Nihon eiga

日 本 映 画

01

NIHON EIGA

A MONTHLY REVIEW OF JAPANESE CINEMA November 2013

This is a project I submitted in November 2013 to accompany my final year dissertation, whilst studying BA Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins. I decided to take this opportunity to explore two passions: Japan and cinema. I chose the history and visual arts of my country as a subject because they have always been relatively unknown to me, and this project provided an excellent chance to explore my cultural inheritance. I decided to approach this through the context of film; a medium that I believe is unique in its ability to convey and evoke emotion by reflecting a familiar reality through an artificial eye.

Throughout this project, I learnt how cinema played a role in the formation of the image of Japan and its people. It came to bear more personal meaning than a simple academic excercise of history and context. It became a discovery of self. Having been born in Japan but brought up within British and French cultures, I have often questioned what it truly meant to be Japanese.This dissertation is part of this journey of self-discovery through culture and cinema.

November 2013 Tohko Kanzaki 神崎瞳子

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

OZU

MIZOGUCHI

KUROSAWA

8

12

16

5

黒 澤 溝 口 小 津

BIBLIOGRAPHY

OSHIMA

IMAMURA

TESHIHAGARA

22

24

26

CONCLUSION

勅 使 河 原

28 29

今 村 大 島

FINDING JAPAN: THE CREATION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY 日本の発見 THROUGH CINEMA 映画を通して見る国民性 1950s–1960s 1950〜1960年代 The question of national identity becomes prominent when a country experiences a period of political upheaval.

The state would be in a position to reconfigure its foreign relations, diplomatic standings and domestic policies. On a societal level, it would perhaps provoke a re-examination of morals and values, a political disillusionment, a nostalgia for old tradition in order to assert oneself as an inhabitant of a once stable nation. All of the above happened in Japan in the wake of World War II. The search for identity has been constant throughout Japanese history. As a small, dependent archipelago lying on the edge of the Chinese cultural sphere, it has had to assert itself as a power with a distinct presence in its own right (Shin’ichi, 1998). The trauma of World War II and the subsequent American Occupation were catalysts for unprecedented transformation in Japan; the nation built itself from razed ground to international superpower in little over a decade. It is the pivotal changes; the end of the Occupation, the renouncement of the right to militarise, the student revolts, the reconstruction boom and economic recovery, that make Japan in the 1950’s – 60’s of specific interest.

The subject of national identity provides potential for discourse because of its constant flux; it does not seek to be defined, but constructed through synthesising influences and addressing new realities (Ibid.). The medium of film becomes relevant in this context because it is an example of Japan’s ability to assimilate foreign invention and transform it into something unique.

The study will be separated into two sections. In the first, we will explore the “Golden Age” of Japanese cinema during the 1950’s through three of its greatest directors. Firstly Yasujiro Ozu, who observed the daily lives of the Japanese family. Then Kenji Mizoguchi, whose films explored the role of women in Japanese society. Lastly we will discuss Akira Kurosawa, who expressed social criticism through historical samurai films.

We shall analyse the films of the 1960’s, which was marked by the advent of the Japanese New Wave. We shall study Imamura, who captured raw reality through documentary, Teshihagara, whose works were highly modernist and experimental, and Oshima, who portrayed sex, violence and rebellious youth. Whilst directors of the Golden Age still retained a deep sense of traditionalism, filmmakers of the 1960’s believed that they needed to cut ties with the past in order to define Japan in the present.

The Golden Age

小津

OZU

F

Yasujiro Ozu,

the identity of Japan is synonymous with that of the family. Regarded as “the most Japanese of Japanese directors”, Ozu’s approach to cinema is like that of all Japanese traditional arts: with simplicity and precision. It was in the portrayal of mundane life that he identified what it meant to be Japanese. Taking family as a basis, he then went on to capture how it was affected by social changes of the time.

Ozu’s films embody Japanese identity through the traditional virtues of restraint, simplicity and serenity. He conveys these ideals through the performance of his actors, which is typically restrained, reflecting the more subdued nature of the Japanese.

Ozu said of his last film, An Autumn Afternoon, that: “Moments of joy and sorrow are times when we keep our emotions to ourselves. I minimise acting in my films because life is like this.”

(Schrader, 1962, p.249). This mimesis indicates his realist style; by stripping down all melodrama and the intricacies of plot, he depicts something as close to reality as possible, a simple purity whilst maintaining a distinct form of presentation.

The elimination of acting encourages the audience to observe the structure of the shot and its meticulous composition. We see patterns and repetition; a door sliding open to reveal a room, and beyond that a kitchen. The perpendicular lines of the paper panelled shoji, the borders of the tatami, the frame of the door.

This is the quintessence of Japan on film: apparently simple, yet with minute precision and structure. Richie notes that Ozu’s modernist-inspired formalism was intrinsic to a traditional Japanese view of the arts: that it was best to command a limited field, but to command it in its entirety. Thus the haiku poet, the tea master and the priest dealt with arts of apparent simplicity

or

but with absolute skill (Richie, 2001, p.123). It is this immaculate awareness of space and formal presentation that is uniquely Japanese in Ozu’s work.

The director is notorious for dismissing any use of plot within his films, instead portraying “the cycle of life” (rinne) (Schrader, unpublished ms.,1972). Late Spring (1949) and An Autumn Afternoon (1962) are examples where Ozu develops on variations of the same story. The narrative is simple; a father who lives with his daughter and arranges for her to get married. The father represents the traditional, embodying the virtues of restraint and serenity, and the daughter represents the modern. Despite his painful loneliness in letting go of her, the father ultimately accepts that he cannot be selfish and that his daughter has to build a future for herself. What Ozu is conveying through their characters is that Japan has no choice but to accept the changes brought by modernisation, in fear that it will forget its past and its true identity.

The two films are separated by a decade and portray the changing face of Japan. In Late Spring the daughter Noriko goes for a bicycle ride in the countryside and passes a Coca Cola sign, a subtle allusion to the seeds of economic recovery, which in turn affects the family unit.

Nihon Eiga 9

Film academic Isolde Standish observes Ozu’s depiction of the increasing disintegration of the nuclear family in An Autumn Afternoon. Koichi, the oldest son, leaves the home and relies on his younger sister Machiko to maintain the family household. This was an unorthodox but increasingly common situation in Japan. To reflect the breakdown of the traditional patriarchal system, the father and brother fail to fulfil their responsibilities in finding Machiko a husband. Machiko doesn’t end up marrying the man she is initially chooses but the man her boss proposes, showing the changing role of the company, as a replacement of the family in the age of the “economic miracle” (Standish, 2005, p.196).

For Ozu, the family was a refuge from an increasingly unfeeling and individualistic world. In Waves at Genji’s Door, Joan Mellen states that: “Ozu’s implicit hope…was that traditional Japanese values could be continued within the context of the family, despite the social degradation…

The more traditional values seem to be disappearing from Japanese reality in the postwar confusion, the more does Ozu assert their meaning and necessity” (Mellen, 1976, p.321). In his films, one cannot but feel that the family, which Ozu equates with national identity, is increasingly abandoned and forgotten.

Modernisation in Japan is often equated with Westernisation. Ozu aknowledges the fusion with the west that was changing Japan through settings and dialogue.

Hirayama in An Autumn Afternoon has a conversation at a bar with ex-navy colleague Yoshitaro, about what would have happened if they had won the war. Yoshitaro answers that they would no longer playing in pachinko (pin ball) parlours, but they would be in New York with “blue eyed women in blonde top knots, chewing gum and playing shamisen”. The response is comical but shows that, although America is considered fashionably modern, Japanese

10 Nihon Eiga

traditionalism remains preserved. Yoshitaro’s answer is also surprising coming from a former military officer. At the end of Autumn Afternoon “Battleship March” plays on the radio; Hirayama and his friends jokingly march along to the song with military salute, announcing the loss of Japan in the war. There are no feelings of bitterness and defeat, but instead a learning from the past and an optimism for a brighter future.

In all of this, Ozu documented the changing identity of Japan after the war through the effect it had on daily lives. It was not the history nor the politics that he presents us with, but how it impacted the family and everyday life. To the outsider, it may seem that he is simply painting a nostalgic picture of the Japanese household, but the keen observer will see a sad acceptance of a changing society. Unlike Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, Ozu conveys no strong criticism or ideal as to what Japan should be. His only message is that “the Japanese must learn not to struggle recklessly and impotently against … their transformed culture. In acceptance alone may be found peace, harmony, and the only means of preserving those pure values which, finally, even the crassest of Occupations cannot touch” (Mellen, 1976, p.219).

Ozu is strongly traditionalist. To him, Japanese culture is sacred, synonymous with simplicity, precision, where family is important. The realism in Ozu’s films is an unprecedented blend of Japanese tradition and modernist formality. Through his works we witness the creation of a new cinematic convention, the first projections of Japan on foreign screens are of an empty room: a kettle, a tatami mat revealed through sliding doors. Glimpses of daily life: a dinner of rice and mackerel.

Ozu’s Japan is one of simplicity with structure.

┐

└

chewing gum and playing shamisen.”

“Blue eyed women with topknots,

チ ュ ー イ ン ガ ム か み か み 、 三 味 線 弾 い て ま す よ ˚

目 玉 が 青 い 奴 が ち ょ ん ま げ し て 、

12 Nihon Eiga

MIZOGUCHI

溝 口

M

explored national identity through the Japanese woman. Through his films, he creates a new type of heroine, one who was strong and rebelled against social oppression in patriarchal Japan. He creates a new cinematic identity through merging traditional theatre with that of cinema. Mizoguchi’s beautiful stills and slow camera movements indicate his skill not only as a director, but also in painting and poetry.

Whilst Ozu was an architect of space and lines, Mizoguchi was a composer of flowing emotion.

His style was expressionist, and his muse was always the Japanese woman.

Like Ozu, Mizoguchi was a traditionalist who spent the majority of his career rigidly abstaining from westernisation, which he saw as an erosion of Japanese identity. Instead, he escaped into history through the making of jidai-geki films set in medieval Japan, clearly influenced by dramaturgic tradition. Mizoguchi’s films are inspired by the conventions of Japanese shimpa, which was a form of contemporary theatre introduced at the start of the century. We can interpret the theatrical influence of shimpa as a way in which Mizoguchi seeks to retain the “purity” of the Japanese identity.

The stories in shimpa dramas were often melodramatic tragedies, a common subject being a geisha who sacrifices herself for a handsome yet undependable young lover (nimaime). Mizoguchi used this old dramaturgic tradition to depict the Japanese woman in a new way. Sato notes that “ he succeeded in creating modern, realistic films within the fundamental structure of shimpa by not sentimentalising the nimaime … and criticising their defects of personality and thought…at the same time he endowed his heroines with strong characters. The nimaime were flustered by the heroines’ violent stance on discrimination against women, which was so different from shimpa heroines, who always pined with the nimaime and went together with him toward their tragic finale. Mizoguchi’s heroines stopped pining, pushed the weaklings aside and advanced on their own. At these times they had an

izoguchi

appeal that had not existed in former heroines.” (Sato, 2008, pp.22-23). Thus Mizoguchi portrayed the Japanese woman in an unprecedented manner, one where she was stronger than the powerful but morally weak men who oppressed her.

Mizoguchi’s women evoke the injustices of patriarchal society and are often trapped within the social conventions of their time. We can take The Crucified Lovers (1954) as an example. The film is an adaptation of a work by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, a celebrated 17th century Japanese playwright. A scroll maker’s apprentice (Mohei) is falsely accused of having an affair with his masters’ wife (Osan). The helpless position of women is shown when Osan’s husband accuses her and Mohei of having an affair and demands that he be locked up; Osan’s pleas for his innocence go unheard. This helplessness progresses into ultimate despair when they flee Kyoto and find themselves on Lake Biwa, where lovers go to die. We see Mohei tying Osan’s feet together as she prepares to drown herself in the lake. In this beautiful scene, the story takes a dramatic turning point when Mohei reveals his love for her: both come to the realisation that their love makes life worth living. “It is a moment of extreme transcendence, perhaps the first in Osan’s life in which she has expressed what she feels as a unique, separate being” (Mellen, 1976, p.267).

Nihon Eiga 13

The scene epitomises the conflict between giri (social duty) and ninjo (personal feelings). Giri is a value intrinsic within Japanese culture and this conflict is a recurring theme within Japanese drama. We are also seeing the collision of two worlds: one where the essence of Japanese values, that of societal duty and devotion to one’s superiors, collides with the Western ideals of freedom and individuality. The film would have followed the conventions of the shinju double suicide tragedy, had they chosen to die. However, this is a story of the victory of the ninjo, they choose to honour their love to each other over society.

The Crucified Lovers demonstrates the social criticism Mizoguchi expressed through his films. In his stories, Japanese society is depicted as “vicious, greedy and unfeeling” , where “basic problems of economic class structure, abusive power and avarice have not been solved”(Bock, 1978, p.43).

Mizoguchi’s Street of Shame (1956) takes place in post-war Japan and deals with a contemporary issue: the outlawing of prostitution. The film is set in the Tokyo’s red-light Yoshiwara district and follows the lives of five prostitutes who are forced into the business out of financial desperation. It is significant that all relationships in the film revolve around money and exploitation; the cunning Yasumi who deceives her clients into giving her money which she lends to her colleagues at high interest rates, in contrast to the other women who continuously struggle with

14 Nihon Eiga

poverty and debt. Their strife is expressed by Yorie, who leaves the brothel, only to return in desperation: “I even went down to the employment offices but they said there were no legal businesses in which a woman could earn ¥15000” (approximately £25 at the time). Yasumi’s character can also be drawn in contrast to Hanae’s. There is a poignant scene where she comes home as her husband is about to hang himself. We see a close-up of his feet as he is about to kick off the stool and she rushes to stop him. In shock she shouts at him, saying that they have not struggled this far only to accept defeat. Hanae then picks up their crying baby son, and delivers one of the most profound lines of the film: “How can we call Japan a civilised country when I cannot even buy the baby’s milk? I will live to see how the country fares and to witness with my own eyes the downfall of prostitution!”

The women’s stories illustrate the dire economic situation of post-war Japan and emphasises their struggle as inhabitants of a crippled nation. Mizoguchi contributes to national identity through the creation of a new type of heroine, changing the representation of the Japanese woman. She personifies a moral compass within a vacuum, symbolised by weak men, like Hanae’s husband. His films ultimately criticise the oppression of a patriarchal culture which fails to identify their value within society. Despite their apparent sacrifice and vulnerability, characters such as Hanae and Osan represent the Japanese woman’s underlying strength.

┐ か え な い で 、 何 が 文 明 国 よ ！

こ の ま ま ミ ル ク 一 つ 思 う よ う に

when I can't even buy the baby's milk?”

“How can we call Japan a civilised country

└

黒 澤

KUROSAWA

A

kira

Kurosawa

is revered as

Japan’s greatest director. His depiction of noble samurai is imprinted within the minds of many as the ultimate representation of Japan. Kurosawa’s role is critical in the creation of national identity because he defined what was unique about his country; the spirit of bushido, resurrecting it from a past considered obsolete, and making it relevant to the present.

In defining Japan, Kurosawa reaches to the past. He revolutionised the jidai-geki genre with modern filmmaking techniques and immaculate historical precision. In this, he is similar to Mizoguchi; both are singular in their “attempts to give characters both individuality and contemporary psychology…

They do not stop at historical reconstruction, inhabited by stock figures…but insist on the validity of the past and the continuing meaning of the historical.” (Richie, 1996, pp.97,115). However, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa explore different facets of Japan.

Kurosawa said that: “Our historical worlds are actually different… the world he describes is largely either that of women or of merchants…I think I am best at delineating bushi (samurai)” (Richie, 1996, p.97). For Kurosawa, the identity of Japan was deeply rooted in the history of the samurai class. Through films such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai or Ran, the world saw Japan, perhaps for the first time, through Kurosawa’s eyes. Before Rashomon received international acclaim at the Venice Film Festival in 1950, the foreign perception of Japan was still tainted by the war. In the words of Bernardo Bertolucci: “It was not only the discovery of a different body language (and) these fascinating costumes I had never seen before…What did I know when I was fifteen about Japan? Just what I learnt from the American war movies… (they were) the baddies” (Kurosawa: The Last Emperor, 1999).

Kurosawa was indispensable to the creation of a Japanese national cinema and identity because he presented Japan to the West in an unprecedented manner. However in doing so, he was accused by many in Japan of catering to a Western audience to maintain his popularity. The Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Oshima went as far as accusing him of “pandering to Western values and politics” (Mellen, 2002, p.60). Richie argues that “The description is understandable in that he is “Western” enough to be openly individual…he has gone beyond the accepted confines of cinematic language as the Japanese understood them and, in so doing, has broadened them…Kurosawa was the first Japanese director to be “discovered” abroad and this discovery is also one of the reasons his local critics have found him “un-Japanese” (Richie, 2001, p.176). Despite his fame, he remained loyal to his country, stating that “If a work cannot have meaning to a Japanese audience, then I – as a Japanese artist – am simply not interested in it” (Richie, 1996, p.242).

We see this distinctly in Seven Samurai (1954). The story takes place in 16th century Japan, where a village of peasants hire seven samurai to protect them from bandits who regularly steal their crops. This takes place in a period of intense civil war. Samurai, traditionally employed by warlords as personal soldiers, would find themselves jobless once their masters were defeated by rival clans. They would have no choice but to seek

Nihon Eiga 17

another employer, become bandits, or wander around aimlessly as ronin (masterless samurai). The peasants’ search for samurai willing to help them would normally be ludicrous because of the traditional caste divide. The samurai warrior class traditionally served nobility, and were therefore of high social ranking. It is not surprising therefore, that they laugh in the peasants’ faces when they approach them offering measly bowls of rice in exchange for protection. In depicting their reaction, Kurosawa is alluding to the decay of the samurai class. Once considered noble and benevolent, they have forgotten their code of honour, bushido, stressing loyalty, wisdom, modesty and above all, self-sacrifice.

Bushido is the driving force of the film. It is what Kurosawa defines as the essence of Japanese identity.

The seven samurai each represent a different element of bushido.

The leader, Kambei, who embodies wisdom and modesty. He is able to look beyond his years of experience in order to help the peasants. Kambei is an exceptional and rare human being, an almost supernatural ideal. His wise teachings represent the master-disciple relationship that Kurosawa cherished in his characters. Critic Tadao Sato identifies the master as a paternal figure in Kurosawa’s films: in Sanshiro Sugata (1943) through the judo master and his pupil, in Drunken Angel (1948) through the middle aged doctor and the young hoodlum he takes care of. In Ikiru (1952) however, he abandons this conception: “his moral conclusion was that if modern youth rejects the beauty of trust between father and son, one should cast them aside without regrets…because it cannot survive in the face of bitter post war realities…Consequently, Kurosawa came to prefer the masterdisciple relationship within his pre-modern drama, where the older man is not only an intellectual mentor but a moral one” (Sato, 1982, pp.126-131). Kurosawa depicts his ideals in the past because they no longer exist in the present. Mellen states that “Kurosawa’s creation of samurai like Kambei…simultaneously reflects the dismay of Japanese intellectuals over the crassness which settled over Japan with the onset of capitalist development” (Mellen, 1976, p.94). Like bushido, this master-disciple relationship is a quality Kurosawa views as obsolete, yet brings to light within his films as intrinsic to the Japanese identity.

strife because he himself came from a peasant village. “In samurai terms, Kikuchiyo does everything wrong; still an egocentric individualist, he even leaves his post. Kurosawa is fond of him because of the attractiveness of the vitality of his spirit. His selfsacrifice flows not from ritual commitment to a now obsolete bushido but from his own bitter experience, and hence from a humanity of life in place of abstraction” (Mellen, 1976, p.98).

Through the seven characters, we learn not only about samurai, but also about values that were once most upheld; humility, discipline, loyalty, wisdom, compassion, trust and humanity. For Kurosawa, this is what it truly meant to be Japanese.

The peasants are weak and selfish before such noble human beings. At one point, the peasants living on the outskirts of the village learn that they will have to abandon their houses out of tactical necessity. Stubbornly, they declare that they will protect them themselves. Kambei swiftly responds, saying: “There are three outlying houses, but twenty in the village. We can’t risk twenty to save three. If the village is destroyed, those three cannot survive on their own. Is that clear? This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourself. He who thinks only about himself will destroy himself too”. Here, he expresses self-sacrifice for the collective good. This is a concept familiar in Japan, where group mentality is predominant in society. With the onset of modernisation however, individualism became increasingly prevalent. Richie notes that the ultimate heroism of Seven Samurai is in the recognition that if a man does best for himself, it is one thing, but “ it is better to do your best for others: even if the task is dangerous and without reward” (Richie, 1996, p.100). The identity that Kurosawa is encouraging is a collective one.

We identify the other elements of bushido in the other characters: through Kyuzo, whose rigid discipline is demonstrated his graceful yet lethal mastery of the sword. We observe the good natured Heihachi and realise that a warrior needs to be capable of humanity and compassion. Gorobei represents the wit and intellect necessary in tactical warfare. Shichiroji demonstrates unwavering loyalty. It is in Katsushiro that we recognise the ideal disciple. He embodies the trust, faith and innocence of youth.

There is a scene where Kikuchiyo discovers the peasant’s hidden stash of armour and suggests making use of it. Gorobei angrily scorns him, saying that he should be ashamed because it has been looted from a samurai. Kikuchiyo retorts, saying that it is samurai who cause the farmers to live in fear and to become selfish because it is they who prey upon them. This is a critical turning point, because until now the samurai have been portrayed as purely good and heroic. We discover that the bandits are in fact men who used to be samurai, resorting to pillaging villages to survive. With their warlords being defeated and the country slowly becoming unified, their existence has no purpose. Mellen observes that: “An era is in rapid disintegration and passing, while new values and social arrangement has not yet been discovered.

Hence these ronin roam the countryside… (they) perform wild and rebellious acts, trumpeting their defiance into a night of obsolescence that closed upon them as they disappear” (Mellen, 1976, p.92).

Mellen identifies Kikuchiyo, the last samurai, as the indispensable link between the peasants and the warriors. He understands their

The transition is reflected in 1950’s Japan, when Kurosawa was making this film. The country had reached the end of a decade

18 Nihon Eiga

┐

“This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourself.

He who thinks only about himself will destroy himself too.”

of war and foreign occupation, lingering in a cultural limbo as it seeked to redefine itself. As Japan entered the modern period at the end of the 16th century, it would enter the postmodern one in the 1950’s. In Seven Samurai, Kurosawa comments on the state of Japan and the pattern observed is that of a moral decay; of a society that has forgotten the mistakes of the past and is doomed to replicate them in the future.

As the film unfolds, the samurai are less and less needed. The peasants learn from their ways, and become self-sufficient. Mellen states that: “They are carriers of a continuity that renews history, but something has been lost…It is as if the spirit of Japan, like a candle in the dark, had suddenly gone out. For Kurosawa, the Japan that follows has never since regained that beauty…(His) remaning jidai-geki, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo and Sanjuro, portray landscapes without faith. The underlying premise of all this is that there is nothing left in which to believe…The hope of the early post-war years, when it seemed that Japan might renew itself, led only to the moral darkness of resurgent neo-feudal power” (Mellen, 1976, p.99).

己 の こ と ば か り 考 え る 奴 は 、 己 を も 滅 ぼ す 奴 だ ˚

戦 と は そ う い う も の だ ˚ 人 を 守 っ て こ そ 、 自 分 も 守 れ る ˚

└

Nihon Eiga 19

The New Wave The Golden Age of Japanese cinema reached its peak towards the end of the 1950’s, only to decline and give way to a new generation that would significantly change Japanese film. The country was undergoing a period of radical transformation; it joins the UN and hosts the 1964 Olympics, assuming its position on the international stage, it signs the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation in 1960, allowing continued US military presence on Japanese soil, travel restrictions are eased, colour television is introduced, floodgates open to the world. There is a rise in student protests, political activism and a flowering of a vibrant avant-garde movement, a celebration of freedom and a severing of ties with the once sacred past. The 1960s generation believed that in order to redefine Japan, they needed to rid themselves of feudal tradition and start anew.

Japanese cinema during this period is marked by its significant politicisation. “Until the 1960s…Japan had not developed a strong documentary tradition. And before the emergence of the generation of Oshima…

Japan had not produced strong political films of any kind” (Mellen, 1976, p.396). Under the American Occupation, directors were expected to comply with rigid censorship laws prohibiting any overt expression of political sentiment, which meant that directors such as Kurosawa and Mizoguchi were forced to mediate political statements through the oblique avenue of historical or samurai film (Ibid.p.397). The New Wave broke all perceived stereotypes of Japan: as a unified nation whose people were traditionally obedient and held strong values. Instead we see a country that is seeking to find itself, through rebellion, political activism, existential thought and the rejection of traditionalist formality to capture raw reality.

大 島 OSHIMA

T

he first to break free was Nagisa Oshima. He aspired to “transform cinema into an intellectually powerful force comparable to art, literature and critical discourse” (Phillips & Stringer, 2007, p.177). For him cinema was a means to incite the nation to re-examine itself. To provoke this dialectical process, Oshima deconstructed all morals instilled by establishment and the social stereotypes that pervaded from it. He saw Japan as a moral vacuum, left void despite the failed attempts of the post-war humanists to rebuild a new democracy. The characters in his films act as such; immoral youth on a rampage, seeking to find themselves in a nihilistic landscape.

Cruel Story of Youth (1960) embodies this. It is an example of the” Sun Tribe” (taiyozoku) subgenre that depicted delinquent youth, inspired by American greaser culture. The film follows a pair of young teenagers who rebel against society.

Makoto, a naïve schoolgirl, falls in love with

22 Nihon Eiga

Kiyoshi, a social outcast, who manipulates her into seducing older men, for him to then assault and rob them. Although it is considered to be the Japanese response to Rebel Without a Cause, Cruel Story is more political than the typical youth film. We can identify this during the opening credits, where the names are painted in red over newspaper clippings, evoking rebellion and political activism. We see footage of student demonstrations against ANPO (Treaty of Mutual Cooperation with America), and a newsreel showing protests against Syngman Rhee in Korea. These were contemporary events and graphic signifiers that Oshima used to reinforce the focus on present actualities (Furuhata, 2009). Furuhata also notes that this use of journalistic material underlines a stylistic change in filmmaking of the 1960’s; in order to evaluate Japanese identity in the present, directors detached themselves from the past.

film, the protagonist’s minds and bodies are increasingly objectified, correlating with a gradual feeling of loneliness and despair (Phillips & Stringer, 2007, p.173). Makoto is sexually, physically and emotionally abused by Kiyoshi, who uses her as a scapegoat for his angst. Standish notes that his violence towards her is an outward manifestation of his general disaffection with the world; when Makoto asks if he dislikes her, he responds by saying that he just got angry, not at her, but just at “anything and everything”. We find out later on in the film that Kiyoshi himself is trapped in the exploitative cycle by prostituting himself to an older woman. Thus, Standish states that the cruelty referred to in the title of the film is that of a rapacious consumer society at its lowest level.

Oshima conveys this through the protagonist’s rejection of family, an institution that Ozu held sacred. Kiyoshi has no family ties and Makoto holds her’s in disregard. There is a scene where Makoto returns home after running away. Yuki, her sister, scolds her and reproaches her father for not doing the same. He answers; “Times were tough after the war, but we had a way of life. I could have lectured you that we were reborn in a democratic nation; that responsibility went hand in hand with freedom. But today what can we say to this child?”

The father’s response reflects the apathy of the older generation in the face of a rebellious, nihilistic youth. Phillips and Stringer observe that the scene shows “precisely the insignificance of family as a site of social struggle and subject formation.

Without family to fall back on…Kiyoshi and Makoto are forced to confront their problems as absolute individuals” (Ibid.).

Oshima takes a step beyond Mizoguchi in denouncing Japan’s new capitalist economy. As in Street of Shame, the relationships in Cruel Story revolve around money. However, throughout the

In the end Kiyoshi tells Makoto that it is better for them to part, after coming to the realisation that individuals can only survive alone in a society that exploits them.

In the culminating scene, each meet their own death individually on a split screen; Kiyoshi beaten to death by a gang and Makoto in attempting to escape the sexual advances of an older man. Turim says that the images “ leave no one to save or be saved… the moments offered of the couple’s attainment of sympathy and even love across a tortured relationship are perhaps vestiges of a romanticism reemerging from Oshima’s dark social critique and his prevailing anti-humanism” (Turim, 1998, p.43). Oshima portrays Japan as a country without hope, the feudal ideal of a unified nation has been shattered by the war.

Ultimately Oshima presents us with no redeeming sense of community, no humanist compassion, because in the new capitalist Japan, there is no more morality (Standish, 2005, p.237). Although it is difficult to define how much of this is influenced by Oshima’s communist inclinations and how much of it is a weariness of a future in a rapidly changing nation, Cruel Story provides us with a view of Japan that is little known: that of an unstable generation lost in a social vacuum. Having abandoned the past, it questioned what to build for the future.

Oshima is the antithesis of everything Ozu had defined Japan to be. Although he recognised the disintegration of the nuclear family, Ozu still portrayed it as a source of humanistic values. We see no trace of this in Oshima’s films. The filial bond is no longer cherished, and by extension, the societal one becomes irrelevant. We can thus identify a paradigm shift in 1960’s Japanese cinema, from that of the group to the individual.

Nihon Eiga 23

村 今 I

M A M

I

politico-social or historical commentary…(but) much more literally, doing a cultural anthropologist’s footwork” (Bock, 1978, p. 287). Imamura himself states that: “I’ve always wanted to ask questions about the Japanese, because it’s the only people I’m qualified to describe” (Kendall, March 2002). This cultural research took the form of documentaries. Indeed, many of his films: The Insect Woman, The Pornographers (or An Introduction to Anthropology) evoke scientific inquiry and investigation. His focus on concrete reality was a response to his dissatisfaction with feature films. Having worked with Ozu, Imamura realised that his post-war Imamura is unlike his predecessors in that he “searches realism was not close enough to the people, that Ozu’s for the essence of Japaneseness not through direct potrayal of middle class families was detached from the n defining national identity, the 60’s generation, more imbued with Western thought, turned from the question of “who are we” to the more existential one of “who am I”. Previously directors sought to define Japan through the group; Ozu through his families, Mizoguchi through women and their men, Kurosawa through samurai and their role within society. Just as the European existentialists believed that philosophical thought began with the living, feeling being (Macquarrie, 1972), New Wave directors sought to redefine Japan through the life of the individual.

24 Nihon Eiga

A R U

M

reality of Japan. He aimed to “expose the artifice of mainstream cinema’s appeals to verisimilitude” by dismantling film sets on screen, using self reflexive shots of cameras and capturing filmmakers in the filming process (Standish, 2005, p. 331). For Imamura, Japan could be discovered by following the life of the man in the street, unstaged and unscripted.

Imamura’s 1967 film, A Man Vanishes, is a clear example of his cinematic approach. We are presented with a real-life documentary following a woman in the search of her disappeared fiancée.

The subject matter is treated as a serious social problem, and the audience is drawn into the case as they would a police investigation. As the film unfolds, we notice that the fiancée (Yoshie, aka.

“The Rat”) becomes increasingly aware of the camera, becoming less concerned with finding her husband as she is in playing a role. In a climactic scene, whilst interviewing Yoshie and her sister, Imamura suddenly orders to “pull the set down”, and we realise that we have been deceived; what we thought was a documentary was in fact a setup, causing us to question the difference between reality and fiction, between what we perceive Japan to be, and how it really is. Imamura’s criticism is that although in society, people act as if they are concerned with the wellbeing of those around them, if we look closer at the individual, their motivations are often selfish. We are deceived in A Man Vanishes, as we possibly are in everyday life.

Mizoguchi’s films took place on a stage; equating theatrical melodramas with those of everyday life. For Imamura, life is not a performance. He is unique in subverting decades of presentational

artistic tradition, tearing down the stage to reveal the raw truth. There is no gloss nor shine. Like Oshima, he uses the language of reportage and journalism.

The authenticity of his reality is emphasised through his “messy” film techniques: vulgar black lines to conceal the identities of his subjects, out of sync sound, shaky handheld cameras, grainy footage.

This is how Imamura presents the reality of Japan.

We can draw a compelling link between Imamura and the burgeoning avant-garde documentary movement of the 60’s. Both contributed to the creation of a new national identity because they rejected the traditional formalism embraced by Ozu, and the jidai-geki dramatics of Mizoguchi and Kurosawa. Instead, they focused on the “spirit of documentary” to destroy conventional ideas about beauty, and to revolutionise artistic means in order to explore new territory. (Goichi, October 1957).

This was a response to mainstream Japanese society, who, during the 1950’s and 60’s, embraced mass media’s representation of the “real” world. The advent of television in 1953 and its capacity for live broadcasting induced a fascination with the capturing of an unscripted reality.

Literary reportage and non-fiction was popular and there was an increase in the production of documentaries (Furuhata, 2009, p. 69). The likes of Imamura and the Avant Gardists subverted this mainstream interest by breaking the boundaries of documentary as nonfiction, merging the two together as one (Ibid.).

Imamura thus emancipates himself from the intricacies of the feature film. Like Oshima, his focus is very much in the present, there is no metaphor, nor allegory; the only narrative is that of reality. Although he rejected Ozu’s highly presentational style, both believe that the essence of Japan is discovered through everyday life. Despite his “messy” techniques, Imamura believes that “Japan on film should be presented in a quiet way, not full of… stereotypes such as kimonos and gardens” (Kendall, March 2002). Unlike Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, Imamura does not dwell in the past to find meaning in the present, what is relevant about Japan is in the here and now.

Nihon Eiga 25

TESHIGAHARA

勅 使 河 原

26 Nihon Eiga

Teshihagara differed to Imamura in that he explored the question of “who am I”, as a Japanese, more philosophically. Whilst Imamura captured the Japanese identity through observing the exterior world, Teshigahara focused on the interior. Avant Gardist author Abe Kobo states that “... the spirit of documentary is a respect for the accidental elements that fall outside our consciousness. When this method is exclusively targetting the interior world, it (is) called...surrealism” (Kobo, July 1958, p.98).

Teshigahara achieved this surrealistic quality in his films through visual experimentation. We can see this as an extension of Ozu’s realism; the focus progresses from reflecting a changing society, to the struggles of the inner being as a result of it.

E

xistential crises and the breaking away of who we previously thought we were, is a running theme within Teshigahara’s films (Quandt, n.d.), namely in Woman of the Dunes, Teshigahara’s 1964 adaptation of the eponymous novel by Abe Kobo. Junpei, the protagonist, is a schoolteacher on an expedition to find insects that inhabit sand dunes. When he misses the last bus, the inhabitants of the nearby village suggest he stay the night. They lead him down a sandpit with a rope ladder, at the bottom there is an old house inhabited by a young widow. He learns that she digs sand to sell and constantly needs to do this in order to avoid being buried by it. The next morning Junpei finds that the ladder has gone; he is trapped. He tries to escape multiple times but fails. During the course of the film he gradually learns to accept and adapt to his imprisonment. Junpei’s identity transforms; from being an academic in the “civilised” modern society, to a primeval man who uses nature as a resource for survival. What Teshigahara is emphasising here is that in order to redefine itself, Japan needs to withdraw from the confusions of the present as a growing world power and look back to its roots. The relation of Junpei to his environment evokes that of Shinto animism, that

Japan’s profound spiritual relation to nature will outlast the complexities of the modern world (Mellen, 1976).

Woman of the Dunes was visually innovative in many ways. We are reminded of the Avant Garde movement’s aim of revolutionising Japanese art through experimentation. The Avant Gardists were strongly focused on “defamiliarisation”, a concept developed by Soviet writer Schlovsky, who stated that “The aim of …creating new art is to return the object from “recognition” to seeing” (Furuhata, 2009). Teshihagara translated this concept through visual abstraction to allow his audience to experience things in an unprecedented manner. He does this in Woman of the Dunes by repeatedly transposing the woman’s silhouette onto an image of waves traced in sand, as if to echo their shape. We are also confronted with extreme close ups of grains of sand, scattered on the skin. These techniques are yet another demonstration of the Japanese ability to integrate foreign thought into their art. Teshigahara contributes to the creation of a national identity by revolutionising national cinema with avant-garde experimentalism.

Nihon Eiga 27

“As long as the serious artists of Japanese film continue to work, we shall… be in a presence of a culture actively engaged in the process of confronting itself ” (Mellen, 1976). We have seen how the directors of the Golden Age and the New Wave have sought to define their country, in the context of the past, addressing issues of the present. Through their films, we discover Japan; as a country that has an ambivalent relationship with its feudal history, one that still troubles it to this day. We have seen how different directors defined Japanese national identity in various ways. Through Ozu we see a country that, in the midst of change, retains its essence through deeply traditional values associated with the family home. Through Mizoguchi we witness a patriarchal culture whose women may appear submissive, but are strong enough to surmount social oppression. Through Kurosawa we see a society where people live according to a sacred moral code, and realise that the Japanese exist not as individuals, but as a group. The New Wave opened our eyes to a country politicised, radicalised, critical and questioning of itself. What Japanese cinema has demonstrated in the decades following the war is that it is capable of reinventing and reinvigorating itself through the creative process, at times synthesising, at times rejecting foreign influence, in the search for what it means to be truly Japanese. Japan’s national identity is therefore not something fixed, but fluid, giving it contemporary relevance and a beautiful vitality.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bock, A., 1978. Japanese Film Directors. Tokyo: Kodansha.

Chikamatsu Monogatari - Masters of Cinema DVD Commentary. 2011. [Film] Tony Rayns. s.l.: Eureka Entertainment.

Fanu, M. L., 2005. Mizoguchi and Japan. London: BFI Publishing.

Furuhata, Y., 2009. Refiguring Actuality: Japan's Film Theory and Avant Garde Documentary Movement, 1950's-60's. Providence, Rhode Island: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, Brown University.

Goichi, T., October 1957. Kiroku geijutsu no kai: Geijutsu und么 sh么kai I (The Association for Documentary Art:Introductions of Artistic Movements I). Shinnihon Bungaku (New Japanese Literature), p. 127.

Kendall, N., March 2002. All You Need Is Sex. The Guardian.

Kobo, A., July 1958. Shin Kiroku Shugi no Teisho, (In Support of the New Documentarism), s.l.: Shisho.

Kurosawa: The Last Emperor. 1999. [Film] Directed by Alex Cox. UK: Channel 4 Films.

Macquarrie, J., 1972. Existentialism. New York: Pelican.

Mellen, J., 1976. The Waves at Genji's Door. New York: Pantheon Books.

Mellen, J., 2002. Saven Samurai (BFI Classics). London: British Film Institute.

Phillips, A. & Stringer, J., 2007. Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts. Oxon: Routeledge.

Quandt, J., n.d. Woman of the Dunes, Video Essay. s.l.:The Criterion Collection.

Rayns, T., 2011. Chikamatsu Monogatari, Masters of Cinema DVD Commentary [Interview] 2011.

Richie, D., 1996. The Films of Akira Kurosawa. 3rd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press.

Richie, D., 2001. A Hundred Years of Japanese Film. Tokyo: Kodansha International.

Sato, T., 1970. Nihon eiga shiso shi (History of the Intellectual Currents in Japanese Film). Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo Sato, T., 1982. Currents In Japanese Cinema. Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd. Sato, T., 2008. Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema. Oxford: Berg.

Schrader, P., 1962. Shochiku Press Release for An Autumn Afternoon, s.l.: s.n.

Schrader, unpublished ms.,1972. The Masters of Japanese Film: Ozu on Ozu in Kinema Junpo. s.l.:s.n.

FILMOGRAPHY An Autumn Afternoon. 1962. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Japan: Shochiku Late Spring. 1949. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Japan: Shochiku The Crucified Lovers. 1954. Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Japan: Daiei Street of Shame. 1956. Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Japan: Daiei Seven Samurai. 1954. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Japan: Toho Cruel Story of Youth. 1960. Directed by Nagisa Oshima. Japan: Shochiku A Man Vanishes. 1967. Directed byShohei Imamura. Japan: Art Theatre Guild, Nikkatsu, Toho Woman of the Dunes. 1964. Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara. Japan: Toho

IMAGES pg. 8 Forme Giapponessi 2. 1963. Takeji Iwamiya. Milan: Silvana editoriale d'arte pg. 9 http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/sevenarts/cinema/filmsilove/equinox3.jpg

pg. 10 An Autumn Afternoon. 1962. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Japan: Shochiku pg. 11 Late Spring. 1949. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Japan: Shochiku pg. 12 Forme Giapponessi 2. 1963. Takeji Iwamiya. Milan: Silvana editoriale d'arte pg. 14 http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/the-crucified-lovers/w856/the-crucifiedlovers.jpg

pg. 15 Street of Shame. 1956. Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Japan: Daiei pg. 16 Forme Giapponessi 2. 1963. Takeji Iwamiya. Milan: Silvana editoriale d'arte pg. 19 http://zachfilm.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/seven-samurai-2101.jpg

pg. 22-23 Cruel Story of Youth. 1960. Directed by Nagisa Oshima. Japan: Shochiku pg. 24 A Man Vanishes. 1967. Directed byShohei Imamura. Japan: Art Theatre Guild, Nikkatsu, Toho pg 26-27 http://www.movpins.com/big/MV5BMTk4MDcwNTE5Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDM3MDMwNw/still-of-ky&xf4;ko- kishida-in-suna-no-onna.jpg