osaka elegy
isuzu yamada, left, and chiyoko okura in osaka elegy,  a 1936 film by kenji mizoguchi .
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scharres, barbara .
osaka elegy .
the criterion collection. 5 june 1995. 21 january 2014 .
i can definitely agree that osaka elegy is genuinely the sort of film that everyone views as mizoguchi' s norm .
浪華悲歌 (naniwa ereji) - osaka elegy (1936) english subtitles | noir of the orients. . | pinterest | youtube
readings: carole cavanaugh. “unwriting the female persona in osaka elegy and life of oharu” in mizoguchi the master, pp. 64 - 65
blakeslee, david .
a journey through the eclipse series: kenji mizoguchi' s osaka elegy .
criterioncast. 18 may 2011. 21 january 2014 .
naniwa elegy, or, as many know it, osaka elegy is often cited as kenji mizoguchi’s first real masterpiece. it won the kinema jumpo in 1936 as japan’s third best film, and marks the first collaboration between mizoguchi and his long time screen writer yoshikata yoda .
a critical and popular triumph, osaka elegy established mizoguchi as one of japan’s major filmmakers. the director' s often - used leading actress isuzu yamada stars as ayako, a switchboard operator trapped in a compromising, ruinous relationship with her boss to help support her wastrel father. with its fluid cinematography and deft storytelling, osaka elegy ushered in a new era of sound melodrama for mizoguchi .
also offers a satiric view on what mizoguchi viewed as the city of osaka' s materialistic culture .
kenji mizoguchi departed abruptly from his earlier sentimental films into a world of acute realism with osaka elegy. boldly critiquing the position of women in contemporary japanese society, the film examines a young woman’s victimization and desce…
mizoguchi’s bitter and bleak osaka elegy, shot in only 20 days and with visibly meagre means, was released into the nationalist mood at the height of japanese military success as a stunning affront to the deeply - ingrained patriarchal and capitalist structures of japanese culture. though mizoguchi would direct more acceptable samurai films under government order in the early to mid - 1940s, his country banned all screenings of osaka elegy in 1940, issuing the claim that the film’s mood tended toward the “decadent” .
though mizoguchi’s camera techniques are more varied than those of his contemporary ozu yasujiro – and to whom he is often inevitably compared – he does favour long shots and compositions in depth in osaka elegy, crushing his characters under the weight of the frame and their surroundings .
osaka elegy / naniwa ereji / 浪華悲歌. dir. : kenji mizoguchi, sc. : yoshikata yoda (daiichi eiga japan 1936) cas. : isuzu yamada, seiichi takegawa, sd, b & w, 35mm, 6, 394 feet. archive: jpt .
( 1936) is as much about osaka the place as it is about the character of ayako murai. (the title in japanese ,
blind pianist nobuyuki tsujii cries while playing
elegy for the victims of the tsunami of march 11, 2011 in japan
| thepiano. sg
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michael kerpan wrote: mizoguchi' s most genuinely feminist - ish films are probably osaka elegy, uwasa no onna and aien kyo (straits of love and hate) - - where male authority is ultimately rather thoroughly blown off. it is too bad aien kyo is unavailable in any decent version (even unsubbed) .
for any lover of cinema, naniwa elegy is definitely one to recommend. its narrative will leave you feeling emotionally drained, while its formal construction will leave you captivated .
a few other bits of information i forgot to include: last monday (may 16) was kenji mizoguchi’s birthday, andâ may 28â is the 75th anniversary of osaka elegy’s original release, if you’re looking for a special occasion reason to watch this film. it was also recently added to the ever - growing lineup over at hulu plus !
, refers to naniwa, an archaic name for the city .) osaka was long one of the main merchant cities in japan and remains an important business center. as the mizoguchi scholar donald kirihara notes, by the 1930s the city had become a boom town thanks to trade with the west, but this
saddled osaka with an image of modernization and westernization undiluted by remnants of ancient traditions .
mizoguchi himself commented ,
people from osaka do not care what others think. they are too busy pursuing self - interest, too shameless to value self - restraint .
in particular ,
in “sisters of the gion, ” made later in 1936, after “osaka elegy” had proved an unexpected hit, ms. yamada seems to be playing a continuation of the same character, only now she is a geisha in a working - class quarter of kyoto whose determination to take her customers for every last penny shocks even her sister (yoko umemura), a geisha who still sees her job as providing necessary comfort and affection .
as a marker in the career of mizoguchi, osaka elegy is notable for its rarity. though many of his early works have been lost, this film has been preserved but not often screened. this is likely due to the look of the film itself: the images are thoroughly dark and the direction and editing are often choppy. however, many critics assert that 1936, the year in which mizoguchi also directed the more widely - screened sisters of the gion, saw the initial crystallisation of a set of themes, stylistic tendencies, and methods of production that would evolve over the next 20 years, until the director’s early death in 1956. osaka elegy marks, for instance, the first collaboration with the screenwriter yoshikata yoda, who would co - write many of mizoguchi’s more famous titles: miss oyu (1951), the life of oharu (1952), ugetsu monogatari (1953), and sansho dayu (1954) .
in the carnegie hall performance, nobuyuki played “elegy for the victims of the tsunami of march 11, 2011 in japan”. this was a self - written piece dedicated to the people who had perished when the earthquake and tsunami struck japan .
1936. directed by mizoguchi kenji. starring yamada isuzu, takegawa sei' ichi, and okura chiyoko. subtitles in english, brazilian portuguese, and spanish .
kenji mizoguchi departed abruptly from his earlier sentimental films into a world of acute realism with osaka elegy. boldly critiquing the position of women in contemporary japanese society, the film examines a young woman' s victimization and descent into prostitution. together, mizoguchi' s direction and isuzu yamada' s powerful performance create sorrowful, timeless poetry .
( urltoken )
the critic’s choice column on tuesday about new dvds, including a set of four films by the japanese director kenji mizoguchi, misidentified the city in which one of those films, “sisters of the gion, ” is set. it is kyoto, not osaka .
both “osaka elegy” and “sisters of the gion” star isuzu yamada, mizoguchi’s first muse and an actress who would become one of the most enduring personalities of the japanese cinema. (among ms. yamada’s 100 other roles is the lady macbeth figure of akira kurosawa’s 1957 “throne of blood. ”) in each of the two films she plays a confident, modern woman — it isn’t hard to imagine bette davis starring in the warner brothers’ versions — whose powerful sense of self - reliance is still not sufficient to rescue her from the web of family obligations and the economic power of men .
nobuyuki had composed his elegy in memory of the people who had lost their lives in what had become known as japan’s largest and most difficult crisis. the young pianist’s masterful playing not only transmitted beautiful melodies to the audience present but also conveyed his deepest emotions associated with the substantial loss of lives .
those who’ve seen osaka elegy are most likely to think, when first prompted, of its final scene, with ayako now cast aside and rejected by her family and the men who once flattered themselves through their purchase of her services. mizoguchi’s coup in bringing this briefly told tragedy to its close is to not take what would have been the obvious route, showing ayako finally broken, tearful, perhaps penitent but in any case pitiful. it would be a natural tendency for any director; one could not fault him too much for choosing to give the audience what it both expects and enjoys .
“women of the night” is one of the features included in the eclipse box; the others are his twinned masterpieces of 1936, “osaka elegy” and “sisters of the gion, ” and his final film, the anomalously bright, harsh “street of shame” (1956). all of his major creative phases are covered: the romantic, expressionist - tinged work of the silent and early sound periods; the politically engaged work of the postwar period, influenced by italian neo - realism; and the final creative surge of the 1950s, in which a distanced, contemplative tone conveys an infinite solicitude for human suffering, balanced by a sense of its insignificance in the cosmic order .
the film i’ve chosen is the one that authoritative sources, including mizoguchi himself, cite as his breakthrough into artistic maturity, osaka elegy, from 1936. having perfected his technical chops for over a decade cranking out dozens of short features in japan’s silent film era, mizoguchi found his voice in this story that depicts a modern, independent - minded woman’s struggle with the burdens imposed upon her by cruel and manipulative men. among her exploiters are her own father and brother, oblivious to the sacrificial lengths she goes to in order to enable their security, as well as the corporate bosses who employ her, first as a switchboard operator, and later for their own carnal pleasures .
perhaps osaka elegy introduces these themes in such a personal, universal way because it represents the first instance of one of mizoguchi’s plots coming close to his own autobiography. in the film, ayako, a telephone operator, is bound by the codes of filial piety to sacrifice herself for the needs of the men in her family. her father arranges for her to become a mistress to his boss, asai, and to work towards cancelling the debts he has accumulated in a failed embezzlement scheme. ayako’s earnings also help her brother hiroshi with his school tuition. mizoguchi’s sister suzu was herself sold by their father into prostitution at 14 to cover for a failed business gamble. with the money suzu raised, young kenji was able to enroll in art school .
but rather than serving up ayako’s downfall as a moralistic cautionary tale to warn young women about making the wrong choices at the formative stages of life, mizoguchi has a larger point to make about the society he was a part of and the corruption at the top of the class hierarchy that created the wretched scenario of osaka elegy. and so he begins his story by focusing on a sad and rather repulsive couple, the asais. sonosuke asai is the president of asai pharmaceutical company, a prominent businessman in the industrial city of osaka, who ascended to that highly respectable station in life by marrying his wife sumiko, heiress to her family business and considerable wealth. that crass motivation is about the only thing that holds them together, as we quickly learn over the course of a painful breakfast encounter where they shamelessly quarrel and mock each other in front of their guest, dr. yoko. you can tell that sonosuke is an evil corrupt man by the harsh light that flares off his lenses in the picture above, and the pained expression on dr. yoko’s face as his supposedly respectable hosts do their best to humiliate each other in his presences speaks eloquently as well .
nobuyuki was born blind but that did not stop him from learning to play the classical piano. nobuyuki developed a passion for music at a very young age, having played jingle bells at two and performed with the osaka century symphony when he was twelve. he went on to become the world’s first blind pianist to win the van cliburn international piano competition in 2009, in a tie with zheng haochen from china .
both osaka elegy and sisters of the gion could have easily slipped into
crime doesn' t pay moralizing ,
and had these been post - code american movies, they probably would have. what mizoguchi has done is progressive, but he' s sly about it. the drama is nuanced enough that neither the women nor those who dismiss them are completely right or wrong, and that' s all the more daring when you think about it. people love absolutes, and they love to be absolved. mizoguchi has taken a chance in confronting these cultural standards head - on and examining them honestly, putting blame where it belongs, including with some who may be watching. it' s a gamble that pays off. both films continue to be relevant nearly eighty years later, which is a sad commentary all on its own .
instead, mizoguchi has ayako striding purposefully, not so much with confidence as with sheer determination, into a future certainly fraught with risk and with little promise of reward or lasting vindication. but ayako will face it on her terms – her abrupt turn and straight - on gaze into the camera at the end has a 23 - year jump on antoine doinel’s similar move at the conclusion of the 400 blows. (maybe if mizoguchi had gone with the freeze frame here he’d get more credit? i dunno .) audiences of the time probably had little sense of how impressively mizoguchi would build upon this final flourish, or the magnitude of achievements yet to come. for those like me who mainly know him for his later award - winning masterpieces like ugetsu or sansho the bailiff, osaka elegy is an essential re - introduction to a phenomenal cinematic artist .
as the plot grows more complex and ayako becomes ever more entangled in the web of exploitation, mizoguchi throws in other elements that add a touch of fascination to osaka elegy. part of the “luxury” that sonosuke offers to placate ayako, perhaps to obscure the extent that she’s being used, is an evening’s outing to the theater, where she accompanies him in the attire of a respectable married woman. the night’s entertainment is a puppet show, featuring another squabbling couple, with a female manikin poignantly operated by a male puppeteer. tipped off that her husband is out on the town with another woman, sumiko arrives to create a scene aimed at shaming her husband, but once again a crafty man in charge steps up to improvise a false alibi on the spur of the moment, that at least buys sonosuke a bit of time before his house of cards inevitably falls .
gregory - - you are, of course, free to read the film any way you prefer. but i think it is safe to say that both mizoguchi and his intended audience viewed the ending as
good
even if not, strictly speaking ,
happy
. is the ending of traviata
happy
- - of course not. but it is as positive an ending as the poor heroine could have expected. female self sacrifice for problematic males is an operatic staple (viz. both puccini and wagner, in particular). and both mizoguchi and his screenwriter were quite aware of these operatic precedents. mizoguchi' s most genuinely feminist - ish films are probably osaka elegy, uwasa no onna and aien kyo (straits of love and hate) - - where male authority is ultimately rather thoroughly blown off. it is too bad aien kyo is unavailable in any decent version (even unsubbed) .
in the osaka films mizoguchi almost seems reluctant to intrude on the privacy of his characters. his camera remains withdrawn, even abashed; there is no cross - cutting to draw us into the drama, no tearful close - ups to solicit our sympathy. in “street of shame, ” made 20 years later and set in the yoshiwara district of tokyo, mizoguchi’s method has been reversed. even at night, this is a brightly lighted world, flooded with neon .
in “osaka” the delicate, long - faced ms. yamada is a switchboard operator who is forced into an affair with her boss to repay the money embezzled by her worthless father (a character said to be based on mizoguchi’s own father). delicate and retiring at first, she emerges from the film a hardened, ruthless woman. in the famous final shot she strides directly into a confrontational close - up, as if she were about to denounce the public for its complicity in her plight .
in addition to the conniving of her adversaries and the maddening series of desperate compromises to which she resorts in order to rescue her ungrateful family, mizoguchi pulls us into ayako’s dilemma through forebodingly bleak visual compositions. this is indeed one of the darkest films i’ve seen in a long time – not merely thematically in its portrayal of social relationships, but also in the utter absence of light. huge swaths of opaque blackness crowd in around the perimeters of most scenes, with most shots framed at a distance and only a few strategically placed close - ups to bring us near to the perspective of our protagonist. this video clip, an interesting fan edit of “the second film hidden between the moments, ” offers a good sampling of mizoguchi’s technique, sans actors. some of the charcoal haze through which we view osaka elegy is undoubtedly attributable to the effects of time and minimal efforts at film restoration. while a more pristine print would be nice to have at our disposal, this is an instance where one could argue that erosion enhances the atmosphere mizoguchi intended to create .
sonosuke asai (benkei shiganoya) is the owner of asai pharmaceuticals, a typical, bossy osaka businessman who prays for his own wealth and health, while finding fault with everyone around him. he badgers his daughters and treats them like servants. he criticizes his wife sumiko (yôko umemura) for being independent and remarks there' s no fun in their marriage anymore. but she calls him out and challenges him to take on a young mistress if he' s so unhappy, knowing he doesn' t have the guts .
. filmed in the same year, both movies portray women who use their sexuality to gain power and money. in both films, the main characters are deeply disappointed with the actions of the men they become involved with. the films are deeply similar, with the women challenging why they must suffer for their families, the use of extremely long takes, and many close - ups of the protagonists. mizoguchi once said of the two films ,
it is only since i made naniwa elegy and sisters of gion that i have been able to portray humanity lucidly .
as in most of mizoguchi’s films, women play a special role. more often than not, his films portray the role of women in society as tragic. women in mizoguchi films usually represent the backbone of society — they are expected to be loyal wives, good mothers, obedient daughters, dependant carers and models of purity. such expectations placed upon mizoguchi’s women compel them to seek independence in society, but ultimately they end up succumbing to the hypocrisy of its moral expectations. ayako’s role in naniwa elegy is a prime example of this thematic trait, and is one of cinema’s strongest and most poignant critiques on the problems of patriarchal society .
for mizoguchi “osaka” and “sisters” represented a radical stylistic breakthrough: the relatively conventional editing patterns of his earlier films vanish almost completely, to be replaced by long takes and slow, graceful camera movements. scenes are often illuminated by a single light source that isolates the characters in a pale, luminous pool surrounded by absolute darkness. the frame seems to lose its edges: all that exists is a cone of light at the center of the screen. the influence of german expressionism is apparent, but mizoguchi takes the style one step further. these are not characters threatened by or struggling with an encroaching darkness, but individuals trying to generate some light and warmth in a world that has long gone dead .
ayako murai (isuzu yamada) is a young woman working as a telephone operator in 1930s osaka. in order to pay the debts of her father, unemployed and threatened with arrest after embezzling 300 yen, she agrees to become the mistress of her employer mr. asai. after paying her father' s debts she then continues working as a mistress, this time for another workplace admirer, mr fujino, in an attempt to help pay her brother hiroshi' s university tuition fees. when she attempts to fool mr fujino into giving her extra money, so she can marry her boyfriend nishimura, he calls the police and she is arrested for soliciting. upon her return home she is ostracised by her family and her boyfriend and forced to leave home .
naniwa elegy is a bitter film. there is no other way to suitably describe it, especially in terms of its narrative effect. the story looks at ayako murai (played by isuzu yamada), a young female telephone switchboard operator whose life progressively spirals downwards through her interaction with society. mizoguchi presents human interaction in the most clinical fashion possible. the relationships presented, especially between ayako and her male acquaintances, lack compassion, and their meetings are treated as a series of transactions, where ayako always seems to get exploited. for example, ayako’s father tries to sell her off to settle his debts, her brother steals her money so that he may attend college, and her fiancé refuses to see her as a suitable partner in society. finally, although she has done as much as possible for her family, she is still scolded as defiant, rebellious and ultimately immoral. as you can see through ayako’s struggles, mizoguchi paints a rather scornful image of the problems with a capitalist patriarchal society .
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( 1936) is one of two films that the japanese filmmaker kenji mizoguchi directed for the daiichi eiga studio in kyoto. the other was
( 1936), and both are considered among mizoguchi' s most accomplished films. through the plight of asako murai, a young switchboard operator who is compelled to become a mistress to her boss in order to pay off her father' s debts, mizoguchi comments on the precarious status of women in society, a frequently recurring theme in his films .
at this point in his career, mizoguchi had already directed dozens of films - - his first feature was released in 1923 - - but most of them unfortunately do not survive. even so ,
demonstrates the considerable skill he had acquired with long takes and staging in depth. examples of these techniques include the lateral tracking shot that follows asako and her boyfriend nishimura when they walk through the department store, and the meticulously staged scenes when asako' s boss asai propositions her and when asako finally confesses to nishimura .
was notable its use of kansai regional dialect. mizoguchi' s scriptwriter yoshikata yoda later commented ,
for the first time in japanese cinema the kansai accent, which up till then had only been used in comedy, became an authentic dramatic language .
kirihara further notes that the character of ayako is an example of a
, a modern and assertive young woman in japan during the 1920s and 1930s, something equivalent to a flapper in the west, thus giving her character a distinct meaning for japanese audiences of that period .
(
new school
), a genre of stage melodrama in japan that often focused on the sufferings of female characters. although it was influenced by romantic melodramas from the west, the
stage tradition retained elements of kabuki theater, such as having male actors play women' s roles. considering that mizoguchi himself began his career at the nikkatsu studio directing
films, perhaps it is not surprising that he we would want to collaborate with her. yamada' s first film with mizoguchi was
( 1934), though that film no longer survives. by the time she made
, she was just nineteen. not only did yamada became mizoguchi' s favorite actress during this time, but he fell in love with her as he did with several of this other lead actresses throughout his life .
yamada writes about her experiences with mizoguchi in her 1953 autobiography :
mizoguchi - san was always very nice but when work started he became difficult. physically too, the work was extremely strenuous. i am certain it was in the
. in 2000 she received the order of culture from the emperor of japan .
the studio daiichi eiga (number one film) started in 1934 with financial support by shochiku and was headed by nagata masakazu, who had come from nikkatsu. mizoguchi' s scriptwriter yoshikata yoda recalls that this group of men at nikkatsu frequently brawled with each other, even dumping men into the chemical bath for developing film. the studio ultimately made only a handful of films before closing down. masakazu later worked with mizoguchi again at daiei, in the later years of mizoguchi' s career .
' s ending was too abrupt. during a panel discussion, kotaro yamamoto commented ,
the public is shocked to be so brutally expelled from these stories .
fuyuhiko kitagawa further said ,
ends with a scene in which people are simply walking out of the frame, and i think the public can' t be satisfied with something so unusual !
even mizoguchi expressed doubts in this regard, although the lengthy close - up of asako' s (isuzu yamada' s) face as she walks down the street at night seems instead perfectly economical and expressive today. despite these minor reservations ,
cast: isuzu yamada (ayako murai); seichi takegawa (junzo murai); chiyoko okura (sachiko murai); shinpachiro asaka (hiroshi murai); benkei shiganoya (sonosuke asai); yoko umemura (sumiko asai); eitaro shindo (yoshizo fujino); kensaku hara (nishimura); kunio tamura (doctor yoko); takashi shimura (inspector) .
translated by brij tankha and edited by aruna vasudev and latika padgaonkar. oxford: berg, 2008 .
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last month, in the course of reviewing hiroshi shimizu’s the masseurs and a woman, i impulsively committed myself to review “next week” another 1930s japanese film by kenji mizoguchi, in order to complete the sampler i’d started with recent articles on yasujiro ozu and mikio naruse from that same era. of course, i followed up on that commitment seven days later with an article on the rise of catherine the great, from the alexander korda’s private lives eclipse set. and then last week i postponed my journey through the eclipse series altogether, opting instead to write a column on ten criterion films for mothers day .
so i didn’t really know which “next week” i was referring to, until now, when it’s finally time to make good on my promise. i guess it’s only fitting, after offering my thoughts on one of the most powerful women who ever lived (russian empress catherine the great), and then turning my attention toward the many moods of motherhood last week, that i complete this informal survey of feminine role models by contemplating a prime example of the subject that helped make mizoguchi famous: women beset by tragedy, scandal and social disgrace, at least in the eyes of a dominant patriarchal establishment. in fact, that archetype is so central to the director’s oeuvre that it’s embedded in the subtitle of this career - bookending box, eclipse series 13: kenji mizoguchi’s fallen women .
the hostility that has saturated his miserable marriage pushes sonosuke toward some kind of outlet to burn off resentment and reclaim some measure of self - respect. unfortunately for ayako, his path to that flimsy imitation of redemption crosses her own, as she finds herself in a vulnerable position not through any mistakes on her part, but because of her scoundrel of a father, who’s gotten in trouble for petty embezzlement that is beyond his capacity to repay when suspicious company officials come around, offering him a last chance to avoid public exposure of his crime. instead of manning up and taking responsibility for his actions, he flatters himself with excuses and berates his daughter for confronting him (bluntly, for sure, but deservedly so) with the truth .
sensing her vulnerability instinctively like the opportunistic vulture that he is, presuming a lack of virtue because of her unapologetic modernity, and clearly recognizing her beauty, sonosuke summons up what little charm he can muster to make a move on ayako, and backs it up with his undeniable advantage: money .
though she bravely thwarts his proposition at first, ayako’s own predicament suddenly gets worse when her father all but kicks her out of the house after an unvarnished exchange of words brings them both to the boiling point. ayako has had enough. she leaves home, giving up her menial job, even disappearing for a short while from her young and genial boyfriend nishimura, in order to take matters into her own hands. she accepts sonosuke’s offer of an exchange: if she resigns herself to the boredom and debasement of being his kept woman, he’ll provide a discreet apartment and resolution of her father’s legal crisis. ayako does this mainly for the sake of her younger sister who has no ability to care for herself, but also because she recognizes that there’s no one else capable of managing the problem any better .
the whirlwind of deceit and hypocrisy continues to pick up speed, to the point where ayako herself gets caught up in the maelstrom, resorting to her own devices of trickery in order to gain a measure of revenge and, if they’re willing to see it, reveal to the manipulative men around her just how depraved they’ve become. turning the tables on fujino, to whom she became a mistress after her arrangement with sonosuke collapsed, ayako thinks she’s achieved the upper hand in her dealings with men, especially now in her newfound confidence that nishimura will take her as his wife .
but that sense of optimism is so very short - lived, as ayako discovers that even the kind - hearted man she had confidence in is no match for the cynical determination of those in authority to crush any challenges to their rule. as fujino brings in the law, supremely assured of its willingness to side with him against a lowly and easily vilified woman in this dispute, whatever feelings of love nishimura once expressed for her quickly whither under the pressure of an investigator’s reprimands. the tough cop, played by a young and only distantly visible takashi shimura (years before he became a favorite lead actor of akira kurosawa’s), demonstrates the pitiless severity of a patriarchal status quo that doesn’t have to exert much effort in order to keep its citizens in line. even those who, like ayako, find it within themselves to rebel against injustice quickly find themselves isolated and without allies, however plain and morally defensible their cause might be .
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hatsuko umabuchi is a widow who runs a prosperous geisha house in present day kyoto. her daughter yukiko returns from tokyo following a failed suicide attempt, after her lover found out... see full summary »
follows a woman' s fight and survival amid the vicissitudes of life and the cruelty of the society .
in eighth century china, the emperor is grieving over the death of his wife. the yang family wants to provide the emperor with a consort so that they may consolidate their influence over... see full summary »
ishun is a wealthy, but unsympathetic, master printer who has wrongly accused his wife and best employee of being lovers. to escape punishment, the accused run away together, but ishun is certain to be ruined if word gets out .
japanese film about a friendly bus driver and his passengers over the duration of one journey through the mountains to the nearest train station .
ayako becomes the mistress of her boss, mr. asai, so she can pay her father' s debt, and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement. she also sends money for her brother, hiroshi, to pay his university tuition, but asks her father not to tell him that it is from her. she tricks mr. fujino into giving her money so that she can marry her boyfriend nishimura, but fujino calls in the police .
: you' re a woman... being taken to the police station... getting thrown into jail... you' ve done shameful things. you ungrateful child !
: how could you say that? i never expected that i' d be treated like this when i came home. this is ridiculous! i thought you would welcome me with open arms. if i' d have known this, i never would have come back .
this is the first collaboration between mizoguchi and writer yoshikata yoda, with the actress isuzu yamada in the principal role, as a young telephonist pushed to prostitution to save her ruined family, and then repudiated by them. mizoguchi begins his impressive mastership with the framing and the perspective and, though still far from his masterpieces, is an interesting milestone for the mizoguchi admirers .
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this final view of ayako is the most powerful image in the film, and is often cited as one of the most absorbing images in mizoguchi' s oeuvre. the image of ayako staring into the camera and walking off, into the unknown, leaves the final outcome of the film open to viewer interpretation. however, one cannot resist the thought that her future will ultimately be bleak .
jason dow
mizoguchi has been dubbed japan' s first
feminist
director - - the women in his films are central, he sculpts their characters with deep empathy, and he allows them a full range of emotions which give them the breadth of complex humanity, not the one - sidedness of mere martyrs or objects of love. additionally, he directs his leading actresses, especially yamada isuzu, stellar here as the truly unfortunate ayako, to transcendent performances .
michael price
the third man o. s. t
anna walks away alone - end
cuentos de la luna palida de agosto pres. 1 / 2 que grande es el cine
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styles of substance: the extraordinary image: orson welles, alfred hitchcock, stanley kubrick, and the reimagining of cinema, by robert p. kolker
the potent militarist regime of japan was moving west in the 1930s. having already annexed korea two decades earlier, and then adding what was then manchuria to its territory, it withdrew from the league of nations and other treaty obligations. the japanese imperial fighting machine, riding high on a string of conquests, was only one year away from taking beijing .
at home, in order to help monitor public opinion and promote favourable and passive attitudes in its people, the government closely watched its blossoming film industry. under a string of prime ministers, japan’s judicial and cultural leaders worked surreptitiously – “unofficially” – to insure that the majority of films followed comfortable, crowd - pleasing formulas providing melodramas that led to satisfying, expected resolutions. the plots of these films were usually based in the home and rarely referenced the wars outside, except in the simplistic and bloodless terms of honour and glory .
ayako serves as an illustration of the contradictory philosophies that, in mizoguchi’s view, left japanese women few options but a life of ultimate misery. honouring the family led to misery because parents were often unworthy of and ungrateful for the sacrifices made by female family members, using their children as disposable resources, not individual lives. becoming an expressive individual led to misery because no japanese man would take a woman not supported by her family and the group - oriented society would not support an individual, leading to further isolation. as ayako continues to rebel and struggle to maintain dignity in her own way, she is forced out by the men around her – father, brother, boyfriend. these men are disgusted by her actions – even though they arranged and approved of them – while still taking the money and reaping the benefits. by the final exhausting close - up – of ayako staring directly into the camera at the japanese audience – she is severed from her surroundings. in previous long shots these surroundings had overwhelmed her, but now she’s without a family or country, on a bridge, lost in a no - man’s land .
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for what would prove to be his final film, iranian director abbas kiarostami gave himself a challenge: to create a dialogue between his work as a filmmaker and his work as a photographer, bridging the two art forms to which he had dedicated his life .
with his second feature, a towering epic that took him years to complete, andrei tarkovsky waded deep into the past and emerged with a visionary masterwork .
commissioned to make a working - class family drama, up - and - coming director rainer werner fassbinder took the assignment and ran, upending expectations by depicting social realities in west germany from a critical—yet far from cynical—perspective .
an acclaimed early work by olivier assayas that has long remained unavailable, the deeply felt coming - of - age drama cold water at long last makes its way to u. s. theaters .
agnés varda’s enchanting ode to female friendship and liberation is part blissed - out bohemian musical, part revolutionary cri de cœur .
with her first and only feature film—a hard - luck drama she wrote, directed, and starred in—barbara loden turned in a groundbreaking work of american independent cinema, bringing to life a kind of character seldom seen on - screen .
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the new boxed set from the criterion collection’s budget line, eclipse, is titled “ kenji mizoguchi ’s fallen women, ” which is probably a more enticing title than “four randomly chosen films by kenji mizoguchi, ” but is no more meaningful. from his earliest surviving films, like “tokyo march” (1929) and “the water magician” (1933), this great japanese filmmaker showed his dedication to those women driven to the margins of society — actresses, geishas, ordinary prostitutes — by the hypocrisy of men .
in falling, of course, these women often demonstrate more strength, compassion and selflessness than their unappreciative, exploitative lovers have ever shown toward them. in film after film mizoguchi explores this paradox, of the woman who achieves the highest moral standing by descending to the lowest point of the social scale .
although mizoguchi (1898 - 1956) was not a christian, this is a theme he often drapes in christian imagery: a woodcut of a madonna and child appears under the opening credits of “oyuki the virgin, ” a 1935 story of a geisha (isuzu yamada) who offers herself to an army officer to save the lives of a group of ungrateful bourgeois travelers. (the film is based on the same maupassant story that john ford turned into “stagecoach”) .
in “women of the night” (1948) a band of prostitutes gathers in a bombed - out church to administer a brutal beating to fusako (kinuyo tanaka), one of their own who has dared to dream of going straight. these women are not saints or martyrs — for mizoguchi, there is no next world in which they might receive their reward — but, more concretely and more movingly, mere human beings whose strength of character sets them apart, the true aristocrats of a fallen world .
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the principal setting is dreamland, a tatty brothel with half a dozen employees living out the last of its days before prostitution is outlawed in japan. instead of darkness, the characters seem to be surrounded by mirrors, trapped inside multiple, dehumanizing images of themselves. the ruthlessness of the yamada character has been transferred to yasumi (ayako wakao), the most beautiful of the prostitutes, as well as the most heartless. (she augments her income by making small loans to her co - workers at high interest rates .) her softer “sister” is now hanae (michiyo kogure), who works to support her invalid husband and young son .
but mizoguchi seems most fascinated by another figure, the flamboyant mickey (machiko kyo). as her permed hair, toreador pants and western name suggest, she represents something new in postwar japan. her blunt, brassy sexuality contradicts the geisha’s world of cultured illusion. yet mizoguchi expresses no nostalgia for the passing of that profession. he seems even to locate an element of hope in mickey’s physicality and candor, which grant no quarter to traditional hypocrisies .
but if mickey represented something new in mizoguchi, the director was unable to explore it further: six months after the release of “street of shame, ” he died at 58, and an immense career was cut short. (eclipse - criterion, $ 59. 95, not rated )
abbott & costello: the complete universal pictures collection fifteen discs containing all 28 of the universal films starring the slapstick pair, from “one night in the tropics” (1940) to “abbott and costello meet the mummy” (1955). (universal, $ 119. 98, not rated )
baraka filmed in 70 millimeter, ron fricke’s new age documentary on the spiritual life of planet earth is now available in a superbly engineered blu - ray edition. stephen holden, writing in the new york times, called the film “an aggressively spectacular exercise in planetary consciousness - raising. ” (mpi home video, $ 34. 98, not rated )
osaka elegy ( 浪華悲歌 naniwa erejii ) ( originally naniwa elegy ) is a 1936 japanese film directed by kenji mizoguchi . mizoguchi considered the film his first serious effort as a director , and it was also his first commercial and critical success in japan . osaka elegy is often considered a companion piece to mizoguchi 's next film , sisters of the gion , which was released the same year and featured much the same cast and crew . although not among mizoguchi 's best-known works , osaka elegy continues to be acclaimed by critics . 
osaka elegy (浪華悲歌 naniwa erejii) (originally naniwa elegy) is a 1936 japanese film directed by kenji mizoguchi. mizoguchi considered the film his first serious effort as a director, and it was also his first commercial and critical success in japan. osaka elegy is often considered a companion piece to mizoguchi's next film, sisters of the gion, which was released the same year and featured much the same cast and crew. although not among mizoguchi's best-known works, osaka elegy continues to be acclaimed by critics.
osaka elegy (浪華悲歌 naniwa erejii) (originally naniwa elegy) is a 1936 japanese film directed by kenji mizoguchi. mizoguchi considered the film his first serious effort as a director, and it was also his first commercial and critical success in japan. osaka elegy is often considered a companion piece to mizoguchi's next film, sisters of the gion, which was released the same year and featured much the same cast and crew. although not among mizoguchi's best-known works, osaka elegy continues to be acclaimed by critics.