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Mike Hale, Out of Japan, Rising. New York Times, May 2, 2014
www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/movie ... g-image-series.html
(“The Mizoguchi retrospective runs Friday -May 2] through June 8 at the Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens; 718-784-0077, movingimage.us”)
Note:
(1)
(a) “Chojuro Kawarasaki in Mizoguchi’s ‘Musashi MIYAMOTO 宮本 武蔵 [c 1584 – 1645].’”
(i) Musashi Province 武蔵国
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musashi_Province
(section 1 Name)
(ii) The movie was released in 1944. There were several Japanese films with the same title, by various directors.
(iii) The movie is so old that neither English nor Japanese Wikipedia has a page for it. When either Wikipedia is searched with the name or the swordsman in the respective language, this movie does not register.
(iv) Chōjūrō KAWARASAKI (四代目)河原崎 長十郎
, where “chō,” “jū,” and “rō” are the Chinese pronunciation for 長, 十. and 郎, respectively--and 四代目 means “the fourth generation” (in performing arts, the name passed down in generations). He was “東京の歌舞伎役者,” Japanese Wikipedia (translation: a kabuki actor in Tokyo).
(b) “Masayuki MORI 森 雅之, left, and Machiko Kyō 京 マチ子 in ‘Ugetsu’ (1953).”
See posting 2.
(c) “Takako IRIE 入江 たか子, left, in ‘White Threads of the Waterfall 滝の白糸’ (1933).”
(i) Usually, taka = 高.
(ii) 滝の白糸, pronounced “taki no shira-ito” where “taki,” “shira,” and “ito” are Japanese pronunciations of 滝,白, and 糸, respectively. See posting 3 of the series.
(2) “The big three of the Japanese golden age are traditionally acknowledged to be Akira Kurosawa [1910 – 1998], Kenji MIZOGUCHI 溝口 健二 [1898-1956] and Yasujirō OZU 小津 安二郎, born within 12 years of one another around the turn of the 20th century.”
(3) “Who to rank No 1? For a long time the popular choice was Kurosawa, the peerless director of martial action who was equally adept in other modes (crime, psychological drama, literary adaptation). In recent decades, though, Ozu has been pulling ahead, with four of his exquisite depictions of stressed modern families included in Sight & Sound’s 2012 poll of the 250 greatest films. * * * Mizoguchi has faded in this race.”
Sight & Sound
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound
(a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI); Year Founded 1932)
(4) Mizoguchi “claimed four spots in Sight & Sound’s ranking, with the late-career masterpieces ‘Ugetsu’ (1953) and ‘Sansho the Bailiff‘ (1954) finishing 50th and 59th. But as great as those somber period dramas of feudal life are, the value of the Moving Image series lies in its presentation of the full range of Mizoguchi’s work — the realization that he could bring the same nearly perfect union of composition and movement, and the same combination of uncommon delicacy and blunt realism, to samurai stories, contemporary potboilers and lush period melodramas. And yes, to what could be called women’s pictures, a genre he explored and elaborated to a greater degree than anyone (Douglas Sirk and George Cukor included).”
(a) Sansho the Bailiff: 山椒 大夫, pronounced Sanshō Dayū, was, in the movie, an official in charge of a slave camp, where sister Anju 安寿 and brother Zushiō 厨子王 had been sold and toiled--their mother had been forced/sold into prostitution.
(i) For 山椒, see サンショウ
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/サンショウ
(学名：Zanthoxylum piperitum)
View the photo only.
The text states, “中国では花椒（かしょう、ホアジャオ）と呼ばれる同属別種カホクザンショウ（Zanthoxylum bungeanum、英名 Sichuan pepper）の果実の果皮のみ用いる。日本のサンショウとは香りがかなりちがう。” translation: sanshō and Sichuan pepper [花椒, pronounced kashō in Japan, are different species of the same genus. Fragrance of sanshō is somewhat different.
(ii) Japanese Wikipedia says 大夫 (pronounced tayū in Japan) is a status that came from China.
(b) Douglas Sirk
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Sirk
(born Hans Detlef Sierck; 1897 – 1987; was a German film director)
(c) George Cukor
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cukor
(1899 – 1983; an American film director)
(5) “Certain things cut across every variety of film, beginning with the seamless way in which intimate personal stories are ingrained with political and social critique: of attitudes toward marriage (‘Miss Oyu お遊さま [sama 様 being an honorific title],’ 1951), of aristocratic indifference (‘Princess Yang Kwei-fei 楊 貴妃 [pronounced “YŌ Kihi” in Japan],’ 1955), of blind justice (‘White Threads of the Waterfall,’ 1933) or of the treatment of geishas, sometimes plainly presented as prostitutes in many films. If Mizoguchi were working today, he might be pigeonholed as a maker of social-problem films and condescended to accordingly.”
(6) “Another frequent theme is the dedication and sacrifice of the artist: the rebellious Kabuki actor in the enchanting ‘The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums 残菊物語’ (1939), the woodblock master of ‘Utamaro and His Five Women 歌麿をめぐる五人の女’ (1946), the villager who finds that his pottery is his salvation in ‘Ugetsu.‘ In ‘Musashi Miyamoto‘ (1944), the swordsman of the title relaxes by carving religious statues and teaches his female disciple that everything, including the conspicuous erotic pull between them, must be forsaken to perfect the disciplines of art or combat.
(a) Utamaro
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utamaro
(KITAGAWA Utamaro 喜多川 歌麿; c 1753 – 1806)
was, according to Japanese Wikipedia, born as 北川 市太郎 KITAGAWA Ichitarō. You see, “ki” and “ta” are Chinese pronunciations for kanji 喜 and 多, respectively, whereas “kita” is the Japanese pronunciation for kanji 北.
(b) meguru 巡る(P); 回る; 廻る 【めぐる】 (v): ”to go around” (that is, “to revolve,” like planets around the sun0
(7) “But the most frequent sign of a Mizoguchi film is the presence of a woman or women at its center — if not as the central mover of the plot, then as the emotional and moral focus. A rough count shows 19 of the films in the series with female protagonists, including the geisha films ‘The Life of Oharu‘ (1952), ‘A Geisha’ (1953) and ‘A Woman of Rumor 噂の女’ (1954). Others that nominally focus on men hinge on the suffering of women: the three forsaken wives (one of them a ghost) in ‘Ugetsu,’ the noblewoman sold into prostitution in ‘Sansho the Bailiff.’ In fact, Mizoguchi’s women almost invariably suffer and sacrifice themselves — for family, for children, for the good of Japan — and to a 21st-century sensibility, this might seem both patriarchal and overdramatic. But the frank melodrama is redeemed by the restraint and subtlety of the storytelling, and sacrifice has never been rendered so transcendently.”
(a) The Life of Oharu
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Oharu
(Japanese title: 西鶴一代女 Saikaku ichidai onna; based on a novel 好色一代女 by IHARA Saikaku 井原 西鶴 [1642-1693]; section 3 Plot: Oharu’s love affair with a page, Katsu-no-suke 勝之介, as a mistress of Lord Matsudaira 松平)
(i) Oharu お春 (“haru” is the Japanese pronunciation of 春; the “o” is an honorific, showing respect)
(ii) Japanese Wikipedia says she worked in 御所 (imperial palace) and met 公卿の若党 (English Wikipedia says a page).
wakatō 若党 【わかとう】 (n): “foot-man; foot soldier”
(b) Here is what Harvard Film Archive has to say about this film.
“Saturday May 31 at 7pm
Monday June 9 at 7pm
The Life of Oharu (Saikaku Ichidai Onna)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. With Kinuyo Tanaka, Toshiro Mifune
Japan 1952, 35mm, b/w, 136 min. Japanese with English subtitles
Mizoguchi’s personal favorite of all his films, The Life of Oharu is in many ways a summary work, the crystallization of his vision of woman martyred by social injustice and the Meiji-era as the dark caldron of the repressive, misogynistic and feudalist spirits that linger, atavistically, in his contemporary films. Kinuyo TANAKA 田中 絹代 [who played Oharu] reveals her incredible range in her depiction of a courtesan’s vertiginous fall from grace, a trajectory whose gleaming sharp edge revealingly eviscerates the seedy underbelly of Meiji social institutions and mores. The expressive camera movement so celebrated in Mizoguchi’s cinema is given a sublime showcase by The Life of Oharu, with almost operatically soaring movements comparable to the films of Ophuls and Murnau. By garnering the Grand Prize at the 1951 Venice Film Festival The Life of Oharu brought Mizoguchi to international attention and, by coming the year after Rashomon captured the same honors, helped propel Japanese cinema onto the world stage.”
* The Harvard critic does not know the setting of the movie was not Meiji-era but three centuries ago.
(c) A Geisha
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Geisha
(祇園囃子 Gion Bayashi, or Gion Festival Music)
(i) hayashi 囃子 【はやし】 (n): "Japanese orchestra; band"
(ii) Go to images.google.com and enter 囃子.
(8) “‘Princess Yang Kwei-fei,’ a Cinderella tale set in Tang dynasty China about a scullery maid (Ms Kyo) who becomes the consort of the emperor, is a sumptuous costume drama primarily known as Mizoguchi’s first color film. More important, it’s a beautifully shot, solidly constructed story of grace and fortitude in the face of male aggression and ineffectualness, and it contains a gorgeous, unforgettable scene of self-renunciation: The princess, aware that she must die to prevent a civil war, sees the tawdry noose that awaits her and silently commands a soldier to replace it with her long scarf. The camera then shifts, trailing her as she drops first her robe, then her slippers and finally her jewelry behind her on her way to the gallows.”
(a) scullery (n): “a room for cleaning and storing dishes and cooking utensils and for doing messy kitchen work”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scullery
(b)
(i) self-renunciation (n): “renunciation of one’s own will; self-sacrifice; unselfishness”
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... h/self-renunciation
(ii) renounce (vt): "formally declare one’s abandonment of (a claim, right, or possession)"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... an_english/renounce
(c) tawdry (adj): “cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tawdry
(9) “The 55-minute ‘Musashi Miyamoto,’ in which a legendary 17th-century swordsman is approached for training by a young brother and sister out for revenge, fuses formality and intense romanticism in a manner reminiscent of Carl Theodor Dreyer.”
Carl Theodor Dreyer
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Theodor_Dreyer
(1889-1968; a Danish film director)
(10) “‘Osaka Elegy’ (1936), an early instance of Mizoguchi’s impeccably crafted mature style, brings a Hollywood panache to the story of a young switchboard operator’s disillusionment — Barbara Stanwyck could have stepped in without missing a beat.”
Barbara Stanwyck
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Stanwyck
(1907-1990; an American actress)
(11) “So where does Mizoguchi rank? After watching and rewatching a number of his films, I’m moving him up to No. 2 — behind Kurosawa, whose sheer kineticism in films like ‘Seven Samurai’ and ‘High and Low 天国と地獄 [pronounced: tengoku to jigoku]’ wins out, but ahead of Ozu * * * (not to mention the equally worthy Kon Ichikawa as a depictor of the horrors of war).”.
Kon ICHIKAWA 市川 崑
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon_Ichikawa
(1915-2008; born Giichi ICHIKAWA 市川 儀一; He was given the name "Kon" by an uncle who thought the characters in the kanji 崑 signified good luck, because the two halves of the Chinese character look the same when it is split in half vertically)
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发表于 5-3-2014 17:49:04
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