reception,
for I am fully conscious of the extent to which my evalua-
tions run counter to accepted judgements. Lest there be
any misunderstandings, I claim that the Mizoguchi of Sis-
ters of Gion, Tale of Late Chrysanthemums and possibly,
too, other films of that period is no doubt the greatest of all
Japanese directors, in the way that we as Westerners judge
such matters.
Mizoguchi was throughout his career a master of drama-
23. See my Theory of Film Practice
(p. 44 ff.), in which I also discuss some of
tic narrative in a sense that Ozu was not. And judged
the implications of Japanese music and according to the stylistic criteria of dominant criticism, The
theatrical sound with regard to modern
Western music and cinema. The
Life of a Woman, by Saikaku or Sansho the Bailiff(SanshO
Japanese musical sensibility, which has da yu, 1954) are no doubt in all respects the equal of Sisters
never made the distinction between
music and noise which conditions the
of Gion or Tale of Late Chrysanthemums. But from our
Western ear, seems admirably suhed to historically and theoretically oriented standpoint the
coping with the problems of formalizing
the total track, while the organization of
importance of these early films is incomparably greater;
the Japanese film-crew, in which the their superior internal rigour is due in large part to the
same man records, edits and mixes the
track, would seem the ideal condition to
director's fidelity to the otherness of his native culture- just
promote experimentation of the kind as his ultimate decline must be understood within the con-
undertaken by Mizoguchi in that
exceptional film. Yet to this day it
text of Japan's historical situation and that of her cinema
remains almost unique in Japan. after the 1945 defeat.
21. Shimizu Hiroshi and
Some Others

Shimizu Hiroshi seems the most 'spontaneously Japanese'

director of his generation, unscientific though this judge-
ment may be. His 'work on the signifier' has none of the
advanced complexities of Ozu, Mizoguchi, Ishida or even
Naruse at his best. His was a privative rather than an
elaborative systemics. It is, however, unrivalled as an emb-
lem of the essence of this golden age. More radically than
any of the more generally recognized masters of shomin-
geki, Shimizu came to reject the concept of the linear,
unified narrative. His 'spontaneous' insistence on camera
distance is in some ways more startling even than Mizo-
guchi's, if only because his decoupage (save for an occa-
sional geometrical patterning, which we shall examine in a
moment) is not otherwise remarkable.
Furthermore, Shimizu is the one Japanese director who
has produced a body of work which offers meaningful
comparison with the writings of the great seventeenth-
century poet and 'novelist' Ihara Saikaku. And Saikaku's
prose writings are, in turn, the epitome of a specifically
Japanese approach to narrative, often the most startling
aspect, to Westerners, of the Japanese cinema. There has
always been, in Japanese literature, a tendency towards an
agglutinative conception of narrative which finds expres-
sion in the very early long poem (chOka) by Hitomaro
presented in Chapter 3, and in the uta-monogatari, those
collections of brief tales built around tanka. It is very much
in evidence in the large scale monogatari such as 'The Tale
of Genji' which, despite the unifying factor provided by the
central characters, has a rambling non-cumulative quality
about the narrative which sets it totally at odds with what
the Western world for two hundred years has commonly
termed the novel.
Saikaku devoted most of his life to haikai, or chains of
brief verses (hokku or haiku). He was, moreover, a product
of the rising merchant class, and not the least interesting
aspect of the prose writings to which he devoted the last
seven years of his life, is their portrayal of the minds and

247
IRON TREES, manners of the merchants and other city-folk of the Gen-
GOLDEN FLOWERS roku era.
For our purposes, the most significant among his writings
is The Japanese Family Storehouse (Nippon eitai-gura ), a
collection of thirty 'short stories' with an ostensibly didactic
purpose: advising the ambitious merchant on how to get
rich. However, as the most authoritative Western specialist
on this author, G. W. Sargent, has put it.
Saikaku does not labour his points ... He proceeds rapidly from
topic to topic, expecting his readers to follow as best they can -
and if his readers were already schooled in the twists and turns of
rapid haikai verse, they probably experienced very little difficulty.
The moral is there for the curious, but it does not seem likely that
either Saikaku or his readers were interested in it for its own sake.
It is part of the pattern. 1

Indeed, many of the most representative pieces in the

collection echo in microcosm the fragmented form of the
book itself (derived, it seems, from the chatty travel guides
which were a popular genre in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries) by a disjunctive, multi-polar structure
derived from the associative/dissociative techniques of
haikai.
The thought is not logically progressive ... each brief section is
permitted to develop in a way which has no direct bearing on what
is to follow, and the transitions, when effected, are brought about
abruptly and almost casually, sometimes by mechanical means ...
A haikai short story is less closely knit, less compelling to the
reader, than one constructed on dramatic principles. It is basically
a succession of related digressions. 2

One of the better examples of this construction is 'Making a

clock in slow motion' 3 which unfolds its disjunctive dis-
course against two unifying elements: the city of Nagasaki
and what is in fact the overall theme of the book, 'the
proper approach to making a successful living.'

First, the wrong - the unpractical Chinese - approach is given.

Then follows an example of how inventiveness should be turned
to practical use, to the making of a fortune in a single generation.
Next, after a brief introductory description of trading at Nagasaki,
come stories of Nagasaki dealers. illustrating the point that
ingenuity is essential for making a fortune. Then there is a short
1. Sargent, G. W., The Japanese Family conclusion giving the right and wrong methods of buying
Storehouse, p. 210.
imported goods at Nagasaki. 4
2. ibid., pp. xxxv and xxxvii.
However, an analysis of the English text alone reveals
3· ibid., pp. 105-g· remarkably sophisticated 'mechanical' articulations, anti-
4· ibid .. pp. 209-10. thetical to that of the classical Western novel, which seeks
precisely to 'compel' the reader and rejects obtrusively SHIMIZU HIROSHI AND

mechanical transitions. 5 It appears closely related to the SOME OTHERS

practice of some of the most advanced Western literature

of our century (Joyce and the French novel since Robbe-
Grillet), which require readers no less schooled in the twists
and turns of language play.
Shimizu is known to have directed over 150 films be-
tween 1924 and 1959, most of which are not considered
'personal' films. I cannot verify this assumption, since of the
Shimizu films which have been unearthed so far, 6 I have
been able to see only a few. Of these, the film which best
illustrates the 'agglutinative' narrative is A Star Athlete
(Hanagata senshu, 1937). The five episodes that compose
this film do involve the same characters and subtly con-
verge to point up a fundamentally Japanese- and, at this
date, patriotic - moral: No matter how good you are indi-
vidually, it is the group that comes first. These episodes are,
however, primarily autonomous as to structure of decoup-
age and mode of narration. They contain cyclical motifs not
unlike those observed in Saikaku. Moreover, two of them
are frankly farcical, while the other three are, in different
ways, contrastingly serious.
The first 'cameo', for it is hard to think of these sections
under any other category, tells how the 'star', Seki, is
roused from a nap on the high-school lawn by Tanni, the
serious athletics monitor who resents the other boy's lack-
adaisical attitude and challenges him to a foot-race. Seki
wins ... and goes back to his nap (I shall deal with this
sequence in detail when considering Shimizu's approach to
decoupage ). The second section, the most elaborate in the
film and certainly one of Shimizu's most brilliant achieve-
ments, presents the students on a two-day march as part of
their obligatory military training. Seki and Tanni are only
incidentally present in this scene which, for most of its
eleven minutes, consists of thirty consecutive dolly move-
ments, forward or backward along a country road, with the
camera always preceding or following the students. The
action consists of encounters which they have along the way
and is treated in a mode of cyclical humour closer to that of
the French master, Jacques Tati, than to that of American
silent comedy. They overtake a group of small boys who fall
in behind the double column, pass three pretty girls with
parasols, then three peasants wearing broad rainhats.
Holding their noses all at the same time, they leave a wide
berth for a wagon-load of manure passing between their
ranks; they overtake and pass a group of girls on a hike ... 5. The occasional exceptions found in
but soon a truck overtakes them, and the same girls wave Dickens merely confinn this rule.
merrily at them from the back. The truck is soon out of sight 6. Most of them since I was last in Japan
and now the sergeant orders his men to proceed 'on the (see Appendix 2).

249
IRON TREES, double'; the jogging students overtake the truck, which has
GOLDEN FLOWERS had a breakdown; the girls watch the students jog by (still
followed by the little boys) and after a whispered consulta-
tion, fall in behind; however, the sergeant cuts out across
country. The students scatter in battle formation and ford a
shallow pond; the children follow bravely, but the girls are
left looking foolish and disappointed at the edge.
The play of the camera up and down the road, taking
subjective and objective roles by turn, is a constant source
of gentle humour, while, at the same time, coupled with
reappearances of characters and visual themes, it contri-
butes to a truly musical dimension. The third section of the
film is, 'musically' again, a kind of double interlude, one of
its sub-sections pursuing the central theme, the other being
a complete diversion: during a rest-period in a clearing,
Tanni almost comes to blows with Seki, whom he again
feels is 'putting on airs'. Then, when the troop moves out
again, one of the boys has stomach cramp and his buddy
stays behind to help him. A peasant passes in a cart and
takes them aboard; they pass the marching troop, in an
echo of the previous section.
Section four is a veritable nocturne; it takes place in and
around a commensal country inn (yado) and involves sev-
eral brief portraits and vignettes. It is centred, however,
around a woman traveller with a sick little girl: a doctor
comes, a shinto priest officiates over the child and Seki runs
afoul of some card-players whom he tries to quieten down
for the child's sake. Finally. there is the faintest beginning
of a flirtation between Seki and the mother. This is more
than Tanni can take (Seki has broken training. as it were)
and he knocks him down 'so that the Sergeant won't have to
do it'. Seki readily admits that he was in the wrong and in
the courtyard of the inn he and Tanni make peace before
the assembled students.
Next day, they are back on the road, and the fifth and last
section of the film. the only one which is frankly farcical, is
built on an extravagant misunderstanding: the shinto
priest, who has resumed his journey, seeing the soldiers
coming down the road on the double, imagines that they
arc out to get him, and flees. Catching up with another of
the characters from the previous night at the inn, he passes
on his panic, and this process continues until a whole
ludicrous group are fleeing down the road with the soldiers
apparently in hot pursuit. (The structure of this gag echoes
a fragment of the earlier marching sequence: the hiking
girls were also strung out along the road and as the students
approached they gradually joined together in much the
same way.) The frightened travellers strike out across the
fields but are relentlessly followed by the students; they

250
plunge into a river but when they reach the opposite bank, SHIMIZU HIROSHI AND
they don't even have time to wring their clothes out, but SOME OTHERS
must dash on half-naked, terrified by the distant spectacle
of ... exhausted students wading their way through the
water (and of course these last stages of the pursuit are a
variation on the earlier sequence as well). After a short
rest, the students go on their way singing ... and the film is
over.
The date of the film and its underlying political moral are
clearly not unrelated. Yet, in a balanced historical perspec-
tive, it is impossible to reduce it to a mere contribution to
the coming war effort. From a textual point of view, we may
say, as Sargent puts it apropos of Saikaku, that the moral is
not there for its own sake, that 'it is part of the pattern'.
As a further example of the modest and yet exemplary
way in which Shimizu envisages 'patterning,' let us look in
some detail at the opening sequence, illustrated in Fig. 32.

-on the shady school lawn, students are cleaning rifles (Pl.
r); dissolve to ...
- the same frame, rifles are stacked (Pl. 2); after eight
seconds, dissolve again to ...
-the same frame; the rifles have disappeared and far in the Fig. 32. Shimizu Hiroshi, A
background three boys are asleep (Pl. 3) Star Athlete

25I
12 13

15

16a !6b

32. Shimizu Hiroshi, A --another fixed shot of the track (Pl. 12); Seki, followed by
Star Athlete comes into the frame and they sit side by side on a
wooden platform
match: they start to dress (Pl. 13), exchanging a few
but before Seki has even finished, he gets up and
exits to the left
Scki away (Pl. 14)
- Tanni watches him with a smile (Pl. 15)
-· Seki back to where his companions arc asleep under
the trees (Pl. r6a); he lies down beside them (Pl. r6b) and
goes to

254
Now, in this sequence, Shimizu has used only the most SHIMIZU HIROSHI AND
classical editing figures - primarily concertinas and r8o 0 SOME OTHERS
reversals; however, the insistent mechanical repetition of
these, their geometrical arrangement with regard to pro-
filmic topography and the radically singularized use of
movement, give to this section a geometric rigour which is
rooted in traditional art and architecture and prefigures
Kurosawa. Also remarkable, and typical of Shimizu, is the
steadfast refusal to aestheticize any of these choices; in this
respect his handling is very different to Ozu's.
Special attention should be paid to Shimizu's strict avoid-
ance of close-ups. The tightest shot in this series of seven-
teen is Pl. 7a, a thigh-length two-shot. In Shimizu's films
generally, close-ups are extremely rare. However, unlike
Mizoguchi, for whom the long shot soon became part of a
refined aestheticism, Shimizu seems to have regarded it
simply as a privative rule, to be followed as a matter of
course. Even his very last post-war films retained this 'pro-
saic' use of camera distance, and among the film-makers of
his generation he is, in fact, one of those who remained
most faithful to his own style. His last films are certainly less
austere than A Star Athlete, but their formal homogeneity,
determined by the same principles, remains remarkable.
In fact the choice of camera distance is perhaps carried to
its ultimate consequences in Children of the Great Buddha
(Daibutsu-sama no kodomotachi, 1952) set in Nara and
centred upon a group of war orphans who serve (or aspire
to serve) as tourist guides. The central figure is a precocious
boy, deeply enamoured of the temples and their statues,
and who acts as mentor for the other children, teaching
them by rote the guide's sing-song spiel, the substance of
which he actually gets from the little son of a bonze. This
film too is 'no more than' a collection of 'cameos': a conver-
sation with an American girl of Japanese ancestry who has
come to visit the land of her parents now that the war is
over; touching scenes of the boy listening outside different
houses everyday at noon until he can catch the midday
radio news with its list of returning war-prisoners (his
father is a missing soldier); his conversations about art with
a professor from Tokyo. The film is composed predomin-
antly of huge long shots, taking in the giant statues, the
towering temples, and with the characters often little more
than tiny silhouettes scurrying along the edge of the frame.
At times, the fictional dimension of the diegesis seems to be
almost completely dissolved in favour of a 'documentary'
experiencing of Nara. Even the scenes which are not set
inside the city proper, and in particular the picnic with the
nisei girl, are shot almost exclusively in long shot, with at
most one or two medium shots inserted here or there.

255
I do, however, wish to insist that these traits- which can be SHIMIZU HIROSHI AND
summed up as camera-distance and exceptionally low-key SOME OTHERS
narrative - seem to appear in a very large number of
Japanese films indeed. Random soundings among the films
of directors of the 1930s of lesser standing than those
already discussed, as well as some of no standing what-
soever, have convinced me of the validity of certain cauti-
ous generalizations. Here are a few examples.
In 1939, the director Inoue Kintaro made Crow in the
Moonlight (Tsukiyo karasu ), a curious story, with sado-
masochistic overtones, of the relationship between a
woman musician and her handsome young pupil, in which
insistently academic reverse-field scenes alternate in seem-
ing arbitrariness with amazingly long takes, the camera
often remaining at a considerable distance on the far side of
a garden or at the end of a street, for minutes on end.
Toyoda Shiro's better-known The Bush Warbler
(Uguisu, 1938), though ultimately no more distinguished,
associates a curiously uncentred narrative (portraits and
vignettes in a village police station) with an even greater
proclivity for long takes and camera distance.
Going back to the very beginnings of sound in Japan, a
film by Tanaka Eizo, Namiko, the 'Cuckoo' (Hototogisu
Namiko, 1932), a really trashy gendai-geki in a patriotically
edifying, melodramatic vein, is shot entirely in single-take
sequences. This was certainly due in part to the sound-
editing difficulties experienced also in the West, but despite
an occasional track-in for dramatic emphasis, close frames
are extremely rare, and the camera tends to take in an
entire room from the outset, with the characters gradually
occupying the film as they arrive. The film may well have
been adapted from a play, like so many of its Western
contemporaries, but the 'theatricality' of its decoupage is
specifically Japanese. It contains, in particular, a single
five-minute take marking the hero's participation in the
war with China, a besieged smoke-filled interior crowded
with soldiers (throughout with their backs to the com-
pletely motionless camera) shooting out of the windows
until the whole set literally comes down around their ears.
One would not be likely to find this sort of shot in a
comparably obscure Western film, even in that period of
technological constraint.
The films of the 1930s which descended from the original
chambera also seem to have perpetuated quite naturally
the tradition of camera distance which had been so intrinsic
to the genre during the 1920s. The New Tangezasen (Shin-
pen Tangezasen - Sagan no maki, 1939) by Nakagawa
Nobuo, an eclectic 'B-picture' director who has the esteem
of today's younger generation of critics, is a clear-cut

257
IRON TREES, example. The opening sequence, involving a running com-
GOLDEN FLOWERS bat of one against many, is shot from an extravagant
distance throughout and is intercut, moreover, with de-
centering 'pillow-shots' of reeds. In this film, the reverse-
field system does appear from time to time (as it did in most
films of the period). It no doubt took an Ozu to subvert it
radically, a Mizoguchi or a Shimizu to banish it entirely,
and this, of course, is one measure of the ultimately excep-
tional character of their accomplishments. One senses,
however, that even a Nakagawa has no special 'feeling' for
the system, since he too introduces it rather arbitrarily into
certain conversation pieces while often treating other equi-
valent scenes in a single long shot.
However, just as the action film often accommodated a
rare use of the editing codes, so too the most 'eventless',
low-keyed, typically Japanese genres related to shomin-
geki accommodated those same codes in all their perfec-
tion. And at one level shomin-geki is undoubtedly
informed by a Western ideology of realism - Western in
scope but not entirely foreign, of course, to a realist bias
present in Japanese cultural patterns since the time of
Saikaku, Chikamatsu and Hokusai.
The coded, academic quality of what was probably a
majority of films in the new modern genre is an observable
fact. The outstanding instances are two highly respected
specialists of 'family drama', Shimazu Yasu jiro and Gosha
Heinosuke. The quotidian banality and radical under-
dramatization of such films as Our Neighbour Miss Yae
(Tonari no Yae-chan, 1934) or Family Meeting (Kazoku
kaigi, 1936) are astonishing when one considers that they
are contemporary with and most comparable to It Hap-
pened One Night, La Belle Equipe or Storm. 7 Shimazu's
rather clumsy fidelity to the Western codes, in spite of an
occasional 'pillow-shot', makes his work 'typically Japan-
ese' only in a very limited sense. However, critics insensi-
tive to the ideological and cultural determination of modes
of representation and who therefore fail to see that the
Hollywood codes are not a natural language, tend to place a
high value on it.
On the other hand, while Gosha's very real mastery of
Western-style decoupage demonstrates the subtly perva-
sive action of the Hollywood system as clearly as Shimazu's
pale imitation, his scripts are so admirably representative
of a genre that a brief discussion of a typical film is in order.
The Burden of Life (Jinsei no onimotsu, 1935), like
7· Comparable by their typicality. Such nearly all pre-war Gosho films, is set in a merchant-class
exceptional Western films as Barnett's
By the Blue Sea or Menschen am Sonn- family. The middle-aged father has just married off his
tag are the references which make even third daughter but still has Kan-Chan, a nine-year-old child,
the most run-of-the-mill shomin-geki
appear avant-garde in the West. to raise. Kan-Chan is resented by his father, as he was an
unwanted baby, and the boy is aware of this. Finally, the SHIMIZU HIROSHI AND
mother, who disapproves of her husband's attitude towards SOME OTHERS
Kan-Chan, takes him away to live with one of her sons-in-
law. Kan-Chan, however, is not really happy in his new
home and one day unthinkingly goes back to his own house
after school. He has a meal with his father for the first time
in many years, and this embryonic reconciliation brings the
mother home as well. Needless to say, this slender central
narrative is filled out with portraits of the various family
members, all of whom are equally 'three-dimensional' in
sharp contrast to the dominant Western model of graded
characterization (see Chapter 23). It is not that there is no
dramatic conflict or underlying narrative movement; only
su,ch extreme films as Naruse's post-war Mother really
achieve this 'void'. It is simply that the fundamental diege-
tic economy is not centred around a plot-line or a character
of privileged 'density' in any way comparable to the domin-
ant Western model. There are, in particular, many 'irrelev-
ant' events which are offered as being equal in importance
to those articulated to the 'main theme', and the diegetic
space-time of the film as a whole is offered as being of no
more importance than what 'preceded' or 'will follow' in
the family's life-stream. If ever the ideology of the 'slice of
life' were realized in cinema, it is in such films as this. The
combination of follow-shots with cutaways to the sleeping
Kan-Chan in the sequence in which mother and father
come home late from the wedding ('What a relief to be rid
of the three of them ... but there's still Kan-Chan') antici-
pates and equals the most successful moments of Italian
neo-realism. The Japanese need for confirmation that
when all is said and done 'everyone is like everyone else',
indeed their willingness to accept such confirmations as
sufficient basis for communal spectacle, is perhaps
nowhere so clearly instantiated as in these films. Despite
the realist bias of Edo, it is not absolutely certain that
'illusionist' representation is, in the Japanese view, neces-
sarily better suited to satisfying this need than the 'presenta-
tionalism' associated with the traditional arts. Whence, the
persistence of the benshi and the relative popularity, in
their day, of the films of Mizoguchi and Ozu. The convic-
tion, presumably shared by Gosho, Shimazu and others,
that the 'right way' to make films involved the dominant
Western approach to shot-size and editing followed from a
gesture that had become typical among the liberal intel-
ligentsia. For them, Western and especially American
'know-how' had a decisive prestige; they quite rightly
associated it with the bourgeois conceptions of liberalism
and democracy. At the same time, of course, a film like The
Burden of Life served quite directly the interests of the

259
IRON TREES, reactionary forces at work in Japan. The traditional cohe-
GOLDEN FLOWERS sion of the family cell is preserved against the 'individualis-
tic' (antisocial) bias of the father, while the balancing
influence of middle-aged women, allotted considerably
more power within the family than when they were young
and desirable, is an essential element of the social fabric.
We shall return to these contradictory aspects in the next
section.
Aside from these fairly numerous films depicting the
family life of what was essentially the petty bourgeoisie, the
galaxy of 'plotless' genres also provided occasion for
somewhat more independent directors to depict the lives of
the poor 'as they really were', though not of course to offer
dissenting criticism of the social and political developments
of the late 1930s. Uchida Tomu's Earth (Tsuchi, 1939) is a
famous portrait of peasant life made under difficult condi-
tions; it anticipates films like Farrebique. Naruse's The
Whole Family Works (Hataraku ikka, 1939) is somewhat
more interesting: this sketch of a sorely pressed, very large
working-class family is remarkable for its use of the long
shot to present a social group. Its systematic and often very
lovely recourse to the pillow-shot and its constant concern
with money and material difficulties are equally note-
worthy. It contains, of course, and for obvious reasons, not
a word against capitalism or militarism, and one has the
curious impression of reading a Chikamatsu play, expres-
sive of the hard times of the Edo merchants under the
bakufu, and yet full of feudal loyalty, as well.
One further remark about what seems to be the specific
scope of the low-key diegesis is in order. For while jidai-
geki have predominantly been reserved for fantasy produc-
tion, rampant with supermen, ghosts, erotic violence, etc., 8
gendai-geki have traditionally been as far removed as poss-
ible from the imagery and constructions of fantasy. The
importation of Western genres such as the spy film has
somewhat modified this picture over the past few decades,
but in the 1930s the dichotomy seems to have been quite
rigorously respected.
It is also striking to a 'distant observer' that nothing
whatsoever comparable to theshomin-geki existed in popu-
lar Western films during the period under consideration
(compared with Gosha's The Neighbour's Wife and Mine or
Ozu's A Story of Floating Weeds, Toni or Marius are
Elizabethan tragedies). The coming oftelevision, however,
8. The reputations of Yamanaka and in both Europe and the United States has produced an
ltami rest largely on their having gone audio-visual genre 9 astonishingly similar to 'family drama';
counter to this tendency.
although these programmes emphasize such values asmari-
9· Prefigured in the United States by the
'daytime' radio serial, and a certain type
tal fidelity rather than filial obligations, for example, they
of women's magazine story. do often bear a remarkable resemblance of tone to the

260
shomin-geki, both in the cinema of the 1930s and today's SHIMIZU HIROSHI AND
TV, insofar as they attempt to portray the everyday lives of SOME OTHERS
the 'average' viewer in a way that Western cinema had
almost never done. Of course, the relative unity, even
today, of Japanese society is such that all classes could, to
some degree, recognize themselves in the characters of Ozu
and the others, whereas in Western television we most
often have the middle class imposing its own image of itself
or of the dominated classes. This unanimistic dimension of
shomin-geki is an important aspect of its specific social role.
However, without exaggerating the importance of
McLuhan's glib insights into the new dimensions given
capitalist society by television, it does seem that this con-
vergence does point to the rise of an ideological need which
is relatively new in the West ... but not in Japan. A
comparative study here, provided it does not give way to
positivistic sociologism, might shed light on the changing
nature of ideological domination through the media.
22. Epilogue to a Golden Age

Although Japan's 'withdrawal into herself' after her

annexation of Manchuria was a determining factor in the
maturation of a specifically Japanese cinema, we cannot
forget that this decade of relative cultural and ideological
seclusion was above all the crucible of a quasi-Fascist
militarism. Domestically, this generated a police state far
surpassing that of the Tokugawa bakufu, and ultimately
brought death and destruction to most of South-East
Asia. The objective complicity of nearly every Japanese
film-maker of the period is a fact -especially to the extent
that his films extolled, implicitly or explicitly, those tradi-
tional values which constituted the ideological basis for the
new authoritarianism. For while it is true, for example,
that some of Ozu's early films, such as An Inn in Tokyo,
treat discreetly progressive subjects, it is equally true that
his entire effort, from the mid-1930s onward, constitutes
a single anguished query as to the possible disappearance
of that pillar of Japanese society, the traditional family
system. And it is no accident that his most important film
made during the Pacific War is almost the only film in
which he seems to see hopes for the system, in the
lifelong camaraderie of father and son. Although abso-
lute judgement, cultural or political, on the Japanese
family system is impossible, we know that it was essential
to the ideology of militarist Japan. Just as, I might add,
the development of a 'language' which fed upon tradi-
tional aesthetic and ethical values went hand in hand
with the reinvigoration of shinto and other ideological
strategies. And while certain films by Mizoguchi may be
said to convey a progressive message (especially on the
condition of women) we have also seen that he did not
hesitate, either after the annexation of Manchuria or dur-
ing the Pacific War, to make his contribution. Setting
aside the patently militarist directors, such as Yamamoto
Kajiro, Kurosawa's 'teacher', we may say tha.t a vast
majority of more or less forgotten directors contributed
to the ideological consolidation of the regime precisely to

262
the extent that their films aided the reactivation of tradi- EPILOGUE TO A
tiona! cultural values without which the specificity of the GOLDEN AGE
Japanese cinema could not have developed ... and this is
a basic, irreducible dialectic. It took the courage of a
Yamanaka to resist, if only passively, the economic,
ideological and even physical pressures which were
brought to bear. And it goes without saying that as war
was resumed with China, then waged against Britain and
the United States, the industry's contribution to the war
effort, though in certain instances reluctant, was massive
nonetheless.
When Ruth Benedict, doing 'field work' for her rather
presumptuous but often penetrating study of the 'Japan-
ese mind' commissioned by the American government 1
had occasion to screen captured Japanese war-propa-
ganda films, she was amazed to find that by any Western
standards they seemed almost anti-militarist and, in any
case, scarcely corresponded to the pattern set by com-
parable productions from Allied or European Axis pow-
ers.
They do not play up military parades and bands and prideful
showings of fleet manoeuvres or big guns. Whether they deal
with the Russo-Japanese War or the China incident, they
starkly insist upon the monotonous routine of mud and march-
ing, the suffering of lowly fighting, the inconclusiveness of cam-
paigns. Their curtain scenes are not victory or even banzai
charges. They are overnight halts in some featureless Chinese
town deep in mud. Or they show maimed, halt and blind rep-
resentatives of three generations of a Japanese family, survivors
of three wars. Or they show the family at home, after the death
of the soldier, mourning the loss of husband and breadwinner
and gathering themselves together to go on without him. The
stirring background of Anglo-American 'Cavalcade' movies is
all absent. They do not even dramatize the theme of the
rehabilitation of wounded veterans. Not even the purposes for
which the war was fought are mentioned. 2

I might add that in these films, war is always shown as a

collective endeavour, in which individual personalities
are totally submerged: not only are there no heroes, but
there are practically no characters.
The whole world-view of an ancient social order is of
course implicit in the narrative form and substance of
these films: the subordination of the individual to what
Nakamura Hajime terms 'the limited social nexus' (the 1. Benedict, Ruth, The Chrysanthemum
and the Sword.
household, the family, the firm, the village, etc.) and its
ultimate extension, the national community, symbolized 2. ibid, pp. 193-4·
by the Emperor. 3 They exalt a physical stoicism inherited 3· See Nakamura Hajime, op. cit.,
from the 'way of the warrior' (bushido) and which has p. 407 ff.
IRON TREES, long since ceased to be a prime social value in the West.
GOLDEN FLOWERS A film which shows what hard training it takes to become
a worthy warrior for the Emperor stimulated the Japan-
ese sense of the primacy of the social ties.
Judging by the films of the Chinese and Pacific Wars
which I have seen (and I have reason to believe they are
typical), the approach to representation already des-
cribed as dominant in its essential features throughout
the 1930s, provided the appropriate vehicle for this very
specific message of morale-building propaganda. Bene-
dict's view of these films as radically different from 'our'
war films is due in large part to the fact that the
Hollywood codes were still only perfunctorily and superfi-
cially assimilated. It was still felt that the most appropri-
ate presentation of contemporary action (these films are
gendai-geki, after all) was a-centric both visually and in
terms of narrative structure: the persona-producing codes
of narrative and the linearization of the visual signifier
remained foreign.
Universally recognized as the master of the genre,
Tasaka Tomotaka's films are nonetheless not unique, as
a random sampling of other films of the period has
enabled me to judge. 4 His best-known titles, Five Scouts
(Gonin no sekkohei, 1938) and Earth and Soldiers
Figs. 34, 35· Tasaka (Tsuchi to heitai, 1939), were both shot in Manchuria on
Tomotaka, Five Scouts the scene of the actual battles, though apparently recon-
structed with actors throughout. Although no 'better'
from the point of view of the film-appreciation classroom
than, say, Thorold Dickinson's Next of Kin, they so
closely resemble certain films produced in the West at
the height of the pacifist movement (e.g. Westfront rgr8)
and are nevertheless such radical examples of the domin-
ant modes of the 1930s in Japan that they are worth brief
consideration.
Both films begin with long battle sequences, in which
combat is seen exactly as in the newsreels. There are
innumerable long shots, incomprehensible explosions,
anonymous tiny figures dashing about or flopping down in
the tall grass, an occasional shot so smoke-filled as to be
unreadable, etc. In Five Scouts this initial battle, nearly ten
minutes long, is followed by interminable scenes of life in a
fort; we move from one group to another, witness trivial
4· Yoshimura Kimisaburo's The Story of events, such as a watermelon being cut up and shared, stare
Tank-Commander Nishizumi endlessly at men lying about, cooking chow, etc. At night, a
(Nishizumi senshachiiden, 1940);
Tomagaya Hisatura's Shanghai Report dimly-seen truck pulls away with the wounded, the last
(Shanghai rikusentai, 1939); Yamamoto soldiers leave the shot and while we perceive only the high
Kajiro's The War at Sea off Hawaii and
Malaya (Hawai·Marei oki kaisen, 1942). ramparts against the night sky, an unseen soldier plays a
These last two films use newsreel mournful tune on a reed instrument. Finally, the 'action'
footage in a way which greatly heightens
the depersonalization. gets under way: five volunteers are chosen to scout the
IRON TREES, enemy positions: for minutes on end they run through the
GOLDEN FLOWERS tall grass, wade along a shallow stream, creep through more
grass. Finally they glimpse the Chinese outposts at a dis-
tance and observe them through binoculars. As they are
about to withdraw, they are spotted and a totally obscure
skirmish takes place: seen through the slot of a pill-box,
with the blazing muzzle of a machine-gun in the near fore-
ground, the five scouts, tiny figures in the distance, dash
one by one across the field of fire and somehow survive. A
scout reaches the stream, hides in the tall reeds while two
enemy soldiers pass. He suddenly jabs his bayonet into the
reeds behind him and dashes off in the opposite direction:
at the very bottom of the frame, a Chinese corpse floats by.
Fade out. Back at the fort, the long wait has begun- again
scenes of barracks life and its daily humdrum. When hope
has all but been abandoned, one of the five staggers in,
stands stiffly to attention as he barks out his report, then
collapses into the arms of a dozen sympathizing compan-
ions. And the same scene is repeated almost identically
three times over as one by one the scouts stagger in, report
and collapse. Number five is so long in appearing that he
really is given up for dead, yet ultimately he too, somewhat
more the worse for wear than his fellows, returns dramati-
cally in a driving rain-storm, makes his report and col-
Figs. 36, 37. Tasaka lapses. This last and unexpected return from the dead is
Tomotaka, Earth and Soldiers cause for much tense embarrassment, gratitude and tears.
Finally, there is another asssembly with an interminable
speech by the commanding officer (speeches of this sort are
obligatory in all these films) and the regiment marches off
to battle, singing one of those melancholic Japanese war-
songs.
It is impossible to convey in a summary the austerity of
such a film, the complete lack of characterization, of 'cen-
tering', stressed by both diegetic substance and decoupage.
The thrilling, 'athletic' image of war so richly fantasized in
Hollywood propaganda films is totally absent here.
Earth and Soldiers is, if anything, even more austere. It
consists primarily of a single seven-reel battle, again shot
with almost no close-ups- we are dealing with a collective
hero surpassing even those of the Soviet silent cinema- and
one long sequence is almost entirely focused on the mater-
ial destruction, tile by tile, stone by stone, of a farm-house
in which invisible Chinese soldiers are entrenched. The
only graphic suggestion (in either of these films) that the
soldiers have homes, families, etc., is a silent mood piece
with musical accompaniment in which a veteran sits alone
by what must have been a rather pretty lily-pond before the
tanks came and, taking out his wallet, looks at a picture of
his wife and children. Although this actor is recognizable

266
Fig. 38. Tasaka Tomotaka, again from time to time during the battle that ensues, he is
Earth and Soldiers in no sense the hero of the film or even its protagonist, and
of course there is no question of any of his actions deciding
the outcome of the battle. In contrast with this 'realism', it
is not surprising to observe that death is a very quick, clean
event, never accompanied by spectacular suffering or
blood: in Earth and Soldiers, a soldier running through a
field of tall grass is followed in a rapid pan (camera move-
ment is, as one might imagine, very freely used in these
films): the soldier suddenly disappears into the sea of grass
leaving a shot so empty and so suddenly still that it is as if it
had never been occupied by a human presence. Another
soldier, fatally wounded, is immediately surrounded by a
crowd of his buddies, so that only his very restrained dying
words are allowed to signify his death-throes.
These films are not entirely devoid of pathos, but the
dramatic emphasis is placed not on the soldier's heroic
generosity, but on the tragic absurdities of the situation.
The scene in Earth and Soldiers in which a soldier strives to
save a Chinese baby's life is reminiscent of a similar inci-
dent in Isaac Babel's collection of short stories, Red
Cavalry. And in fact, if these films have any literary parallel
in the West, it is Babel's vitriolic accounts of his experi-
ences in the Russian Civil War.
268
 The importance of these war films, from the sole point of EPILOGUE TO A
view of the development of Japanese modes offilmic rep- GOLDEN AGE
resentation, should not be overstressed, since they are so
completely determined by socio-historical factors. It is
nevertheless instructive to observe the extent to which the
mode perfected during the previous period of political and
ideological reinforcement of the traditional values, was
directly compatible with the requirements of propaganda
in a wartime situation. This is another aspect of a complex
dialectical process, involving more than one uncomfortable
contradiction.
Part 5 A Chain is Broken
23. Film and 'Democracy'

In r862, a decade after Commodore Perry, in the name of

Western mercantile imperialism, had forced the gates of
secluded Japan and five years before the political upheaval
which was to enable her, in less than a century, to join the
ranks of modern capitalist nations, an emissary from an
English ship was murdered by samurai of the Shimazu clan.
Failing to obtain satisfaction by other means, the British
ordered their warships to bombard the port of Kagoshima,
virtually razing part of the city. It is one of the significant
paradoxes of that transitional period that this bombard-
ment so impressed the inhabitants of Kagoshima that they
immediately established close commercial and cultural ties
with Great Britain, ties which lasted for decades thereafter.
Significant though this episode may seem in the light of
more recent history, it would be patently over-reductive to
see it as a model for the alacrity with which the Japanese
people, following their defeat by the United States and
their allies, not only accepted and collaborated wholeheart-
edly with the occupying forces, but seemed to adopt a 'way
of life' which had, by the test of war, been proven, in the
eyes of this supremely pragmatic people, conclusively
superior to their own.
Kawai Kazuo, a journalist who has dealt intelligently
with this period, 1 from the point of view of the ruling class,
is himself an example of the drive to assimilate things
American. He was schooled in the United States and was
for a time editor-in-chief of Japanese capitalism's most
successful English-language newspaper, The Japan Times.
In his book, he invokes a dozen interrelated factors to
explain the immediate sympathy of the Japanese people
towards the presence and policies of the American
authorities during the seven years of occupation.
The Japanese people's 'inordinate respect for authority'
and their 'susceptibility to new ideas', perhaps the most
widely accepted 'causes', he regards as partly true but not
really adequate as explanations. He stresses instead the r. Kawai Kazuo, Japan's American
combined trauma and catharsis of Japan's total defeat and, Interlude.
A CHAIN IS BROKEN above all, the fact that it was unexpected. The occupation
caught the Japanese at a time when they were groggy, so to
speak, and ready to be pushed in any direction. And the
first push was bound to be decisive: 'Once they had turned
to co-operation, moreover, it was furthered by the
ingrained habit of always playing according to the rules of
the game.' 2 This basic cultural inclination is seen as aided
by secondary factors such as an historical sympathy with
the United States, a 'strong sense of hierarchy', a 'warmly
emotional nature', a natural 'inferiority complex' and that
native pragmatism: they were 'realistic enough to see that
co-operation with the Occupation was the only practicable
course open to them.' All these explanations are summed
up for Kawai in the national propensity to conform. He
does, however, give one further explanation. It is, in his
view, of limited importance, since he applies it only to
'vested interests' (i.e. class interests) but it is of great sig-
nificance to us in our examination of the rapidly developing
tendencies that were to dominate the cinema in post-war
Japan:
Many Japanese were also attracted to the Occupation program
because of their long-felt desires ... When it was seen that the
Occupation program sought to restore and extend the trends
which had existed in the 1920s, it naturally appealed to the Japan-
ese elements which had supported them. While some of the Occu-
pation measures represented a forcible imposition of alien ideas
which the Japanese did not welcome, enough of the Occupation's
program coincided with desirable indigenous trends to enable it to
ride the wave of a substantial popular native support. 3
And, of course, these 'Japanese elements' to whom the
reforms of the Occupation appealed were, in addition to the
peasantry who benefited at last by a true land reform,
the two fundamentally antagonistic classes at this stage of
the country's history: labour and capital. It must be borne
in mind that although the mores and structures of a linger-
ing feudalism favoured the exploitation of labour by
Japanese capitalism in its early stages, they had also
impeded the development of the forces of production and
hence the growth of capitalism itself. At the same time,
the overnight creation of a liberal system tailored on the
American model entailed sudden, huge gains for the
Japanese working class, since parliamentary democracy,
trade unions, social security of a kind and state-ownership
of service industries are essential to the development of the
last stage of capitalism, the state-monopoly form. And
while Japan's first democratic land-reform cannot really be
2. ibid, p. 4ff.
regarded as a step towards advanced capitalism, it did at
3· ibid, p. 9· last give small peasants ownership of the land which they

272
worked and was therefore experienced as an unhoped-for EPILOGUE TO A
boon by a class which had traditionally been the 'revolution- GOLDEN AGE
ary' class in Japan. However, this measure actually neut-
ralized the peasants for only about two decades.
The sudden intensification of class struggle arising from
these contradictions may be seen as the principal cause of
the mutations in Japanese film production at that time.
One further historical analogy may be of help to us as we
begin our investigation. We have already seen how linear
perspective began, in the eighteenth century, to appear in
the prints of ukiyo-e. This was due partly to European
influence, for the Portuguese missionaries, in particular,
had taught their students the techniques of perspective, and,
even after their expulsion, European paintings entered
Japan via the Dutch settlement on Deshima. Another fac-
tor was the need for self-representation typical of the rising
merchant class. However, an additional reason, not as yet
touched upon here, is of primary importance. Shiba Kokan
( 1737-1818), a painter and writer of considerable eminence
among the 'forebears of Meiji',
was not really interested in Asiatic art and he wrote an essay on
Western painting in which he argues that it was most useful and
very superior to Chinese and Japanese painting, because it por-
trays light and shade, the shapes of solids, and their perspective. It
is most valuable, he remarks, for illustrating in books things that
cannot be explained in words. Far Eastern painting, on the other
hand, is just something to amuse people at drinking parties .... In
European painting what pleased him most was its representa-
tional side, which he called shashin, or 'copying truth', using the
Japanese word that now stands for photography. 4
Of course, what Shiba had discovered was that fundamen-
tal correspondence of which Leonardo, as Panofsky has
pointed out, was one of the first to be aware:
Among the qualities required of the anatomist, Leonardo men-
tions not only a strong stomach ... but also ... competent drafts-
manship - and a mastery of perspective. This requirement of
'perspective', though it may at first surprise the modern reader,
provides sudden insight that anatomy, as a science (and this is true
of all the other sciences of observation or description), was quite
4- Sansom, G. B., The Western World
simply impracticable without a method for recording the details and Japan, pp. 232-3.
observed, without a complete and accurate three-dimensional 5· Panofsky, Erwin, L'Oeuvre d'art et
drawing. 5 ses significations, pp. II?-18. Panofsky
goes on to suggest that three great eras
Although the doctrine of painting as a window on the world of scientific history were inaugurated
and the classical 'tableau' conception of the descriptive respectively by the codification of
perspective, by the inventions of
sciences were challenged in the nineteenth century, the telescope and microscope, and by the
notion of representation as transparent to perceptible real- development of photography. Shiba's
neologism shashin seems to summarize
ity remained the ideal of the bourgeoisie of the West. The this analysis.

273
A CHAIN IS BROKEN greater part of its art and literature were informed by this
notion until photography and ultimately cinema were able
gradually to assume the burden of representation and 'lib-
erated' the other arts to some degree.
Shiba Kokan was one of that far-sighted group of intel-
lectuals who saw that unless Japan consented to relive at
top speed not only the Renaissance, but the Enlightenment
and the Industrial Revolution as well, she would perish as a
free nation. Although presumably Hiroshige and Hokusai
could not have explicitly provided this sophisticated
rationale, the appearance of elements of linear perspective
in their work parallels the actions of those clan leaders who
had begun, several years before Perry's Black Ships
appeared on the horizon, to smelt ore for cannon.
We may, in the light of the foregoing observations, con-
clude that beyond the various cultural and historical condi-
tions operative in the striking changes that occurred in the
Japanese cinema after 1945, the determining factor was the
spectacular intensification and historical development of
class struggle, economically, politically and ideologically.
Certainly, the objectively progressive forces in the country
(and these were, at this stage, principally labour and capi-
tal) required proven instruments to further their respec-
tive ideological struggles. These instruments were supplied
by a system of representation which had long been geared
to the needs of that liberal monopoly capitalism toward
which Japan was developing. What could better favour the
implantation of such a system than a benevolent Occupa-
tion by that cultural power which had been most instrumen-
tal in developing, disseminating and consolidating it on a
world-wide scale?
No directives were ever issued, to my knowledge, from
SCAP6 to the film industry on 'the language of democratic
films', although the manifest, diegetic substance of films
was naturally subjected to strict censorship. 7
We have seen that in the 'liberal 1920s', once the contra-
dictions of capitalism were allowed to develop, however
modestly, the need was felt by capitalist entrepreneurs to
6. The 'Allied' occupation authority. make 'Western-style' films. (This had been the origin of
7· Often carried to ludicrous but
Shochiku as a film trust.) At the same time, liberal film
revealing extremes: Earle Ernst artists also adopted the modes and codes of Western 'real-
(op.cit., p. 260) tells of the censor's
demanding the addition of a climactic
ism' in the koku-eiga ('tendency film') of the late 1920s and
kissing scene in a film felt to be too early 1930s. For, precisely because these codes are emi-
respectful of 'feudal formality'. The
kiss has never occupied in Japanese
nently suited to the propagation of the themes of liberal,
socio-erotic etiquette the place it holds 'democratic' ideology, the inherent autonomy of the indi-
in the West, and its almost total
absence from the screen, at least up to
vidual, the natural universality of capitalist economic laws,
that time, was one more sign of the the inevitable objectivity of 'free' media, etc., they may also
extent to which the Japanese cinema
remained closed to the Hollywood
articulate corresponding demands formulated in the strug-
system. gle of the working class and its eventual allies. In this

274
post-Pacific War period, Japan was still in an early stage of FILM AND 'DEMOCRACY'
parliamentary democracy, of trade-union struggle, etc. At
such a point in history, militancy classically exploits the
contradictions of liberalism in order to better improve the
conditions of workers and of the poor in general. And
the demands formulated, whatever their historical and
materialist implications, are necessarily couched in the lan-
guage of liberalism: individual freedom ... from exploita-
tion, freedom of the media ... from capitalist manipulation,
etc. It was, therefore, almost inevitable that films reflecting
or participating in the struggle of the mass organizations
should whole-heartedly adopt the representational systems
developed by Western capitalism and now in the service of
the Japanese ruling class.
This dialectical aspect of the development of cinema in
Japan during the Occupation is reflected in the attitudes of
the censorship committee set up by the American
authorities. It supervised all film-making from the pre-
production stage to that of distribution. There was a ludi-
crously severe ban on period films, which were seen as
vehicles of 'feudal thought'. While this ban was relaxed
fairly soon- we have seen that as early as 1946 Mizoguchi
obtained the first dispensation for his Utamaro- subjects of
particular interest to the Left, such as the truth about
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, remained absolutely taboo until
the end of the Occupation, in 1952. While films of the newly
dominant ideology were generally untouched by this
American censorship, the propaganda efforts of the Com-
munist Party and other progressive organizations were, of
course, hampered.
It is significant of this contradictory situation that the
bulk of films produced in Japan at this time bore traces of
multiple determination. Except for the films produced by
the Communist Party or other progressive forces, or films
such as Ito Daisuke's Horatio Alger-like portrait of a chess
champion (see below), almost any film produced during
that period reveals, at the diegetic level, traces of a double
class determination. On the level of both signified and
signifier they reveal, as well, traces of a specifically Japan-
ese cultural determination. This, as we have seen, derives
from the traditional systems of thought and representation
which, of course, continue to thrive at certain levels of
Japanese social practice up to this very day.
These traces are, of course, especially noticeable in the
work of the pre-war masters and near-masters who con-
tinued making films during this period - and all who were
still alive seem to have done so. As I have already sug-
gested, Ozu's, Naruse's and Mizoguchi's respective com-
promises with the new situation were quite different. They

275
A CHAIN IS BROKEN represent fairly well, albeit on a higher plane of achieve-
ment, the reactions of a whole generation of directors.
Mizoguchi, as we have seen, quickly adapted his rep-
resentational system (radical camera distance, long takes,
dolly movements) to the exigencies of the Hollywood
codes. Moreover, simply by remaining faithful to what
seems to have been his quasi-obsessive preoccupation with
prostitutes and, more generally, with women in a situation
of repression/revolt, his films also met with the new liberal
prescriptions. This holds true for all the modern-dress
films, from Women of the Night (Yoru no onnatachi, 1948)
to his very last film, Red Light District (Akasen chitai,
1956), 8 and also for most of the period films, since the
painter Utamaro, the lovers of A Story by Chikamatsu and
the 'sacrilegious hero' of New tales of the Taira Clan (Shin
He ike monogatari, 1953) are very clearly individuals
struggling to assert their natural freedom. This was a theme
present in Mizoguchi's pre-war work as well, but in these
post-war films we witness a displacement. In traditional
Japanese attitudes, the ultimately tragic figure was the
individual caught between conflicting duties - usually be-
tween society and family, but also, often enough, between
these and one's own emotions, since sexual passion had a
very respectable social status. There is nevertheless a fund-
amental distinction between the generalized dilemma of
Mizoguchi's forty-seven rDnin and the very personalized
heroism of the principal character in the Heike tales.
Omocha's final cry of revolt was a dying echo of the 'ten-
dency film', with its awareness of social oppression, as
against the stoic abnegation of the heroine of Tale of Late
Chrysanthemums, more consonant with a war-geared revi-
val of a 'feudal' ideology of class collaboration. Both con-
trast sharply, however, with the pessimistic individualism
of the post-war fims. Mizoguchi's ideological plasticity was
no doubt even clearer in the (presumably lost) films made
as out and out apologies for Japan's aggressive foreign
policies. They might well help to explain his later develop-
ment, his adoption of an academically decorative, oppor-
tunistic approach to decoupage, contrived by laying certain
traits of his earlier system over the framework of the Holly-
wood codes. It is said that the return to the spectacularly
long take in The Life of a Woman, by Saikaku was stimu-
lated by his having seen films of William Wyler (perhaps
The Little Foxes or The Best Years of Our Lives) and
wanting to prove he could do better.
Naruse Mikio had, as we have seen, long since aban-
doned the rigour of Wife, Be Like a Rose, and the difficul-
ties which he seems to have experienced during the early
8. Called Street of Shame abroad. years of the Occupation presumably were still related to the
personal crisis which he had gone through during the war. FILM AND 'DEMOCRACY'
Mother (Okasan, 1953), based on an essay by a schoolchild,
Floating Clouds (Ukigumo, 1955), about the waning for-
tunes of a small geisha house, and indeed nearly all of
Naruse's later productions are characteristically 'under-
dramatized' portrayals of modern life, so specifically
Japanese, so opposed to Mizoguchi's conflict universe, and
of which the cinematic prototype remains the shomin-geki
of the 1930s. However, these films all cleaved as closely to
the Western mode of representation as had the films of
Gosha or Shimazu.
It is Ozu, of course, who may be said to have remained,
among all the veterans active in this period, most faithful
not only to the themes and 'world' of his mature period, but
to the system of representation developed at that time.
However, despite the admiration which late Ozu- admit-
tedly all that is currently available in the West- has aroused
among the cultural elite of England and the United States,
the great master's post-war work is in fact the history of a
gradual fossilization. True, all the attitudes which so vitally
informed the first version of A Story of Floating Weeds 9 and
Only Son remained constantly present up to the very end:
'pillow-shots', unmoving, low-level camera set-ups, frontal-
ity and even the 'incorrect' eyeline matching. The eyelines,
however, gradually come to be so close to the lens that it
takes a very attentive observer to detect the 'error'. It is
true that this strongly reinforced what was henceforth to be
the dominant element in the systemics: the basic strategy of
frontality. Nonetheless, this evolution is symptomatic. For
just as this faint trace of unorthodox matching no longer
significantly disrupts the production of transparency/con-
tinuity, so too the pillow-shots have become brief, perfunc-
tory transitions with none of the radically suspensive
quality or complex structural developments of the earlier films.
Still much in evidence are the flat frontality of the image
and the complementary surface flatness of the narrative. In
the mature work, however, these traits entertained a
dialectical relationship with the disjunctive matching and
pillow-shot hiatuses; once these have been reduced to the 9· It is a symptom of both his
persistent thematic preoccupations and
status of perfunctory titles, imagery and diegesis become at also of his belonging to a culture in
best endless reiterations of a cultural constant, at worst a which no onus is placed on
self-quotation, that at least two of his
senile mannerism. Considering the many counts on which laterfilms,Roating Weeds (Ukigusa) and
Ozu's work as a whole is related to the 'general text' of Good Morning (Ohayo), both of 1959,
should have been remakes of silent
Japanese cinema, I am tempted to compare this final fossil- films. However, this instance of
ization with the pattern by which the great schools of classi- 'allusive variation', though certainly
not dictated by commercial motives as
cal painting and poetry became devitalized: despite, or is habitual in the Western remake,
rather because of the specifically Japanese sensitivity to only serves to point up the sheer
exhaustion of the later years, when the
infinitely subtle variation within a narrow framework, a only dynamic left in the films was their
given form, a given genre, soon works itself out (in every thematic obsession.

277
A CHAIN IS BROKEN sense) and is thenceforth destined to be repeated endlessly
in a final, frozen form through the ages, a prefabricated toy
for the amusement and edification of the dilettante.
In all fairness, however, it should be pointed out that this
decline, besides being gradual, was not entirely linear.
Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Nagaya shinshi roku,
1948), Ozu's first film since There Was a Father, still makes
interesting use of the pillow-shot (as in the sitting at the
photographer's, with the black screen 'representing' the
period of processing of the photo). This film has, as well, a
remarkable sea-shore scene, unique in his work. Good
Morning and Autumn in the Kobayakawa Family
(Kobayakawa-ke no aki, 1961 ), 10 two of his very last works,
are again faintly reminiscent of the pre-war masterpieces
through an occasionally inventive use of the old systemics.
Younger Japanese critics and intellectuals have some-
times asked me why Westerners (particularly in the United
States and England, where these films have been widely
shown) have such a keen admiration for Ozu's late films, an
admiration which they most often do not share. One ele-
ment of reply surely is that these films depicting the most
banal scenes of everyday life, respond to an ideological
valuing of 'realism' among the cultivated strata of Anglo-
American society. It is, after all, pl)ssible to see these films
as the closest of all cinematic facsimiles to 'life itself, as an
example of mimesis unprecedented in the West. And the
academic 'transparency' of representation - which, given
other cultural keys, will occasionally be perceived, in the
films of Hollywood, for example, for the ideological mani-
pulation which it so often is - allows for a very familiar
fascination with these exotic products. In contrast, the
overtly active formal organization of the most mature films
of the 1930s is a perturbing factor; those 'images of the real'
are too highly informed with artifice to permit a comfort-
ably 'realist' reading. In some respects, one might say that
the repression (in the West) of the best of Ozu (and Miz-
oguchi) is not unrelated to the repression for so many years
of Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera and Eisenstein's
Strike. In both these films, the ideologically determined
definition of a certain type of image as 'documentary' is
actually subverted by a Brechtian acknowledgement of
artifice.
The Western ideology of realism came to Japan with the
industrial revolution and, significantly enough, it was in the
name of realism that the progressive post-war generation
rejected the work of Ozu as a whole and in fact all of
Japanese 'traditional' cinema. I have suggested that the
10. Shown in the West as Early
wholesale adoption of our dominant mode of representa-
Autumn. tion in Japan corresponded to a rise in the level of class
struggle there. This was, in turn, a direct response to the FILM AND 'DEMOCRACY'
'social engineering' undertaken by the Americans and
aimed at fitting Japan into the concert of the capitalist
nations in preparation for the great confrontation with the
socialist world. I have suggested, too, that to a large extent
both the bourgeoisie and the growing !Jroletarian forces
needed the Western codes to develop their ideological
campaigns, considering the nature of the newly dominant
ideology. Serious attempts were made by critics committed
to left political positions (and particularly by Marxists) to
provide a rationale for the rejection by whole segments of
the population (and, therefore, by so many directors) of the
modes of representation which they saw very clearly as
those of a specifically national, traditional cinema. The
most remarkable critique of the pre-war generation which I
have encountered was published in 1950 by Imamura
Taihei. 11 An understanding of the situation of Japanese
cinema during and after the Occupation demands careful
attention to the ideas of this excellent critic.
Imamura's key concepts are inevitably borrowed from
Western thought. His critique is addressed, first and
foremost, to the Japanese 'mentality', accused of lacking
precisely those concepts. The circularity of his argument
provides the key to an eventual critique of this critique.
For the Japanese, says Imamura, 'thinking is not distinct
from intuition nor is a phenomenon distinct from its essence.
Thinking flows along with the stream of phenomena. An
object is not analytically reconstructed by thinking but is
described as it appears. The essence is never explored'.
Now a critique of the social order from a viewpoint which
recognizes class struggle as the motor of history cannot be
made in phenomenological terms alone. Seen from the new
stage of class struggle in the Japan of the late 1940s, tradi-
tional forms and attitudes could only seem 'negative' and
'passive'. And Imamura sees a remarkable instance of such
passivity towards the real in the cinema of Ozu and most
particularly in what I have called the master's 'pillow-
shots', seen here as 'an escape from society into nature, and
from character descriptions of events and people into
descriptions of natural scenes.' Imamura perceives quite
well the extra-diegetic, suspensive quality of the pillow-
shot, which 'does not contribute to the development of the
plot; it stops it.' This, of course, is precisely what Imamura
condemns, and it is in his condemnation that we find a
spontaneous theoretical designation of the very real need
that is satisfied, at a certain stage of class struggle, by the
representational tools of the bourgeoisie.
11. 'The Japanese Spirit as it Appears
in the Movies', in Japanese Popular
If conflict in drama is the reflection of social conditions, the Culture ed. Kato Hidegoshi. p. 137f.

279
A CHAIN IS BROKEN attitude which I am discussing is one which refuses to clarify the
contradictions, i.e. the nature of tbe object. So Mr Ozu's descrip-
tions of the environment are always static and on the fence. In his
movies, society is observed indirectly through nature. Capitalist
society is portrayed by such scenes as a gas tank on an uncultivated
field, a small junk on a dirty canal, or a baby's diaper drying in a
back alley. Society is seen only from a distance, as a natural scene,
and people are but accessories.

This last remark is presumably addressed to that use of

camera distance which characterizes indigenous Japanese
cinema as a whole. The assertion that 'capitalist society is
portrayed by ... a gas tank on an uncultivated field' is
predicated on an assumption made by so many observers,
both Japanese and occidental, with respect not only to
Ozu's cinema but to Japanese poetry, painting, etc. 'Sym-
bolism' in Japanese art is assumed to function according to
the Western model. Imamura is much closer to a modern
European viewpoint when he observes that the pillow-shot
(which he calls 'natural scene') 'is not an element of the
drama but an element which opposes the drama.' Japan,
however, was a society in which ideological domination had
never before been associated with, expressed by, or
founded upon notions such as the linearity of the signifying
process or the transparency of the sign. The usefulness of a
concept such as the suspension of the production of mean-
ing was therefore not likely to be evident to someone bent
upon forging tools to combat capitalist domination over a
society and a culture wherein the critique of representation
is historically irrelevant. Irrelevant precisely to the extent
that the theoretical tools which have made possible a criti-
que of our dominant systems of representation were forged
by a philosophical and scientific tradition made possible by
such concepts as the transparency of the sign.
Imamura's position is perfectly tenable as far as it goes,
and it goes precisely as far as it was possible and necessary
for a Japanese Marxist theoretician to go in 1950. 'This
[traditional] way of thinking remains attractive to the
Japanese, insofar as the social oppression which produced
this attitude continues to exist.' This phrase, however, indi-
cates the theoretical limits within which Imamura was
operating. It is characteristic of a 'vulgar Marxism', scarcely
challenged in Japan even today, which to us appears oblivious
of certain contradictions between the modes of economic
and political domination on the one hand and such super-
structural products as culture or ideology. In other words it
regards the past as 'all bad' except insofar as the develop-
ment of the forces of production made possible the objec-
tive progress of science and industry. (Needless to say, this

280
vulgar Marxism is by no means unknown in the West.) FILM AND 'DEMOCRACY'
Imamura takes issue with the traditionally Japanese (it is
Buddhist, but not merely Buddhist) tendency to situate
man in rather than above nature, to consider the life pro-
cess as a continual interchange between man and his
artefacts, man and the rest of the material world. Yet,
stated in this way, and it is legitimate to do so, this tradi-
tional attitude clearly corresponds to the Marxist critique,
initiated by Engels in the Dialectics of Nature, of that
Western anthropocentrism, that Christian humanism
which has been one of the mainstays of bourgeois ideology
... and which is also a distinguishing feature of 'vulgar
Marxism' so common in Japan even today, and of which
Imamura's article was a relatively sophisticated example.
In the late 1940s, Japan was still classified by the United
Nations as an 'underdeveloped country', and the stage of
liberal democracy had only just begun. It was to be
expected that the 'feudal past' should be rejected in toto by
progressive social forces, especially since that other objec-
tively progressive force, the bourgeoisie, was already mak-
ing good use of the hierarchical structures inherited from
traditional society. It is now becoming apparent, not only
from a European point of view, that a wholesale rejection
of the cultural and perhaps even ideological acquisitions of
Japanese history is tantamount, in a Marxist perspective, to
throwing out the baby with the bath-water.

As I have implied, Imamura's attitude towards Ozu is not

simply the iconoclasm of one radical critic. It reflects the
concerns of a whole generation of left-oriented film-makers
whose work may not constitute a notable contribution to
cinema as an art form, but whose role in the crystallization
of social protest in post-war and post-Occupation Japan is
far from negligible.
It is not my purpose to write the history of ideologies in
post-war Japan, and for me any close reading of the films of
this period as a whole could only be that. Hence my inten-
tion to cover these fifteen years in two chapters only. How-
ever, I do wish to sketch out a tableau of the dominant
contents and styles of the 1940s and 1950s in order to
provide some indication of the context in which Kurosawa
Akira, the sole true master of this period, worked out his
lone achievement. It is also important for us to have some
understanding of a period that set the scene for the remark-
able independent cinema of the 1960s and early 1970s,
which constituted Japan's 'new wave'.

If we take as a starting point for our tableau the crude but

useful distinction between films which served and films

281
A CHAIN IS BROKEN which contested bourgeois interests, we may say that on the
right we have two principal categories: dramas of conflict in
the Western style, and aestheticizations, in terms compat-
ible with the Western codes, of traditional material. After
the success of Kurosawa's Rashomon abroad, these were
often conceived as prestige films for export. Most of the
films which Kinugasa made during this period - from The
Actress (Joyu, 1947) to The White Heron (Shirasagi, 1958)
and including of course the famous The Gate of Hell
(Jigoku-mon, 1953)- are of this latter type. The tradition
was to be carried over into the 1960s by, for example,
Kobayashi Masaki, with Hara-kiri (Seppuku, 1963),
Kwaidan ( I964) etc.
As for the first category, I have already mentioned
briefly the veteran Ito Daisuke's The Chess Master (Osha,
1947), an instance of capitalist ideology dramatized. The
film is a masterpiece of its kind. Splendidly acted by the
great star of silent films Banda Tsumasuboro, whose eccen-
tric, dynamic style prefigures that of Mifune Tashiro in the
later films of Kurosawa, it tells of the rise from rags to riches
of a famous Taisho master of a sophisticated board-game
calledshogi. The film was shot entirely in studio, and boasts
elaborate, atmospheric street-settings in the spirit of the
'poetic realism' of the French 1930s and 1940s, a style very
much in favour, it seems, among film-makers of all persua-
sions in this period. The final shot, in which the ageing
master Sakuta has returned to the Osaka slum street where
he lived in poverty at the beginning of the film, and stands
gazing through the fog at a great electrically lit tower in the
distance, while urchins are playingshogi in the foreground,
is a double emblem of faith in the future of industial capital-
ism and of democracy, a faith so essential to the ideological
edifice being hastily built during those difficult years.
The most militant films with a left viewpoint made during
this period are probably those which looked back over
recent times and examined aspects of Japanese history
which film-makers had previously been forbidden to treat,
by Japanese censors of the 1930s and early 1940s, then by
the American censors of the Occupation. A celebrated
example is Yamamura So's first film, The Crab-Canning
Ship (Kanikosen, 1953). Actually, this film provides an
encounter, rare and interesting for this period, of one
aspect of Japan's 'traditional' cinema with an historical
materialist representation of class struggle. The film tells of
the savage exploitation to which workers on the crab-
fishing and canning ships in the northern seas were sub-
jected during the 1920s. In terms often reminiscent of the
great period of Soviet cinema, it depicts the revolt of work-
ers on one of these ships and the bloody repression which
ensued. The allusions to Eisensteinian editing (shots of FILM AND 'DEMOCRACY'
anchor chains, etc.) are stylistically atypical. However, the
film cannot be reduced to the 'neo-realist' style so charac-
teristic of the period. Much of it takes place in the workers'
sleeping quarters, and here the almost absolute rule is the
long shot, centripetally composed (and prefiguring
Kurosawa's The Lower Depths). Through these 'tradition-
ally' distanced shots, the collective hero of the early Soviet
cinema is evoked.
One must also cite Yamamoto Satsuo's violent but rather
laborious indictment of military brutalization, Vacuum
Zone (Shinku chitai, 1952), as well as his most highly
esteemed film, The Sunless Street (Taiyo no nai machi,
1954), adapted, like The Crab-Canning Ship, from a pro-
letarian novel of the 1920s which tells of a long strike in a
printing plant. The most famous name attached to these
frankly militant films, undeniable contributions to the
struggle of the working class and their allies during that
period, was Imai Tadashi, a competent technician and
dramatist whose best-known films are Rice (Kame, 1954) a
study of conflict and change in rural areas, and Shadows in
Sunlight (Mahiru no ankoku, 1956), 12 the autopsy of a
miscarriage of justice that was still a cause celebre in Japan
when the film was made. The film consitutes a scathing
indictment of class justice.
Far more ambitious, stylistically, than any of these films
was the eclectic Shindo Kaneto's Children of the Atom
Bomb (Genbaku no ko, 1953). This was the first fictional
feature film to reveal the true horrors of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki after the American ban on the subject had been
lifted with the end of the Occupation. Generally speaking,
of course, it is no accident that this militant cinema
developed chiet1y after 1952. Shindo's film played a consid-
erable role in the campaign which resulted in Japan's sol-
emn renunciation of nuclear weapons. Its grandiloquent
lyricism, also reminiscent at times of early Soviet imagery
(Arsenal), as well as its semi-documentary nature and
fragmentary construction, make it one of the most effective
films of the period (on a par with Kinoshita's Japanese
Tragedy). In some ways it even anticipates the films of
Oshima and his contemporaries.
The single film which perhaps exemplifies most force-
fully the adoption of the Hollywood codes by the progres-
sive Japanese cinema is Kobayashi Masaki's monumental I 2. Tendentiously translated in the
The Human Condition (Ningen no joken, 1959-"61). This West as Darkness at Noon.
film epitomized and ended this whole tendency of Japanese 13. The film is actually divided into six
film-making during the 1950s. Its running time of nine hour-and-a-half episodes, but its
structure- that of the Tolstoian novel
consecutive hours makes it probably the longest commer- - is such that the ideal viewing is in
cial feature ever made. 13 It typically associates a violent one sitting.
A CHAIN IS BROKEN indictment of militarism (and only incidentally of capital-
ism) with an extraordinarily graphic illustration of the
ideology of humanist individualism. The hero -and rarely
in the Japanese cinema had a character better deserved this
title - is a personnel expert sent to Manchuria during the
Pacific War to help step up the exploitation of Chinese
slave-labour. However, his native 'humanist' instincts- he
incarnates, of course, the heroic liberals of the 1930s -
causes him to rebel against the atrocities around him and he
is drafted and subjected for at least eighteen reels to the
worst treatment that the particularly inhuman Japanese
army of the day could inflict upon a politically suspect
recruit. Eventually, however, he becomes a technically
skilled soldier and lives through the nightmare of a Russian
attack on Japanese positions in China, ultimately to die
under a blanket of purifying snow as he attempts to make
his way back to his beloved wife.
The film is an almost caricatural assemblage of the cliches
which in the Western cinema have served for so long to
determine meaning (e.g. the Rodin statue, conveniently
placed in the centre of a Chinese village square during the
amorous discussion between the hero and his future wife
early in the film). The brusque introduction, into the first
part of the film, of the acting codes of the 'traditional'
Chinese cinema only serves to point this up. Of particular
interest is the way in which the creation of a central charac-
ter becomes in this film an overwhelming priority. Indeed,
the film is a text on the notion of central character as it has
been gradually codified in Western film since the turn of the
century. In The Human Condition there is only one 'real'
person, i.e. a character with psychological 'depth', torn by
conflicting emotions, who can really be said to be fully
present within the diegetic process. As we move 'outward',
away from this evident centre of the diegesis, through the
concentric circles of the hero's entourage, we find ourselves
dealing with characters who are produced less and less as
individuals, whose 'humanity' is increasingly 'incomplete'.
The hero's wife is little more than a symbol of oppressed
Japanese womanhood, his best friends are 'the deluded but
basically good tough guy' and the 'brooding, intellectual
communist sympathizer'; the company manager is a
grotesquely sham humanist, while the sadistic military
police and the stubbornly patriotic Chinese are cardboard
14. See below, Chapter 25.
silhouettes with no problems at all. This film illustrates
15. The original title means both 'the what Oshima, just two yearslater,I 4 was to denounce as 'the
tragedy of Japan' and 'a tragedy in
Japan.' It is not insignificant that while
consciousness of being victimized' (by militaristic feudal-
the accepted English translation is 'A ism and then by American imperialism) and which can be
Japanese Tragedy,' the preference in
France should go to 'La Tragedie
said to characterize not only most of the films of the left
japonaise'. during that period, but also its propaganda as a whole.
A CHAIN IS BROKEN (Nijushi no hitomi, 1954) 16 shows modern Japanese history
(1928 to 1946) from the viewpoint of a schoolteacher on a
remote island of the archipelago. She Was Like a Wild
Chrysanthemum (Nogiku no gotoku kimi narika, 1955)
shows an old man visiting his native village and recalling his
youth. Flashbacks are signified by a stylish oval vignette,
reminiscent of the tin-type and the silent cinema. Those
Dear Old Flutes and Drums (Matsukashiki fue ya taiko,
1967), though little known outside of Japan, typifies not
only Kinoshita's approach but the whole post-war 'slice-
of-life' school, of which he has been the undisputed master.
It tells the saga of another tiny island school whose prover-
bially unathletic students are transformed into volley-ball
champions by a devoted teacher- and three full reels are
devoted to the tournament which climaxes the film.
By now, of course, we have shifted imperceptibly, as we
follow Kinoshita's course, into another category, and one
which in a sense belongs to the right of our tableau, since
this last film might easily have been scripted and shot
during the hey-day of militarism. Indeed, at the centre of its
'slice of life' is the presumably immutable value-system
which supports Japanese society and which is here seen to
involve the virtues of team spirit, hard work, and keeping
fit. Praised and practised by the dominant classes of today
as of yesterday, these have effectively kept the country
running. The collective callisthenics which so often begin
the work-day in Japanese offices and factories are an emb-
lem of this continuity. Of course, such practices and such
values are quite legitimate in themselves, and would be
perfectly at home under socialism. And it is just this funda-
mental ambivalence which differentiates such films as
this one from, say, The Chess Master or ... The Human
Condition, each of which sets forth, though from a different
class viewpoint, the new ideology of individualism.
Nat unrelated to these various gradations of the sociolog-
ical film as illustrated by Kinoshita is a form of populism
which existed before the war, particularly in the rumpen-
mono, referred to earlier. It is particularly interesting to us
because it is the form in which Kurosawa excelled before
coming into his own. Basically, it may be said to consist of
'human drama' (in contrast to Kinoshita's mood of decor-
ous understatement) with a lower-class setting. An aware-
ness of the actualities of class struggle in such films is on the
level of 'the good little guys' versus 'the bad big guys', but
often there is no such awareness demonstrated at all. A fine
example, and one which illustrates the contradictions of the
period, is Gosha's Where Chimneys Are Seen (Entotsu no
r6. Literally: 'eyeballs' .. as the French
title, Vingt-quatre prunelles, is able to mieru basho, 1953). It is the story of a long married but
render without incongruity. childless working couple in very modest circumstances

286
whose lives are suddenly invaded by an abandoned child. FILM AND 'DEMOCRACY'
At first they go to great pains to find the boy's mother and
persuade her to take him back, but ultimately they grow
attached to the boy and decide to raise him. By now, Gosho
had abandoned the unaffected approach which had been
his before the war and consequently, also, a certain
ambiguity generally characteristic of the 1apanese
approach to the 'slice of life'. In this film the various stages
of narrative progression are marked by an evolving sym-
bolic device, referred to in the title. The industrial zone in
which the action takes place lies in the shadow of a cluster
of four tall factory chimneys, which can never be com-
prehended in one glance, or so it is thought at the beginning
of the film. At each new stage of the narration, as the couple
go about in search of the child's mother, etc. they pointedly
discover different vantage points, from which only one,
then two, then three, then four chimneys are seen. This
redoubling of the process of 'self-discovery' and the subjec-
tivist moral which it 'suggests' to the main character at the
end ('Life is whatever you think it is. It can be sweet or
bitter, whichever you are') attests to the difficulties and
resistances encountered in the abrupt, partly imposed
effort to shift from an old, collectively oriented ideology to
the new individualism. It also points up the conflict be-
tween the need to linearize signification in order to produce
such Western concepts at all and the fundamentally anti-
thetical nature of traditional modes. Here, the age-old
tendency to surface-patterning makes the chimney symbol
curiously obtrusive in an otherwise coded context because,
in the strict 'Hollywood' approach, such over-determination
of meaning is never produced as a formal system.
We cannot leave this over-view of the post-war period
without devoting a few pages to Ichikawa Kon, a director
who never developed a systemics comparable to those
encountered in the major films of Kurosawa, but who must
nevertheless be counted as the finest stylist of the period, as
the director who in this respect best mastered the codes of
the West on their own terms.
Ichikawa, it has already been pointed out, had been
assistant to Ishida Tamizo, in particular for Fallen Blos-
soms, and his sensitivity to the stylization of the decoupage
must have been stimulated by this contact. Ichikawa began
his film career with animation films and in 1951 made a
'black comedy', Mr Pu (Pu-san), a satire on the 'new
Japanese way of life' as it was developing at the time of the
signature of the First Security Pact with the United States.
The film which first won him fame in the West, The Bur-
mese Harp (Biruma no tategoto, 1956), despite an essen-
tially anti-militaristic theme (a fanatical officer refuses to
A CHAIN IS BROKEN admit Japan's defeat and leads his men to a massacre) is
curiously reminiscent of the 'classical' Japanese war-film-
and hence quite at odds, it might be added, with films like
The Human Condition. However, it was apparently not
entirely Ichikawa's work, and he is said to have disowned it.
The earliest film, to my knowledge, which displays the
stylistic mastery of decoupage which has undeniably earned
him a place apart, is The Heart (Kokoro, 1955). 17 Based on
a celebrated novel of the Taisho era by Natsume Soseki, it
tells of an educated man obsessed with his own 'egotism'
(he has treacherously stolen from his closest friend the
woman he loved and thus driven him to suicide). The film
demonstrates the renewed relevance of the conflict be-
tween individualism and social responsibility, already mani-
fest in the late Meiji period, which is the novel's setting.
Ichikawa's sense of the 'through-composition' of the
editing/shot set-up relationship, characterized here by
minimalizing repeated shots (no doubt an inheritance from
Ishida), produces a film of unquestionable dramatic vigour,
although the flashback narration, divided into two symmet-
rical parts - the writing of the main character's suicide
letter, the reading of it by a young student who was his only
other friend - is laboriously academic.
However, it is between 1958 and I963, with Conflagra-
tion (Enjo, I958), The Key (Kagi, I959), Alone on the
Pacific (Taiheiyo hotoribotchi, I963) and The Avenging
Ghost ofYukinojo (Yukinojo henge, I963), 18 that Ichikawa
rose to his greatest heights. His best-known film, Fires On
the Plain (Nobi, I959), describes the rout of the Japanese
army in the Philippines and is certainly one of the most
hair-raising 'indictments of war' that has been made,
involving wilfully crude representations of cannibalism,
coprophagia, etc. But neither these audacities nor the
dramatically impressive black-and-white imagery can hide
the fact that the Hollywood rhetoric of framing and editing
is not only fully present but amplified, so that despite the
slenderness of plot we are at opposite poles from the non-
centred, ambiguous presentations of the traditional war
film.
Enjo is based on a novel by Mishima Yukio which was in
turn inspired by the actual burning of the celebrated Gol-
den Pavilion in Kyoto by a mentally disturbed youth. It is a
far more 'original' film, particularly in its use of the black-
and-white wide-screen image. It evokes the work of the
17. The French title.le Pauvre coeur pre-war masters through its long shots and the prominence
des hommes, though interpretative,
better conveys the connotative
of architecture, and also anticipates the graphic extrava-
dimension of the Japanese title. gances of Yoshida Yoshishige. Its use of traditional Japan-
18. Shown in the West as The Actor's
ese musical timbres in close symbiosis with synch-sound
Revenge. effects, somewhat in the spirit of contemporary Western

288
music, is also distinguished. It is not surprising, of course, FILM AND 'DEMOCRACY'
that the finest stylists of the period - Ichikawa as well as
Mizoguchi - should have derived their styles from typical
elements of Japanese tradition. However, with Ichikawa,
even more than with late Mizoguchi, these elements
become, within the Western system and consonant with it,
overwhelmingly significant. They are a coat of vivid paint
which serves to define the connotative space of the diegesis.
In short, they are style in the Western sense. In this film,
composition involving a strong, Wellesian emphasis on
depth of field and oblique angles, the dark contrasty photo,
the sparse scattering of notes in musical space, all serve to
determine the effect of quotidian eeriness developed by a
sophisticated narrative as the boy's neurosis deepens. The
comparison with Welles is not without some overall rele-
vance, although Ichikawa's approach is less baroque.
The director's fascination with what even the Japanese
would call 'abnormal' psychology is reflected also in his first
colour film: an adaptation of Tanizaki's celebrated novel
The Key. Again using the wide screen, which he was to
favour almost exclusively thereafter (as did most Japanese
directors- an important point, to be dealt with later), he
developed an editing scheme involving great displacements
on the screen from shot to shot of easily recognizable
objects (at one crucial moment a bright red tin containing
poison) and which can best be compared with certain pro-
cedures used by Antonioni, as in the opening hospital
sequence in La Notte. Again, however, the style aims solely
at conferring a chic, bizarre quality on this strong tale of an
ageing husband who seeks to stimulate his appetite for his
young wife by deliberately provoking his own jealousy. It
never produces a 'geometrical surplus' as in Kurosawa or
any of the various disjunctions of diegesis and signifier
found in the films of both the pre-war masters and the 'new
wave' of the 1960s and 1970s.
Alone on the Pacific, based on the actual adventure of a
young Japanese who crossed the Pacific alone in a small
craft, is an undeniably brilliant stylistic exercise, which
makes good use of matter-of-fact 'distancing' commentary
as against the pathos of the imagery. The film remained
predominantly an illustration of the individualism which
had been an essential theme of his work (and of his period),
but this 'Brechtian' tendency was to reach a much higher 19. A comparison of stills from the two
films is at times astonishing, for the
development in Ichikawa's most important film, The actor, in his make-up, looks identical
Avenging Ghost of Yukinojo. Based on a tale which had at thirty years distance, and some of
the sets also look the same. Even the
already been filmed before the war by Kinugasa with the work of an Ichikawa is rooted in a
same star in the title role, 19 it related the misadventures of tradition of intertextuality. {The
Kinugasa has now been found- see
an oyama - a female impersonater both on and off the Appendix II- and an interesting
stage, yet who is nonetheless an accomplished swordsman- comparison is henceforth possible.)

289
A CHAIN IS BROKEN and of his more outwardly virile 'double' (played by the
same actor, of course), who is an agile thief. The lusty,
quasi-Elizabethan humour of the film, 'distancing' in itself,
is subjected to an even further shift by a curiously omnipre-
sent score of mainstream jazz. Moreover, the diegesis
proper (as opposed to the kabuki representations con-
tained within it) shifts from one level of 'realism' to another
(a street set disappears from one shot to the next, and the
ensuing combat takes place in abstract, black space; a thick
yellow fog gradually dissolves to reveal a painted represen-
tation of fog on a canvas backdrop). And while it soon
became clear that such experiments were of only incidental
concern to Ichikawa, Yukinojo is certainly one of the first
important instances in the Japanese cinema of the conjunc-
tion between an objective 'Brechtianism' of the traditional
stage and the influence on the modern cinema and theatre
of traditions as diverse as Brecht, Elizabethan drama and
the comic strip. As we shall see, this encounter was to have
a significant posterity.
Only two years later, in 1965, Ichikawa made the film
which we must regard as self-defining. Tokyo Olympiad
(Tokyo Orympic) is the stylistic exercise par excellence, a
desperate attempt (Ichikawa has confessed that sport bores
him) to express 'the poetic essence' of the subject in such
moments as the adjustment of starting blocks for the room
final, through slow motion, extreme close-up, soft-focus
and a stylized sound-track.
One regrets the fact that Ichikawa, like Kurosawa, has
had difficulty in finding work in recent years. However, his
latest film- The Wanderers (Matatabi, 1972)- is a crudely
academic, pessimistic drama about youthful outlaw 'rebels'
in the early nineteenth century, and one is led to conclude
that the preoccupations which were briefly his during the
late 1950s and early 1960s and which did indeed point to the
future, have been left for others to develop.
The period which preceded the signing of the Second US
Security Pact in 1959 had produced a few hints of the
coming renaissance of a specifically national mode of re-
presentation. However, the films which contained them,
such as The Japanese Tragedy or Children of the Atom
Bomb, appear today even more abortive than the project
implicit in the handful of films made by Ichikawa around
that crucial date in Japanese history. For indeed, if one
claim concerning that 'dark period' in Japanese film-art
now appears irrefutable, it is that it was marked by only one
lasting body of work, the mature films of Kurosawa Akira.

290
24. Kurosawa Akira

Kurosawa is a figure apart by virtue of the evident

superiority of his work to that of all his Japanese con-
temporaries and to that of most of his Western contem-
poraries as well. He is also set apart by the very nature
of his undertaking, since, after Kinugasa, he was only the
second film-maker in the history of the Japanese film
who, after thoroughly assimilating the Western mode of
representation, went on to build upon it. He has con-
structed, within and beyond this mode, a formal system
whose rigour and originality are comparable, on their
own grounds, to those of certain Western masters: to the
Lang of Das Testament von Dr Mabuse and M, to the
Sternberg of Der Blaue Engel, to the Dreyer of la Pas-
sion de Jeanne d'Arc, to the Eisenstein of Potemkin. The
following analysis of Kurosawa's development and
achievements must take into account both his singularity
within the Japanese cinema past and present and his
place within the cinema of the capitalist world. The
extent to which his work does differ fundamentally from
the Lang of M, etc., its specifically Japanese dimension,
also demands clarification.
The earliest trace of Kurosawa's apprentice years is the
film The Horse (Uma, 1940), in which his assistantship to
Yamamoto Kajiro became a 'co-directorship'. This
bucolic evocation of the life of mountain farmers, loosely
centred around children and their attachment to a horse,
is, to the Western eye, a curious premonition of Rou-
quier's Farrebique- except, of course, that in the Japan
of the period such near-plotless 'realism' was anything
but the novelty that it represented in the post-war West.
The Horse is generally regarded as a more 'escapist' film
than Uchida's Earth, made the year before. And it is true
that while Uchida's film depicted the real poverty of mil-
lions of small peasants, the family in Yamamoto's film is
relatively better off and the treatment of their life slightly
saccharine. Yamamoto, it must be remembered, was an
arch-conservative who made many propaganda films for

291
A CHAIN IS BROKEN the militarist regime. Kurosawa's own position on the
problem of social realism was to evolve considerably as
he detached himself from his master, aesthetically and
politically.
His first solo feature, Sugata Sanshiro (1943), 1 about
the man who codified judo as a sport (in contradistinc-
tion to the traditional martial arts), has little to distinguish
it from the more professional jidai-geki of the immediate
pre-war period, though the final combat in a field of tall,
wind-blown grass is a tour de force that already hints at
the mastery to come.
The Most Beautiful (lchiban utsukushiku, 1944), a film
about keeping up the morale of women workers in a
bomb-sight factory, seems to have been Kurosawa's one
direct contribution to the war-effort. It is very closely
related, in its glorification of the hum-drum existence of
working people, to pre-war gendai-geki. At the same
time, however, one remarkably systematic sequence
shows that this emphasis on the quotidian and in particu-
lar on the experience of duration, though still grounded
in the diegesis, could produce a suspensive period in the
coding process which Kurosawa 'filled' with experiments
in highly artificial patterning. In this sequence, the film's
'heroine', who is to remain all through the night, peering
into a microscope, polishing the minute lenses, is filmed
at her work in a succession of seven protracted shots,
starting at the far end of the workshop bench at which
she sits alone. Gradually thecamera works towards the
motionless girl. The increasingly tighter shots are sepa-
rated by close-ups of a clock showing the passing hours,
and the sequence culminates first in a 90 o shift to a fron-
tal close-up which lasts over a minute and a half. This is
followed by a brief 'dream' flash as her eyelids momen-
tarily droop.
-an enemy plane is seen through a gun-sight
-profile close-up
-return to the initial (longest) shot of the sequence
-cutaway to the empty factory
- medium close-up of the girl praying
- medium close-up of microscope
- close-up of an altar
There follow two increasingly larger shots of two other girls
praying for the success of the heroine's race against time
(she is the only one who can do whatever she is doing fast
enough to meet a crucial deadline). In medium profile
1. The second part of this film. Zoku close-up, the girl returns to her work. There is music. And
Sugara Sanshiro (1945), seems to have the sequence ends with the most inclusive shot of the work-
been lost through the intervention of
American censorship. shop, with the tiny figure still at work.
 Now it is interesting to compare and contrast this se- KUROSAW A AKIRA
quence with, for example, the long transitional passages in
Only Son, representative as they are of a tradition to which
this sequence owes much. Ozu's suspensions, as we have
seen, constitute true blanks, actual suspensions of the
diegesis, whether associated or not with references to it
'from the outside'. This sequence in The Most Beautiful is a
suspension within the diegesis; it is in fact a moment of
suspense. The 'pillow-shots', if indeed one may call them
that- the microscope, the empty workshop, the altar- are
charged with specific spatia-temporal meaning in a way
foreign to Ozu. In particular, the emptiness of that work-
shop is the specific emptiness of those night hours in which
a girl works alone in the factory. The emptiness of Ozu's
pillow-shots is far more absolute, far more ambiguous,
unsituated as it is in diegetic space-time. It is empty of
characters because they may have left it, may not yet have
entered it ... or simply because the shot is outside the film,
shows a setting or a prop in and for itself. Actually, this
early Kurosawa sequence has certain affinities with a
pivotal passage in the second section of Potemkin, which
separates the action that culminates in the order to shoot
the 'mutineers' under the tarpaulin, from the mutiny itself.
It consists of a series of suspensive cutaways, including an
exceptional one which shows the ship from a great distance.
All these shots - the bugle, the life-buoy, the pope's
crucifix, etc. - are borrowed from the diegesis proper. So
that while the diegesis may be said to be suspended in this
remarkable passage, the suspension remains within the
diegesis, of which it should perhaps rather be said that it has
been dilated here. And the sequence has in common with
the one cited from The Most Beautiful that, independently
of the formal pattern produced, it may legitimately be
reduced to 'durational' editing, a series of shots constitut-
ing a single syntagma whose sole semantic function is to
convey a passing of time. No such unambiguous message
ever results from a series of pillow-shots in the mature work
of Ozu. An objective echoing of Eisenstein, a tribute to the
traditional cinema of the 1930s combined with a tendency
to Westernize its modes; inscribed in this sequence are
three important keys for situating Kurosawa in film history.
During the very last days before Japan's surrender,
Kurosawa made They Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (Tara
no o o fumu otokotachi, 1945), an adaptation of a famous
kabuki play and of interest chiefly for this reason. The film
was dutifully banned by the American censor and not
shown until 1952. It is quite irrelevant to the director's
development, except insofar as it was his parting tribute to
the dominant attitudes of the pre-war period.

2 93
waiting fiancee, after demobilization, why he must break with KUROSA W A AKIRA
her. Or it may be latent throughout most of the film,
erupting only at the climax. In One Wonderful Sunday, the
young couple, after wandering through Tokyo on a quiet
Sunday, listen to the whole first movement of Schubert's
'Unfinished' Symphony, played by an invisible orchestra
which the young man's 'magical' conducting gestures have
conjured out of thin air, while the camera tracks about the
deserted concert mall, with autumn leaves blowing in the
wind. Heavily coded though these films are (from the point
of view of spatia-temporal representation they are com-
parable with the best De Sica or Rossellini of the period),
Kurosawa displayed a gift, unrivalled, perhaps, in all the
history of cinema, for 'bringing off' scenes which are, on
paper, totally unacceptable according to Western canons of
taste. In The Quiet Duel, the protracted medium close-up in
which the surgeon and the young, rather dim-witted char-
woman stand face to face, shedding bitter tears over their
respective misfortunes, carries a conviction which seems
almost miraculous. Of course, behaviour of this sort in
public is far more common in Japan than in the West;
catharsis through tears or violence is a traditional, admis-
sible element of the emotional economy of both men and
women. It is, however, Kurosawa's sense of timing and
framing, his mastery of editing and of the direction of actors
which even at this early period renders totally convincing
sequences such as this one, or the Schubert concert already
mentioned or the inordinately long, silent, motionless vigil
of two lovers in a dark, deserted office in No Regrets for
Our Youth.
Related to such moments of pathos are the endings of
Drunken Angel and Stray Dog, endings which offer a
unique, paroxysmic break with the tone and style of the body
of the film. In Drunken Angel, the pathos is predominant
throughout, as even the most cursory synopsis makes clear:
an alcoholic slum-area doctor tries to save a worthless
hoodlum from tuberculosis . . . and from his own base
instincts. 2 The final sequence, a grotesque fight between
two hoodlums amongst buckets of paint, is done in a style of
sinister slapstick. It is not a parody, but the symbolic
defilement of a lumpen underworld, dismissed as patheti-
cally irretrievable. The long, minutely described investiga-
tion made in Stray Dog by a policeman to find the gun
stolen by a pickpocket is strongly reminiscent of the
American brand of post-war neo-realism ( cf. Dassin's The
Naked City). Its pathos, linked to the castration symbol of 2. This film brings together, for the first
the stolen gun, remains implicit through most of the film, time, I believe, Mifune Toshiro and
Shimura Takashi, who were to appear,
then bursts forth orgasmically, incongruously, during the together or separately, in every
final, frantic chase on foot, at the end of which both Kurosawa film for eighteen years.

295
A CHAIN IS BROKEN pursued and pursuer collapse, side by side, panting with
exhaustion.
Disjunctiveness, pathos and excess, already detectable in
these early films, will be constants in the mature work of the
1950s. Kurosawa's thematic constants, as opposed to more
strictly formal ones, have already been dealt with by others.
One feature, however, common to many of these films, is
both thematic and formal; it provides, in most of the
mature masterpieces, the key articulation between the two
levels. This is the characteristic stubbornness of Kurosawa's
protagonists. 3 Indeed, 'perseverance in the teeth of adver-
sity' is a phrase that describes nearly every one of
Kurosawa's main characters. Instances of this are: the
absurd single-mindedness with which Mifune, as the
policeman in Stray Dog, pursues his stolen revolver; in
Quiet Duel the surgeon's refusal to tell his fiancee the
horrible truth and his headstrong wallowing in private mis-
ery; the stubbornness of the drunken doctor pursuing the
equally pig-headed hoodlum in Drunken Angel. They shed
some light on Kurosawa's proclivity for stubborn fantasiz-
ers in Western literature, such as Prince Mishkin or the
outcasts of The Lower Depths. And we shall see that in at
least one film, Living, this theme provides the entire struc-
tural support. I should add that this stubbornness syndrome
is not merely a personal form; masochistic perseverance in
the fulfilment of complex social obligations is a basic cul-
tural trait of Japan, and no doubt contributed to Japan's
military successes in the Chinese and Pacific Wars.
It is tempting to see the Western discovery of Japanese
cinema through Rashomon as something of an accident,
considering both the scale and quality of Japanese produc-
tion over the previous decades on the one hand and, on the
other, the film's minor importance in the eyes of Japanese
and (today) many Western critics. Several considerations
are, however, in order: Kurosawa's place in the history of
Japanese cinema; this film's place with respect to the his-
tory of Japanese cinema as a whole; the place which it so
naturally came to occupy within the picture of film-
culture-as-seen-in-the-West. From these it will be seen that
the Japanese decision to send the film to the Cannes Festi-
val and elsewhere, the occidental decision to consecrate its
appearance as the 'birth of a great national cinema', were
determined by a wide range of factors.
It has already been suggested that Kurosawa's essential
achievement can be viewed as operating within and beyond
the Western mode of filmic representation. In other words,
it satisfied the complementary needs for originality and
3. This trait was called to my attention
immediate accessibility. It is not surprising, then, that the
by Jacques Rivette. first film in his career which fully deserves these qualifica-
tions should be brought before elite audiences of the West. KUROSA W A AKIRA
Rashomon was Kurosawa's first film since The Most
Beautiful to be related to the cinema of the pre-war period-
albeit in a very different way. And we must remember that
at that time this cinema was totally unknown in the West
and presumed by the Japanese to be inaccessible to it. The
historical source of Rashomon - the frenetic chambera of
the 1920s and early 1930s, 'founded' by Ito Daisuke- was
bound to attract, when translated into post-war technology,
those middle-class audiences in Western Europe and the
United States, for whom a certain baroque had become the
sign of art in the cinema. Furthermore, Kurosawa's brilliant
embroideries on a scenario constructed from two stories by
the modern writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke fitted in admir-
ably with an ideology of the 'subjectivity of truth' which
had already contributed to the succes d' estime of Citizen
Kane. It had been used once more, also in 1950, in
Asquith's The Woman in Question, and only two years
earlier in Jean Devaivre's La Ferme des sept peches. Martin
Ritt later adapted, with characteristic commercial sense,
the narrative of Rashomon to Hollywood dimensions in
The Outrage. 4
This film, not perhaps the director's finestjidai-geki, but
certainly among the best, does establish some of the princi-
ples for that rough-hewn geometry of the masterpieces to
come. The films which preceded Rashomon had adhered to
the principle of 'organic', 'natural' form overwhelmingly
dominant in Western cinema. They observed, on the
whole, those rules of unity of style and mood which had
seldom been challenged since the introduction of sound.
Significant exceptions to this rule, as already suggested,
were the delirious finales of Drunken Angel and Stray Dog,
and the sudden intrusion of objectified fantasy- the invis-
ible orchestra - into the otherwise realistic context of One
Wonderful Sunday. Rashi5mon's insistently artificial narra-
tive system involves successive double flash-backs: the
thief's tale, the wife's tale, the dead man's tale (told
through a medium) and the wood-cutter's own tale. All
these are bracketed by periodic returns to the group of
travellers huddled beneath the Rashomon Gate and are
relayed through intermediary flash-backs to the magis-
trate's court. This is very different from the 'organic' linear-
ity of Scandal, Kurosawa's preceding film. On the other
hand, the artifice of Rashomon is rudimentary in compari- 4· The remarkable affinities between
son with the geometrical complexities of Living, Cobweb Kurosawa and the Western commercial
Castle or even High and Low. cinema have had other illustrations: The
Magnificent Seven of sinister memory
The editing in all of the previous films had been marked and, above all, the entire 'spaghetti
Western' series, which may be said to
by an increasingly skilful conformity with the rules of 'invis- derive from one of the master's most
ible continuity' which had now come to be universally evident pot-boilers, Yojimbo.

297
A CHAIN IS BROKEN respected in Japan. (We have seen how Ozu himself came
to comply with the spirit, if not the letter, of the eyeline
match.) Rashomon represents a remarkable re-activation
of the freedom of the best of the pre-war Japanese cinema
with respect to those rules. Kurosawa, like Ozu and his
great contemporaries, spent his first years mastering the
Western system of editing before he went on to develop a
specifically Japanese approach to space-time. Of course,
Kurosawa's style is not at all similar to that of Ozu and his
generation. Gone is the predominance of the long shot, and
he does not, to my knowledge, use a single unresolved
eyeline 'mismatch' such as we find in Ozu's or Naruse's
work. Yet although Kurosawa's films are original, in the
Western sense, and his originality comparable in degree
with that of specific Western masters, it must be empha-
sized that his work on the Western codes is that of a specifi-
cally Japanese sensibility.
We have considered the role of the 180° reverse-angle
cut in the systemics of Ozu. This device is unquestionably
more frequent in Japanese than in Western cinema, where
it is still regarded as essentially perturbing. Involving as it
does sudden reversals of screen direction, it is considered
justifiable only in exceptional circumstances. In Rasho-
mon, Kurosawa revived this device and made it a basic
element of his rough-hewn, jagged editing. He also em-
ployed frequent and sharply contrasting juxtapositions of
close-up and long shot, of moving and fixed shots, or shots
of contrary movement. He used, as well, the somewhat
anachronistic hard-edged wipe.
This form of punctuation was already fairly common in
the Japanese cinema of the 1940s, as in the early films of
Kurosawa. However, he now began to use it much more
frequently, often to the all but total exclusion of the dis-
solve, a development which appears especially significant
when we remember that the Western trend as a whole had
been exactly the reverse.
The commercialization of the optical printer in the late
1920s had precipitated an orgiastic development of the
wipe in all its forms. During the 1930s, the hard-edged wipe
was gradually replaced by the soft-edge version, which
grew steadily softer until the vogue of 'wavy dissolves' in
the late 1940s, which were in turn completely supplanted by
the dissolve properly so-called. As the codes of editing
reached their completion, sophisticated directors of the
1940s came to realize the dangers involved in a punctuation
device which caused the frame-line to actually cross the field
of vision, thereby exposing the elements most essential to
the production of the strong diegetic illusion. Editing and
the rest of the cinematic system had been aimed at conceal-
ing frame-line and shot-change as material discontinuities, KUROSA W A AKIRA

as well as the tangibility of the screen's surface. Here is a

clue to the sense in which Kurosawa's approach to 'work on
the signifier' must be regarded as fundamentally different
from that of, say, the late German Lang. Kurosawa's rejec-
tion of 'smoothness', his apparent disregard for many of the
rules of illusionist continuity, constitute an overall fore-
grounding of all the habitually buried articulations. Inde-
pendently of the geometrical structure which we shall
encounter in films like Living and Cobweb Castle, his con-
sistent use ofthe 180° reverse-angle match produces rever-
sals of position and eyeline (or screen) direction which
seem to reactivate, twenty years later, Eisenstein's all but
forgotten dialectics of montage units (i.e. of 'correct' and
'incorrect' matches), exemplified in his silent films and
given theoretical form in his teaching. 5 At the same time,
and this is a further indication of Kurosawa's inter-cultural
position, he never introduces unresolved 'mismatches' of
eyeline into a reverse-field series; unlike Ozu, he never in
any permanent way disrupts the unambiguous definition of
spatial relationships. Occasionally (as in Living, during
Watanabe's encounter with the novelist or during his meal
with Toyo, his young subordinate) a cut from close-up to
two-shot is 'mismatched', which is sufficient to define a
change of montage unit in the Eisensteinian sense but, at
the same time, instantly resolves the disruption caused by
the mismatch, since now both characters are on the screen 5· See Nizhny, op. cit., Chapter 2.
Eisenstein posited that it was possible to
and the new orientation is a visual fait accompli, accepted organize the classical sequence into
by the spectator as such. Never do two separate close-ups dramatic sub-sections by shifting into a
new set of directional orientations, i.e.
fail to match, clearly because Kurosawa's approach com- by 'crossing the line'. In the Odessa
bines a general foregrounding of articulation as such with steps sequence of Potemkin, the falling
baby-carriage shots are given a
an underlying, full-fledged adhesion to Western linearity. privileged status in just this way.
Ambiguity in Kurosawa- as in Eisenstein and nearly all the
6. Though a minority tendency in the
classical Western masters- is an element of tension to be Japanese cinema, the transposition of
answered by one of resolution; never is it a categorical Western narrative substance to a
Japanese setting has been of some
indifference to univalence or linearity as it is in Ozu and considerable importance, from
more generally in the classical cinema of Japan. Yamamoto Satsuo's Denen kokyogaku
(1938), a deliriously coded version,
The first of three films which Kurosawa was to adapt replete with countless close- ups of
from Western literary classics, The Idiot (Hakuchi, 1951), 6 Christ on the Cross, of Gide's La
Symphonie pastorale, to Japanese
may also be regarded as his first dramatic masterwork. The 'Westerns', complete with chaps and
film is probably the only adaptation of Dostoevsky to the six-shooters.
screen which carries something of the complexity and 7. This is partly because of theatrical
dramatic intensity of the original. This is due in part to the tradition. Experience, however, seems
to have shown that such films are no
film's great length (166 minutes). While Kobayashi's nine- more profitable than they are in the
hour Human Condition is an exceptional case, extensive West, and they have all but disappeared.
Kurosawa's first version of The Idiot ran
running-times have long been more easily acceptable in 265 minutes, but was apparently never
Japan than in the West. 7 Another factor contributing to the released. Many of his films of the I 950s
seem to have been cut, before or after
supreme quality of the adaptation is the remarkable cor- release, more than he would have
respondence between Dostoevsky's 'universe' and certain preferred.

299
traits of Japanese society, such as the masochistic persever- KUROSA W A AKIRA
ance already referred to. This film, then, is far 'richer' by
Western standards of psychological dramatization than
either the neo-realist films or Rashomon. However, the
rough-hewn quality of decoupage initiated in the previous
film is considerably attenuated, less provocative, and the
systematically geometrical quality of scenario organiza-
tion, already apparent in Rashomon, is hardly detectable
here. This, I suspect, is due to the over-riding power of the
novel's plot-structure, which it would certainly have been
difficult to force into as formalized a mould as that which
organizes Living.
Indeed, it was with Living (Ikiru, 1952) that Kurosawa's
narrative geometry developed fully. Like Lang's M and
only a very few other films, 8 Living has a 'serial' organiza-
tion of signifying elements whose place is at the same time
always simultaneously determined by a wholly unambigu-
ous narrative chain. In other words we are dealing with a
formalization as rigorous as that of any film by Robbe-
Grillet (for example) yet which remains within the
framework of linear narration. The film's entire structure
may be construed as developing out of a simple, very strong
(one might almost call it crude) binary opposition. The first
two-thirds of the film shows Watanabe's progress from the
discovery that he has cancer to the realization that he can
still do something with his life. The last third shows the Figs. 41, 42. Kurosawa Akira,
funeral ceremony at which he is eulogized, more or less The Idiot
hypocritically, by his fellow civil servants, who fill in,
through flash-backs, a gap in the narrative, i.e. Watanabe's
actual accomplishment: transforming an unsanitary vacant
lot into a children's playground.
The two sections of the film are antithetical in prominent
ways, parallel in subtler ones. The first section, which
stretches over some two and a half weeks of narrative time,
contains, of course, countless ellipses and makes recurrent
use of the 'montage' technique (or chain of ellipses) inher-
ited from the Western cinema of the late 1920s and the
1930s. It is discontinuous, then, as against the second sec-
tion, characterized by an apparent unity of time and place-
an illusion conveyed in a way to be discussed. One of the
most important elements of parallelism between the two
sections is the use of flashbacks in each. These flashbacks,
moreover, offer one of the film's most remarkable
instances of complex 'variation' patterning. In both parts of
the film, flashbacks are remarkably brief. The five flash-
backs in the first part may be seen to establish a pattern 8. Sections of Potemkin, Marcel
which is then repeated in reverse order and in expanded Hanoun's Une simple histoire (see my
form in the second. In part one, we move from two isolated Theory of Film Practice, Chapter 5) and
Oshima's Death by Hanging (see below)
flashbacks (father and son riding in the back seat of a car are significant examples.

301
A CHAIN IS BROKEN time do we see decisive papers being signed, an official
throwing up his hands in surrender or any other definitive
stage of the struggle. We do not see the moment of comple-
tion of the playground, nor that of Watanabe's actual
death: we only see him singing in the swing on the com-
pleted playground as it was just before his death. The great
gap in the narrative, then, is bridged with moments that in
themselves are merely 'bridges', offcentered moments
which generally signify repetition ('this scene was enacted
day after day until Watanabe had his way'). Hence the
sense of distancing which the spectator experiences in pass-
ing from the first to the second part: 'the story is over' but
the film is not; the 'story' is now being unfolded -but not
by the pictures.
The form of the first section of the film is quite free,
determined by the requirements ofthe narrative. However,
there are a number of recurring devices and leitmotives,
and although in themselves they are not unusual proce-
dures, such systematic distribution of them is quite excep-
tional. They are related, moreover, to a formal attitude
characteristic of Kurosawa's mature work as a whole: the
tendency to singularize a given device or type of material.
The very long single-take 'breathing space' in the middle of
The Lower Depths contrasts sharply with the fragmented
texture of the rest of the film and provides a dramatic and
structural pivot. The pair of colour shots that intrude so
incongruously upon the otherwise black-and-white context
of High and Low, also acting as a pivot, provide a further
example.
In Living, there are three widely spaced interventions of
an off-screen narrator, each shorter than the last; they
break off entirely two-thirds of the way through the film on
the words: 'Five months later the hero of our story died.'
These passages are not only infrequent, they are singular-
ized in another way; they are all associated with the heavily
caricatural setting of Watanabe's office in the town-hall
and serve, in that context, to create a chastening effect of
distancing. In this connection, one notices that the first
off-screen comment is spoken over the X-ray picture of
Watanabe's stomach, and announces his disease. This dis-
tancing device destroys all conventional suspense. The
same X-ray picture reappears in the hospital consultation,
and this double appearance is strongly singularized.
Such leitmotiv structures are common in the film.
Another type, which takes two forms, inter- and intra-
sequential, does not have a distancing function. How-
ever, their insistent pathos still commits these other ele-
ments to the principle of singularization. Here are some
intra-sequential series: the cutaways to Watanabe's fallen
A CHAIN IS BROKEN pattern is broken by recurrent elements of three different
kinds. The first are close-ups of the altar photograph of
Watanabe (rhyming with the photograph of his dead wife,
which touched off the ititial flashback in the first part of the
film), one of which opens the second part of the film and all
of which act as subtly elliptical cutaways. The second is the
outside interventions from people come explicitly to con-
test, each in their own way, the sincerity of the mourners:
the reporters who put insidious questions to the deputy
mayor; the mothers of the children who benefit from the
new playground and who have come to pay a noisily tearful
tribute; the policeman who saw Watanabe on the play-
ground, singing and swinging in the snowstorm, and who
later found him dead. The third element is the flashbacks
already mentioned, of which the first is a literal repeat of
the final shot from part one - and the last implies a
viewpoint radically at variance with all the preceding ones,
since it is introduced by the policeman and filmed in a
lyrical tracking shot past a 'jungle gym', while Watanabe
sings and swings on the far side. Moreover, the music in this
very particularized shot is the only music to be heard in part
two, whereas part one is peppered with snatches of it.
This film is Kurosawa's first full-blown masterwork and
the most perfect statement of his dramatic geometry. It is
also somewhat marred by its complicity with the reformist
ideology dominant in that period. From the viewpoint of
manifest content, which is that of ideological struggle as
well, his next modem-dress film, 9 Record of a Living Thing
(!kimono no kiroku, 1955), 10 though closer on the whole to
The Idiot than to Living, is one of Kurosawa's finest
dramaturgical achievements. Moreover, in contrast with
the reformist idealism of Living and its plea for the typically
petty bourgeois doctrine of the heroic individual as agent of
social change, Record ofa Living Thing objectively offers a
compassionate and yet critical image of the lucid social
rebel, conscious of hidden historical reality and unable to
9· The Seven Samurai (Shichinin no act because of his isolation. An old iron-master is so ter-
samurai, 1954), in part because of its
exceptional length and consequently
rified of the atomic bomb that he uses every means to force
leisurely pace (original Japanese his family to move to Brazil, only to end by being interned
version: 200 minutes), is certainly the
finest of Kurosawa's minor jidai-geki. I
in a mental hospital. This character is a curious prefigura-
exclude, of course, Rashomon and tion of what I call the Shain complex (see below) that was to
Cobweb Castle. Such films, which
Kurosawa himself tends to disregard,
become widespread among film-makers of the next genera-
will not be considered in and for tion and which epitomized their sense of a need to appear
themselves except insofar as they
illustrate, as they often incidentally do,
eccentric or 'mad' in order to gain a hearing for their
the principles which inform the major message. Mifune's stylized impersonation of a robust
films.
seventy-year-old (see Fig. 46) has something of the theatri-
10. More idiomatically, a 'living being'. cal quality that was to interest many of the following gener-
The film was released in the West as I
Live in Fear, and subtitled If the Birds
ation as well. The film was ahead of its time in several ways.
Only Knew. Its message was in conflict with the interests of the ruling

306
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A CHAIN IS BROKEN dialectic of its didacticism; keys to the meaning of the
'unworthiness' of the family (and yet the need to save them
in spite of themselves), to the lucid 'insanity' of the old man
(whose sickness is health to a progressive Japanese audi-
ence) and to the realistically pessimistic 'inconclusive' end-
ing, are provided by a reading in terms of 'epic theatre'.
Kurosawa's social concerns are reflected in all his
gendai-geki and most of his jidai-geki . 12 The Lower Depths
(Donzoko, 1957) might actually be called his one Meiji-
mono except for the curiously symbiotic relationship be-
tween nineteenth-century Japanese and Russian culture
already materialized in The Idiot. The helpless pessimism
and ludicrous outbursts of Gorki's lumpen outcasts make
them close kin to the cantankerous iron-master. This film
also involves a new and important avatar of Kurosawa's
basic geometry. In a thorough exploitation of the pos-
sibilities of a deceptively simple set, he lays out successive
camera set-ups according to ruthlessly mechanical pat-
terns. Moreover, in both indoor and outdoor sequences, he
creates a remarkable instance of specifically Japanese cen-
tripetal composition (Figs. 47, 48). This is intimately
associated with a principle of 'booby-trapped space'
(espace pii!ge), whereby at any time a curtain or a door may
draw back, or a face emerge from the shadows in an unex-
Figs. 47, 48. Kurosawa Akira, pected corner of the screen. The effect is one in which the
The Lower Depths free-floating gaze required by the centripetal composition
is suddenly focused on some new and unexpected point of
interest, thereby further emphasizing the centripetal poten-
tiality of the image. The film's geometry is completed by
systematically sharp contrasts between relatively long
takes and brief flurries of 'rough-hewn' editing. Indeed,
every cut in the film seems made with a rusty axe, so brutal
are the reversals and other strategies, including precisely
these cuts from wide-angle shots to the first in a given series
of briefer and closer shots. Most remarkable of these
wide-angle shots is a long, single take backyard scene,
already mentioned as a singular suspension of the film's
stylistic unity and which acts as a formal and diegetic
'breathing space'. The characters sit about warmed by a pale
ray of sunlight, exchanging fantasies, while the discreetly
moving camera proposes variations on a theme, as it were: a
succession of different compositions all foregrounding a
diagonal wooden prop (Fig. 48). In some respects, and
despite the wilfulness of its spatial organization, this film is
less of a model than others, since, as with The Idiot, the
original narrative structure does not lend itself to the strict
construction of Living or Cobweb Castle. In some respects,
12. They are least apparent, perhaps, in
Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress and
however, it deserves to be explored in far greater depth
Sanjuro of the Camellias. than is possible here. For this is Kurosawa's most richly
 Image removed
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A CHAIN IS BROKEN pragmatic dramaturgy, considered independently of any
'geometry'. Or rather, the geometry itself is 'spontaneous',
nascent, incompletely rationalized, as it were.
Cobweb Castle ( Kumo-no-su jo, 1957), 13 made earlier in
the same fruitful year that produced The Lower Depths, is
indisputably Kurosawa's finest achievement, largely
because it carries furthest the rationalization process of his
geometry.
As most readers know, this film is an adaptation of
Shakespeare's Macbeth, structurally faithful to the point of
respecting the play's division into acts; the spoken word is,
however, sparingly used. Furthermore, in a way evocative
of the two adaptations from the Russian, the film plays
upon essential similarities between the European and
Japanese 'middle ages'.
In connection with the early films, I have already refer-
red to an opposition between extreme violence or pathos
and moments of static, restrained tension which is, in fact,
to be found in nearly all of Kurosawa's films. Cobweb
Castle is entirely founded upon this principle. The film's
overall plan involves two regularly alternating types of
scene. Those of the first type are characterized by violent
agitation, repeated rather than developed. They are, in one
way or another, peripheral to that central zone of the
classical diegesis which we call plot-line, and to its hardest
Figs. 49, 50. Kurosawa Akira, core, 'character building', tending on the contrary to be
Cobweb Castle theatrical signs for elided action. Examples are: the dashing
messengers, whose agitation stands for an 'off-stage' battle;
the headlong ride through the storm-swept forest, which
signifies the invisible gathering of occult forces (Fig. 49);
the confused gallopings which signify rather than depict the
battle that is to follow the 'king's' murder; the portentous
panic of Miki's horse, which prefigures the off-screen mur-
der of his master; the ominous invasion of the throne-room
by a flock of birds, presumably fleeing the advancing forest
(Fig. 50). Contrasting with these are similarly protracted,
tensely static, dramatic moments: the scene with the 'witch'
following that first mad ride (Fig. sr); Asaji ('Lady Mac-
beth') waiting for her husband Washizu to return after
murdering his lord (Fig. 52); the funeral procession end-
lessly advancing towards the castle gates, a scene in which
time and space are dilated with blatant artificiality; and the
long introduction to the ghost scene, as described below.
The dance-like scene in which Asaji waits for the first
murder to be accomplished also incorporates a trait other-
wise reserved to the scenes of agitation - the evocation of
an off-screen event- while as we shall see, the opposition
13. Shown in England and the United
between the two types is dialectically resolved in the final
States as Throne of Blood. sequence.

310
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 Image removed
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 This dramatically 'full' stasis and this 'empty' agitation KUROSA w A AKIRA
are also interrelated in a sequence early in the film which
shows Washizu's and Miki's blind wanderings through the
mist-shrouded forest after their encounter with the witch.
Twelve times the horsemen advance towards the camera,
turn and ride away, in twelve shots that are materially
separate but identical, apparently, in the space they frame-
grey, misty, almost entirely abstract. Not until the last shot,
in fact, do we realize that this was supposed to have been a
forest. This aspect of the scene is strongly reminiscent of
the strategies of the oriental theatre in general, with its
conventional representation of (for example) long jour-
neys within the avowedly limited here-and-now of scenic
space. Kurosawa, however, on the basis of what is, in fact, a
coded figure ('durational montage', 14 the model for all of
the scenes of de-centred agitation in the film) builds one of
the most sustained variation structures in narrative cinema,
combining in never-repeated order three or four well-
defined stages chosen from the range provided by each and
all of the principal parameters of the action: the distance
from the camera at which the approaching horses pause,
the duration of their turn and the radius of the arc
described, their distance from the camera when the shot
begins and ends. At times they ride into view out of the mist
or disappear into it; at others, the shot begins when they are
already in sight, or it ends before they have vanished. From Figs. sr, 52. Kurosawa Akira,
the eighth to the eleventh shot, a shift occurs, the process Cobweb Castle
grows increasingly complex, the riders reverse direction as
they ride laterally to the invisibly panning camera, become
separated as one rides out of the shot, then join up again,
ride out together leaving an empty shot, re-enter unexpec-
tedly in close-up, etc. (these four shots may in fact be
regarded as a series of variations of the 'second order'). The
last shot, which shows a landscape emerging from the rising
mist, provides a final return to the original motif: the
horsemen ride towards the camera as in the beginning, but
at a perceptibly slower pace than the steady trot which has
marked the rest of the sequence, then pull up in medium
shot. 'At last we are out of that forest', says Washizu,
speaking the first words of a sequence in which the only
sounds have been the hooves and whinnying of the horses,
and an unobtrusive, very simple, sustained line of wood-
wind music. The sequence is actually brought to its close by
a thirteenth shot of the two men sitting near the edges of the
frame, their battle pennants flying in the wind, calmly,
amicably discussing the witch's prediction - but already
separated, symbolically, by the castle, the seat of power
which they will dispute, looming in the distance, squarely
between them. This shot is also a striking instance of a 14. As Christian Metz has dubbed it.

313
A CHAIN IS BROKEN 'geometrical' strategy which determines the imagery of
most of the film: a rigorous symmetry of shot-composition
associated at times with a temporal symmetry, in the organ-
ization of the set-up/editing relationship (decoupage ). This
is exemplified by the remarkable banquet sequence.
It begins with a shot of an ageing courtier singing and
dancing in the centre of a large dining-hall between two
rows of courtiers sitting face to face along opposite walls.
Washizu and Asaji, each seated on a low dais, preside from
the far end. (The 'near' end of the hall will appear only
towards the end of the sequence, with the entrance of the
assassin, which will of course further singularize that
dramatic moment.) The camera pans with the moving
dancer through three well-defined and symmetrically
framed stations: first, he is flanked in the background by
two anonymous guests, then by the two empty mats still
awaiting Mike ('Banquo') and his son, and finally by Asaji
and Washizu. We cut to an absolutely centred, frontal,
medium shot of Washizu. He looks to his left, and there is a
close-up of the empty mats. We cut back to Washizu who
looks away from the mats again, and the principle of sym-
metry is respected also in these repeated and opposite eye
movements around the pivotal cutaway. The same eye
movement is repeated a few shots later with Asaji (whose
shot matches, in both senses, with an identically symmetri-
cal shot of Washizu called forth by her glance at him, and
followed by her turning back to face the camera). We cut
back to the dancer in a shot identical to the symmetrical
frame in which we last saw him (Washizu and Asaji in
background): Washizu suddenly calls in anger for the per-
formance to end, having detected in the words of the singer
a parallel with his own history. The startled performer
kneels, then scurries back to his seat on the left side of the
hall, followed in a panning movement which is the symmet-
rical complement (or continuation) of the sequence's first
shot. He takes his place, bowing to his lord. The next shot is
perfectly symmetrical to this last frame; it shows the oppo-
site row of guests- but with the two empty mats at the far
end offering a disquieting flaw in the symmetry. After a
repeat of the earlier three-shot figure (ABA), in which
Washizu again looks at the empty mats, we come to the first
apparition of the ghost, shown in a long, single shot, com-
pletely symmetrical in its construction rather than its fram-
ing. The first composition shows Washizu from the absent
Miki's 'viewpoint', with the empty mat in the lower fore-
ground. The camera tracks slowly towards Washizu, who
now looks for the third time towards the empty mats (the
camera) and jumps up in terror. The camera draws quickly
back to the starting position (end of first period of sym-

314
me try); the whitened figure of Miki is sitting on the mat KUROSA w A AKIRA
reserved for him. Terrorized, Washizu staggers away to the
left, passing before Asaji, who rises and tries to reassure the
guests ('He's always this way when he's been drinking!').
The camera pans with him until Miki is out of shot; then, as
he calms down and returns to his seat, the camera, panning
back, fails to find the ghost. Actually, however, as a sup-
reme refinement, the ghost's presence or absence remains
ambiguous for a moment, since the slightly higher angle of
the camera on its return makes Miki's mat invisible, even
when Washizu has reached his dais. Only when the warlord
finally squats down again, does the camera tilt impercept-
ibly so that the frame is exactly as at the beginning, with the
empty mat in the lower foreground- and the second period
of symmetry is seen here to absorb the first. The following
shots introduce a new, wider angle. The entire right-hand
row of guests is seen, together with both Asaji and Washizu
seated at the end. The medium shot of Washizu reappears,
followed by a shot symmetrical to the penultimate one (the
left-hand row in its entirety, again with Asaji and Washizu
in the background). A servant rises at the near end of the
row - and his movement, on the following cut, which
brings back the correspondingly symmetrical shot seen
previously, is perfectly matched with that of his opposite
number as he rises to serve the right-hand row. This
extravagant visual sleight of hand may be regarded as the
central point of symmetry within the sequence, since it
comes between the ghost's two apparitions. We now return
to a series of shots which very nearly repeat the beginning
of the sequence: Washizu looks at the two empty mats,
close-up of Miki's, etc. This time, however, when Washizu
reacts (in a fixed frame) to the second apparition, we see it
in reverse angle to his terrified gaze. This is the first
appearance of the classical form of the reverse angle in this
scene (it is used only sparingly in the film as a whole). The
next shot, as Washizu again leaves his dais and staggers
across the hall with drawn sword, involves another long pan
and tracking shot, similar to the previous one but extended,
pivoting much further to the left for its final composition,
showing the empty mat from an angle symmetrical with
that of the earlier final composition and, like that one,
tilting slightly downwards to include the mat as Washizu
slashes at the empty air above it. Following Asaji's dismis-
sal of the guests, the confrontation between the couple is
filmed in two symmetrical reverse shots. The final image, in
which Washizu murders the assassin who has returned with
only the one head (Miki's son having escaped him), is a
wide, perfectly symmetrical frame in which the two figures
are like puppets in the centre of a stage, performing some
 Image removed
due to
rights considerations

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scene to scene. The resolution of this dichotomy, as I have KUROSAW A AKIRA
suggested, is delivered in the final sequence, when, after
the motionless mass of soldiers has listened in complete
silence to Washizu's harangue, he suddenly finds himself
pursued about the ramparts of his own castle by the uner-
ring rain of whistling arrows shot by his own archers. This
bravura passage is usually recognized by Western critics as
such, but nothing more; it is seen as grotesque and gratuit-
ous or brilliant but gratuitous. On the contrary, it is the very
keystone of the film's formal structure. Here at last that
tense, horizontal alternation between scenes of de-
centered frenzy and dramatic but static scenes is resolved
into a vertical orgasm of on-screen violence. While the
hieratic symmetry is swept away by this holocaust, it is
reasserted in the epilogue, a near-repeat of the opening
sequence: the foggy landscape, the chanting chorus,
Washizu's tomb.
While in formal detail Cobweb Castle is undeniably a
unique work, its general outline - long, rigidly controlled
retention of or preparation for violence, ultimately cul-
minating in a brief, paroxysmic outburst, is clearly Japan-
ese. It finds an interesting expression during the 1960s and
1970s in a particular kind of 'gangster film' (yakusa-eiga)
which deals with intricate conflicts of interest and ethics
between rival gangs. The classical pattern of this genre,
conformed to all but universally, consists of a long series of
provocations greeted by displays of admirable restraint or
by quickly stifled reactions which threaten throughout the
film to erupt into carnage. Only in the very last reel does
this actually happen, and we are invariably treated to a
full-scale blood-bath (preceded, invariably as well, by a
16. All of the most popular sports in
ritual 'march into battle' through a misty dawn (for exam- Japan today also conform to this pattern
ple), to the martial melancholy of a squarely syncopated, of contained violence followed by its
'cathartic' eruption. The ancient form of
semi-Westernized, lusty crooning on the sound-track). 16 wrestling called sumo in its competitive
In his very next film, Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress form consists of long tournaments
involving brief, explosive clashes of no
(Kakushi toride no san-akunin, 1959), 17 Kurosawa was more than a few seconds. each preceded
to illustrate a new aspect of the Japanese cinema, made by long minutes of ritual warm-up. The
same pattern is found in baseball,
possible by technological progress, which has helped to introduced into Japan over one hundred
perpetuate one of the classical traits already defined and years ago and which must now be
regarded as the national sport. One
discussed. could also cite the very popular bowling
The wide-screen processes developed from Henri Chre- and golf.
tien's anamorphic lens (Cinemascope et al.) were actually 17. Shown in the West as The Hidden
in general use the world over for only about a decade and a Fortress.
half. However, long after they had come to be regarded as 18. In point of fact, Japanese television
an obstacle to the economically indispensable compatibil- frequently shows these films using a
scanner which transforms a profile
ity with the television frame 18 and been all but abandoned two-shot into a reverse-field series with
in the West, two of the world's major film industries swish-pan articulations (d Ia Ito
Daisuke!) or into a tete a tete between
blithely went on making 'scope films almost exclusively: the handle of a sheathed sabre and the
those of Japan and Hong Kong. The Hong Kong approach tip of a straw hat.
A CHAIN IS BROKEN is almost always that of Hollywood, with the respect for
centering, for diagonal rather than symmetrical balance,
for the clarity of depth indices, etc. Even the most modest
picture from Japan, on the other hand, often displays more
or less systematically de-centered, centripetal composi-
tions, with a predominance of geometrical foreground ele-
ments, frontal camera angles, etc., all very much in the
tradition of the 'classical' period. The sharp contrast be-
tween the essentially vertical form of the human body and
face (even the trapezoid formed by sitting cross-legged on
the floor is vertical) and the wide-screen proportions are
consistent with a traditionally contradictory approach to
the representation of the human body. The willingness
among ukiyo-e artists to let the edge of the paper truncate
face or body in their portraits has already been stressed,
and many observers have emphasized the way in which
Japanese artists have always accentuated the natural ten-
dency of the traditional costume to contradict the contours
of the body.
An otherwise unremarkable example of the picaresque
samurai parabole, Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress,
together with Ichikawa's Conflagration made that same
year, is possibly the first instance of a specifically Japanese
use of the newly introduced wide-screen. The vast land-
scape shot in which a tiny horse and rider gallop across the
lower right-hand corner involves a de-centering similar to
that of the great painted screens of the Muromachi period.
Throughout the film, Kurosawa's centripetal compositions
emphasize, designate the shape and boundaries of the
frame (see Fig. 54).
This film was the first of a series of four which added little
to the crowning achievements of the 1950s. Bad Guys Sleep
Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru, 1960) was a moder-
ately interesting return to the 'melodramatic' social realism
of the 1940s.lts vehement, quasi-satirical, essentially moral
indictment of the 'evil world of big business' anticipates one
aspect of Oshima Nagisa's work. The film's strong visual
style derives from the preceding decisive breakthroughs,
and it is an underrated work, largely no doubt, as with
Record of a Living Thing, for reasons related to the inter-
ests of the dominant classes in Japan, the film's ideologi-
cal confusion notwithstanding. Sanjuro of the Camellias
(Tsubaki Sanjuro, 1962) 19 was Kurosawa's response to the
pressure of a demand for a 'sequel' to the popular Yojimbo.
Its slight interest lies in an attempt to develop an architec-
tonic humour, to produce actual editing or framing as gag.
As for Yojimbo (1961), generally regarded as the high-
point of Kurosawa's fourth manner, it is truly nothing more
19. Distributed in the West as Sanjuro. than a fusion of the latter-day chambera tradition with the
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 Image removed
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American cinema during the 196os and 1970s. Dodeskaden KUROSA W A AKIRA
(1972)/° Kurosawa's first colour film, was made after a
period of tragic inactivity, caused by the relative unpopu-
larity of so many of his films in Japan and by the notorious
and apparently insurmountable reluctance of Western
finance to invest in any Japanese director at all. (The way in
which the direction of Tora! Tora! Tora! was taken away
from Kurosawa typifies this objective racism.) 21 Dodeskaden,
whose narrative loosely intertwines the eccentric, fantasy
lives of the inhabitants of a shanty town, was an ambitious
undertaking, and its mingling of conventionally realistic
with highly unrealistic images is sympathetically Japanese
and/or 'Brechtian'. Its theatricality of acting, sets and light-
ing is an interesting response to the experiments of the
younger generation. Moreover, the influence of Oshima
and his contemporaries seems evident in the extravagant
accumulation of symbolic parable. The shanty town is
clearly Japan herself, overrun with the excrement of un-
bridled capitalism. In the old tramp who builds Western-
style dream-castles literally in the air and who foolishly lets
his child die because of his delusions of scientific knowledge,
Kurosawa seems to be denouncing the ultimate falseness,
for the Japanese, of superficially acquired Western learn-
ing, in contrast with true native wisdom, incarnated by the
sage old silversmith. Though ideologically conservative,
this film was a sincere effort to move with the times artisti-
cally, made by a film-maker who had kept the Japanese
cinema 'alive' single-handed for over a decade and who had
planted the seeds for a veritable renaissance of the Japan-
ese cinema in the middle and late 1960s. It is in this context 20. The word is primarily
onomatopoeic, referring to the sound of
that Dodeskaden must be viewed and its serious shortcom- the tramway as imitated by a mentally
ings understood. retarded boy. However, it is also said to
have a religious significance.
It was Kurosawa who, more than anyone else, provided a
foreign market and, consequently, a new economic and 21. A recent exception for Kurosawa
was made by a great 'Western' nation,
cultural dimension for the Japanese film industry. It would the Soviet Union. Applauded at the
seem that its stiflingly repressive structures have ultimately Moscow Festival of 1975, Dersu Uzala
is lovely literature ... but can scarcely
broken the one true master which the post-war Japanese be said to bear any of the hallmarks of
cinema has known. Kurosawa's maturity.

321
And now?
Kurosawa, despite the essential singularity of his under-
taking, was nonetheless a late avatar of a tradition whose
roots, as we have seen, are fundamentally Japanese, and
even more fundamentally, non- Western, whatever the
fruitfulness of the encounter with Western aesthetics.
Was the Japanese film-art destined to go the way of the
'fine arts' in Japan, to join the cosmopolitan concert of
international modernism, in which Tokyo aspires to com-
pete with Darmstadt, Milan, Paris and New York?
Some feel that this has indeed been the chief characteris-
tic of the 'young' cinema of the rg6os and early 1970s with
Oshima, for example, cast in the role of a Far-Eastern
Godard.
I find it difficult to accept this judgement. At bottom,
however, I feel that the films of the rg6os- of whatever
country - are still too close to us for any kind of serious
historical perspective.
At the same time it is impossible for me to ignore this
recent period, which now seems closed, in the history of the
cinema of Japan, if only because it is just possible- and I
believe that the pages which follow suggest this often
enough - that we are dealing here with a renaissance of a
truly Japanese tradition, drawing perhaps on aspects of
Japanese history and culture largely untapped by the classi-
cal cinema of the 1930s, yet in some subtle ways not totally
unrelated to it.
I should point out here that I have dealt only with inde-
pendent directors of the 'fiction' and 'documentary'
cinemas, to the exclusion of the avant-garde. There are
several reasons for this choice, some objective, others quite
subjective. The Japanese 'underground' film is still very
much just that: in Japan itself, during my stays there, no
fixed exhibition centres for such films were in operation
and I was able to see only a very few, quite at random. A
few others it has been possible to see in London and Paris,
but a serious over-view would require, I suspect, at least as

322
much field-work as has gone into the preparation of this
book. Moreover, those films which I have seen have been
so closely involved with the various Western models,
whether it be the classical surrealist film of the French
1920s or the West Coast 1940s, or the so-called structuralist
film of the East Coast 1960s, that they interest my present
endeavour not at all. Moreover, I have grown strongly to
suspect that the cosmopolitanism - albeit tinged often
enough with an 'exotic' use of traditional materials- which
seems to be the general rule in music and painting has
indeed quite broadly informed this aspect of Japanese
film-making. Are the results any 'better' (even by the stan-
dards of the Western avant-garde)? I frankly have no way
of knowing.
But then, in a sense, this entire book has been intended
as an indictment of Western (capitalist) cultural imperial-
ism. Japan, of course, is now an imperialist nation in her
own right; and it is not surprising that in order to accede to
this status, traditional values have ultimately had to be
distorted or repressed - traditional values which, in them-
selves, as I have tried to point out, are not necessarily 'bad'
-it all depends on the use to which they are put. Needless to
say, Japanese capitalism has preserved, in forms chosen by
it, those which suit its requirements. However, in my view it
is important for the future of Japanese society that there be
kept alive concepts and attitudes which may be bound up
with such features as the neo-feudal paternalism of the
modem firm or the veritable apartheid inflicted on Japanese
women, but which at the same time have truly progressive
potentialities, assuming the transformation of production
relationships.
I feel that the independent cinema of the 1960s and early
1970s pointed to the possibilities for this 'progressive con-
servatism'. This is why I have made considerable effort to
deal with it, however prematurely, however inadequate the
tools at my disposal.

323
Part 6 Post-Scriptum
25. Oshima Nagisa

In 1963, Oshima Nagisa had already made six features,

including Night and Fog in Japan and The Catch, had made
his first break with the 'majors' and was fast becoming both
the leader and theoretician of a new independent cinema.lt
was at this time that he wrote an important article the title
of which might be translated as 'The situation of the post-
war Japanese cinema with regard to the status of the sub-
ject.>~ In it Oshima sets forth what amounts to a theory of
the development of the Japanese cinema since the war,
deduced from the nation's recent history.
Oshima was born in 1932, and was only fifteen, as he
emphasizes, during the general strike of 1947. This was the
high-point of class struggle during the Occupation period
and it was soon followed by the forced retreat of the work-
ing class and its vanguard, the Communist Party, during the
period of the Cold War, with the anti-communist purges,
the Korean War, the Party's adventurist errors and its
increasing isolation from the masses. For a man of
Oshima's generation and university background it was
normal that the high-point of his own youthful commitment
to the struggle should have been that second great defeat
for the progressive forces of Japan: the renewal of the
Japano-American Security Pact in 1959, which consecrated
the military and economic integration of Japan into the
sphere of American imperialism. Oshima made his debut
as a director at the time of that struggle, the largest mass
movement in the history of the country. It is not therefore
surprising that the man and his films should have been
marked by the great hopes it aroused - and by the great
bitterness that followed on its failure.
Chief among the political consequences of this failure
I. Sengo Nihon eiga no jokyo to shutai.
was an acceleration of the necessary transformation of the My access to this text is through a
JCP. Its base was widened, but it lost much of its petty French translation kindly supplied to
me by the Shibata Organization, Tokyo.
bourgeois following. During the 196os, a large ultra-leftist An Italian translation has been
movement developed among Japanese youth and es- published in the Quaderno Informativo,
no. 27 of the Mostro Internazionale del
pecially, of course, among students. Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro, 1971,
The development of the Japanese cinema after 1959 is pp. 19-23-
POST-SCRIPTUM intimately related with these political developments, and in
1963 Oshima's views on the history of class struggle and of
cinema in Japan are directly informed by the ideology
dominant in progressive but 'non-aligned' intellectual cir-
cles at that period. Oshima felt that what characterized the
development of social and political conflict during the
period that preceded the struggle against the Security Pact,
in other words since the 1945 defeat, was the collective
'sense of victimization'. This he saw as the source of the
'negative', defensive nature of the great political and social
protest movements of that period: struggle against dismis-
sals, against witch-hunting, and above all against war and
against the Bomb. The Japanese people had a sense of
being the victims of feudalism and of the war, yet in
Oshima's view this very 'sense of victimization' was in itself
ultimately a residue of feudal thought, of feudal submis-
sion, of collective self-castration and the negation of
the individual. For the generation which had known the
rigours of late feudalism and the terrors of war only in the
dim reaches of their childhood, this appeal to the 'sense of
victimization' no longer had, according to Oshima, any
mobilizing power; it was because the Communist Party had
continued to rely upon it that the anti-Pact movement had
been a failure. Oshima felt that the 'true state of mind' of
the masses was glimpsed by the new radical groups (in
particular the 'group-singing movement') who appealed to
the people's 'desire to sing, to do something else. Here was
the birth of a movement rooted in the subjective will of the
people.' This subjectivity was still merely a 'pseudo'-
subjectivity, a mere conviction that self-assertion is desir-
able; it could ultimately be co-opted by the age-old sense of
victimization. And the ideal goal of those for whom 'the
Marxist myth had been broken' was to inspire the masses to
achieve and propagate a true subjectivity ... apparently an
essential condition for raising the class struggle to the
revolutionary level.
Seen from this point of view, the miserabilist neo-realism
of the 1940s and 1950s was merely the most 'socially
conscious' expression of the 'sense of victimization'.
Kinoshita's films, with their passive gaze on life as it passes,
were the dominant version of the same theme. During the
period which immediately preceded the renewal of the
Pact, and which saw the rise of 'pseudo-subjectivism', the
development of 'pseudo-subjectivistic' directors could be
observed. 2 They were primarily concerned with bringing to
the fore the aspirations of the individual but failed to see
2.Oshima cites Masumura Yasuzo, them in any but a position of sterile conflict with his or her
whose best-known film in the West is
Red Angel (Akaitenshi, 1966), as the
surroundings, that is with society or nature. It was not until
leader of this tendency. the appearance of Oshima himself and one or two others
that the aspiration to a true subjectivism, a true assertion of OSHIMA N AGISA
the individual as subject, could find expression in film, and
its presence was to be defined in terms of certain basic
criteria, set forth by Oshima: refusal to appeal to the collec-
tive consciousness of the audience; refusal to echo the
established forms in any way; insistence upon establishing
the subjective individuality of the author. To achieve these
aims it was, in particular, essential to overthrow that postu-
late of traditional cinema
'which since the beginning of sound [?] had held that the picture
exists to tell the story' and to 'create a cinematic method whereby
picture and editing themselves would be the very essence of
cinema.' And, of course, 'works so conceived must reject all the
characteristics of the traditional methods of the Japanese cinema
such as naturalism, melodrama, the man-and-his-environment
pattern, recourse to the sense of victimization, a tendency to
politicism, modernism [?] etc .... After which, there should be
born a cinema deserving to be called an independent art-form.

This was probably the first coherent manifesto in favour

of an avant-garde movement in Japanese film, partly
grounded in transgression and in the opposition between
'lucid creator' and 'mass ideology'. These principles, which
came to pre-eminence in the West during the late classical,
the romantic and modernist periods, were gradually intro-
duced into Japan with the practice of Western-style oil-
painting, music and literature. In the West, they are deeply
rooted in the 'rugged individualism' of bourgeois ideology.
Japanese history, however, is still at a stage in which the
respect for the individual as such can indeed be seen as
constituting an objectively progressive ideological aim.
Economic and ideological individualism had, until very
recently, developed in direct proportion with Japanese capi-
talism; by 1963, it had produced an ideology of 'the free
individual' that had come to be a veritable class syndrome.
Oshima articulates this rising romantic vision of the indi-
vidual - and consequently of the artist - in contrast to the
objectively materialist attitudes of traditional Japan. 3
Nevertheless, he was led to conceptualize, from his own
political experience and that of his peer group, a dialectical
relationship between mass consciousness and 'true' subjec-
tivity. It is dialectical insofar as the 'truth' of this subjectiv-
ity stems from an awareness that the individual derives his
status from the social context. The problematical nature of
Oshima's work arises from the question: what is the rela-
3· It is worth remarking that even today,
tion between this me and the struggle out there? Oshima's personality has considerably
This was a crucial period of transition, in which Japanese more impact on Japanese society than
his films: for some years he was the daily
capitalism was entering a golden age; the country was 'guest star' on a popular, breakfast-time
enlisted in the spread of an American imperialism already TV talk-show.
POST-SCRIPTUM involved in the Vietnam aggression. This situation under-
standably produced, among those newly awakened to the
reality of class struggle, a confusion comparable to that of
so many artists and intellectuals in the capitalist West. In
Japan, Marxism was fusing with the individualistic human-
ism of Rousseau and J. S. Mill as they had been introduced
to Japan in the late nineteenth century and remained 'froz-
en' ever since, in keeping with a pattern we have already
described. This partly accounts for the singularity of the
important Japanese films of the 1960s. Oshima's article
failed to understand that class-consciousness can assume
only historically available forms; 'the sense of victimiza-
tion' like the classical tendency to mistake the fantasies of
the petty bourgeoisie for the aspirations of the 'masses'
were reflections of those confused times. The remarkable
insights contained in that article into cinematic (as opposed
to political) problems were in fact the postulates of
Oshima's film work, already in progress, which articulated
an analytical and critical approach to the history of film
language, not unrelated indeed to that of Godard.
Oshima is a prolific director. At present writing, he has
made over twenty features, plus shorts and TV films, in
seventeen years. While the intrinsic qualities of many of
these films individually are not to be underestimated, his
chief importance lies in the reflective quality of his work as
a whole. Although the substance of his political thought is
questionable, it is nevertheless powerfully operative in his
reflection on film and its political history, i.e. as ideological
production. For this reason it is, like Godard's, exemplary.
Oshima is related to European film-makers such as
Godard, Straub, Bene, Chytilova. Yet neither emulation
nor 'importation' are really involved. Avant-garde modern
painting, serial music and 'underground' film-making have
tended in Japan to relinquish national identity for a cos-
mopolitan modernism. The independent 'commercial'
cinema, a more direct product of the concrete economic
and ideological situation, is also specifically Japanese in its
mode of rejection of the dominant codes. As we have
already seen, the 'idea that the picture was only there to tell
the story' was historically foreign to the Japanese film.
During his early career at Shochiku, Oshima specialized
in seishun-eiga, films dealing with the social and/or per-
sonal problems of 'youth', a genre very popular during the
1950s and 1960s. Oshima's 'subjectivity' is seldom apparent
in those early films, but one does recall a long, meditative
close-up of a boy munching on an apple inA Cruel Tale of
Youth (Seishun zankoku monogatari, 1960), which offers a
strange contrast with an otherwise heavily coded context. It
was not until Night and Fog in Japan (Nihon no yoru to kiri,
1960) that Oshima's historical, critical and theoretical con- OSHIMA NAGISA
cerns became clear. Though still produced within the
Shochiku structure, this film seems to have been made
almost clandestinely. It was, moreover, withdrawn under
political pressure from theatrical distribution after only a
few days. The film has two narrative levels: a present which
takes place shortly after the failure of the struggle against
the Security Pact; a past which takes place in the early
1950s, at a time when the Communist student movement
was suffering from the combined effect of the Cold War
and the adventurist errors of the Party's leadership. 4 In the
'present' (actually situated a few months ahead of the film's
date of production and meant to coincide with the date of
release), we attend the marriage of a young man who has
long been active in the Party and its student organization,
with a girl involved with the 'new Left'. (The couple had
met during a demonstration against the Pact.) This cere-
mony is to be the symbolic duelling-ground for two genera-
tions of the student Left. The groom is accused by the
bride's friends of having been a 'Stalinist agent' in the
student movement seven years earlier. These scenes take
place in a strange, baroque summer-house and garden, and
involve the introduction, in many different guises, of the
theatrical sign (see below) which was to become central in
the new Japanese cinema. The flashbacks illustrating the
difficult days of the early 1950s are set in a student's resi-
dence hall. Their heavy, dusty academicism is intended to
evoke the miserabilist cinema of the period in which the
action is situated (and which, in the 1963 article, is associ-
ated with the erroneous ideological and political practices
of the whole era).
The elements of theatricality introduced1I1to the present-
tense narrative are of great importance. They vary greatly-
from the appearance and structure of the set itself, to the
heavily archetypal image given to even the most 'positive'
characters (an outlaw revolutionary appears melodramati-
cally out of the fog in a macintosh). There is a systematic
replacement of straight cuts by extravagant lateral pans
from one character to another, as they stand spread out
across the 'stage'; dramatic black-outs occur, with charac-
ters singled out of the pitch-darkness by spot-lights. This
theatricality, together with the reference to Japanese film
history, are the principal traits of Oshima's w9rk over the
next decade and a half. They are the source of his original-
ity and the key to an understanding of his relationship both
to his contemporaries and his predecessors, such as
Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi.
In his next film, The Catch (Shiiku, 1961), produced 4· These included the conviction that the
time was ripe for sabotage and guerrilla
independently of the major companies, Oshima delivers a warfare.
POST-SCRIPTUM scathing attack upon the stultification of traditional social
structures, as exemplified in a small village, and upon the
'victimization' syndrome. At the same time, he espouses
for this one film the anti-montage, anti-close-up tendencies
of the classical Japanese cinema. Here he was, in a sense,
coming to terms with one aspect of the academic decoupage
of the post-war era, and his pastiche of late Mizoguchi is
very convincing. At the same time, it attests to a tacit
awareness that the old ways could further the cause of the
new. The film is set in a Japanese village during the last
months of the Pacific War. The inhabitants capture a black
American aviator and are told by the authorities that they
must keep him 'until further notice'; having this additional
mouth to feed aggravates the latent conflicts within the tiny
community, already shaken by the prospect of defeat. The
black is finally lynched by the villagers, who are unable to
face their own social realities.
I am unfamiliar with Oshima's next three films, generally
regarded as of secondary importance in his career. 5 How-
ever, Floating Ghost in Broad Daylight (Hakuchu no
torima, 1967)6 and Tales of the Ninja (Ninja bugeicho,
5· Amakusa Shiro Takisada (1962);
Here I am: Belette (Watashi wa Belette, 1967) are significant attempts to come to terms with cer-
1964); Pleasure (Etsuraku, 1965). tain aspects of the radical editing of Eisenstein's silent
6. 'Floating ghost' (to rima) is a term that films. Each of these films, though of moderate length (c. 90
has come to signify a man who rapes or minutes), involves over 2,000 separate shots (by way of
molests women. The film has been
shown privately in France under the comparison, we may recall that Potemkin contains about
more appropriate title of L'Obsi!de en r,soo). The complex narrative of Floating Ghost in Broad
plein jour. While it has never been
released in the West, there does exist an Daylight, involving frequent flashbacks, relates the failure
English subtitled version (under the title of an experiment in rural communal living by a group of
Violence at Noon) in the Pacific Film
Archive, Berkeley, which has a large urban intellectuals, and its tragic aftermath. This film is
number of post-war Japanese films. Oshima's most extreme and literal application of the view,
7· lkkyu 0sh6 (I394-I48I). The defined in the 1963 article, that editing and imagery have a
following is one celebrated example of latent specificity, beyond their function as 'narrative vehi-
his brand of eccentricity. 'When Shiiko
went to study the zen philosophy under cle'. It is also a seminal instance of the 'Shoin complex' in
him, Ikkyu made tea for him, but when the new Japanese cinema, a matter which requires some
he took the bowl and was going to drink
it, knocked the bowl out of his hand with consideration, since it was to play a primordial role in the
his iron Nyoi sceptre. This was too much work of all the important directors of this period.
for Shiiko, who started up from his seat,
whereupon Ikkyu shouted out "Drink it Yoshida Shoin was a celebrated reformist, fiery pamph-
up!" Shiiko then saw the point and, leteer and agitator, who played a considerable part in the
quite equal to the occasion, retorted
"Willows are green and flowers are ideological and political preparation for the Meiji restora-
red." "Good," said Ikkyu, quite tion. Two years before his execution by the bakufu,
satisfied that the other understood.
Which is, being interpreted, things must
remain as they are, for the nature of around 1858, Yoshida began to employ in his writings the twin
phenomena cannot be changed any
more than spilt tea can be drunk.' metaphors of madness (kyo) and foolishness (gu ). Precedent for
(Sadler, A. L., Cha-no-yu, this usage could be found as early as the Muromachi period
p. 75.) Here indeed is a more remote but
nonetheless significant origin of a (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). The celebration of 'madness'
modern attitude: the enigmatic in Kenko's Tsurezuregusa (Essays on Idleness, written in the
enunciation of a materialist critique of
transcendentalism inscribed within a fourteenth century), or by the outrageous Zen monk Ikkyu/ had
critique of the sign. affirmed a new concept of personality willing to break with prece-

330
dent to do justice to a reality which few were able to perceive. OSHIMA NAGISA
Madness was understood as the gift of those who see reality more
deeply and sharply, and who must therefore behave in ways which
most will interpret as eccentric. In the last years of the Tokugawa
shogunate, men of high purpose - shishi - found no alternative
than to represent themselves and their exploits as mad and foolish
... The madman must break through the stagnation of estab-
lished procedure to pursue his own vision of reality .... Yoshida
as madman was a critic who stood outside of society. As fool, he
was completely engaged; every action of his was informed by
sincerity, he was a man without a shred of self-interest. All in all,
he shows us a new kind of personality intent on alerting Japan to
what was happening ... 8

In the late 1950s and the 196os, Japanese society again

enters a period of crisis intimately related with that of the
capitalist world as a whole, embarked upon what may
perhaps be its final delaying struggle against socialism. In
Japan, however, the contradictions specific to capitalism at
this stage are determined by another conflict, much sharper
than in other highly developed capitalist countries: the
conflict between a system of traditional social relations and
mental attitudes which still, in many respects, can be
experienced as even more constricting than in Yoshida's
time, considering the lip-service paid the liberal ideal under
modern capitalism. Small wonder, then, that over the past
fifteen years Japan has produced the most eccentric cinema
of revolt that the world has known.
Floating Ghost in Broad Daylight is a film in which Sato
Kei, one of the principal members of Oshima's troupe,
plays a psychopathic rapist/killer. It is characteristic of the
new cinema to portray madness and/or innocence as a form
of revolt, coupled with its formal manifestation as 'arty' or
'gratuitous' manipulation and organization of the signifier.
'Straightforward' narrative has rarely been subjected to a
more excessive decoupage than in this film. Almost no
account is taken of orientational matching; eyeline, posi-
tion and direction are disregarded more often than not, so
that every shot-change rings out like a pistol-shot, so to
speak, all the more so as Oshima delights in juxtaposing
very different shot sizes.
In the lengthy final sequence, two women sit face to face
in a railway carriage reflecting on the tragedy they have just
lived through. The camera traces complicated patterns
between the two women, panning from one to the other
across the span of window between them. This extravagant
presentation of a conversation piece that would 'normally'
be the object of a reverse-field set-up, will become increas- 8. Harootunian, H. D. Toward
ingly frequent among Oshima's generation. Reminiscent of Restoration, pp. 221, 223-4.

331
POST-SCRIPTUM the Ito school and of The Red Bat, it is significant of the new
school's 'scandalous profligacy' in the face of the economy
of thrift so essential to the Western (bourgeois) mode of
representation.
Oshima's next film, though generally regarded as a
minor exercise and 'disowned' by him today, points up a
further and important difference between Oshima's genera-
tion and the 'serious' directors who had begun their
careers in the 1940s and whose relation to the world of
popular culture was primarily one of condescension. San-
jura ofthe Camellias and Tokyo Olympiad are, each in its
own way, passing concessions to popular taste. The school
epitomized by the films of Oshima sustains rich and com-
plex relationships with contemporary popular culture. Sev-
eral film-makers who work in a manner related to that of
Oshima (Suzuki Seijun, in particular) function entirely
within the genre codes of mass-audience cinema. One of his
most important proteges, Wakamatsu Koji, made his repu-
tation directing 'pornographic' films for the Eroduction
circuit; and Oshima's own Tales of the Ninja in a filmic
9· Oshima is also a baseball fan, and the
transposition of the artist's own drawings for a famous
television film which he devoted to adult comic book (manga), a genre which has become
Japan's finest professional team, the
Yomiuri Giants, is said to be a very
immensely fashionable since the second half of the 1960s
careful and interesting piece of work. among both working people and radical bourgeois youth. 9

Image removed
due to
rights considerations

332
These sophisticated strips sometimes convey political or OSHIMA NAGISA
pseudo-political parables. Their cathartic violence and
frank sexuality appeal to the libertarian, nihilist tendencies
in the 'new Left'. Film-makers, determined to find a
'cinematic specificity', were inevitably drawn to a national
school of strip cartooning which, through a reactivation of
certain aspects of traditional graphic styles, has exploited
the cine-montage dimension of the medium. Oshima's film
was an exercise in dynamizing still pictures through
extremely rapid and prolific editing and an extravagant
sound-effect track, while the swash-buckling tale of battles
among and around the ninja, those mysterious government
spies of the Tokugawa era, was given a highly theatrical
dialogue form, played by off-screen voices.
Following this attempt to bring home to his class the
'foolish wisdom' of the popular art of his day, Oshima
revived the 'mad' hero in Double Suicide: Japanese Sum-
mer (Muri shinju: Nihon no natsu, 1967). In a narrative
reminiscent of the 'near-future' type of science fiction, a
'foreigner'- clearly an American- goes berserk with a rifle
and symbolically threatens to destroy the foundations of
Japanese society. The film has the slickly stark, black-
and-white photography, the stylish, pragmatic, faintly
'expressionistic' efficiency of a Losey film, such as The
Damned, with which it also shares the same sense of artifi-
cial urgency, the same 'hermetically sealed' setting. In Fig. 56. Oshima Nagisa, Tales
keeping with the strong aversion for anything resembling of the Ninja
self-repetition which seems to have informed most of
Oshima's career 10 , the other film made in 1967 is totally
different. In Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs (Nihon
shunka-ko) Oshima evokes a very real episode of recent
history and one that was very close to him: tt.e struggle over
the Security Pact and the birth of the 'new student Left' in
the 'group-singing movement' (uta-goe undo). In utter con-
trast to Double Suicide, this film is in smiling, syrupy col-
our, and the style of decoupage seems as deliberately flat
and academic as Floating Ghost was extravagant. On at
least two occasions in his career, Oshima's eclectic inves-
tigations seem to have led him to contradict a central thesis
of his 1963 article: that the picture and editing should not
simply tell a story.
His very next film is, however, his strongest illustration
of that assertion. In it, he combines some of the extravag-
ance of Floating Ghost with the discipline of The Catch and
a Kurosawa-like geometricalization of theatrical elements
more radical than any that had appeared in his work since ro. An overt rebellion against one of the
Night and Fog in Japan. With The Hanging (Kosheiki, main traits of the classical period.
1968), 11 we have perhaps the first Japanese film which r 1. Distributed in the West as Death by
makes explicit the affinities between the national cinema's Hanging.

333
POST-SCRIPTUM chief historical tendencies and a Marxist concept of a
reflexively critical representation, first given theoretical
form by Brecht and now, in the West and in Japan, central
to the issue of the relationship of the performing arts to the
class struggle.
The Hanging brings to the fore the character of the fool,
in the person of a young Korean, sentenced to death for
rape. 12 The theme of rape, and of explosive male sadism in
general, is disquietingly recurrent in the cinema of Oshima
and his contemporaries, giving ambiguous voice to an age-
old phallocratic tradition. The rapist here represents, or
assumes, through a long psycho-drama of 'consciousness
raising', which is the film's basic narrative movement, the
condition and revolt of Japan's lumpen proletariat. 'R' is
hung for his crime, but his body refUses to die. The prison
officials revive him, and before attempting to execute him
again, they find themselves compelled by the logic of a
demented legalism (a narrative logic symbolic of the con-
straints and hypocrisies of liberal ideology and class guilt)
to force 'R' to remember and confess his crime- indeed, to
recognize his identity as 'R'. For after the failed hanging,
'R's mind is a blank slate upon which consciousness must be
written all over again. Only when they have succeeded in
doing so will they feel authorized to hang him. Obsessed by
their obligation to the dream-logic of the 'law', the officials
Figs. 57, 58. Oshima Nagisa, begin to play; they re-enact the boy's past, even 'returning
The Hanging to the scene of the crime', where the educational officer
finds himself actually committing the crime himself. Back
in the execution chamber, the body of the educational
officer's victim, lying in a coffin, awakes to become ... 'R's
sister, and it is she who leads him, through symbolic inter-
course, to the awareness that he is 'R', i.e. to class and
ethnic consciousness.· Now that he can measure the real
balance of power, 'R' allows himself to be hung again: but
when the trap has been sprung and the rope has jerked ...
the noose hangs empty.
Even this capsule summary should suggest one of the
film's major aspects: a remarkable discrepancy in 'levels
of reality'. And indeed, with reference to nearly every
parameter, a cascade of shifts from coded realism to theatri-
cality and back again becomes an essential structural
principle.
The film begins with a protracted helicopter shot, zero-
ing gradually in on the penitentiary and then on the neat
little bungalow which houses the execution chamber: the
12. The incident was drawn from a real
absence of people (see Fig. 57), the editing and off-screen
case; Koreans are the principal'niggers' narration of this opening, mark it first as 'neutral documen-
of Japan. This status goes back to the
not very distant era when Korea was a
tary' on capital punishment, then, after an imperceptible
colony of Japan. shift, as militant pseudo-documentary against capital

334
 Image removed
due to
rights considerations
POST-SCRIPTUM punishment. As characters and synch dialogue appear, and
as the first hanging takes place, we find we have gradually
moved into the ambiguously transparent world of
'documentary fiction'. Then suddenly, the first of a series of
Brechtian title boards announces that' "R"s body refuses
to die', and the film again shifts from the head-on discourse
of humanist indictment (the death penalty as such is never
at issue; again, it has been discarded as a false problem) to
the mad logic of the moral parable, reminiscent of Double
Suicide. The officers set about convincing 'R' of the reality
of his sin against the State. They become more and more
involved in the psycho-drama, acting out his crime amongst
themselves (Fig. 59), acting out his 'poverty-stricken child-
hood', first without his help, then finally enlisting it. The
film takes on an increasingly theatrical quality. A room in
the death-house becomes a set, with newspapers cover-
ing the walls. Suddenly, however, a paroxysmic clash be-
ween the signs of this developing theatricality on the one
hand and the 'realistic' indices of location shooting occurs
at the point when the whole company follow 'R' out of the
death-house. For this 'reality' is at the same time a high
point of unreality: outside the death-house is the very
shanty-town where 'R' presumably once lived with his fam-
ily. Emerging from among the shacks, all chase after 'R' in
close formation across the city to the high school which has
Figs. 59, 6o. Oshima Nagisa, been the scene of 'R's crime. They find a girl, perhaps 'R's
The Hanging victim, on the roof, and the educational officer is so intent
on getting 'R' to re-enact his crime that he assumes 'R's
criminal desire and strangles the girl in his stead. The mode
of theatricalization shifts once again as we suddenly find
ourselves back in the death-house, where only the educa-
tional officer and 'R' are able to 'see' the very material
body of the girl lying in her coffin. The sister suddenly
appears in her place, for a long political dialogue in an
incestuous mood with 'R'. Although this scene takes place
in the very midst of the prison officials, it seems set on a
stage apart. The ultimate in theatricalization occurs at the
very end. While all the figures symbolic of authority gather
in judgement before the national flag (Fig. 6o), 'R', who has
been hypocritically told that he is free to go, opens the door
to the outside world and is met by a blinding light that
drives him back to the gallows, where the dismayed officials
will soon be confronted with the empty, swinging noose.
This distribution and amplification of the theatrical sign,
which has been defined by Jindrich Honzl in an important
study, 13 is an essential dimension of the modern Japanese
cinema. Honzl felt that the theatre's specificity derives not
13. 'La mobilite du signe theatral, in
Travail ThtHitral, No.4,
from actors, sets or the theatrical text per se, but from the
July/September 1971. possibility of constant transferral of the function of one to
 Image removed
due to
rights considerations
POST-SCRIPTUM that of another (as when a text sets the scene against a blank
backdrop, a property is treated as a character, an actor
performs the role of a tree, etc.). The dominant cinema, on
the whole, cannot tolerate the presence of the protean sign
oftheatricality, except in such 'safe' contexts as the musical
comedy, where it is understood from the outset that we are
at the theatre, where 'anything goes'. In the later films of
Godard and Straub, in Caligari too, the presence of the
theatrical sign is fundamentally perturbing. Although
theatricality in Oshima's film does function according to
the model provided by Honzl for the theatre per se (the
role-playing, the newspaper-covered walls, the blinding
light) he has shown in The Hanging (as Yoshida was to do in
Eros Plus Massacre) that there is a mobility and extensibil-
ity of the theatrical sign which is specific to the medium of
film. For is not the type of disjunction afforded in the
theatre by the substitution of a man for a tree present also
in the shift from prison to shanty-town ... or in the supres-
sion from the track of all sound save dialogue in the prison
interiors?
Closely associated with the structuring of these different
levels of theatricality and 'reality', but in no way a direct or
linear expression of it, is a movement in the mode of
decoupage. The film begins, as we have indicated, with the
presentation of three successive, wholly coded modes, in
which editing and shot design obey the laws of distinct
genres: the 'objective' documentary, the militant prop-
aganda film, and then, with the introduction of dialogue,
the 'normal' fiction film. As the absurd, legalistic logic
begins to take over and as the first signs of theatricality
appear, there is the beginning of a more mechanical formal-
ization: long, single-take sequences separated by abrupt
ellipses. This series is followed by another in which each cut
takes us systematically away from the centre of the action,
and then, as the shot proceeds, a pan following some sec-
ondary action will lead us back to that centre. Ultimately,
through a series of subtle variations on and combinations of
these various modes, more or less 'arbitrary,' more or less
'natural', we move to the climactic sequence in which the
camera pans continually and obtrusively from 'R' and his
sister lying nude under the Japanese flag, to the haggard
officials surrounding them, who are embroiling themselves
ever deeper in their legal and patriotic casuistics.
The Hanging exemplifies the contradiction central to
Oshima's work. It instantiates the encounter of the princi-
ple of Marxist analysis which views class struggle as the
motor of history with the ideology of the individual or
subject which is consubstantial with the bourgeois myth of
self-fulfilment and whose libertarian version is the ideal of
self-liberation. In Japan, these imported idea-forces are OSHIMA NAGISA
further determined by the traditional view of self-
fulfilment as a kind of physical and mental discipline, so
that political consciousness and self-fulfilment come only
too easily to be seen as one. Madness also plays a role, since
it has always been viewed in Japan as an especially approp-
riate form of individual revolt. Yet the eccentricity of the
'mad' director ultimately provides another link with a vital
concern of the Western revolutionary artist. Inherited
primarily from Brecht and Eisenstein- and/or from a read-
ing of traditional Japanese art in the light of their teachings
- is the concern of Oshima and his fellows in so many of
their films that representation should acknowledge its pro-
duction, that picture, sound, editing, should have their own
specific articulation - a view expressly formulated by
Oshima in his 1963 article.
Diary of a Shin juku Thief (Shinjuku dorobo nikki, I 968)
is the film by Oshima which has so often been referred to as
an 'imitation' of Godard (as everyone knows, the Japanese
are essentially imitators!). This judgement ignores
Oshima's previous experimentation, for all the 'eccen-
tricities' of this film represent merely their further
development. It also ignores the intellectual and political
climate prevailing among Japanese urban youth over the
previous decade and the manner in which this climate
contributed to the codification of seishun-eiga, many of
whose themes are recognizable in Oshima's film. In Diary
of a Shinjuku Thief, he carries the disjunctive, 'disparate'
dimension of The Hanging to an extreme which remains
unique in his work. However, the system of shifts and
differentiations is far less rational than in the previous film.
Gone entirely are the systematic patterns reminiscent of
Kurosawa; the 'fool' seems to have taken control
altogether, stringing scene after scene together in a spirit of
pseudo-improvisation, mixing styles and materials, theatre
with cinema, colour with black-and-white, documentary
with fiction. At the diegetic level proper, both 'fool' and
'madman' are present: the first as a neurasthenic boy who
calls himself 'Birdy Hilltop' and lives in a world of passive
fantasy, the second as an aggressive girl (once the victim of
a knife attack by a demented American child!) who plays
store detective to Birdy's shoplifting. Their 'search for
liberating satisfaction' is overseen by an elderly man play-
ing his own role (the director of the famous Kinokunya
bookstore in the entertainment quarter Shinjuku), an
enlightened spokesman for the pre-war generation, who
takes the couple to consult a weird sexologist. Their case is
also examined by Oshima' usual troupe of actors, otherwise
absent from the film, but used here to discuss their attitudes

339
POST-SCRIPTUM towards sex in an outrageous and hilarious sequence of
cinema verite. The scene then shifts to the open-air perfor-
mance of an actual troupe of 'underground' actors, and in
the last sequence, an acting out of the psychoanalytic cure,
the couple succeed at last in making love as the off-screen
voice of the girl tells the story of the American boy, which
clearly is the actress's personal experience, incorporated
into the diegesis like the sexologist's routine. The exagger-
ated confusion and naivete of the film's political state-
ments, the characteristic attempt at an assimilation of the
different student movements of 1968 14 are certainly mani-
festations of the 'fool', telling the world what is wrong with
it, 'the mad fool who corrected loyalty and clarified the
Way, who was unmoved by profit and merit' (Yoshida
Shain).
In the next film, however, madman and fool though
present, are much more restrained and all the unities, so
lightly dispensed with in Diary of a Shinjuku Thief,
reappear with a new force: Boy (Shonen, 1969) is a very
deliberate return to a thoroughly encoded cinema of linear
narrative, disrupted here and there by curious incidental
strategies of distance, such as the bleeding of colour from
the image or brief suspensions of the sound-track. Theatri-
cality is present only at one remove, 'naturalized' into the
diegesis itsel( in the role-playing of the characters. A swin-
dler has trained his wife and little boy to fake street acci-
dents. These serve as pretext for a uniquely Japanese form
of con-game, based on the acceptance that a cash settle-
ment will right any wrong. Here the 'madman' seems much
less mad, if only because the cause of his madness is clearer
than the metaphysical nausea of the Shin juku students: it is
'acquisitive society' and, ultimately, the contradictions of
capitalism. Although Boy is dramatically very effective,
Oshima seems to have abandoned momentarily the effort
towards a specificity of editing and imagery. Whatever he
may have thought in 1963, he now felt perhaps that such
efforts prevented wider contact with Japanese audiences.
For with few exceptions, such as Floating Ghost in Broad
Daylight, Oshima's more ambitious films, like those of
Yoshida, Wakamatsu and Matsumoto, were regarded as
14. There are inter-title references to avant-garde films and shunned by all but a small elite.
France. In the same spirit, newsreel
footage ofthe attack on Shin juku Police Secret Story of the Post-'Tokyo War' Period (Tokyo
Station supplies an 'historical anchor' in sensa senyo hiwa, 1970) 14 had an even more unified 'look'
the final sequences.
than the previous film. Shot in black-and-white, it had
15. Seen in the West asHe DiedAfterthe something of the chic elegance of Floating Ghost and made
War (or The Man Who Left His Will on
Film). The original title refers to the
only passing tribute to the mixtures of 'real' and 'fictional'
period of disillusionment which found in Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, in that an actual group
followed the street-fighting of 11}68,
grandiloquently dubbed by ultra-leftists of young, would-be political film-makers play their own
the 'Tokyo War'. collective role. In this film, Oshima delineates from a symp-

340
 Image removed
due to
rights considerations

tomological point of view, the symbolic structure of his mad Fig. 61. Oshima Nagisa, Secret
hero's folly, designating it as schizophrenia. The character Story of the Post-'Tokyo War'
talks of himself as of another, throughout the film pursues a Period
'traitor' who is himself. In this situation one may see a
multitude of symbols - and this polysemia will grow
increasingly rich in his later films; the contradictions within
the radical movement, Japan's multiply divided self, and
the dilemma of Oshima himself, unable to establish a
dialectical relationship between his art and his politics.
Moreover, this 'clinical' model determines the actual struc-
ture of the narrative: in the opening scene, the main charac-
ter witnesses a suicide which will in fact be his own. As in
the films of Robbe-Grillet, essentially mechanistic reduc-
tions of the textual complexities of his important novels,
only one of the levels that determine the linearity of the
dominant cinema is under attack here, the level of the
signified: the Western mode of representation as we have
analysed it remains intact, which could not be said of The
Hanging or Diary of a Shinjuku Thief. Nevertheless, this
underrated film is an ambitious attempt to develop a dialec-
tical narrative form in that it does consider the mechanisms
of the unconscious in relation to the contradictions of polit-
ical film-making. It marks the appearance, within our
metaphor of Oshima's development, of a single character

341
POST-SCRIPTUM within whom fool and madman are separate and rivals. The
boy 'innocently' pursues his 'mad' other self to the death.
Moreover, the element of role-playing in the boy's long
monologues about his enemy, and in his girl-friend's
accommodating complicity, are a renewal of the theatrical
mode.
Ceremonies (Gishiki, 1971) is the film by which Oshima
became widely known in the West. In many respects this
chronicle of a powerful bourgeois family from the end of
the Pacific War to the present is close to Boy. It has that
same dramatic power, achieved at the cost of an almost
total 'transparency' of the signifier. However, the textual
depth of the diegesis is possibly the richest which the film-
maker has achieved. In Ceremonies the family stands, of
course, for the present ruling class, the political or apolitical
options of the sons for the contradictions of Oshima's gen-
erations, the child buried in Mongolia (by the Russians?)
for the lost hope of the immediate post-war period, etc.
Most of these symbols seem quite richly dialectical, such as
the baseball theme which signifies both the pressure on the
family structure of the new ideology (the son is kept away
from his mother's bedside by a crucial game) and the con-
tinuity of that family (the son's father played baseball and
the son cannot bear to part with his glove). Here, as in Boy,
the themes of madness and theatricality are confined to
diegetic representation, in a number of scenes of great
virtuosity. These include the 'brideless' wedding, the jilted
bridegroom's hysterical attempt to 'rape' his grandfather,
the psycho-drama around the fascist son's coffin or the
'surrealist' baseball sequence at the very end. Fundamen-
tally theatrical, too, is the endless succession of family
ceremonies which determines the rhythm of the narrative,
anchoring each of the successive flashbacks, and relent-
lessly underscoring the living-death of the bourgeois family
system. For this is a stultifying, evil theatre, not the free
theatre of the madman rolling on the floor, or the fool's
theatre of 'democracy', baseball. It is the theatre of repres-
sive fathers, a theatre of lies which can contain only one
authentically liberating gesture; that of ritual suicide.
Oshima's next film was inspired by another decisive step
in the resurrection of Japan's imperialist past: the end of
the American occupation of Okinawa and the restitution to
Japan of her century-old colony. Little Summer Sister
(Natsu no imoto, 1972) 16 is a strange film: made on a
16. Distributed in the West as Dear particularly limited shoe-string budget 17 this film, more
Summer Sister.
than any preceding one, suggests that Oshima actually felt
17. This does not necessarily explain the the need to rid his cinema of any but the most neutral style,
film's 'austerity'. The lavish Ceremonies
cost less than half the normal Japanese
perhaps to achieve a 'white writing' of the kind Barthes
budget for such a feature. ascribed to Maurice Blanchot, perhaps simply to reach a

342
wider audience. However, the film develops a tedious, OSHIMA NAGISA
involved, often heavy-handedly flippant metaphor of por-
tentous ambivalence. It concerns a very young adolescent
who comes to Okinawa in search of her illegitimate brother
and who, through a series of farcical errors and misunder-
standings, reaches a form of self-awareness cum political
consciousness which must remain enigmatic to all but those
who adhere completely to Oshima's idiosyncratic ideol-
ogy. The theatrical element is more of a stereotype than a
formal or poetic dimension. There is a sequence of after-
dinner singing which is but a pale echo of the wonderful
song-fest in Ceremonies and, towards the end, a strange
beach sequence, in which the symbolic characters, all
dressed in white, 'like ghosts', confront the scabrous secrets
of their past. In a way, it is an ambitious film, with a flatness,
a 'transparency' that are not easy to achieve. Despite some
slight 'auteurist' appreciation in Europe, the film has gen-
erally and correctly been regarded as a failure.
Subsequently, Oshima was unable to make a film for
three years. Whether this was wholly due to the increas-
ingly precarious conditions of independent film-making in
Japan (and, in particular, to the disappearance of the one
independent distributor, ATG) or whether it was also due
to the need for a period of reflection, one can only guess.
His latest film, however, Corrida of Love (Ai no corrida,
1976) 18 proves that Oshima is still the finest director of his
generation. Financed by a French producer who gave him
carte blanche, and profiting by the liberalization of censor-
ship in many capitalist countries (except Japan!), he has
made one of the first authentic masterpieces of 'hard-core'
erotic cinema. The film marks several new departures in
Oshima's work: the themes of rape and male virility are
definitively subverted in this tale of a prostitute who so
subjugates her macho lover (and employer) that he ulti-
mately consents to be strangled and castrated by her during
the rites of love. Moreover, the symbolic dimension is far
less ciphered, one does not have to bear the constant weight
of portentous, hidden meanings. The film's language and
structure are quite simple but of an unsurpassable mastery.
The on-screen diegesis consists almost solely of the lovers'
sex-play, so that the narrative is extremely, often discon-
certingly elliptical. The imagery is strongly connotative of
late nineteenth-century prints in the ukiyo-e tradition, and
confer upon the film a timeless quality; most of it could be
set at any time between 1900 and 1940. It is not until the
18. Its French title, L'Empire des sens,
sudden appearance on the screen of soldiers marching off attests to the film's debt to French
to war that history intrudes upon the closed 'empire of the culture, though it has far more to do
with Georges Bataille's Histoire de/' oeil
senses'; and not until the very last shot do we realize that than to Barthes' essay on Japanese
this paroxysmic instance of amour fou is drawn from the culture.

343
POST-SCRIPTUM minutes of a celebrated trial that took place in 1936.
This is certainly Oshima's finest film since The Hanging.
Yet somehow one feels that it sidesteps the issues raised in
the work of the late rg6os. Over the last decade, Oshima,
like so many politically conscious film artists, has clearly
been torn between the wish to 'communicate' and the
need to experiment. He seems- consequently, perhaps-
to function within several separate ideological frame-
works: that of traditional Japan, which obviously both fas-
cinates and repels him; that of a Western (cosmopolitan)
bourgeoisie, still problematic for the Japanese Left, and
which is complicated by the libertarianism so virulent and
ambivalent in Japan. And somewhere, in all of that, is
Marxism. This is an extremely complicated task for one
man. This remarkable artist's latest film shows a healthy
awareness of the need to unify and simplify his undertaking
if it is to continue to grow.

344
26.1ndependence: its Rewards
and Penalties

Japanese capitalism, from the very start, tended to assume

the monopolistic form, partly because it had 'caught the
train at that station', partly because in Japan it was undeni-
ably the most socially effective form: the reconstitution of
the concentric nexi of feudalism satisfied a permanent
need. The contemporary pattern, which began to develop
quite early, offers social mobility to the individual of the
middle, lower middle and even to some extent the working
class on the basis of his performance in the sacrosanct
college entrance exams. Through them he is given access to
a university of high or low standing, to a job that is more or
less desirable, in a firm that is more or less prestigious.
Upon entering a firm, the individual knows almost to a day
the stages of his or her promotion and how high she or he
can expect to rise. Paternalism is the great weapon of
Japanese capitalism, for it suits the national character as
nowhere else. The working day is long, holidays very brief,
but at least until the crisis of the mid- r 970s, salaries have
kept abreast of inflation and there are many social benefits.
For the small shopkeeper, the small landowner, the lawyer
who sets up his own practice, or the independent film-
producer or director, on the other hand, the working day is
even longer and more gruelling, holidays and benefits are
non-existent and the earnings meagre.
As we have seen, the Japanese cinema was quick to
follow the example of the first American trust, and the
prolific national production (rarely less than 400 features a
year) was traditionally divided among a now gradually
dwindling number of 'major companies'. At present writ-
ing and for the past decade or so, these have been five in
number: Nikkatsu, Shochiku, Toho, Daiei and Tohei. 1 In
order to understand the extent to which the industry is 1. The status of Daiei has become inter-
dominated by these firms, one must realize that not only do estingly ambivalent. Since its bank-
ruptcy in 1971, Daiei has been managed
they control distribution and exhibition, but that nearly all by a consortium including the left-wing
Japanese technicians, writers and directors are employed technicians' union. To what extent this
has actually influenced production
by them on a yearly basis. Most dramatic of all for free- policies, I am at present unable to ascer-
lancers, all the best professional equipment - in fact most tain.

345
POST-SCRIPTUM equipment of any kind- is owned by these firms, who are
not in the habit of renting it out, even supposing that the
several productions always in progress could spare it, even
for a brief period.
Making a film outside the established commercial sys-
tem, but according to professional standards, is more
difficult in Japan than in any other advanced industrial
country. This, of course, explains why the precarious inde-
pendent productions often have dialogue scenes shot with
a 'wild' track and are frequently edited with a silent
viewer, or with no viewer at all.
The system does offer 'small compensations'. Since
technicians have, generally speaking, employment sec-
urity, they can arrange, between company films, to work on
independent productions - for even lower wages than
usual. 2 Often too a 'personal' statement or two will pass
unnoticed in a major company's yearly crop. But it must
not be too personal; and one must not have any illusions as
to the permanence of such a situation. A gifted young
director, after two films for one of the majors, ran afoul of
the hierarchy; for over ten years now he has been a fixture
of Shin juku bars, talking about films with those who are still
making them.
Many of the noted 'independents' of Oshima's genera-
tion3 began, as did Oshima himself, with a major company
and subsequently turned independent, sometimes more
than once, in hopes of finding greater ideological and artis-
tic freedom. The inevitable price is severe material con-
straint. Others, like Hani Susumi and Teshigahara Hiroshi
began heroically as independent directors, became
attached to a major company (Shochiku in both these
cases) and now appear to operate on a 'semi-independent'
basis. As these two men were, together with Oshima and
Yoshida, the two most important directors to appear in the
late 1950s and early 1960s, a few words must be said about
their work. Talented as their early films show them to have
been, neither has been able to cope with the political and
2. Low wages are, of course, the key to
the success of an industry which bases its
theoretical challenges raised by the films of their contem-
profits on quantity rather than 'quality' poraries and the events of the last decade.
or even differentiation. At the same
time, the fact that in Japan, the cinema is
Hani Susumi is, in any case, a figure apart. His best film
not an elitist profession -a script-girl is probably She and He (Kanojo to kare, 1963), a delicate,
makes the wages of a typist, and direc-
tors and movie stars are seldom wealthy,
almost clinical study of a young woman whose stubborn,
even by Japanese standards- provides a seemingly masochistic drive to do good in the face of adver-
thought-provoking contrast with the
United States and Europe.
sity makes her a kind of 'Princess Mishkin' -and an early
manifestation of the 'Shain fool'. In this film, Hani's mas-
J. Independence did not begin with the
Japanese 'new wave'. Kinugasa, as we
tery of the pragmatically inventive decoupage, abounding
saw, tried it in the 1920s and many of the in subtle touches, is equal to that of Antonioni during that
most radical films of the 1940s and 1950s
were, not surprisingly, independent
same period (La Notte, L' Eclisse would be fair compari-
productions as well. sons). A factor that may be related to this 'mastery of the
codes', and one which sets Hani quite apart, is his propen- INDEPENDENCE: ITS
sity for shooting films abroad on themes of encounter be- REWARDS AND PENALTIES
tween individual Japanese and other cultures. The Song of
Bwana Toshi (Bwana Toshi no uta, 1965) recounts the
amusing tribulations of a Japanese engineer sent to Africa
to prepare for the establishment of a Japanese firm. Its
editing is tight and elliptical, its irony gentle and wry. Of the
artfully erotic films which he has made on and off in Japan,
The Inferno of the First Love (Hatsukoi jigoshi-heri, 1968)
is the most ambitious. Compared with Oshima's films made
at the height of his 'baroque' period, it seems on the whole
a rather facile manipulation of the surface characteristics of
the political and aesthetic avant-garde of that time. It has
none of the theoretical aspects that make all of Oshima's
films at that period so important. The film does contain
some brilliantly impressive passages such as an 'assault' on
a little girl in a park, in which the use of the telephoto lens is
artful. The main characters are definitely first cousins of the
'mad' young people in Diary of a Shinjuku Thief and
Yoshida's Eros Plus Massacre. But Hani is merely echoing
the preoccupations of the day, using them to concoct a
style; he does not seem fundamentally committed to them,
and his eclecticism has nothing to do with Oshima's con-
stant concern to renew himself.
Teshigahara Hiroshi seems to have followed a less con-
voluted path. While his first film, Pitfall (Otoshiana, 1962)
anticipated, in many ways, important developments of the
late 1960s and early 1970s, he has since been severely
hampered by a fascination with the baroque psychological
symbolism of modern Japanese literature, and an increas-
ingly desperate effort to render certain effects of literary
style through cinema. Pitfall was an extremely interesting
attempt to mingle elements of the traditional ghost-drama
(kwaidan-eiga)- certainly one of the richest popular tradi-
tions in the Japanese film- with a portrayal of class struggle
somewhat in the mood of early Pudovkin. It has evil agents
of the bosses prowling about in impeccable white suits, or
running in slow motion. The film's theatricality (a woman
who does not know she is dead tries to pick a postcard off
the floor and finds she cannot; for her, and for the camera, it
is painted on the wood) and its shifts in tone and in levels of
'reality', point to important developments to come. Inde-
pendently produced in precarious circumstances, the film
had some small success abroad. On the strength of it,
Teshigahara joined the Shochiku company to make
Woman of the Dunes (Suna no anna, 1964), a sumptuous
adaptation of Abe Kobo's symbolic fantasy. This film's
aggressive aestheticism and sensuality aroused much Occi-
dental enthusiasm over its 'metaphysical' beauties,

347
POST-SCRIPTUM achieved by what was in fact no more than a technically
masterful revitalization of the decorative style ofthe 1930s.
The film's reception in the West typifies the ease with which
presumably perspicacious Westerners accept from Japan
that which would be unacceptable to them from the West.
(The problem is an obvious one, but worth stressing once.)
The Face of Another (Tanin no kao, 1966) and The Torn
Map (Moetsukita chizu, 1968) 4 are even more extravag-
antly chic, increasingly abstruse explorations of psycholog-
ical symbolism. The distancing procedures of Pitfall seem
definitely a thing of the past.
The masterpiece of Yoshida Yoshishige is Eros Plus
Massacre (Eros purass gyakusatsu, 1969). Few films in the
Western cinema are as freely disjunctive and as dialectical
in their approach to narrative space-time. The mythical
space-time of Teshigahara, in contrast, simply tends to dis-
solve chronology along with the historical dimension as
such. This film offers, moreover, a remarkable reading of
the new theatricality, memorable embodiments of the
archetypal 'madman', as well as an empirical but provoca-
tive use of strategies borrowed from traditional art, notably
the principle of de-centred composition. These are allied
with more directly Brechtian procedures, such as thea-
tricalized interpolations, title boards, mixtures of historical
fact and fiction, past and present, etc. The film's length
precludes a full-scale analysis. It is a three-and-a-half-hour
fantasmagoria around the life and death of a noted Japan-
ese anarchist, Osugi Sakao, strangled by the police with his
wife and child early in this century. Scenes of present-day
Japan (a 'rebel' adolescent couple reminiscing about the
martyrs in relation to their own personal and ideological
problems) alternate with 're-enactments' of scenes from
the anarchist's private life, involving, in particular, his
complex relations with three different women. In addition,
there are radically unrealistic scenes in which the brutal
execution and other crucial events are staged and given
intense lyrical developments (through editing, music, cam-
era movement). The historical characters, moreover, move
back and forth between the two periods; a woman in old-
style dress takes the ultra-modern 'bullet train', gets off at
modern Tokyo Station, but is picked up by an old-style
rickshaw and eventually re-enters her own historical period
again when the rickshaw takes her to Osugi's house. Even
those sequences in which no hiatus is perceptible at the
narrative level proper, shift suddenly from 'realism' to a
perturbing abstraction, through the use of telephoto lens,
focus pull, slow motion; or else there is a sudden composi-
tional de-centering, as in the long walk beneath the cherry
4· In the West, Man Without a Map. blossoms, in which Osugi and one of his women appear
 Image removed
due to
rights considerations
POST-SCRIPTUM then seems to have decided that the dominant mode and
codes were, after all, the most convenient way of conveying
a sophisticated message. As early as 1962, in Akitsu Spa
(Akitsu onsen ), he had mastered a certain slick, post-war
assimilation of Western style with a visual native veneer. In
Confessions Among Actresses (Kokuhakuteki joyu-ron,
1971-2), 5 he develops a reflection on the 'mask' of the actor
- the discrepancy between public and private life, with an
implicit moral condemnation of the 'masks' that modern
society makes us wear. Such a theme is as valid as any other,
but it is a shame that Yoshida so felt the need to centre his
film upon its literary expression, that he forgot com-
pletely the achievements of Eros and their brilliant
response to Oshima's 1963 appeal for pictures and editing
that would not simply tell the story.
His next film, and, of the films I know, the most recent,
was Martial Law (Kaigenrei, 1973). 6 It indicates a new
departure. Returning to black and white after the heavily
coded colour of the previous film, he constructs an
extremely elaborate visual pattern around the story of Kita
Ikki, an ambiguous, national socialist theoretician who was
charged with 'moral' responsibility in one of the more
spectacular assassination plots of the pre-war Showa era,
and executed in I 936. The heavily theatrical portrait of Kita
is tinged with psychoanalytical hints as to the origins of his
mystical and political obsessions and involves occasional,
discreetly introduced fantasy images. These elements all
constitute an original contribution to the reflection on dis-
tancing undertaken by Yoshida's generation. The fi11n's
cavalier assumption that the audience is thoroughly famil-
iar with the historical facts, causes considerable problems
for most Westerners. This, however, is closely related to
the Chushingura phenomenon, so common in Japanese
cinema, and the active, historically informed response
demanded by such a film is significantly rare in the cinema
of the Western capitalist world. The radically disjunctive
character of the decoupage (shots almost never match
directly and are never repeated) creates an added element
of 'distance', but only up to a point. After a while, for want
of any creative work on the codes of orientation, this dis-
junctiveness, and the systematic de-centering of the image,
5- Shown abroad as Confessions, ultimately become decorative and the homogeneity of the
Theories, Actresses.
diegetic process reasserts itself in full.
6. Shown abroad as Coup d'Etat.
That the figure of Kita should now elicit mixed feelings
7. His final refusal to praise the among radical intellectuals in Japan 7 is a sign of a develop-
emperor, in whose name his plotting
against the government was under-
ing ideological crisis, exacerbated, in Japan, by the divi-
taken, 'I am not in the habit of joking sions of the Left. In many respects, this film is a complex
when I am about to die', generally
elicits satisfied responses from the
provocation, an ideological catalyst.
audience. Yoshida's tangential contact with Oshima may justify

350
our regarding him as a disciple of a director who is six years INDEPENDENCE: ITS
his junior. However, Oshima's most important protege is a REWARDS AND PENALTIES
director of almost his own age whom he eventually helped
out of the relatively profitable 'gutter' of Eroduction 8 and
into the independent ghetto. By that time, we might add,
Wakamatsu Koji was no longer welcome in the sphere in
which he had learned his trade and made his reputation.
Wakamatsu was a country boy from Japan's still relatively
under-developed northernmost island, Hokkaido. After
arriving in Tokyo, he became entangled with the under-
world for a couple of years. From there it was presumably
an easy step into the production of what passes in Japan for
pornographic films. However, it should be borne in mind
that since the 1964 Olympic Games, mass erotica has been
heavily censored, and while the Japanese films of the 1960s
and 1970s are far more inventive and the actors more
enthusiastic than their American or European counter-
parts, they are strictly 'soft-core'. On the other hand,
sado-masochistic practices, always fairly widespread in the
popular cinema of the Far East, are, on the whole, ignored
by censors whose original directives were aimed at 'clean-
ing up Tokyo' according to what were judged to be foreign
standards. 9 These standards continue to be applied quite
mechanically whenever a naked girl or an erect penis comes
along. It was in the 'free space' provided by the S-M market
that Wakamatsu was able to give free rein to his talents and
no doubt to his fantasies.
Since Wakamatsu has made over forty films, it goes
without saying that seeing all or even many of them is not
an easy task. The earliest film which I have screened, The
Embryo Hunts in Secret (Taiji ga mitsuryo suru toki,
1966), 10 was also the first to be shown in Europe. The fact
that it was selected for the same Knokke-le-Zoute Festival
which revealed Michael Snow's Wavelength is an indication
of this film's eccentricity in both the West and Japan. A
man locks a girl in an empty apartment and tortures her for
days on end, until she finally escapes and kills him. This
ultra-slender plot is drawn out with all the tortuous
ingenuity of the fantasizing mind. However, there are no
concessions to the slick imagery of commercial erotica. The
film is shot in a raw, black-and-white 'crime magazine' 8. The Eroduction circuit is an 'inde-
pendent' distribution system supplied
style, in which the only glimmers of comforting sophistica- by specialized 'independent' companies
tion - of 'aesthetic distance' - are the periodic long-shots who have been cashing in on the
strategy of 'sexual liberation' applied by
from outside an open doorway. These briefly remove us the ruling classes of most capitalist
from the horrific centre of the diegesis, bracketing the countries.
torture scenes which are the film's only narrative substance. 9· One is reminded ofthe bans on mixed
However, even such elementary structural concerns as this bathing so as not to shock early Meiji
visitors from the West.
are incidental to Wakamatsu's work at this period. For he
was, and in a sense has remained, a primitive: he had 10. Shown in the West as Embryo.

351
POST-SCRIPTUM learned the rudiments of 'film grammar' and still relied on
them completely. A film like Yuke yuke nidome no shojo
(roughly translated as Go, Go, You Who Are a Virgin for
the Second Time, 1969), a soul-searching roof-top dialogue
between a girl with a special proclivity for being gang-raped
and a boy who turns out to have the corpse of a person he
has murdered in his room, is typical of this primitivism. As
the film builds to paroxysm after paroxysm, an imbalance
seems to grow between the slickness of editing and
camera-work (the crime magazine photography of Embryo
is far behind), the conventions of the narrative proper, on
the one hand, and the deliriously transgressive substance of
the diegesis on the other. This imbalance, this tension, is
heightened by the constant, nagging yet fascinating pres-
ence of what, for want of a closer ideological analysis, I
shall call a pseudo-existentialist discourse. Although still
working for the Eroduction circuit, Wakamatsu had by now
'taken off' completely; henceforth his films would not only
be box-office failures but would have the greatest difficulty
being shown at all. He was, nevertheless, able to go on
working within the sex circuit for several years. This was
probably due to the financial success of his earlier films, and
perhaps to the curious 'freedom' enjoyed in Japan (as to
some extent in the United States) by the producers ofreally
rock-bottom mass cinema, a consideration to which we
shall return.
The tensions accumulating in Yuke yuke could only be
solved by a shift in frame of reference, and this is what
happened, in that very same year, in Wakamatsu's most
important and most beautiful film known to me, Violated
Women in White (Okasareta byakui, 1969). 11 The film was
inspired by the notorious massacre of the 'Chicago nurses'
I I. Shown in the West as Violated and is said to have been shot within a week of that horrend-
Angels.
ous event. Actual, recent events have often provided the
I2. After this film. Adachi scripted the raw material for Wakamatsu's fantasies, as they now did for
extravagant Sexjack (I970), inspired by
the 'Red Army Faction's' hijacking of
Adachi Masao, his new script-writer, who was to influence
an airliner to Korea. The film took place the new direction of his work. For Wakamatsu's and
'off-stage' of the event, so to speak, and
in fact ridiculed a fantasy 'Red Army
Adachi's reading of the demented American's crime is
cell' of students, given to group sex and emphatically and specifically informed by the rather
empty rhetoric, sheltered by a prudish
proletarian who is the 'real revolution-
mechanical association of unbridled sexual fulfilment with
ary', blowing up bridges at night, etc. It revolutionary politics, an association which characterizes
is the group's chagrined reaction to their
discovery of this that leads to their
not only much independent film-work, but also the ideol-
hijacking the plane. However critical ogy of certain ultra-Leftist groups in Japan. 12
this film might appear of petty bourgeois
'revolutionism', Wakamatsu and
Politically, we are dealing with a typical petty bourgeois
Adachi were known to have connec- illusion. The person or crimes of a young homicidal
tions with the irresponsible terrorists
whose involvement with adventurist
psychopath are totally unacceptable as images of political
Palestine groups made consternating revolution, let alone as mobilizing symbols, except, of
headlines, and the former produced a
perfunctory propaganda document shot
course, for a narrow fringe of the petty bourgeoisie, whose
by the latter in a PFLP training camp. revolt lacks class perspective. On the artistic plane, how-

352
ever, it is interesting to observe the convergency between INDEPENDENCE: ITS
the ideology subtending and fruitfully nourishing this film, REWARDS AND PENALTIES
and certain literary speculations within a Marxist
framework that have been carried out in Europe.
We must not forget that De Sade's work is fiction, that the
'crimes' committed within it are 'written' crimes, and that it will
depend upon the reader's freedom, his capacity to 'generalize'
his reading, whether these crimes appear as fantasies or as
methods for decoding. Incest is a taboo, an order demanding to be
'read' as much as any order (in so far as society experiences it as
the crime of crimes, it demands a 'reading' more than any
other). 13

I will not pretend to have all the keys to the decoding

implicitly proposed by Violated Women in White. I will
simply suggest some of the more obvious directions. The
first images of the diegesis proper- I will deal shortly with
the important epilogue and prologue- show a young man
firing his pistol into the sea, a patent image of incest. 14 This
theme is the thrust of the entire diegesis proper, which ends
with a return to the womb. After thus spending his dis-
placed sexual energy, the boy enters the nurses' secluded
dormitory and proceeds to 'write in blood' a text which,
while it has all the relevant characteristics of the fantasy,
solicits our capacities to generalize, produces these fan-
tasies as methods of decoding.
Numerous distancing techniques are used for this pur-
pose. At the level of the diegesis proper, Wakamatsu dis-
places and extends one of the essential figures of the
pornographic film, durational reiteration: when the nurses,
having found the young man wandering about their iso-
lated dormitory, lead him almost forcefully inside to watch
two of their number making lesbian love, this scene is
drawn out with the endless repetition of the voyeuristic
fantasy. Then, when the growing sexual tension overflows
and the boy draws his pistol, jerks open the shoji and
riddles the two women with bullets, the shock and hysteria
of the other nurses produces an even longer period of
throbbing stasis; for long minutes, there is scarcely a
movement, scarcely a sound but the muted sobbing and
whimpering of the terrified nurses. The cathartic force and 13. Pleynet, Marcellin, 'Sade lisible' in
Theorie d' Ensemble.
beauty of the film is produced by the repetition of this
orgasmic structure to the exclusion of any other. The ritual 14. And though one might expect that
this Freudian theme would be depen-
of repeated gesture, sudden explosion, and long, panting dent upon the linguistic over-
subsidence shapes the entire film; it extends even to the one determination provided by the Greco-
Christian cultures that sprang up around
long speech, the head nurse's quasi-monologue to the mare nostrum, it is interesting to
killer, which is similarly agitated and repetitive. observe that the Chinese character used
in Japanese to signify the sea contains
The sparing and startling insertions of colour which sud- within it a recognizable variant of the
denly theatricalize the violence serve to designate these character for mother.

353
POST-SCRIPTUM crimes as fiction, exposing all that ominous black blood for
what it really is: red paint. 15 This grating distancing effect is
particularly remarkable at the climax of the scene in which
the killer has been flaying alive one of the nurses off-screen,
to the accompaniment of endlessly repeated, blood curd-
ling screams. This is followed by a long, sinister silence.
When the whimpering head nurse is invited by the killer to
come and see a 'real angel' (in red, that is, not in white) the
sudden intrusion of colour totally theatricalizes her
horrified reaction; it shows us, as black and white could not,
that the flesh is clearly intact and swabbed with red paint.
Similarly, in the penultimate shot in the diegesis proper,
when the naked killer abandons his gun and lays his head
on the surviving, youngest nurse's belly amidst the 'bloody'
corpses, the sudden shift to colour again causes the se-
quence to lose both its literal ('horrible') and fantasy ('excit-
ing') dimensions. (These two scenes are illustrated in Figs.
63 and 64, but for want of colour plates the demonstration is
unfortunately weakened.)
Finally, the main body of the film as just described is
bracketed by two essentially extra-diegetic sequences
meant to ground the hero's psychosis in social reality, to
designate it as emblematic of social and political repression
and revolt. The aesthetic consequence of this strategy is to
challenge in advance all the manifest significations of the
Figs. 63, 64. Wakamatsu Koji, diegesis proper through a prologue consisting of still
Violated Women in White images borrowed from the daily repertoire of commercial
erotica. Later, the diegesis is suspended and in a sense
negated by the epilogue. The coloured tracking shots
around the two 'lovers' are followed by a black-and-white
action shot of the police surrounding the home, then a
freeze-frame close-up of a vicious-looking policeman with
upraised club. The epilogue which follows consists of a
montage of stills illustrating student rebellion and police
repression.
The sexual alienation which produces an individual
'revolt' such as the one which inspired this film is indeed
linked to the economic, political and ideological alienation
of capitalist society - though certainly not in any simple
terms of cause and effects such as is suggested here. Totally
unacceptable, however, is the ultra-Leftist ideology which
holds that the true vanguard of revolution are those who
have perceived, albeit 'biologically', such recondite corre-
lations. Violated Women in White, on the other hand, like
most of the masterworks of the Japanese cinema of that
period, proves that when such erroneous concepts are put to
work by gifted artists, they can be extraordinarily pro-
15. Question: 'Why is there so much
blood in your films, Mr Godard?' Ans·
ductive. Such are the contradictions of artistic practice in
wer: 'It isn't blood, it's red paint.' all cultures.

354
 Image removed
due to
rights considerations
POST-SCRIPTUM Matsumoto Toshio is not a primitive, but an avowed
disciple of Brecht, and it is he, I feel, who has brought
maximum clarification to the productive confrontation
between Japanese culture and Western materialist theories
of representation. He began by making 'experimental'
shorts 16 and commissioned documentaries, all unfamiliar to
me. His first feature-length film, Funeral of Roses (Bara no
soretsu, 1969), which takes transvestism as its theme for
reflection, introduces frequent, staged returns to the level
of production. It involves one set of diegetic disruptions
which certainly sticks in the mind: at the point whe·n the
hero(ine) has just brought the film's Oedipal parallel to its
logical climax by gouging out his/her eyes, there is a cut to a
TV-type, frontal shot of a professorial gentleman whom we
have never seen before and who rhetorically challenges the
audience's involvement: 'That shocked you, didn't it ...
etc.' We subsequently return to the principal diegesis and
the blinded and bleeding boy in (Western) 'drag' staggers
out into the street, followed by a hand-held camera that
observes the spontaneous reactions of real passers-by to
this unaccustomed spectacle -of which the camera filming
is clearly a part.
This resolutely dialectical approach to film-making is
masterfully developed in Matsumoto's second feature,
Pandemonium (Shura, 1971), 17 based upon a recent shin-
geki version of a seldom performed kabuki text. We recog-
nize in its irony an affinity with that dimension of
Elizabethan tragedy (and nineteenth-century French
melodrama) which Camus distilled into his play Le Malen-
tendu. A samurai, incognito, has succeeded in amassing a
large sum of money badly needed in order to participate in
the vendetta of 'the forty-seven ronin', for his family's
'liege' was Asano, Lord of Ako. The action of the film is, in
fact, laid 'in the wings' of the Chushingura saga; by adopt-
ing both the popular theatrical heritage and a traditional
narrative, Matsumoto also indicates their inter-textuality.
The samurai, who goes by the name of Gengo, falls prey to
an apparently unscrupulous couple, who swindle him out of
his treasure. He sets out to wreak bloody vengeance on
them and there ensues a holocaust of Elizabethan propor-
tions. However, it soon becomes apparent -to the audi-
ence, but not, until the very last scene, to Gengo- that the
couple are in fact servants of his own uncle, and that their
only purpose is to obtain that same sum of money for 'the
young master', whom they have never met. The entire
16. Apparently he has continued to do
so, an exceptional and significant
film is organized around this misunderstanding and the
instance. manifold implications of uncertainty that develop out of
17. Distributed in the United States as
it. Moreover, the fact that the spectator is given the key to
The Demon. the 'enigma' almost from the very start provides a distanc-
ing framework within which the other strategies are INDEPENDENCE: ITS
developed. REWARDS AND PENALTIES
The opening sequence shows Gengo being pursued
through a village at night by the disembodied lanterns of a
squad of police runners. The scene's somewhat eccentric
editing involves several overlap matches, but it is only
retrospectively that these quirks are seen to have been
(inevitably on first viewing) unread signals to the effect that
this sequence was not part of the film's primary level of
reality. In an ambivalent close-up, which at first appears to
match directly with the end of the flight scene (Gengo's
discovery of mutilated bodies in an empty house), an
(already) open-eyed Gengo gives a start: 'Oh, a dream!'
Next, in a series of almost perfectly coded scenes, the initial
situation is set forth. Against the pleading of his faithful old
retainer, Gengo lets the brother of a prostitute who has
caught his fancy lure him to the brothel where she is
allegedly to be sold to a rich, repulsive merchant whom she
loathes. This long period of exposition is almost completely
straightforward. The long slow pans that unexpectedly
articulate one reverse-field sequence, producing long,
'optically motionless' passages of black on the screen, bor-
der on ambiguity only - for at the first viewing they come
too early in the film to be read for what they are, the
acknowledgement of another fundamental 'anomaly': it is
always night in this film, and in fact much of the architecture
is simply slabs of darkness. 18 Gengo and the brother go to
the brothel and observe surreptitiously, through a finger-
hole in the shoji, the scene in which a merchant does,
indeed, seem to be buying the girl. The actors first appear
side by side, facing the camera in a theatrical disposition
(Fig. 65 shows this arrangement in part), not unlike that of
the kabuki or doll theatre stages. Just as the transaction is
about to be concluded, the hero bursts into the room and
after a quick exchange of defiant declarations, flings the
amount necessary for the girl's redemption at the feet of the
brothel owner. (It is, of course, the exact sum required for
participatioJ.l in the vendetta.) His faithful retainer now
appears and pleads with his master not to be foolish.
It is at this point that a huge amplification of the overlap
matches in the dream-prologue undermines permanently
the unity of the diegesis, creating henceforth a constant
threat of ambivalence and uncertainty. We cut again to
Gengo and the girl's brother peering into the room. Once
again the hero bursts in upon the scene, but this time the
confrontation follows altogether different paths. The
samurai disdains the girl, gladly abandoning her to the
18. On one level, 'night' can be read as
merchant and prepares to leave in a righteous huff. The girl the darkness of the space around the
cuts her throat and falls bleeding to the tatami. The samurai proscenium of the Western stage.

357
POST-SCRIPTUM wrests the blade from her hand before she can cut her throat
and her dramatic gesture has the desired effect: Gengo
flings the money at the feet of the brothel-keeper and ...
exactly as before, the faithful retainer makes his entrance.
One can assume that after this pair of radical disjunc-
tions, one inside the other, the spectator is disconcerted.
This precarious situation is sustained throughout; although
such disruptions are relatively infrequent, their effect is to
create a permanent threat to the linearity and unity of the
diegesis. Coded fantasy signals may or may not indicate a
departure from the film's primary level of reality. Against
abstract blackness, Gengo rends the air with his sword -
and in reverse field splits the heads of his tormentors. A
longer shot, situating Gengo alone in his room, immedi-
ately designates these reverse fields as fantasy. Soon after-
wards, he steals into the house where the guilty couple lie
asleep; in extreme slow motion, accompanied by stylized
sound-effects, he slaughters them. In retrospect, this
ambiguous slow-motion 19 seems confirmed as a fantasy
signal when the actual couple start up in bed ... But they
have been awakened by the very 'real' slaughter of another
couple in another room. The scene had been 'actual' after
all, Gengo had simply mistaken the victims.
Conversely, the spectator can be induced into taking for
prime reality representations which, in another context,
Figs. 65, 66. Matsumoto would be clearly perceived as fantasy, simply by making the
Toshio, Pandemonium shift from 'reality' to 'fantasy' so gradual as to be imper-
ceptible. Thus, the shot of the couple coughing blood and
dying in agony after the samurai has presented them with a
jug of poisoned sake, however grotesque, is introduced in
such a way that no solution of continuity is perceived; the
scene is, however, immediately belied by the next shot in
which the couple decide not to drink their terrifying guest's
sake just now, as it is cold, and there is a warm flask on the
19. In the traditional popular cinema brazier. Later, when another character unwittingly does
and in such modem genres as yak usa
eiga, the slow-motion effect is somewhat drink the sake, his death is even more suddenly and
differently and, in a sense, somewhat extravagantly grand-guignolesque than the earlier fantasy,
less coded than it is in the West, often
serving simply to slow down the flashing
but it is soon clear that it must be regarded as part of the
movements of this or that martial art so 'real' diegesis. Jean Ricardou has remarked, in writing of
that they may be seen, 'analyzed' by
the naked eye. Of course, the modem Borges, 'in fiction, the real and the virtual have the same
proximity of Western connotations status, since both are established and governed by the laws
(lyrical, oneiric) create, often enough,
similar passing ambiguities in such films,
of writing.' 20 Matsumoto's film is one of the most masterful
but I doubt that in such a context they demonstrations of this theorem to be encountered in
have ever been part of a systematic
investigation of precisely these
cinema. It is, moreover, one of the most important and
phenomena, as in Shura, where they beautiful films made in Japan since Kurosawa's prime, the
take on a very different tone.
others being Death by Hanging, Eros Plus Massacre, Vio-
20. Ricardou, Jean, 'Realites variable!i, lated Women in White and People of the Second For-
realites variantes' in Prob/emes du
Nouveau Roman, Paris, Editions du Seuil,
tress. The particular value of all these films lies in the clarity
H r966, pp. 23-43. and directness of their suggestion that an authentically
 Image removed
due to
rights considerations
POST-SCRIPTUM modern, revolutionary cinema in Japan must involve a
conjunction of traditional artistic practice with elements of
a materialist theory of art, dialectical and historical in
nature, as it is developing in the West.

The difficulties of independent film-making in Japan are

such that it is not surprising to find less activity there than
elsewhere in the field of independent 'radical' documen-
tary. Two really monumental undertakings, one of them
still in progress, are nevertheless worth describing.
Although similar in some respects, they are of different
ideological inspiration and of unequal importance, from
the specifically cultural, artistic point of view.
Ogawa Shinsuke and his tiny crew of friends have for
nearly eight years (1967-74) devoted all their energies to
one long 'work in progress', dealing with, or rather impli-
cated in, the struggle of a few hundred farmers, supported
by radical students, against their final eviction from San-
riziku. This is a farming district near Tokyo where the
government have been building the new Narita airport,
destined to relieve congested Haneda. Another suitable
airport, nearer to Tokyo, and which has the advantage of
already existing, is in the hands of the American armed
forces, for it must not be forgotten that under the terms of
the Security Pact, Japan is the 'aircraft-carrier' of Ameri-
can imperialism. The connecting thread of all these films-
there are five altogether, with a total running time of some
15 hours- is the farmers' growing political consciousness.
Understandably enough, their resistance to expropriation
was at first neither political nor even economic, for they
were fairly prosperous farmers and the rates paid for
expropriation were high. It stemmed rather from the
perennial attachment to the land on the part of those who
have worked it for centuries but who have owned if for
only a few decades. However hopeless, and in many
respects politically naive their struggle, the farmers learned
through it, and through their contacts with the boys and
girls from the Zengakuren student organization, to locate
the responsibilities for what was happening to them ... and
to their country. For this fight is part of the life-and-death
struggle being waged by the people of Japan and their mass
organizations against State Monopoly Capitalism to pre-
serve their natural environment, unquestionably the most
directly threatened in the world.
Now, it is interesting that as the struggle progressed, and
the film-makers began organizing their footage into a first,
and then a second very long film, they also took part, in
other ways, in the action. This double practice led them to
modify their whole approach. Their first film, Summer in
Sanriziku (Sanriziku no natsu, 1967) 21 is a rather indigest- INDEPENDENCE: ITS

ible assemblage, well over two hours long, with an over- REWARDS AND PENALTIES
emphasis on the spectacular student battles with the police.
Its form is quite eclectic; it attempted to include a max-
imum of direct political discourse (discussions among the
peasants about politics and tactics) and at the same time to
convey the duration and intensity of the actual skirmishes
with the police.
Four years later, Ogawa and his team produced the third
and best-known film in the series. It is also the most impor-
tant one, since it attempts, like Godard and Stan in France,
Kramer and Newsreel in the United States, and the film-
makers working under Santiago Alvarez in the Cuban CIAC,
to find 'new ways of filming to go with new ideas about the
world.' People of the Second Fortress (Daini toride no
hitobito, 1971) 22 deals with a much briefer period, only a
few days or so, at a crucial stage in the resistance; the
farmers had built a series of underground tunnels as a last
retreat, but were still defending an above-ground area by
means of barricades and bamboo staves, and by chaining
themselves to the trees that were to be bulldozed. Ogawa's
and his cameramen's work had now come to fit the rhythms
and patterns of the farmers' speech and behaviour. The
ten-minute takes in which peasant women set about deter-
mining the best way to chain themselves to trees, or in
which a farmer repetitiously explains the ventilation
arrangements and other problems in digging the under-
ground fortresses, display a remarkable material under-
standing of the concrete modes of behaviour and discourse
specific to those who work the land. The film's truly graphic
sensitivity to cultural 'otherness' has few precedents. It is
not too much to say that the camera (or rather more pre-
cisely the editing) of the French master Jean Rouch is
'condescending' by comparison.
Tsuchimoto Noriate is a well-known maker of television
documentaries and author of an independent film on the
radical student movement, Pre-history of Partisans (Parti-
san jenchi, 1970). His producer is Takagi Ryutaro. Their
series on the Minamata tragedy is already very long, as
well: three films totalling over ten hours, and a fourth is
now ( 1976) nearing completion. Minamata is the name of a
fishing village in Kyushu in which the deadly effects of
waste waters rich in ethylate mercury, discharged by a huge
chemical combine, first came to light. Mercury poisoning-
the Minamata disease- has been responsible for dozens of
deaths in that part of Japan. Because of it, hundreds of 2 r. Shown occasionally in the West as
children have been born with terrible physical handicaps. Summer at Narita.
The campaign to stop the polluting and to obtain adequate 22. Distributed in the West as Peasants
compensation for the victims has been a major national of the Second Fortress.
POST-SCRIPTUM issue. The film which revealed this tragedy to the world,
Minamata: The Victims and Their World (Minamata:
kanjo-san to sono sokai, 1970), is a long, impressively
rigorous exposition of the facts, together with deeply mov-
ing portraits of the afflicted families and their complex
social problems. The film is fundamentally reformist, in
that the victims themselves, with whom and for whom the
film was made (the Victims' Association is co-producer)
are primarily motivated by their 'consciousness of being
victimized,' as Oshima might say.
The second film in the series, Minamata Revolt
(Minamata ikki, 1973), is a lengthy documentation of the
confrontations over compensation between the Victims'
Association and the Company, and displays a higher level
of consciousness on the part of the victims' spokesmen.
Somewhat as in Ogawa's later film, the structure of
specifically filmic discourse is stronger (long takes, refusal
to edit the redundant discourse of the country people,
sparing use of flash-documents, etc.). I have not seen the
five-hour film which Takagi and Tsuchimoto have devoted
to the purely medical aspects of the situation. In it, a
specifically political enterprise is extended to another- but,
to these Marxists, an allied domain -that of scientific and
medical research. The medical film is intended for special-
ists, whereas the other two were distributed through the
same channels as the films of Ogawa.
Ogawa's enterprise is no doubt the more theoretically
and aesthetically important, while Tsuchimoto's films are
no doubt more relevant to the actualities of class struggle in
Japan. Both are good examples of an attack on the notion
of films as separate entities, and both are significant excep-
tions to the distribution monopoly held by the major com-
panies. Each, in its own small way, is trying to give the floor
to the 'madmen', the 'fools', and the masses.
The margin of manoeuvre for the film-maker with 'inde-
pendent' ambitions in Japan is tiny, when compared with
other capitalist countries. Consequently, a great many
directors, spurred on by the examples of Oshima, Yoshida
and others, have chosen, for a variety of personal motives,
to 'subvert' the popular genres from within the framework
of the major companies, particularly Nikkatsu and Toei,
which may be very loosely compared with American firms
such as Republic Pictures or American rnternational.
Suzuki Seijun is a typically prolific example of this type of
director. His The Tokyo Drifter (Tokyo nagaremono, 1966)
is very popular today among students and film buffs, in
somewhat the way Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly was popular in
France during the 1950s. It is something of a pioneer film.
Into this tritely complicated tale of gang rivalry, which tells
how a disabused young hero 'tries to go straight', Suzuki INDEPENDENCE: ITS
introduced, in moderate doses, the theatrical stylizations of REWARDS AND PENAL TIES
Night and Fog in Japan. In this context, these produced a
quite indescribable effect of 'distancing', now frequently
encountered in the gangster films, sex films, delinquent
high-school girl films and other genres which play in the
flea-houses of Asakusa, Ueno or Shinjuku. 'Outrageous'
political or social messages, generally of a libertarian or
ultra-Leftist cast, are just as frequent.
These widely distributed films represent no more than a
desperate dialogue for initiates between young middle-
class city-dwellers, who see the films in first-run, or in
all-night 'film society programmes', and film directors who
show awareness of a growing crisis within Japanese capital-
ism but are unable to address the masses more directly.
They demonstrate, in the ultimate absurdity of their well-
meaning contortions and vociferations, the efficacy of the
capitalist monopoly of the audio-visual media as a vital part
of a power structure that will not relinquish them without a
struggle.
Only a radical change in the balance of political power in
Japan can modify the increasingly bleak alternative which
has faced the film-maker over the past several decades:
either humiliating subservience to the law of profit, with
only an illusory latitude of expression for all but a very, very
few, or else the frustrating isolation and material priva-
tions of the independent ghetto. It is a sad situation for a
cinema with such a prestigious past.
List of Works Consulted

Titles marked with an asterisk are of major interest.

Adair, John see Worth, Sol.

Anderson, Joseph L. and Richie, Donald, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, New York, Grove Press,
!960.
* Barthes, Roland, L' Empire des Signes, Geneva, Editions Skira, I 970.
Beasley, W. G., The Modern History of Japan, New York, Praeger, 1963; London, Weidenfeld, 1963.
Benedict, Ruth, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Patterns of Japanese Culture, London, Routledge,
1967; Tokyo, Rutland, Charles E. Tuttle, 1972.
Bowie, Henry P., On the Laws of Japanese Painting, New York, Dover Publications, 1952.
Brecht, Bertolt, Brecht on Theatre: the Development of an Aesthetic (trans. and notes by J. Willett).
London, Methuen, 1964; New York, Hill and Wang, 1964.
*Brower, R. H. and Miner, E., Japanese Court Poetry, Stanford University Press, 1961; London, Cresset
Press, 1962.
Burch, Noel, MarcelL' Herbier, Paris, Seghers, 1973.
-Theory of Film Practice (trans. by Helen Lane), London, Seeker Martin & Warburg, 1973, New York,
Praeger, 1973.
Chatain, Jean and Sauvage, Francis, Cles pour /e Japan, Paris, Editions Sociales, 1974.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon see Keene, Donald,
Derrida, Jacques, De la Grammatologie, Paris, Editions de Minuit, 1967.
- L' Ecriture et la difference, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1967.
-Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husser/'s Theory of Signs (trans. and introduction by
David B. Allison), Chicago, Northwestern University Press, 1973.
* Doi Takeo, The Anatomy of Dependence (trans. by John Bester), Tokyo, New York, San Francisco,
Kodansha International, 1973.
*Drexler, Arthur, The Architecture of Japan, New York Museum of Modern Art (Reprint edition, 1966,
published for Museum by Arno Press).
Dubois, J., Giacomo, M., Grespin, L., Marcellesi, Chr., Marcellesi J.-B. and Mevel, J.-P., Dictionnaire de
Linguistique, Paris, Larousse, 1973.
Eisenstein, S.M., Notes of a Film Director, London, Laurence & Wishart, 1959; New York, Dover, 1970.
-see also Nizhny, V.
*Engel, Heinrich, The Japanese House: A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture, Rutland, Tokyo,
Tuttle, 1964.
*Ernst, Earle, The Kabuki Theatre, New York, Grove Press, 1956.
Granet, Marcel, La Civilisation chinoise, Ia vie publique et Ia vie prive, Paris, Albin Michel, 1969.
Hall, Edward T., The Hidden Dimension, New York, Doubleday, 1966; London, Bodley Head, 1969.
-'A system for the notation of proxemic behaviour' in The American Anthropologist, No. 65, 1963,
pp. 1003-26.
Harootunian, H.D., Towards Restoration, the Growth of Political Consciousness in Tokugawa Japan,
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1970.
Hillier, J., The Japanese Print, a New Approach, Rutland, Tokyo, Tuttle, 1960; London, G. Bell, 1960.
Honzl, Jindrich, 'La Mobilite du signe theatral' in Travail Thti'itra/ (Paris) No.2.
Ihara Saikaku see Sargent, G. W.
Japan Film Yearbook, Tokyo, 1937 and 1938.
Kato Hidetoshi, (ed. & trans.), Japanese Popular Culture: Studies in mass communication and cultural
change made at the Institute of Science and Thought, Japan, Rutland, Tokyo. Tuttle, 1959.
Kato Shuichi, Form, Style, Tradition: Reflections on Japanese Art and Society (trans. by John Bester),
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971.
Kawai Kazuo, Japan's American Interlude. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. I960.
Keene, Donald, Bunraku, the Art of the Japanese Puppet Theatre. Tokyo and Palo Alto. Kodansha
International, I 973·
-Japanese Literature, London. Murray, I953; New York, Grove Press. I955·
-Major Plays ofChikamatsu (trans. by Donald Keene), New York and London. Columbia University
Press, I 96 1.
-No, the Classical Theatre of Japan, Tokyo and Palo Alto, Kodansha International, 1973.
Lee, Sherman E., A History of Far Eastern Art, Englewood Cliffs. N.J .. Prentice-Hall, and New York,
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1964; London, Thames and Hudson, I964.
Leyda, Jay, Dianying: An Account of Film and the Film Audience in China, Cambridge, Mass., MIT
Press, 1972.
Marx, Karl, Capital (trans. from third German edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling), New
York, International Publishers, 1967; London, 1887, reprinted 1938.
Metz, Christian, Film Language, a Semiotics of the Cinema (trans. by Michael Taylor), New York.
Oxford University Press, 1974.
Michelson, Annette, 'Screen/Surface: the politics of illusionism' in Artforum, September 1972.
Miner, E. see Brower, R.H.
*Morris, Ivan, The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. London, Oxford University
Press, 1964; Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1969.
*Nakamura Hajime, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India, China, Tibet. Japan (ed. by PhilipP.
Wiener), Honolulu, East-West Center Press, 1969.
Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilization in China (Vol. 1: Introductory Orientations), Cambridge
University Press, 1956.
Nizhny, Vladimir, Lessons with Eisenstein (trans. and ed. by Ivor Montagu and Jay Leyda), London,
Allen and Unwin, 1962; New York, Hill and Wang, 1962.
*Norman, E. Herbert, Japan's Emergence as a Modern State, Political and Economic Problems of the
Meiji Period, IPR Inquiry Series. International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations. Publication
Office, New York City, 1940.
Oshima Nagisa. 'Situazione e sogetto del cinema giapponese dal doppa guerra' in Quaderno informativo,
No. 27, Mastro Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro Il-18 Settembre, 1971, pp. 19-23.
Panofsky, Erwin, L'Oeuvre d'art et ses significations, Paris, Gallimard, 1969.
Pezeu-Massabuau, J., Geographic du Japan, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1968.
Picon, Gaeton, L' Usage de Ia lecture, Vol. 2, Paris, Mercure de France, 1961.
Pyle, Kenneth B., The New Generation in Meiji Japan, problems of cultural identity, 1885-1895, Stanford
University Press, 1969.
Richie, Donald see Anderson, Joseph L.
Sadler, A.L., Cha-no-yu, the Japanese Tea Ceremony, Rutland, Tokyo. Tuttle, 1962.
*Sansom, George, A History of Japan (Vol. I, to 1334; Vol. II, 1334 to I615; Vol. Ill, 1615 to r867),
Stanford University Press, 1969.
- An Historical Grammar of Japanese. Oxford University Press, 1928.
*- The Western World and Japan, a study in the interaction of European and Asiatic cultures, New York.
1950; London, Cresset Press, 1950.
*Sargent, G.W., The Japanese Family Storehouse or The Millionaire's Gospel Modernized (trans. from
the Japanese (of Ihara Saikaku] with introduction and commentary by G. W. Sargent), Cambridge
University Press, 1969.
Sauvage, Francis see Chatain, Jean.
Sieffert, Rene, La Tradition secrete du No suivi d'une journee de No (trans. and commentary by Rene
Sieffert), Paris, Gallimard, 1960.
Takahashi Kohachiro, 'La Restauration Meiji au Japon et Ia revolution fran<;aise' in Recherches
Internationales ala lumiere du Marxisme, No. 62, ler trimestre, 1970 (Paris)
Tel Que/: Theorie d'Ensemble, Paris, Editions du Seuil, I968.
*Ueda Makoto, Literary and Art Theories in Japan, Cleveland, Western Reserve University Press, 1967.
Whitehouse, Wilfrid and Yahagisawa Eizo (trans.), Ochikubo Monogatari or The Tale of the Lady
Ochikubo, A Tenth-century Japanese novel, Tokyo, The Hokuseido Press, 1965.
Willett, John, see Brecht, Bertolt.
WittfogeL Karl August, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, New Haven, Yale
University Press, I957·
Worth, Sol and Adair, John, Through Navajo Eyes; an exploration in film Communication and
Anthropology, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, r972.
Yahagisawa Eizo see Whitehouse, Wilfrid.
Zeami see Sieffert, Rene.
Appendix!

Check-lists of films of Mizoguchi, Ozu, Kurosawa and Oshima

The English titles given in parentheses are those under which films have been shown in the West.

Mizochuchi Kenji (18'}8---1956)

1922 Ai ni yomigaeru The Day When Love Returns

1923 Kokyo Birth-Place
Seishun no yumeji Dreams of Youth
Joen no chimata Street of Burning Passion
Haizan no uta wa kanashi Sad is the Song of the Vanquished
813 [based on an Arsene Lupin story by M. Leblanc]
Kiri no minato Misty Harbour
Haikyo no naka Amongst the Castle's Ruins
Yoru Night
Chi to rei Blood and Soul
1924 Toge no uta Song of the Mountain Pass
Kanshiki hakushi The Sad Idiot
Akatsuki no shi Death at Dawn
Ito junsa no shi Death of Policeman Ito
Gendai no joo Queen of Modern Times
Josei wa tsuyoshi The Gentle Sex Are Strong
Jinkyo The World of Man
Shichimencho no yukue The Missing Turkey
Samidare zoshi A Tale of Early Summer Rain
Kanraku no onna Pleasure Girl
Musen fusen No Money, No War
1925 Kyokyubadan no joo Queen of the Circus Troop
Gakuso o idete After Years of Study
Daichi wa hohoemu The Smile of the Earth
Shirayuri wa nageku Lament of the White Lily
Gaijo no suketchi Street Sketch
Ningen Humanity
Furusato no uta Song of the Home Country
Akai yuhi ni terasarete The Red Glow of Sunset
1926 Nogi taisho to Kuma-san General Nogi and Mr Kuma
 Doka i5 The King of Copper Coins
Kami ningyo haru no sasayaki The Spring Murmur of a Paper Doll
Shin onoga tsumi My Sin, Continued
Kyoren no onna shisho Passion of a Woman Teacher
Kaikoku danji Sons of the Sea Country
Kane Money
1927 Ko on Obligation to the Emperor
Jihi shincho The Bird of Mercy
1928 Hi to no issho The Life of a Man [in three parts]
Musume kawaiya What a Lovely Girl!
1929 Nihon-bashi Japan Bridge
Asahi wa kagayaku The Rising Sun Shines
Tokyo koshin kyoku Tokyo March
Tokai kokyogaku The Symphony of a City
1930 Furusato Home Country [first sound film]
Tojin Okichi Okichi, the Foreigner's Mistress
1931 Shikamo karera wa yuku And Yet They Proceed
1932 Toki no ujigami The Patron Deity of Time
Mam-Ma kenkoku no reimei The Dawn of the Foundation of Manchukuo and Mongolia
1933 Taki no shiraito 'White Threads of the Waterfall'
Gion matsuri Gion Festival
Jimpuren The Jimpu Group
1934 Aizo toge Mountain Pass of Love and Hate
Orizuru 0-Sen 0-Sen of the Paper Cranes
1935 Maria no 0-Yuki 0-Yuki, Alias Maria
Gubijinso Poppies
1936 Naniwa ereji The Elegy of Naniwa
Gion no shimai (kyodai) Sisters of Gion
1937 Aienkyo The Gorge Between Love and Hate
1938 Roei no uta Camp Song
A furusato 0 Homeland!
1939 Zangiku monogatari Tale of Late Chrysanthemums
1940 Naniwa onna Woman of Naniwa
1941 Geido ichidai otoko The Life of an Artist
1941-2 Genroku chushingura A Talc of Loyal Retainers of the Genroku Era
1944 Danjuro sandai Three Generations of Danjuro
1945 Hissho ka Song of Faith in Victory [co-directors: Makino Masahiro, Shimizu Hiroshi, Tasaka
Tomotaka]
Meito Bijomaru Bijomaru, the Famous Sword
1946 Josei no shori Woman's Victory
Utamaro o meguro gonin no onna Five Women Around Utamaro
1947 Joyu Sumako no koi The Love of Actress Sumako
1948 Yoru no onnatachi Women of the Night
1949 Waga koi wa moeru Our(My) Love Burns
1950 Yuki fujin ezu Portrait of Mrs Yuki
1951 Oyusama Miss Oyu
Musashino Fujin The Lady of Musashino
1952 Saikaku ichidai onna The Life of a Woman, by Saikaku (The Life of Oharu)
1953 Ugetsu monogatari Stories of the Moon After Rain
r 954 Sansho dayu Sansho the Bailiff
Uwasa no anna The Woman They Talk About
Chikamatsu monogatari A Story by Chikamatsu
1955 Yokihi Princess Yang
Shin Heike monogatari New Tales of the Heike (Taira) Clan
1956 Akasen shitai Red Light District (Street of Shame)
 Ozu Yasujiro (IC)03-ICJ63)

1927 Zange no yaibo Sword of Penitence

1928 Wakodo no yume Dreams of Youth
NyobO funshitsu Wife Lost
Kabocha Pumpkin
Hikkoshi filfu A Couple Moving House
Nikutaibi Body Beautiful
1929 Takara no yama Treasure Mountain
Wakaki hi Days of Youth
Wasei kenka tomodachi Fighting Friends
Daigaku wa deta keredo I Graduated, But ...
1930 Kashain seikatsu Life of an Office-Worker
Tokkan kozo A Straightforward Apprentice
Kekkon-gaku nyumon Introduction to the Wedding Ceremony
Hogaraka ni susume Be Cheerful
Rakudai wa shita keredo I Flunked, But ...
Sono yo no tsuma That Night's Wife
Era-shin no onryo The Revengeful Spirit of Eros
Ashi ni sawatta koun Luck Touched My Legs
Ojyosan Young Miss
Shukujyo to hige The Lady and the Beard
1931 Bijin aishu Beauty's Sorrows
Tokyo no gassho Chorus of Tokyo
1932 Haru wa gofujin kara Spring Comes from the Ladies
Umarete wa mita keredo I Was Born, But ...
Seishun no yume ima izuko Where Are the Dreams of Youth?
Mata au hi made Until the Day We Meet Again
1933 Tokyo no onna Woman( en) of Tokyo
Hijosen no onna War-Emergency Women
Dekigokoro Passing Fancy
1934 Haha o kowazu ya A Mother Ought to be Loved
Ukigusa monogatari A Story of Floating Weeds
1935 Hako-iri musume The Sheltered Girl
Tokyo no yado An Inn in Tokyo
1936 Daigaku yoitoko College is a Nice Place
Hitori musuko Only Son [first sound film]
Shukujyo wa nani wasureta ka What Did the Lady Forget?
1941 Todake no kyodai Toda Brother and Sister
1942 Chichi ariki There Was a Father
1948 Nagaya shinshi roku Record of a Tenement Gentleman
Kaze no naka no mendori A Hen in the Wind
1949 Banshun Late Spring
1950 Munakata shimai The Munakata Sisters
1951 Bakushu or Mugi-aki Autumn Barley-Time (Early Summer)
1952 Ochazuke no aji The Flavour of Green-Tea-with-Rice
1953 Tokyo monogatari Tokyo Story
1956 Soshun Early Spring
1957 Tokyo boshoku Tokyo Twilight
1958 Higan-bana Equinox Flowers
1959 Ohayo Good morning!
Ukigusa Floating Weeds
1960 Aki biyori A Fine Day in Autumn (Late Autumn)
1961 Kobayakawa no aki Autumn in the Kobatakawa Family (Early Autumn)
1¢2 Samma no aji The Taste of Mackerel Pike (An Autumn Afternoon)

370
 Kurosawa Akira (191~

1940 Uma The Horse

1943 Sugata Sanshiro
1944 lchiban utsukushiku The Most Beautiful
1945 Zoku Sugata Sanshiro Sequel to Sugata Sanshiro
1945 Tara no o o fumu otokotachi They Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail
1946 Asu o tsukuru hitobito The People Who Make Tomorrow
Waga seishun ni kuinashi No Regrets for Our Youth
1947 Subarashiki nichiyobi Wonderful Sunday
1948 Yoidore tenshi Drunken Angel
1949 Shizukanaru ketto The Quiet Duel
1949 Nora inu Stray Dog
1950 Shubun Scandal
RashOmon [i.e. The Rasho Gate]
1951 Hakuchi The Idiot
1952 lkiru Living
1954 Shichinin no samurai Seven Samurai
1955 /kimono no kiroku Record of a Living Thing
1957 Kumo-no-su jo Cobweb Castle (Throne of Blood)
1957 Donzoko The Lower Depths
1958 Kakushi no toride no san-akunin Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress (The Hidden Fortress)
1960 Warui yatsu yoku nemuru Bad Guys Sleep Well
1961 Yojimbo
1962 Tsubaki Sanjuro Sanjuro of the Camellias (Sanjuro)
1963 Tengoku to jigoku High and Low [Literally, Heaven and Hell]
1965 Akahige Red Beard
1969 Dodeskaden

Oshima Nagisa (1932-

This list is exclusive of shorts and TV films.

1959 Ai to kibo no machi Town of Love and Hope

1960 Seishun zankoku monogatari A Cruel Tale of Youth
Taiyo no hakeba The Sun's Graveyard
Nihon no yoru to kiri Night and Fog in Japan
1961 Shiiku The Catch
1962 Amakusa Shiro Tokisada
1964 Watashi wa Bellette Here I am: Bellette
1965 Etsuraku Pleasure
1966 Ninja bugeicho Tales of the Ninja
1967 Hakuchu no torima 'Floating Ghost' in Broad Daylight [i.e. rapist]
Muri shinju: Nihon no natsu Double Suicide: Japanese Summer
Nihon shunka-ko Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs
1968 Koshikei Death by Hanging
Shinjuku dorobO nikki Diary of a Shin juku Thief
1969 Shonen Boy
1970 Tokyo sensa senyo hiwa Secret Story of the post-'Tokyo War' Period
Gishiki Ceremonies
1972 Natsu no imoto Little Summer Sister
1975/6 Ai no corrida Corrida of Love or/' Empire des sens

371
Appendix2

Archive holdings in Japan: Japanese films produced before I946

It may be considered that most films produced since the war still exist
in Japan, though are perhaps not readily accessible. The absence of any
given film from these lists, even though it may at present be regarded as
lost, does not mean that such is the case. As confirmation of what was
said on this matter in the Preface, since my last visit to Japan (Autumn,
1973) the Film Centre has been able to add to its collection at least
thirty-two re-discovered films- indicated below by t. Nor are these, of
course, the only films I have been unable to view. Films studied for this
book are marked *.

Film Centre of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

1921 RojD no reikon * Souls on the Road Osanai Kaoru

and Murata Minoru
!921 Kantsubaki' Winter Camellia(s) Inoue Masao
1921 Goketsu jirai-ya' Heroic Thunder-boy Makino Shozo
1928 lujiro* Crossways Kinugasa Teinosuke
!929 Fue no siratamat Eternal Love Shimizu Hiroshi
1929 Wakaki hi* Days of Youth Ozu Yasujiro
1930 Kaigara lppei
(part one only)* Kiyose Eijiro
1930 Shingun* The March Ushiwara Kiyohiko
1930 Wakamono yo naze nakukat Why Do You Cry. Young People Ushiwara Kiyohiko
1930 Hogaraka ni ayumcc Walk Cheerfully Ozu Yasujiro
!930 Rakudai washita keredot I Flunked, But ... Ozu Yasujiro
1930 So no yo no tsuma * That Night's Wife Ozu Yasujiro
1931 Shukujo to hige* The Lady and the Beard Ozu Yasujiro
193! Koshiben Ganbaret Worker Ganbare Naruse Mikio
1931 Madamu to nyobo* The Neighbour's Wife and Mine Gosho Heinosuke
1931 Beni kDmori* The Red Bat Tanaka Tsuruhiko
1931 Tokyo no gassho Tokyo Chorus Ozu Yasujiro
1932 Umarete wa mila keredo * I Was Born, But ... Ozu Yasujiro
1932 Joriku daiippot First Steps Ashore Shimazu Yasujiro
1932 Mito Komon Mito Komon Tsuji Yoshiro
1933 Seishun no yume izukot Where Are the Dreams of Youth Ozu Yasujiro
1933 Izu no odoriko * The Dancing Girl of Izu Gosho Heinosuke
1933 Hanayome no negorot The Bride Talks in Her Sleep Gosho Heinosuke
1933 Aibut Caresses Goshu Heinosuke
1933 Hijosen no annat Women on the Firing Line Ozu Yasujiro
1933 Dai Chushingurat Tale of Loyal Retainers Kinugasa Teinosuke
1933 Daigaku no waka-dannat The Boss's Son at College Shimizu Hiroshi

372
1933 Tokyo no anna* Woman(en) of Tokyo Ozu Yasujiro
1933 Kimi to wakarete* After Our Separation Naruse Mikio
1933 Yogoto no yume* Nightly Dreams Naruse Mikio
1933 Dekigokoro* Passing Fancy Ozu Yasujiro
1933 Keisatsukan* Police Uchida Tomu
1934 Fukeizut A Woman's Family-Tree Nomura Y.
1934 Tonari no Yae-chan* Our Neighbour Miss Yae Shimazu Yasujiro
1934 Ukigusa monogatari* A Story of Floating Weeds Ozu Yasujiro
1934 Haha o kowazuya* A Mother Ought to Be Loved Ozu Yasujiro
1934 Karisome no kuchibeni Trifling Lipstick Suzuki Jukichi
1934 Hanamuko no negotot The Groom Talks in His Sleep Gosho Heinosuke
1934 Orizuru 0-Sen* 0-Sen of the Paper Cranes Mizoguchi Kenji
1934 Muteki Foghorns Murata Minoru
1935 Jinsei gekijo t Theatre of Life Uchida Tomu
1935 0-Koto to Sasuke 0-Koto and Sasuke Shimazu Yasujiro
1935 Hyaku-man-ryo no tsubo* The Pot Worth a Million R yo Yamanaka Sadao
1935 Tsuma yo bara no yo ni* Wife, Be Like a Rose Naruse Mikio
1935 Jinsei no onimotsu * The Burden of Life Gosho Heinosuke
1935 Shoshu rei Orders to Call Out the Men Watanabe Kuniyo
1935 Tokyo no yado * An Inn in Tokyo Ozu Yasujiro
1935 Maria no 0- Yukit Maria. Alias 0- Yuki Mizoguchi Kenji
1935 Gubijinsot Poppies Mizoguchi Kenji
1935 Enoken no Kondo Isamu* Enoken plays Kondo Isamu Yamamoto Kajiro
1936 Inojino kamuri+ The Crown of Life Uchida Tomu
1936 Tochuken Kumoemon* Tochuken Kumoemon Naruse Mikio
1936 Naniwa Eregy* The Elegy of Naniwa Mizoguchi Kenji
1936 Cion no shimai (kyodai) Sisters of Gion Mizoguchi Kenji
1936 Arigatosan t Thank You Very Much Shimizu Hiroshi
1936 Akanishi Kakita* Akanishi Kakita ltami Mansaku
1936 Ani imoto* Elder Brother, Younger Sister Kimura Sotoji
1936 Hitori musuko * Only Son Ozu Yasijiro
1936 Byakui no kajin Beautiful Women in White Abe Yutaka
[one reel only]
1936 Taii no musume The Captain's Daughter Nobuchi Akira
1936 Oboroyo no annat Woman of the Mist Gosho Heinosuke
1937 Sengoku buntoden Tale of Thieves in Wartime Tagisawa Eisuke
1937 Hanakago no utat The Song of the Flower-basket Gosho Heinosuke
1937 Ninja kamifusen * Humanity/Paper Balloons Yamanaka Sadao
1937 Kaze no naka no kodomo * Children in the Wind Shimizu Hiroshi
1937 Wakai hito Young People Toyoda Shiro
1937 Asakusa no hi Lights of Asakusa Shimazu Yasujiro
1937 Shingun no uta Marching Song Sasaki Yasuchi
1937 Soma no kinsan Mr Kin of Soma Inaba Kaji
1937 Hanabi no machit Expectation of Fireworks Ishida Tamizo
1937 Kaiki Edogawa Ranzan The Mysterious Edogawa Ranzan Shimamura Kenji
1937 Yoru no hatot Dove of Night Ishida Tamizo
1937 Hokushi no sora o tsuku Aim For the Sky Over
'Hokushi' [Japanese name
for a Chinese town) Watanabe Kunio
1937 Hanagata senshu* A Star Athlete Shimizu Hiroshi
1937 Hitohada kannon * The Helping Hand of the
Goddess of Mercy Kinugasa Teinosuke
1937 Joi Kinoyu, sensei Miss Kinuyo, Doctor Nomura Hiromasa
1937 Yoru no hatot Night Dove Ishida Tamizo
1938 Abe ichizoku* The Abe Clan Kumagaya Hisatora
1938 RobO no ishi* The Stone on the Road Tazaka Tomotaka
1938 Taiyo no ko Child( ren) of the Sun Abe Yutaka
1938 Denen kokyogaku * The Pastoral Symphony Yamamoto Satsu

373
1938 Tojuro no koi The Love of Tojuro Yamamoto Kajiro
1938 Hana chirinu* Fallen Blossoms Ishida Tamizo
1938 Tsuzurikata kyoshitsu* Composition Class Yamamoto Kajiro
1938 Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro* Tsuruhachi and Tsurujiro Naruse Mikio
1938 Uguisu* The Bush Warbler Toyoda Shiro
1938 Duma no tsuji Duel at Ouma Takizawa Hidesuke
1938 Nihonjin Japanese People [incomplete] Shimazu Tasujiro
1938 Aiso hitoroku A Tragic Story of Love and Hate Tonoyama Bompei
1938 Yakko Ginpei Gpnpei, Servant Osone Tatsuo
1938 Ginetsu The Heat of the Earth Takizawa Hidesuke
1938 Gonin no sekkohei* Five Scouts Tasaka Tomotaka
1938 Ajia no musume Girl of Asia Tanaka Shigeo
Numaha lsao
1938 Yukinojo henget The Ghost of Yukinojo Kinugasa Teinosuke
1938 Anma to annat The Masseuse Shimizu Hiroshi
1938 Toyoheiwa no michi The Way to Peace in the Orient Suzuki J uichin
1938 Haha to kot Mother and Child Shibuya Mioru
1938-9 Aisenkatsura Aisenkatsura Nomura Kosho
1939 Tsuchi* Earth Uchida Tomu
1939 Tsuchi to heitai* Earth and Soldiers Tasaka Tomotaka
1939 Danryu* Warm Current Yoshimura Kimisaburo
1939 Kokoro no taiyo The Sun of the Heart Fukuda Shuzo
1939 Enoken no ganbari senjutusu* Enoken's Persistent Tactics Nakagawa Nobuo
1939 Oshidori uta gassen A Friendly Singing Contest Makino Masahiro
1939 Hataraku ikka* The Whole Family Works Naruse Mikio
1939 Hatagoya soda Disturbance at the Inn Mori Issei
1939 Byakuran no uta The Song of the White Orchid Watanabe Kunio
1939 Kodomo no shiki Four Seasons of Children Shimizu Hiroshi
1939 Shanghai rikusentai* Shanghai Report Tomagaya Hisatura
1939 Shinpen Tangezasen* The New Tangezasen Nakagawa Nobuo
1939 Tsukiyo karasu* Crow in the Moonlight Inouye Kintaro
1939 Zangiku monogatari* Tale of Late Chrysanthemums Mizoguchi Kenji
1939 Ani to sono imoto The Elder Brother and
His Younger Sister Shimazu Yasujiro
1939 Atarashiki kazoku The New Family Shibuya Minoru
1939 Kuramatengu Edonikki The Edo Diary of Kuramatengu Matsuda Sadaji
1939 Ju-man-ryo hibun Secret Story of 100000 ryo Arai Ryohei
1939 Mukashi no uta* Old Songs Ishida Tamizo
1939 Chiheisen The Horizon Yoshimura Misao
Shirai Shintaro
1940 Hebihimesama* The Snake-Princess Kinugasa Teinosuke
1940 Kojima no haru Spring Comes to a Little Island Toyoda Shiro
1940 Nobuko Nobuko Shimizu Hiroshi
1940 Shina no yoru Night in China Fushimi Osama
1940 Moyuru ozora The Great Burning Sky Abe Yutaka
1940 Akatsuki ni inoru Prayers at Dawn Sasaki Yasushi
1940 Bijo Zakura A Girl Named Zakura Osone Tatsuo
1940 Butai sugata Figures on the Stage Nomura Hiromasa
1940 Gonza to Sukeju Gonza and Sukcju Furuno Eisaku
1940 Nihonmatsu shonen tai 'Two Pine trees' Boys Unit Akiyama Kosaku
1940 Utsukushiki rinjin Beautiful Neighbours Oba Hideo
1940 Ane no shussei Elder Sister at the Front Kondo Katsuhiko
1940 Arashi ni saku hana Flowers Blooming in the Storm Hagiwara Ryo
1940 Yajikita kaidan dochu The Mysterious Journey from
Yajikita Furuno Eisaku
1940 Rakka no mai Dance of Falling Blossoms Nishihara Takashi
1940 Fuyukihakase no kazoku Dr Fuyaki's Family
1940 Nessa no chikai Oath of Enthusiasm Watanabe Kunin

374
I940 Kinuyo no hatsukoi Kinuyo's First Love Nomura Hiromasa
1940 Kofuku na kazoku A Happy Family Hara Kenkichi
I 940 Nishizumi senshachoden * The Story of Tank-Commander
Nishizumi Yoshimura Kimisaburo
1940 Miyamoto Mushashi Miyamoto Mushashi Inagaki Hiroshi
I 940 Y oku-do banri Thousands of Miles of Good Soil Kurata Bunjin
I940 Bokusekit Trees and Stones Gosha Heinosuke
1940 Keijot Seoul Shimizu Hiroshi
1940 Keshoyukit Keshoyuki Ishida Tamizo
I94I Todake no kyodai* Toda Brother and Sister Ozu Yasujiro
I94I Uma* The Horse Yamamoto Kajiro
I94I Genroku chilshingura* A Tale of Loyal Retainers in the
Genroku Era [Part 1] Mizoguchi Kenji
I94I lira monogatari The Story of Jiro Shima Koji
I94I Kawanakajima kaisen The Battle for Kawanakajima Kinugasa Teinosuke
I94I Shido monogatari A Story of Guidance Tomagaya Hisatura
I94I Togyo Fighting Fish Shimazu Yasujiro
I94I Waga ai no ki The Story of Our Love Toyoda Shiro
I94I Hideko no shasho-san Miss Hideko, Bus Conductor Naruse Mikio
I94I Hachijil-hachinenme no taiyo The Sun of the 88th Year Takizawa Hidezuke
I94I Onna no yado Women's Lodgings Inuzuka Minoru
I94I Magokoro no uta The Song of a True Heart Hijikawa Iseo
I94I Shanghai no tsuki Shanghai Moon Naruse Mikio
I94I Sakura no kuni Cherry-tree Country Shibuya Minoru
1941 Satsuma no misshi The Satsuma Envoy Suganuma Kanji
I 941 M ikaeri no tot Tower of Orphans Shimizu Hiroshi
I 94 I Dong uri to shiinomit Acorns Shimizu Hiroshi
I 94 I Kanzashi Hair-pins Shimizu Hiroshi
I94I Utajo oboegakit Memories of a Female Singer Shimizu Hiroshi
I942 Aru anna One Woman Shibuya Minoru
1942 Genroku chilshingura * A Tale of Loyal Retainers in
the Genroku Era [Part 2] Mizoguchi Kenji
1942 Hawai Maree oki kaisen* The War at Sea off Hawaii and Malaya Yamamoto Kajiro
I942 Yama sando The Way to the Mountain Shima Koji
1942 Aikoku no hana The Blossoms of Patriotism Sasaki Keisuke
I942 Musashibo Benkei Musashibo Benkei Watanabe Kunia
I942 Minami no kaze South Wind Yoshimura Kimisaburo
1943 Chichi ariki* There Was a Father Ozu Yasujiro
1943 Sugata Sanshiro* Sugata Sanshiro Kurosawa Akira
1943 Hana saku minato* The Blossoming Port Kinoshita Keisuke
I943 Muh6-Matsu no issh6 The Life of Matsu the Untamed Inagaki Hiroshi
I943 A hen sensa Opium War Makino Masahiro
I943 Kessen no ozora e Towards the Decisive Battle
in the Sky Watanabe Kunia
I943 Bora no kesshitai Suicide Troops of the Watch-tower lmai Tadashi
1943 Ie ni san nan nijo ari Three Men, Two Women in a House Mizuko Harumi
1943 Kamen no buto Masked Ball Sasaki Keisuke
I943 Sayan no kane The Bell of Sa yon Shimizu Hiroshi
1943 Aiki minami no tabu Flying South in His Plane Sasaki Keisuke
1943 Meijin Choji bori Master Sculptor Choji Higiwara Ryo
I943 Ai no sekai The World of Love Aoyagi Nobue
1943 Heiroku yume monogatari Heiroku's Dream Story Aoyagi Nobue
1943 Kaigun* Navy Tasaka Tomotaka
1943 Hoppa ni kane ga naru Bells Ring in the North Osone Tatsuo
1943 Jingisukan Genghis Khan Matsuda Sadaji
Ushihara Kiyohiko
I943 Jilkei kara kita otoko The Man Who Came From a Great Joy Yamamoto Hiroyuki
1943 Waga ya no kaze The Wind Around Our House Tanaka Shigeo

375
I943 Kekkon meirei Wedding By Command Numaha !sao
1943 Asagiri gunkat War-Song for a Misty Dawn Ishida Tamizo
I944 Jchiban utsukushiku * The Most Beautiful Kurosawa Akira
1944 Kimikoso tsugi no arawashida You'll Be the Next Wild Eagle Sasaki Keisuke
1944 Yasen gungakutai Military Combat Band Makino Masahiro
1944 Tanoshiki kana jinsei What a Beautiful Life Narusc Mikio
1944 Goju no t6 Fifty Pagodas Gosho Hcinosuke
1944 Sanjaku Sagohei Sanjaku Sagohei Ishida Ryozo
I944 Yottsu no kekkon Four Weddings Aoyagi Nobuo
1944 Gekiryu Swift Current Ieki Niyoji
1944 Kakute kamikaze wa juku Thus the Heavenly Wind [kamikaze]
Will Blow Marune Santaro
I944 Kokusai mitsuyu dan International Smugglers' Ring Ito Daisuke
I944 Monpe-san The Woman in Peasant Trousers Tanaka?
1944 Oyako Zakura Zakura Father and Son Koishi Eichi
1944 Miyamoto Musashit Miyamoto Musashi Mizoguchi Kenji
1945 Taro no o o fumu otokotachi* They Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail Kurosawa Akira
1945 Otomo no iru kichi The Girl at the Military Base Sasaki Keisuke
1945 lzu no musume-tachit The Girls of Tzu Gosho Heinosuke

Japan Film Library Council, Tokyo

As of October I973: the films given are most hut not all of the titles not
included in the Film Centre catalogue. The JFLC is a private
organization which channels most of the foreign cultural relations of the
Japanese industry, and also works in close contact with the Film Centre.

I 908 Taiko-kin junanme* Chronicle of Taiko [excerpt] Unknown director

I908 Sendai-Hagi* Sendai-Hagi Unknown director
19I7 Ninin Shizuka* Two People Named Shizuka Ogachi Tadashi
I 920 Shibukawa Bangoro * Shihukawa Bangoro Unknown director
I926 Kurutta ippeiji* Page of Madness Kinugasa Teinosukc
I927 Son-no joi-i* Honour the Emperor,
Expel the Barbarians Ikeda Tomiyasu
1928 Horo Zanmai Vagaband Gambler Inagaki Hiroshi
I 928 litsuroku chushingura* The True Story of the
Loyal Retainers Makino Shozo
I929 Kutsukake Tokigiro Kutsukake Tokigiro Nezu Aru
1933 Taki no shiraito* 'White Threads of the Waterfall' Mizoguchi Kenji

Kyoto Film Library

The titles given are those found, as of October 1973, in neither of the
above archives. All, however, came in fact, from Matsuda Shunji's
remarkable private (rental) archive in Tokyo, which contains several
treasures like the early Makino Chushingura as well as clips from
hundreds of other early films, but whose catalogue I cannQt, for
practical reasons, reproduce here.

I922 Ninin Shizuka* Two People Named Shizuka Obora Gengo

1924 Kunisada Chuji* Kunisada Chuji Makino Shozo
1927 Sunaejubaku* The Curse of the Sand- Picture Kancmori Bansh6
I 928 Benten kozo * Benten Apprentice [excerpt] Kinugasa Tcinosuke
1928 Toribeyama shinju* Double Suicide on Mt Toribe Fuyushima Taizo
1929 Habu no minato* Habu Harbour Nezu Arata
1931 Mabuta no haha* The Mother He Never Knew
[literally, 'The Mother of His Eyelid'] Inagaki Hiroshi
1932 Hototogisu Namiko Namiko, the 'Coocoo' Tanaka Eizu
Publishers' Acknowledgements

For granting permission to reproduce copyright material the publishers are grateful to the following:

Cambridge University Press for Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, and Ihara Saikaku, The
Japanese Family Storehouse; Case Western Reserve University Press for Makoto Ueda, Literary and Art
Theories in Japan; W. Dawson and Sons Ltd for G. B. Sansom, A History of Japan; Dover Publications for
Henry P. Bowie, On the Laws of Japanese Painting, and S. M. Eisenstein, Notes of a Film Director; Johns
Hopkins University Press for Jacques Derrida, De Ia Grammatologie; Alfred A. Knopf Inc. and Michael
Gordon for G. B. Sansom, The Western World and Japan; Lawrence and Wishart Ltd for S.M. Eisenstein,
Notes of a Film Director; Oxford University Press and Alfred A. Knopf Inc. for Ivan Morris, The World of
the Shining Prince; Random House Inc. and Tavistock Publications Ltd for Michel Foucault, The Order of
Things; Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd and Houghton Mifflin Company for Ruth Benedict, The Chrysan-
themum and the Sword; Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd and Wilfrid J. Whitehouse for Ochikubo Monogatari;
Seeker and Warburg Ltd and Oxford University Press, New York, for Earle Ernst, The Kabuki Theatre;
Editions du Seuil for Marcellin Pleynet, Sade lisible; Editions d'Art Albert Skira for Roland Barthes,
L' Empire des signes; Stamford University Press for R. H. Brower and E. Miner, Japanese Court Poetry, and
G. B. Sansom, A History of Japan; University of Chicago Press for Kawai Kazuo, Japan's American
Interlude; Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc. for Heinrich Engel, The Japanese House; University Press of Hawaii for
Nakamura Hajime, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples; Weidenfeld (Publishers) Ltd and Holt, Rinehart
and Winston for W. G. Beasley, The Modern History of Japan; Yale University Press for Karl A. Wittfogel,
Oriental Despotism.

377
Index of Films

Actor's Revenge, An (Yukinojo henge) (Ichikawa), Blaue Engel, Der (Sternberg), 147, 291
288, 289-90 Blood and Soul (Chi to rei) (Mizoguchi), 217
Actress, The (Joyu) (Kinugasa), 139, 282 Boy (Shi5nen) (Oshima), 340, 342
Adauchi senshu (The Champion of Revenge) Brasier Ardent, Le (Mosjoukine), 133
(Uchida), 153 Burden of Life, The (Jinsei no onimotsu) (Gosho),
After Our Separation (Kimi to wakarete) (Naruse), 258-60
186-7, 188 Burmese Harp, The ( Biruma no tategoto) (Ichikawa),
Ai no corrida (Corrida Of Love) (Oshima), 343-4 287-8
Ai no machi (Town of Love) (Tasaka), 161 Bush Warbler, The (Uguisu) (Toyoda), 257
Akaitenshi (Red Angel) (Masumura), 362n2 Bwana Toshi no uta (The Song of Bwana Toshi)
Akahige (Red Beard) (Kurosawa), 32o-r (Hani), 347
Akanashi Kakita (Itami), 192n8 By the Blue Sea (Barnett), 258n7
Akasen chitai (Red Light District/Street of Shame)
(Mizoguchi), 276
Akitsu onsen (Akitsu Spa) (Yoshida), 350
Akitsu Spa (Akitsu onsen) (Yoshida), 350 Cabinet of Dr Caligari, The (Wiene), I 17-18, r26n4,
Alone on the Pacific (Taiheiyo hotoribotchi) 138--9, 145, 217, 338
(Ichikawa), 288, 289 Catch, The (Shiiku) (Oshima), 325, 329-30, 333
Anges du Peche, Les (Bresson), 194 Ceremonies (Gishiki) (Oshima), 342
Argent, L' (L'Herbier), 128, 147 Champion of Revenge, The (Adauchi senshu)
Arsenal (Dovzhenko), 147, 283 (Uchida), 153
Assassinat du Due de Guise, L' (Le Bargy and Chelsea Girls, The (Warhol), 64
Calmettes), 76 Chess Master, The (Osha) (Ito), 275, 282, 286
Asu o tsukuru hitobito (Those Who Make Chi to rei (Blood and Soul) (Mizoguchi), 217
Tomorrow) (Kurosawa), 294 Chichi ariki (There was a Father) (Ozu), 173, 174,
Autumn in the Kobayakawa Family ( Kobayakawa-ke 175, 179-83, 185, 278
no aki) (Ozu), 278 Chien Andalou, Un (Buiiuel), 147
Avenging Ghost of Yukinojo, The (Yukinojo henge) Chienne, La (Renoir), 147
(Ichikawa), 288, 289-90 Chikamatsu Monogatari (A Story by Chikamatsu)
(Mizoguchi), 246, 276
Children in the Wind ( Kaze no naka no kodomo)
Bad Guys Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku (Shimizu), 256
nemuru) (Kurosawa), 318 Children of the Atom Bomb (Genbaku no ko)
Bara no soretsu (Funeral of Roses) (Matsumoto), 356 (Shindo ), 283, 290
Battleship Potemkin, The (Eisenstein), I I5, r26n4, Children of the Bee-hive (Hachi no su no
I45, 213n5, 29I, 293, 299n5,30In8, 330 kodomotachi) (Shimizu), 256
Be Cheerful ( Hogaraka ni susume) (Ozu), I54n r Children of the Great Buddha (Daibutsu-sama no
Beni komori (The Red Bat) (Tanaka), rrr-rr5, rr6, kodomotachi) (Shimizu), 255
132, 15 I, 332 Chorus of Tokyo, The (Tokyo no gassho) (Ozu),
Benten, Apprentice (Benten kozi5) (Kinugasa), r26 153, 155-7
Benten kozo ( Benten, Apprentice) (Kinugasa), r26 Chronicle of Taiko (Taiko junanmi), 8r nzr, 86
Biruma no tategoto (The Burmese Harp) (Ichikawa), Chushingura (A Tale of Loyal Retainers/'The
287-8 Forty-Seven Ronin') (Makino), 8r-2, 84-5
Birth of a Nation (Griffith), 104 Chushingura (Kinugasa), 237
Citizen Kane (Welles), 297 Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi) (Kurosawa), 294,
Cobweb Castle (Kumo-no-sujo) (Kurosawa), 297, 295, 296, 297
299,306n9,308,3ID-I7, 319
Confessions Among Actresses/Confessions, Theories, Early Autumn (Kobayakawa-ke no aki) (Ozu), 278
Actresses ( Kokuhakuteki joyu-ron) (Yoshida), 350 Earth (Dovzhenko), 128, 136, 147
Conflagration (Enjo) (Ichikawa), 288--9, 318 Earth (Tsuchi) (Uchida), 260, 291
Contactos (Viota), r6r Earth and Soldiers (Tsuchi to heitai) (Tasaka), 264,
Corner in Wheat, A (Griffith), 83n26 266-8
Corrida of Love (Ai no corrida) (Oshima), 343-4 Eclisse, L' (Antonioni), r6r, 346
Coup d'Etat ( Kaigenrei) (Yoshida), 350 Elegy of Naniwa, The (Naniwa erej!) (Mizoguchi),
Crab-Canning Ship, The (Kanikosen) (Yamamura), 223, 224
282-3 Embryo Hunts in Secret, The (Taiji ga mitsuryo
Cronaca di un amore (Antonioni), 175, 216, 225 suru toki) (Wakamatsu), 351-2
Crossways (Jujiro) (Kinugasa), 8rn 17, 126n4, 136-8, Enjo (Conflagration) (Ichikawa), 288-9, 318
138n r r Entotsu no mieru basho (Where Chimneys Are Seen)
Crowd, The (Vidor), 154 (Gosha), 286-7
Crows in Moonlight (Tsukiyo karasu) (Inoue), 257 Entree d'un train en gare (Lumiere), 58, 65-6
Cruel Tale of Youth, A (Seishun zankoku Eros Plus Massacre (Eros purass gyakusatsu)
monogotari) (Oshima), 328 (Yoshida), 338, 347, 348-50, 358
Eros purass gyakusatsu (Eros Plus Massacre)
(Yoshida), 338, 347, 348-50, 358
Daibutsu-sama no kodomotachi (Children of the Etsuraku (Pleasure) (Oshima), 330n5
Great Buddha) (Shimizu), 255
Daigaku wa deta keredo (I Graduated, But ... ) Face of Another, The (Tanin no kao) (Teshigahara),
(Ozu), 154n1 348
Daini to ride no hitobito (People of the Second Fallen Blossoms (Hana chirinu) (Ishida), 15, 202-14,
Fortress/Peasants of the Second Fortress) (Ogawa 216, 287
et al.), 358, 361 Family Meeting ( Kazoku kaigi) (Shimazu), 258
Damned, The (Losey), 333 Farrebique (Rouquier), 260, 291
Dancing Girl of lzu, The (lzu no odoriko) (Gosha), Ferme des sept peches, La (Devaivre ), 297
I2I Fires on the Plain ( Nobi) (Ichikawa), 288
Darkness at Noon ( Mahiru no ankoku) (Imai), 283 Five Scouts (Gonin no sekkohei) (Tasaka), r6r,
Dawn (Reimai) (Osanai), 146 264-5
Dawn of the Foundation of Manchukuo and Five Women Around Utamaro (Utamaro o meguro
Mongolia, The (Ma-ma kenkoku no reimei) gonin no anna) (Mizoguchi), 228, 243, 275, 276
(Mizoguchi), 144, 243 Floating Clouds (Ukigumo) (Naruse), 277
Days of Youth (Wakaki hi) (Ozu), 154 Floating Ghost in Broad Daylight (Hakuchu no
Dear Summer Sister (Natsu no imoto) (Oshima), torima) (Oshima), 33o-2, 333, 340
342-3 Floating Weeds (Ukigusa) (Ozu), 277n9
Death by Hanging (Kosheiki) (Oshima), 301n8, Foolish Wives (Stroheim), 97, 107n13
333--9.341.358 Fred Ott's Sneeze (Dickson), 108
Death of a Salesman (Benedek), 130, 13on8 Fraken Julie (Sjoberg), 130
Dekigokoro (Passing Fancy) (Ozu), 155-6, 157-8, Funeral of Roses (Bara no soretsu) (Matsumoto), 356
r8on2r
Demon, The (Shura) (Matsumoto), 356-8 Gate of Hell, The (Jigoku-mon) (Kinugasa), 139, 282
Denen kokyogaku (The Pastoral Symphony) Gattopardo, ll (Visconti), 244
(Yamamoto), 299n6 Genbaku no ko (Children of the Atom Bomb)
Dersu Uzala (Kurosawa), 321n 21 (Shindo), 283, 290
Diary of a Shin juku Thief (Shinjuku dorobO nikki) General Line, The (Eisenstein), u6, 136, 147
(Oshima), 339,340, 341, 347 Genroku chushingura (A Tale of Loyal Retainers in
Docks of New York, The (Sternberg), r88 the Genroku Era) (Mizoguchi), 17,219,221,228,
Dr Mabuse der Spieler (Lang), 97, 136, 156, 194 234. 236-43. 276
Dodeskaden (Kurosawa), 321 Gertrud (Dreyer), 109, r I7, 225n 14
Donzoko (The Lower Depths) (Kurosawa), 200, 283, Ghost of Yukinojo, The (Yukinojo henge)
296, 304, 308-10 (Kinugasa), 139n 13, 289, 289n 19
Double Suicide: Japanese Summer ( Muri shinju: Gion no shimai/kyodai (Sisters ofGion)
Nihon no natsu) (Oshima), 333, 336 (Mizoguchi), 151,219,224,225-30,234,246
Double Suicide on Mt Toribe (Toribeyama shinju) Girl They're Talking About, The (Uwasa no
(Fuyushima), r2r musume) (Naruse), r88n2

379
Gishiki (Ceremonies) (Oshima), 342 I Graduated, But ... (Daigaku wa deta keredo)
Glace a trois faces (Epstein), I47 (Ozu), I54n I
Go, go, You Who Are a Virgin for the Second Time I Live in Fear (!kimono no kiroku) (Kurosawa),
(Yuke yuke hidome no shojo) (Wakamatsu), 352 306-8,3I8
Gonin no sekkohei (Five Scouts) (Tasaka), I6I, I Was Born, But . .. (Umarete wa mita keredo)
264-6 (Ozu), I53, I55-6, IS7
Good Morning (Ohayo) (Ozu), 277n9, 278 Jchiban utsukushiku (The Most Beautiful)
Great Consoler, The (Kuleshov), I47 (Kurosawa), 292-3, 297
Great Train Robbery, The (Porter), 64 Idiot, The (Hakuchi) (Kurosawa), 20I, 299-30I, 306,
Gubijinso (Poppies) (Mizoguchi), 223-4 308
If I had a Million (Lubitsch), I84
Hachi no su no kodomotachi (Children of the !kimono no kiroku (Record of a Living Thing/! Live
Bee-Hive) (Shimizu), 256 in Fear) (Kurosawa), 306-8, JI8
Haha o kowazu ya (A Mother Ought to be Loved) !kuru (Living) (Kurosawa), 296, 297, 299, JOI-6,
(Ozu), I66. r8s 308, 3I9
Hakuchi (The Idiot) (Kurosawa), 20I, 299-30I, 306, Inferno of the First Love, The (Hatsukoi
308 jigoshi-heri), (Hani), 347
Hakuchu no to rima (Floating Ghost in Broad Inn in Tokyo, An (Tokyo no yado) (Ozu), IS, I 53,
Daylight) (Oshima), 33o--2, 333, 340 IS7, I66, I67, 172, I8on2I, I85, I88, 262
Hana chirinu (Fallen Blossoms) (Ishida), IS, 202-14, Intolerance (Griffith), 22, 93, IOo--IOI, 102, 104
2I6, 287 /zu no odoriko (The Dancing Girl of /zu) (Gosho),
Hanagata senshu (A Star Athlete) (Shimizu), 249-55, I2I
256
Hanging, The (Kosheiki) (Oshima), JOinS, 333-9, Japanese Tragedy, The (Nihon no higeki)
34I, 358 (Kinoshita), 283, 285, 290
Hara-kiri (Seppuku) (Kobayashi), 282 Jigoku-mon (The Gate of Hell) (Kinugasa), IJ9, 282
Hataraku ikka (The Whole Family Works) (Naruse), Jinsei no onimotsu (The Burden of Life) (Gosho),
I91, 260 258-60
Hatsukoi jigoshi-heri (The Inferno of the First Love) Jirai-ya (Thunder Boy) (Makino), 85n30
(Hani), 347 Jitsuroku Chiishingura (The True Story of Loyal
Hawai-Marei oki kaisen (War at Sea off Hawaii and Retainers) (Makino), 8sn30, ro8, IIS-I6, II9, 120
Malaya) (Yamamoto), 264n4 Joyu (The Actress) (Kinugasa), I39, 282
He Died After the War (Tokyo sensa senyo hiwa) Joyu Sumako no koi (The Love of Actress Sumako)
(Oshima), 34o--2 (Mizoguchi), 22 I, 243-4
Heart, The ( Kokoro) (Ichikawa), 288 Jiijiro (Crossways) (Kinugasa), 8rni7, 126n4, I36-8,
Heroic Purgatory (Rengoku eroica) (Yoshida), 349 IJ8n I I
Hidden Fortress, The ( Kakushi to ride no san-akunin)
(Kurosawa), 308ni2, JI7-I8
High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku) (Kurosawa), 297, Kagi (The Key) (Ichikawa), 288, 289
304.JI9-20 Kaigenrei (Martial Law/Coup d'Etat) (Yoshida), 350
Hissho ka (Song of Faith in Victory) (Mizoguchi), Kakushi toride no san-akunin (Three Bad Men in a
Hidden Fortress/The Hidden Fortress)
243
Hitori musuko (Only Son) (Ozu), I66, I73, I74. (Kurosawa), 308n I2, 3I7-I8
I75-9. I8on2 I, I84, I85, 277, 293 Kameradschaft (Pabst), I47
Hogaraka ni susume (Be Cheerful) (Ozu), I54n1 Kanikosen (The Crab-Canning Ship) (Yamamura),
Homme du large, L' (L'Herbier), 78, I20n7 282-3
Horse, The (Uma) (Kurosawa and Yamamoto), '<.anojo to kare (She and He) (Hani), 346
29I-2 '<.antsubaki (Winter Camellia(s)) (Inoue), 106-8
Hototogisu Namiko (Namiko, the 'Cuckoo') Kaze no naka no kodomo (Children in the Wind)
(Tanaka), 257 (Shimizu), 256
Human Condition, The (Ningen no joken) Kazoku kaigi (Family Meeting) (Shimazu), 258
(Kobayashi), 283-4, 286, 299 Keisatsukan (Police) (Uchida), I 53
Humanity, Paper Balloons (Ninja kamifusen) Key, The ( Kagi) (Ichikawa), 288, 289
(Yamanaka), I95-7 Kimi to wakarete (After Our Separation) (Naruse),
Hyaku-man ryo no tsubo (The Pot Worth a Million I86-7, I88
Ryo) (Yamanaka), I92-5 Kobayakawa-ke no aki (Autumn in the Kobayakawa
Family/Early Autumn) (Ozu), 278
I Flunked, But ... (Rakudai washita keredo) (Ozu), Kokoro (The Heart) (Ichikawa), 288
I54ni Kokuhakuteki (Confessions Among
 Actresses/Confessions, Theories, Actresses) Minamata: kanjo-san to sono sokai ( Minamata: The
(Yoshida), 350 Victims and Their World) (Tsuchimoto), 362
Kokushi muso (The Unrivalled Hero) (Itami), 153 Minamata Revolt (Minamata ikki) (Tsuchimoto), 362
Kome (Rice) (Imai), 283 Minamata: The Victims and Their World (Minamata:
Kosheiki (The Hanging/Death by Hanging) (Oshima), kanjo-san to sono sokai) (Tsuchimoto ), 362
30In8,333-9,341,358 Moetsukita chizu (The Torn Map/Man Without a
Kuhle Wampe (Brecht), 147 Map) (Teshigahara), 348
Kumo-no-su jo (Cobweb Castle/Throne of Blood) Mort de Marat, La (Lumiere), 75-6
(Kurosawa), 297, 299, 306n9, 308, 310-I7, 319 Most Beautiful, The (lchiban utsukushiku)
Kurutta ippeiji (Page of Madness) (Kinugasa), 105, (Kurosawa), 292-3, 297
r26n4, 127-39,206 Mother (Okasan) (Naruse), 2S9, 277
Kwaidan (Kobayashi), 282 Mother, The (Pudovkin), I30
Mother He Never Knew, The (Mabuta no haha)
Lady and the Beard, The (Shukijyo to hige) (Ozu), (Inagaki), r2o-2r
I 54 Mother Ought to be Loved, A (Haha o kowazu ya)
Lady in the Lake, The (Montgomery), 225 (Ozu), r66, 18s
Letzte Mann, Der (Murnan), 79, 128, ISS Mr Pu (Pu-san) (Ichikawa), 287
Life of a Woman, by Saikaku, The (Saikaku no Muri shinju: Nihon no natsu (Double Suicide:
ichidai onna) (Mizoguchi), 244-s, 276 Japanese Summer) (Oshima), 333, 336
Life of an American Fireman, The (Porter), 64, 64n7
Life of Oharu, The (Saikaku no ichidai onna) Nagaya shinshi roku (Record of a Tenement
(Mizoguchi), 244-s, 276 Gentleman) (Ozu), 278
Little Summer Sister (Natsu no imoto) (Oshima), Naked City, The (Dassin), 29S
342-3 Namiko, the 'Cuckoo' (Hototogisu Namiko)
Living (/kuru) (Kurosawa), 296, 297, 299,301-6, (Tanaka), 257
308,319 Nana (Renoir), 97
Love of Actress Sumako, The (Joyu Sumako no koi) Naniwa ereji (The Elegy of Naniwa) (Mizoguchi),
(Mizoguchi), 221, 243-4 223, 224
Lower Depths, The (Donzoko) (Kurosawa), 200, Naniwa onna (Woman of Naniwa) (Mizoguchi), 243
283,296,304,308-10 Napoleon (Gance), I47
Natsu no imoto (Little Summer Sister/Dear Summer
M (Lang), 104, I47, 291, 301 Sister) (Oshima), 342-3
Mabuta no haha (The Mother He Never Knew) Neighbour's Wife and Mine, The (Madamu to
(Inagaki), 12o-I nyobo) (Gosho), I46, 260
Madamu to nyobO (The Neighbour's Wife and Mine) New Tangesazan, The (Shinpen Tangesazen -Sagan
(Gosho), q6, 260 no maki) (Nakawaga), 2s7-8
Magnificent Seven, The (Sturges), 297n4 New Tales of the Taira Clan (Shin Heike monogotari)
Mahiru no ankoku (Shadows in Sunlight/Darkness at (Mizoguchi), 276
Noon) (Imai), 283 Next of Kin (Dickinson), 264
Ma-mo kenkoku no seimei (The Dawn of the Night and Fog in Japan (Nihon no yoru to kiri)
Foundation of Manchukuo and Mongolia) (Oshima), 32S, 333, 363
(Mizoguchi), 144, 243 Nightly Dreams (Yogoto no yuma) (Naruse), I86--8,
Man with a Movie Camera, The (Vertov), 22, 128, 191
!36, 147' 278 Nihon no higeki (The Japanese Tragedy) (Kinoshita),
Man Without a Map (Moetsukita chizu) 283, 28S, 290
(Teshigahara), 348 Nihon no yoru to kiri (Night and Fog in Japan)
March of Tokyo, The (Tokyo koshin kyoku) (Oshima), 32S, 333, 363
(Mizoguchi), IS3, 217 Nihon shunka-ko (Treatise on Japanese Bawdy
Maria no 0-Yuki (0-Yuki, Alias Maria) Songs) (Oshima), 333
(Mizoguchi), 224 Nijushi no hitomi (Twenty-Four Eyes) (Kinoshita),
Martial Law (Kaigenrei) (Yoshida), 3SO 28S-6
Matatabi (The Wanderers) (Ichikawa), 290 Ningen no joken (The Human Condition)
Matsukashiki fue ya taiko (Those Dear Old Flutes (Kobayashi), 283-4, 286, 299
and Drums) (Kinoshita), 286 Ninin Shizuka (Two People Named Shizuka)
May Day (Iwasaki), 152n3 (Oboro), 78nro
Mediterranee (Pollet), 2os Ninja bugeicho (Tales of the Ninja) (Oshima), 330,
Menilmontant (Kirsanoff), 79, 128, ISS 332-3
Metropolis (Lang), I36 Ninja kamifusen (Humanity, Paper Balloons)
Minamata ikki (Minamata Revolt) (Tsuchimoto), 362 (Y~manaka), I9S-7
Nishizumi senshahachO-den (The Story of Queen Kelly (Stroheim), 14S
Tank-Commander Nishizumi) (Yoshimura), 264n4 Quiet Duel, The (Shizukanara ketto) (Kurosawa),
No Regrets for our Youth (Waga seishun ni kuinashi) 294-s, 296
(Kurosawa), 294, 29S
Nobi (Fires on the Plain) (Ichikawa), 288 Rakudai washita keredo (I Flunked, But . .. ) (Ozu),
Nogiku no gotuku kimi narika (She Was Like a Wild
IS4ni
Chrysanthemum) (Kinoshita), 286 Rashomon (Kurosawa), 282, 296--8, 299, 306n9
Nora inu (Stray Dog) (Kurosawa), 294, 29s, 296, 297 Record of a Living Thing (!kimono no kiroku)
Notte, La (Antonioni), 289, 346--7 (Kurosawa), 306--8, 318
Nuit du Carrefour, La (Renoir), I47 Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Nagaya shinshi
October (Eisenstein), 22, 104, I ISn I I, I47 roku) (Ozu), 278
Ohayo (Good Morning) (Ozu), 277n9, 278 Red Angel (Akaitenshi) (Masumura), 326n2
Red Bat, The (Beni komori) (Tanaka), III-IS, II6,
Okasan (Mother) (Naruse), 2S9, 277
Okasareta byakui (Violated Women in 132, lSI, 332
White/Violated Angels) (Wakamatsu), 3S2-4, 3S8 Red Beard (Akahige) (Kurosawa), 32o-I
Old Songs ( Mukashi no uta) (Ishida), 2I4-I6 Red Light District (Akasen chitai) (Mizoguchi), 276
One Wonderful Sunday (Subarashiki nichiyobi) Reimai (Dawn) (Osanai), 146
Rengoku eroica (Heroic Purgatory) (Yoshida), 349
(Kurosawa), 294, 29S, 297
Only Son (Hitori musuko) (Ozu), I66, I73, I74, Rescued from an Eagle's Nest (Porter), 8s
Rice (Kame) (Imai), 283
I7S-9, I8on2I, I84, I8S, 277, 293
Or des mers, L' (Epstein), I47 Rojo no reikon (Souls on the Road) (Murata and
Orizuru 0-Sen (0-Sen of the Paper Cranes) Osanai), I00-!07, 107n IS, 146
(Mizoguchi), IOS, 2I8-23, 224, 230n IS Rope (Hitchcock), 22S, 3I9
Osaka natsu no jin (The Summer Battle of Osaka) Roue, La (Gance), 126n4
(Kinugasa), 139
0-Sen of the Paper Cranes (Orizuru 0-Sen) Saikaku no ichidai anna (The Life of a Woman, by
(Mizoguchi), IOS, 2I8-23, 224, 230n IS Saikaku/The Life of Oharu) (Mizoguchi), 244-s,
Osha (The Chess Master) (Ito), 27S, 282, 286 276
Otoshiana (Pitfall) (Teshigahara), 347 Sang d'un poete, Le (Cocteau), 147
Our Neighbour Miss Yae (Tonari no Yae-chan) Sanjuro of the Camellias/Sanjuro) (Tsubaki Sanjuro)
(Simazu), 2S8 (Kurosawa), 308nr2, 318,332
Outrage, The (Ritt), 297 Sanriziku no natsu (Summer in Sanriziku/Summer at
0- Yuki, Alias Maria (Maria no 0- Yuki) Narita) (Ogawa et al), 36o-I
(Mizoguchi), 224 Sansho daiyii (Sansho the Bailiff) (Mizoguchi), 246
Scandal (Shubun) (Kurosawa), 294
Page of Madness (Kurutta ippeiji) (Kinugasa), IDS, Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai)
126n4, 127-39, 206 (Kurosawa), 306n9
Pandemonium (Shura) (Matsumoto), 3S6--8 Secret Story of the Post-'Tokyo War' Period (Tokyo
Partisan jenchi (Pre-history of Partisans) sensa senyo hiwa) (Oshima), 34o-2
(Tsuchimoto), 36I Seishun zankoku (A Cruel Tale of Youth) (Oshima),
Passing Fancy (Dekigokoro) (Ozu), rss-6, IS7-8, 328
I80n2I Seppuku (Hara-kiri) (Kobayashi), 282
Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, La (Dreyer), 104, I47, 29I Seven Samurai, The (Shichinin no samurai)
Pastorae Symphony, The (Denen kokyogaku) (Kurosawa), 306n9
(Yamamoto), 299n6 Sexjack (Wakamatsu), 3S2n I2
Peasants of the Second Fortress/People of the Second Shadows in Sunlight ( Mahiru no ankoku) (Imai), 283
Fortress ( Daini to ride no hitobito) (Ogawa et al), Shakujyo wa nani o wasureta ka (What Did the Lady
3S8,36I Forget?) (Ozu), I79, I8o
Pickup on South Street (Fuller), 246 Shanghai Report (Shanghai rikusentai) (Tomagaya),
Pitfall (Otoshiana) (Teshigahara), 347 264n4
Pleasure (Etsuraku) (Oshima), 33ons Shanghai rikusentai (Shanghai Report) (Tomagaya),
Police ( Keisatsukan) (Uchida), IS3 264n4
Poppies (Gubijinso) (Mizoguchi), 223-4 She and He ( Kanojo to kare) (Hani), 346
Pot Worth a Million Ryo, The (Hyaku-man ryo no She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum (Nogiku no
tsubo) (Yamanaka), I92-S gotoku kimi narika) (Kinoshita), 286
Pre-history of Partisans (Partisan jenchi) Shiiku (The Catch) (Oshima), 32S, 329-30, 333
(Tsuchimoto), 361 Shin Heike monogatari (New Tales of the Taira Clan)
Pu-san (Mr Pu) (Ichikawa), 287 (Mizoguchi), 276
Shinjuku dorobo nikki (Diary of a Shin juku Thief) Taiko junanmi (Chronicle of Taiko), 8rn 21, 86
(Oshima), 339, 340, 341, 347 Taiyo no nai machi (The Sunless Street)
Shinku chitai (Vacuum Zone) (Yamamoto), 283 (Yamamoto), 283
Shinpen Tangesazen- Sagan no maki (The New Taki no shiraito (White Threads of the Waterfall)
Tangesazen) (Nakagawa), 257-8 (Mizoguchi), 217-18, 221, 130n 15
Shirasagi (The White Heron) (Kinugasa), 282 Tale of Late Chrysanthemums (Zangiku Monogatari)
Shr5nen (Boy) (Oshima), 340, 342 (Mizoguchi), 17, 84n, 27, rsr, 219,224,225,228,
Shizukanara ketto (The Quiet Duel) (Kurosawa), 2Jo-6, 244,245,276
294-5, 296 Tale of Loyal Retainers in the Cenroku Era, A
Shubun (Scandal) (Kurosawa), 294 (Cenroku chushingura) (Mizoguchi), 17,219,221,
Shukijyo to hige (The Lady and the Beard) (Ozu), 228, 234, 236--43, 276
154 Tales of the Ninja (Ninja bugeicho) (Oshima), 330,
Shura (Pandemonium/The Demon) (Matsumoto), 332-3
356--8 Tanin no kao (The Face of Another) (Teshigahara),
Signora senza camelia, La (Antonioni), 216 348
Simple histoire, Une (Hanoun), 301n8 Tengoku to jigoku (High and Low) (Kurosawa), 297,
Sisters of Cion (Cion no shimai/kyodai) 304,31')-20
(Mizoguchi), 151, 219, 224, 225-30, 234, 246 Testament von Doktor Mabuse, Das (Lang), 147, 291
So no go hachi no su kodomotachi (Shimizu), 256 That Night's Wife (Sana yo no tsuma) (Ozu), 153,
Song of Bwana Toshi, The ( Bwana Toshi no uta) 154---{i, rs8, r62-J, r8s
(Hani), 347 There was a Father (Chichi ariki) (Ozu), 173,
Song of Faith in Victory (Hissho ka) (Mizoguchi), 174,175, 179-83, 185, 278
243 They Live By Night (Ray), 194
Sono yo no tsuma (That Night's Wife) (Ozu), 153, They Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (Tara no o o
154-6, rs8, r62-J, 185 fumu otokotachi) (Kurosawa), 293
Souls on the Road (Rojo no reikon) (Murata and Those Dear Old Flutes and Drums ( Matsukashiki fue
Osanai), IOD--107, 107n 15, 146 ya taiko) (Kinoshita), 286
Spione (Lang), 128, 147, 154 Those Who Make Tomorrow (Asu o tsukuru
Star Athlete, A (Hanagata senshu) (Shimizu), 249-55, hitobito) (Kurosawa), 294
256 Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress (Kakushi toride
Story by Chikamatsu, A (Chikamatsu monogatari) no san-akunin) (Kurosawa), 308n2, 317-18
(Mizoguchi), 246, 276 Throne of Blood ( Kumo-no-su jo) (Kurosawa), 297,
Story of Floating Weeds, A (Ukigusa monogatari) 299, 306n9, J08,J1D--I7, 319
(Ozu), 157-8, r66, r66n r6, 170, 172, 174, 185, Thunder Boy (Jirai-ya) (Makino), 85n30
229, 260, 277 Tochuken Kumoenen (Naruse), 191
Story of Tank-Commander Nishizumin, The Toda Brother and Sister (Todake no kyodai) (Ozu),
(Nishizumi senshahachr5-den) (Yoshimura), 264n4 16')-70, 173, 174, 17')-80, r8s
Stray Dog (Nora inu) (Kurosawa), 294, 295, 296, 297 Todake no kyodai (Toda Brother and Sister) (Ozu),
Street of Shame (Akasen chitai) (Mizoguchi), 276 169-70, 173, 174, 179-So, 185
Strike (Eisenstein), 22, 104, 104n5, 278 Tokyo Drifter, The (Tokyo nagaremono) (Suzuki),
Subarashiki nichiyobi (One Wonderful Sunday) 362-3
(Kurosawa), 294, 295, 297 Tokyo koshin kyoku (The March of Tokyo/Tokyo
Sugata Sanshiro (Kurosawa), 292 March) (Mizoguchi), 153, 217
Summer at Narita (Sanriziku no natsu) (Ogawa et al), Tokyo nagaremono (The Tokyo Drifter) (Suzuki),
36o--1 362-3;
Summer Battle of Osaka, The (Osaka natsu no jin) Tokyo no gasshr5 (The Chorus of Tokyo) (Ozu),
(Kinugasa), 139 rss-7
Summer in Sanriziku (Sanriziku no natsu) (Ogawa et Tokyo no anna (Woman (Women) of Tokyo) (Ozu),
al), 36o--1 rs8-6o, r62-72, 173, 176, r84, r8s
Suna no anna (Woman of the Dunes) (Teshigahara), Tokyo no yado (An Inn in Tokyo) (Ozu), 15, 153,
347-8 157, r66, r67, 172, r8on2r, r8s, r88, 262
Sunless Street, The (Taiyo no nai machi)
Tokyo Olympiad (Tokyo Orympic) (Ichikawa), 290,
(Yamamoto), 283
332
Sword of Penitence (Zange no yaiba) (Ozu), 154
Tokyo sensa senyo hiwa (Secret Story of the
Taiheyo hotoribotchi (Alone on the Pacific) Post-'Tokyo War' Period/He Died After the War)
(Ichikawa), 288, 289 (Oshima), 34o--2
Taiji ga mitsuryo suru toki (The Embryo Hunts in Tonari no Yae-chan -(Our Neighbour Miss Yae)
Secret) (Wakamatsu), 351-2 (Shimazu), 258
Tara no o o fumu otokotachi (They Who Tread on Waga seishun ni kuinashi (No Regrets for Our
the Tiger's Tail) (Kurosawa), 293 Youth) (Kurosawa), 294, 295
Tara! Tara! Tara! (Fleischer), 321 Wakaki hi (Days of Youth) (Ozu), I 54
Toribeyama shinju (Double Suicide on Mt Toribe) Wanderers, The (Matatabi) (Ichikawa), 290
(Fuyushima), I21 War at Sea off Hawaii and Malaya, The
Tom Map, The (Moetsukita chizu) (Teshigahara), (Hawai-Marei oki kaisen) (Yamamoto), 264n4
348 Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (Bad Guys Sleep
Town of Love (Ai no machi) (Tasaka), I6I Well) (Kurosawa), 318
Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs (Nihon Wavelength (Snow), 19, 35I
shunka-ko) (Oshima), 333 Westfront I9I8 (Pabst), I47, 264
Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch), 79-80 What Did the Lady Forget? (Shakujyo wa nani o
True Story of Loyal Retainers, The (Jitsuroku wasureta ka) (Ozu), I79, I8o
chil.shingura) (Makino), 85n30, I08, I I5-I6, I I9, Where Chimneys Are Seen ( Entotsu no mieru basho)
I20 (Gosho), 286-7
Tsubaki Sanjuro (Sanjuro of the Camellias/Sanjuro) White Heron, The (Shirasagi) (Kinugasa), 282
(Kurosawa), 308n I2, 3I8, 332 White Threads of the Waterfall (Taki no shiraito)
Tsuchi (Earth) (Uchida), 260, 29I (Mizoguchi), 2I?-I8, 22I, 230ni5
Tsuchi to heitai (Earth and Soldiers) (Tasaka), 264, Whole Family Works, The (Hataraku ikka) (Naruse),
266-8 I9I, 260
Tsukyokarasu (Crows in Moonlight) (Inoue), 257 Wife, Be Like a Rose (Tsuma yo bara no yo ni)
Tsuma yo bara no yo ni (Wife, Be Like a Rose) (Naruse), I8!H)I
(Naruse), I8!H)I Wind, The (Sjostrom), 128, I29-30
Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro (Tsuruhachi and Tsurujiro) Winter Camellia(s) ( Kantsubaki) (Inoue), 106-8
(Naruse), I9I Woman in Question, The (Asquith), 297
Twenty-Four Eyes (Nijushi no hitomi) (Kinoshita), Woman of Naniwa (Naniwa anna) (Mizoguchi), 243
285-6 Woman of the Dunes (Suna no anna)
Two People Named Shizuka (Ninin Shizuka) (Teshigahara), 347-8
(Oboro), 78n ro Woman (Women) OfYokyo (Tokyo no anna)
(Ozu), I58-60, I62-72, I73, I76, I84, I85
Women of the Night (Yoru no onnotachi)
Ueberfall (Metzner), 79, 128
(Mizoguchi), 276
Uguisu (The Bush Warbler) (Toyoda), 257
Ukigumo (Floating Clouds) (Naruse), 277
Yogoto no yuma (Nightly Dreams) (Naruse), I86-8,
Ukigusa (Floating Weeds) (Ozu), 277n9
Ukigusa monogatari (A Story of Floating Weeds) I9I
Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel) (Kurosawa), 294,
(Ozu), I57-8, I66, I66ni6, 170, I72, I74, I85,
229, 200, 277 295, 296, 297
Uma (The Horse) (Kurosawa and Yamamoto), Yojimbo (Kurosawa), 297n4, 3I8-I9
29I-2 Yoru no onnotachi (Women of the Night)
Umarete wa mita keredo (I Was Born, But . .. ) (Mizoguchi), 276
Yuke yuke nidome no shojo (Go, Go, You Who Are
(Ozu), I53, I55-6, I57
a Virgin for the Second Time) (Wakamatsu), 352
Unrivalled Hero, The ( Kokushi muso) (Itami), I 53
Yukinojo henge (The Avenging Ghost of
Utamaro o meguro gonin no onna (Five Women
Yukinojo/An Actor's Revenge) (Ichikawa), 288,
Around Utamaro) (Mizoguchi), 228, 243, 275, 276
289-90
Uwasa no musume (The Girl They're Talking About)
Yukinojo henge (The Ghost ofYukinojo)
(Naruse), I88n2
(Kinugasa), 139n 13, 289, 289n I9

Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, Les (Tati), 225 Zange no yaiba (Sword of Penitence) (Ozu), I 54
Vacuum Zone (Shinku chitai) (Yamamoto), 283 Zangiku Monogatari (Tale of Late Chrysanthemums)
Vampyr (Dreyer), II5, I45, I47, 223n8, 3I6ni5 (Mizoguchi), I?, 84n27, I5I, 2I9, 224,225,228,
Variety (Dupont), I94 23o-6,244, 245,276
Violated Women in White/Violated Angels Zoku Sugata Sanshiro (Sequel to Sugata Sanshiro)
(Okasareta byakui) (Wakamatsu), 352-4, 358 (Kurosawa), 292ni
Index of Names

l\dachi11asao,352,352ni2 Devaivre, Jean, 297

l\dair, John, I6Inro Dickens, Charles, II3, 2I9n5, 249n5
l\kutagawa Ryunosuke, 297 Dickinson, Thorold, 264
l\nderson, Joseph L., II, sSni; and Richie, Donald: Dickson, W. K. L., 6I, 62, IOS
The Japanese Film, see under Richie, Donald Dostoevsky, Feodor, 299-30I
l\ntonioni, 11ichelangelo, I6I, I75ni9, 2I6, 2S9, Dovzhenko, l\lexander, 125, I2S, I32, I47
34~7 Drexler, l\rthur, I I9
l\riwara Harihira, 49-50 Dreyer, Carl, !04, !09, IIS, II?, I23, I45, I47,
l\squith, l\nthony, 297 I5Sn4, 223nS, 225ni4, 29I,3I6ni5
Dulac, Germaine, I45
Babel, Isaac, 26S Dupont, E. l\., I94
Bando Tsumasuboro, 2S2
Barker, Will C., 64, 93 Edison, Thomas l\lva, sS, 6I-3, 66, I45
Barnett, Boris, I47, 25Sn7 Eisenstein, Sergei 11., II, 52, So, ID4n5, IIS, II6,
Barthes, Roland, I3-I4, I6, 26, 30, 72-3, 77--8, 99, r26, 147, 213n5, 225, 27S, 29I, 293, 299, 299n5,
I07-S, I6Ini2, I72niS,342,343ni7 339
Bazin, l\ndre 225ni3 Engel, Heinrich, 198-200
Beasley, W. G., 2Sn4, 30n ro, I4I-2 Engels, Friedrich, 2SI
Bene, Carmelo, 32S Epstein, Jean, rrs, I24, I45, 147
Benedeck, Lazslo, I30 Ernst, Earle, 25--6, 32, 59--60, 6Sn4, 70n6, S3,
Benedict, Ruth, 263, 264 S5n29, I24, 274n7
Bismarck, Prince Otto von, 29n9
Blanchot, 11aurice, 342 Fellini, Federico, I9
Blasetti, l\lessandro, I43 Feuillade, Louis, 57-S, 76, SI
Bowie, Henry P., I94 Feydeau, Georges, 6S
Brecht, Bertolt, rr, !7, I9, 70n6, 73, I26, I47, 290, Florey, Robert, 139
30S,32I,334,339,356 Freud, Sigmund, 1 rrn5
Bresson, Robert, I52, IS3, I94 Fuller, Samuel, 246
Brower, Robert H. and 11iner, Earl, 46--8, I6on7 Futagawa 11ontabe, S3, II9
Buftuel, Luis, I47 Fuyushima Taizo, I2I

Callenbach, Ernest, ISon2I Gammon, Frank R., 61, 62

Camerini, 11ario, I43 Gance, l\bel, IIS, I24, I45, I47
Camus, l\lbert, 356 Godard, Jean-Luc, 19, 66, I09, II?, ISSn4, 32S, 33S,
Chikamatsu 11onzaemon, I2-I3, 69, 72n9, 25S, 260 339,354ni5,36I
Clair, Rene, I92 Gorki, 11axim, IOI, 30S
Cocteau, Jean, I47 Gosho Heinosuke, I2I, I46, I4S, I52, IS6-7, 25S-6o
Granet, 11arcel, I 2
Dassin, Jules, 295 Griffith, D. W., 20, 22, 62n3, 63-7 passim, 76, So,
de 11aupassant, Guy, 224 SI, S3n26, 94,97, I02, 104,114,156,204,226
De 11ille, Cecil B., 64, 93, I I3
de Sade, Comte D. l\. F., 353 Hamamura Yoshiyama, I59
Demeny, Georges, 62n3 Hani Susumi, I43n4, 34~7
Derrida, Jacques, 37-40, 40n I2 Hanoun, 11arcel, 30inS
Hayakawa Sessue, 93 Lubitsch, Ernst, 79-80, 129, 155, 184
Hayazaka Fumio, 246 Lumiere, Auguste, 61-3, 64, 65--6, 75--6
Hiroshige And6, 91-2, 274 Lumiere, Louis, 58, 61-3, 64, 65--6, 75--6
Hitchcock, Alfred, 225
Hitomaro Kakinomoto, 44-7, 247 McLuhan, Marshall, 261
Hokusai Katsushika, 91, 258, 274 Makino Shozo, 57, 81-2, 82n23, 83, 84-5, 85n3o,
H6nzl, Jindrich, 336--8 108, IIS-!6, II9, 120
Marey, Jules-Etienne, 61, 62n3
Marx, Karl, 28
Ibsen, Henrik, 68
Masumura Yasuzo, 326n2
Ichikawa Kon, 202, 287--90, 318
Matsuda Shunji, rs, III
Ihara Saikaku, 53, 72, 247--9, 251, 258
Matsumoto Toshio, 340, 356--60
Ikkyu0sh6, 330,330n7
Matsunosuke, see Onoue
Imai Tadashi, 152n2, 283
Mayer, Carl, 124
Imamura Taihei, 279-81
Melies, Georges, 6r, 62, 76
Inagaki Hiroshi, 105n9, 12(}--21, 192-8
Metz, Christian, 64n5, 104n5, 313n 14
Ince, Thomas, 64, 93
Michelson, Annette, 225
Inoue Kintaro, 148, 257
Mifune Toshiro, 282, 294-5, 295n2, 296, 306
Inoue Masao, 106
Mill, J. S., 32, 328
Ishida Tamizo, 15-I6, 17, 143, 198, 200, 202-16, 287
Miner, Earl see Brower Robert H. and Miner, Earl
ltami Mansaku, 153, 192n8, 26on8
Mishima Yukio, 237n21, 288
Ito Daisuke, rro-rr, 114, liS, II6, 132,275,282,
Mizoguchi Kenji, 15, r6n ro, r6--17, 66, 83, 84n27,
297,332
105, II9, 123, 143-4, 144n6, 146--7, 148, 151, 152,
Iwamoto Kenji, 8o, 83n24, 98n8
153, 173, r8s, 193, 198, 200, 214n6, 217-46, 255,
Iwasaki Akira, 105n8, 152n3, 153, 23o-I
258,259,262,275--6,278,289,329,330
Izumi Kyoka, 218
Mizutani Yaeko, 107
Morimoto Kaoru, 202
Kafka, Franz, 59 Morita Kanya, 59
Karasawa Hiromitsu, 110 Morris, Ivan, 42n r, 43n2, 51-2
Kato Shuichi, 33-4 Mosjoukine, Ivan, I 15, 133
Katumoto Seiitiro, 148---9 Murasaki Shikibu, 43
Kawabata Yasunari, 126n5, 127-8 Murata Minoru, roo-101, 105, 146
Kawai Kazuo, 271-2 Murnau, F. W., 123, 129, 155
Kawakami Otojiro, 59--60 Muybridge, Eadweard, 61
Keene, Donald, 72n9, 96n6
Kinoshita Keisuke, 283, 285--6, 326 Nakagawa Nobuo, 257-8
Kino Tsurayaki, 12 Nakamura Hajime, 12, 12n3, 91, 263
Kinugasa Teinosuke, r6n10, 8rnJ7, 105,119, Naruse Mikio, 66, 143, 146, r6o, r6r, 186---<)2, 259,
126--39,237,282,291,329,349 260,275-7
Kirsanoff, Dimitri, 79, liS, 130 Natsume Soseki, 288
Kishida Kunio, 145--6 Needham, Joseph, 12, 40
Kita Ikki, 350
Kobayashi Masaki, 282, 283-4, 299 Oboro Gengo, 78n ro
Karin Ogata, 33, 148 Ogawa Shinsuke, 36o-r, 362
Kotani, Henry, 94 Onoue Matsunosuke, 57, 84
Kren, Kurt, 63, 205 Ophuls, Max, 184, 225
Kristeva, Julia, 12 Osanai Kaoru, IOO-IOI, 105, 145-6
Kubelka, Peter, 63 Oshima Nagisa, 284, 301n8, 318, 321, 322,325-44,
Kuleshov, Lev, 147 346,347,350,351
Kurosawa Akira, r6n 10, 120, 200, 201, 206, 255, Ozu Yasujiro, 15, r6n 10, 16--17, 66, 83, 109, 1 r8,
262,282,283,286,290,291-321,358 123, 143-4, 146--7, 148, 151, 152, 153, 154-85, !87,
r88, 19o-1, 194, 198, 2oo-or, 214, 229, 246, 255,
Lang, Fritz, 104, 145, 147, 156, 194,206,214,291, 258,259,260, 26!, 262,275--6,277-81,293,298,
299, 301 329
Laughton, Charles, 184
Leni, Paul, 129, 155 Pabst, Georg Wilhelm, 147
Leyda, Jay, 26--7 Panofsky, Erwin, 273
L'Herbier, Marcel, 78, liS, 124, 128, 145, 147, 191 Picon, Gaetan, 124, 127
Losey, Joseph, 333 Pollet, Jean-Daniel, 205
Porter, WilliamS., 64-5, 66, 85 Takagi Ryutaro, 36I-2
Pudovkin, Vsevolod, 115, I29, 130,347 Takahachi Kohachiro, 30
Tanaka Eizo, 257
Raff, Norman, 61, 62 Tanaka Junichiro, II, Son IS
Ray, Man, 124 Tanaka Tsuruhiko, I I I-IS, I32, ISI
Ray, Nicholas, 194 Tanizaki Junchiro, 289
Renoir, Jean, I47, I92-3 Tasaka Tomotaka, I6I, 264-8
Ricardou, Jean, 358 Tati, Jacques, 249
Richie, Donald, 8onr5, 83n24, I92n7; and Tatlin, Vladimir, I2S
Anderson, Joseph: The Japanese Film, I I, 57n I, Tchekov, Anton, 202, 203
66n9, 67n2,77n4, 79ni2, 8oni5, 8I, 8Ini8-2o, Teshigahara Hiroshi, 346, 347-8
96n4, I06, ID7n I5, 153, I88n2, 224n IO, 307 Tessier, Max, I I
Richter, Hans, I24 Toki Zemmaro, I3
Ritt, Martin, 297 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 25
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, 249, 30I Tokutomi Soho, 32
Robida, Michel, 59n2 Tomagaya Hisatura, 264n4
Robison, Arthur, I24 Toyoda Shiro, I48, 257
Rouch, Jean, 36I Tsuchimoto Noriate, 36I-2
Rouquier, Georges, 29I
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 32, 38, 39, 328 Uchida Kisao, ISO
Ryu Chishu, I8o Uchida Tomu, IS3, IS3ns, 260, 291
Ueda Makoto, I3n4, 52, 98n9, r83-4
Sadoul, Georges, 63. 307-8
Saikaku, see Ihara
Verne, Jules, s9n2
Sakamoto Takeshi, I57. I67
Vertov, Dziga, 123, I2S, 128, 132, I47, 278
Sansom, G. B., 29-30, 35, 4D-I, 59n2, 273
Vigo, Jean, 124n2, I47
Sargent, G. W., 248, 251 Viota, Paulino, I6I
Sato Kei, 33I Visconti, Luchino, 225, 244
Sato Tadao, 8on16, 84n28, III, I58n3, 159- I6o, Volkoff, Alexandre, r IS
I73, I74, r8on2o, 183 Vos, Frits, 49-50
Saussure, Ferdinand, I8, 39-40, 40n I2
Schrader, Paul, I6In I2
Shakespeare, William 3In I2, I48, 310 Wakamatsu Koji, 332, 340, 3SI-4
Shaw, George Bernard, 68 Warhol, Andy, 63, 66, 109, I I7
Shiba Kokan, 273-4 Welles, Orson, 225, 289, 297
Shimazu Yasujiro, I48, 152, 258. 259 Wiene, Robert, 124
Shimizu, Hiroshi, 17, 66, I23, I43, 148, I52. 160, Wittfogel, K. A., 28-9
Worth, Sol, r6rn10
I6I, I93, 247-56, 258
Shimura Takashi, 295n5 Wyler, William, 22S, 244, 276
Shindo Kaneto, 283
Sieffert, Rene, I3 Yamada lsuzu, 218, 226
Sjoberg, Alf, I29 Yamamoto Kajiro, 262, 264n4, 29I
Sjostrom, Victor, 123, I2()-30 Yamamoto Satsuo, I52n2, 283, 299n6
Smiles, Samuel, 59n2 Yamanaka Sadao, 143, 186, 192-7. 26on8, 263
Snow, Michael, I9, I09, 117, 35I Yamamura So, 282-3
Sollers, Philippe, I2 Yoshida Shain, 330-31, 340
Sotatsu, Nonomura, 33, 148 Yoshida Tieo, nn4, 96ns, IIIn3
Spencer, Herbert, 32 Yoshida Yoshishige, 201.288,338,346,347, 348-5I
Sternberg, Joseph von, I47. I88, 225. 29I Yoshimoto Nijo, 52
Straub, Jean-Marie, 328, 338 Yoshimura Kimisaburo, 264n4
Stroheim, Erich von, 145
Suzuki Seijun, 332, 362-3 Zeami, Motokiyo, 12, 126n6, I48
The cinema of Japan, at least until 1945, was the only
national cinema to derive fundamentally from a
non-European culture. Its films thus diverged in
important respects from the standard 'Hollywood style'
of shooting and editing adopted by the industries of
Europe and the US, as well as by colonialized nations. In
this unprecedented study, Noel Burch confronts the
major modes of discourse of Japanese culture with the
stylistic development of Japanese cinema, and contrasts
the resulting modes of representation with those of the
West. Contrary to previous opinion, Burch shows how
the period 1896-1930 was not one of stagnation and
'underdevelopment' but instead constituted a
preparatory stage for the 1930-1945 'golden age' of
Japanese cinema, during which Ozu, Mizoguchi, and
other less well-known masters produced their most
distinguished films. Burch also concludes that prewar
militarism was relatively uninfluential on the work of the
'thirties and he views the post-1945 period of
'democratization' as one of regression in cinema,
particularly in the works of Ozu and Mizoguchi. Treating
many examples with the aid of frame enlargements,
Burch illuminates previously unknown aspects of
Japanese film history. And his dialectical analysis
produces a new understanding of the elements of film
structure.

Noel Burch leaches film-making and film theory in Paris.

He is the author of Theory of Film Practice and of a
study of Marcel L'Herbier.

ISBN 0-520-03877-0