Reframing Japanese cinema : authorship, genre, history PDF
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R E F R A M I N G C I N E M A A U T H O R S H I P G E N R E T O R Y H I S EDITED BY ARTHUR NOLLETTI, JR. AND DAVID DESSER Reframing Japanese Cinema Reframing Japanese Cinema Authorship, Genre, History Edited by Arthur Nolletti, Jr. and David Desser Indiana University Press Bloomington and Indianapolis © 1992 by Indiana University Press All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, elec tronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions con stitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used .in this publica tion meets the minimum re quirements of American Na tional Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalog- ing-in-Publication Data Reframing Japanese cinema : authorship, genre, history / ed ited by Arthur Nolletti, Jr. and Da vid Desser. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-253-34108-6. — ISBN 0-253-20723-1 (pbk.) 1. Motion pictures—Ja pan. I. Nolletti, Arthur, date. II. Desser, David. PN1993.5.J3R44 1992 791.43'0952—dc20 91-33659 2 3 4 5 6 01 00 99 98 97 Contents Acknowledgments vii Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Introduction ix and David Desser P A R T 1 ■ A U T H O R S H I P Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Woman of the Mist and Gosho in the 1930s 3 Robert N. Cohen Why Does Oharu Faint? Mizoguchi’s The Life of Oharu and Patriarchal Discourse 33 David Desser I kirn: Narration as a Moral Act 56 Max Tessier Oshima Nagisa, or The Battered Energy of Desire 69 Kathe Geist Narrative Strategies in Ozu’s Late Films 91 Donald Richie The Inn Sequence from Ozu’s Late Autumn 112 P A R T 2 ■ G E N R E Lisa Spalding Period Films in the Prewar Era 131 VI Contents David Desser Toward a Structural Analysis of the Postwar Samurai Film 145 Keiko Iwai The Yakuza Film: An Introduction 165 McDonald William B. Hauser Fires on the Plain: The Human Cost of the Pacific War 193 Gregory Barrett Comic Targets and Comic Styles: An Introduction to Japanese Film Comedy 210 P A R T 3 ■ H I S T O R Y Komatsu Hiroshi Some Characteristics of Japanese Cinema before World War I 229 J. L. Anderson Spoken Silents in the Japanese Cinema; or, Talking to Pictures: Essaying the Katsuben, Contexturalizing the Texts 259 Iwamoto Kenji Sound in the Early Japanese Talkies 311 David Bordwell A Cinema of Flourishes: Japanese Decorative Classicism of the Prewar Era 328 Selected Bibliography 347 Contributors 351 Index 354 A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S This anthology, like most critical studies, is first and foremost a communal enterprise. It would be impossible to name all those who have participated in it in some way or other, directly or indirectly. Yet the editors would be remiss not to acknowledge those people and institutions without whom this book could not have been realized. Our thanks to Allan Casebier for his astute reading of the manuscript and, in particular, for the invaluable suggestions he made to improve the introduction. Thanks, too, to the staff at Indiana University Press, especially to Joan Catapano, for being an enormously helpful, sympathetic, and expeditious editor. And special thanks to our fellow contributors, whose schol arship and critical expertise were equaled only by their unwavering commitment to the project. David Desser would like to thank his colleagues and friends at the Unit for Cinema Studies, University of Illinois: Edwin Jahiel, Director; Richard Leskosky, Assistant Director; Lyn Petrie; and especially Debbie Drake. A special acknowl edgment of the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study must also be made. In Japan, David would like to thank Professor Hisakazu Kakeba and the Faculty of Sociology at Kansai University for an invitation to spend a pleasant summer in Osaka absorbing Japanese film and food. Also in Japan, he would like to thank Mi-chan, Domen-kun, Chiharu-chan, and Senji Taniuchi. A special thanks also to Victor Kobayashi, Dean of the Summer Session, University of Hawaii at Manoa, for organizing “A Conference on Cinema as a Window on Japanese Culture” in the summer of 1986, where this project found some of its authors. Arthur Nolletti, Jr. would like to thank a number of people for rendering vital assistance. Ronnie Klein of the Framingham State College library staff tracked down much-needed information. Tacey Miller and Sachiko Fuji Beck most generously translated important research material from Japanese into En glish. Kyoko Hirano helped obtain photographic stills, and as always shared her vast knowledge of Japanese cinema. Arthur is also grateful to the following for the often animated and invariably stimulating discussions he had with them: Vili Acknowledgments John Gillett, Kakehi Masanori, Victor Kobayashi, Sato Tadao, Shimizu Akira, Tochigi Akira, Uegusa Keinosuke, his students at Farmingham State, and the participants of the Gosho workshop at the University of Hawaii Summer Session in June 1990 (an extra thanks to Victor Kobayashi for organizing this work shop). Finally, Arthur is deeply indebted to Mitchell B. Fields, a superlative friend and teacher; Arthur and Vera Nolletti, Sr., his parents; and, above all, Diana, his wife, and Alexandra, his daughter. From beginning to end they pro vided manifold support and encouragement, and made this book a part of their lives. The editors wish to express their thanks to the following sources for permis sion to reprint articles: Joseph Anderson’s “Spoken Silents in the Japanese Cinema; or, Talking to Pic tures: Essaying the Katsuben> Contexturalizing the Texts” appeared in slightly different form in Journal of Film and Video 40, 1 (Winter 1988). David Desser’s “Toward a Structural Analysis of the Postwar Samurai Film” is a revised version of an article that originally appeared in Quarterly Review of Film Studies 8, 1 (Winter 1983). Iwamoto Kenji’s article originally appeared in Japanese as “Talkie shoki no hyogen” in Koza Nihon eiga (The Iwanami Japanese Cinema Series), Vol. 3 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1986). Max Tessier’s article is a translation of “Nagisa Oshima, ou 1’énergie meurtrie du désir,” which originally appeared in he Cinéma japonais au présent (Lherminier), Winter 1979-80. Permission for translation and reprint rights were granted by Editions des Quatre-Vents. Stills for Gosho Heinosuke and Woman of the Mist reprinted by permission of Kawakita Memorial Film Institute and Japan Society. A note on name order and English titles: Name order appears in the Japanese style, family name first and given name second. English titles used for Japanese films represent the most common English-language usage, typically the release title of the film, or the most frequently used translation title. I N T R O D U C T I O N Since the 1950s, Japan has been a major force in international cinema. The fact that Japan has also been the only non-Western nation to be, first, a leading military power in the modern era and, second, a leading economic force in our time, is not coincidental. For the motion picture has above all proven to be the art of the twentieth century, the art of modern man, of scientific, technolo- gized, dynamic Western man, and it has been Japan’s goal since the beginning of the Meiji era (1868) to compete on every level with the West. As has been the case throughout much of the long, dynamic history of Japanese art and industry, the cinema entered Japan as a borrowing from else where, in this case, the early French and American cinema. The Japanese were fascinated by film on two levels: as an example of Western technology, and as a priceless glimpse of these faraway but crucial cultures. Flistorians of the Japa nese cinema report many instances of early film showings where the apparatus itself, the projector, attracted as much interest as the images projected. Cinema became very much a standard of value, associated as it was with the West, that is, with the very latest in modern, scientific achievements. But if Japan has proven a significant adapter, it is equally adept at originality, so that cinema found its unique uses as well. As in France and the United States, early filmmakers were attracted to the world around them, so that the common place and the exotic in the hustle and bustle of Tokyo were quickly committed to film. Film’s power as a documentary form also did not escape early Japanese filmmakers, who turned their cameras to events of the day (often re-creating these events, such as battles in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905). Most tellingly, however, film was often paired with theater, not simply with theatrical sources for film content (although that was common) but as part and parcel of a theatri cal presentation. Thus, exterior locales of a Kabuki or a shimpa play (a revised, “modernized” version of Kabuki) would be filmed beforehand and integrated into the theatrical performance, with the actors frequently lip-synching the dia logue from behind or beside the curtain on which the film was projected. The theatrical model of film would have even more far-reaching effects,
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