Visual Style

From commentary I’ve gathered that during the 30s Mizoguchi adhered rather strictly to a formal set of rules about filmmaking. One of these was to film each scene in a single shot. While that would have some clear advantages, it would also leave you at risk of creating a ponderous and sluggish movie. The task would be all the harder since they didn’t have zoom lens back then.

By the time of our movie, Mizoguchi had relaxed on his rules and expanded his camera toolkit. So while he still did mostly long takes and avoided close-ups and cut-away reaction shots, he was using cuts as internal punctuation in scenes.

What do you think of the visual style of this movie? And besides the camera work, what about the visual details? One thing I noticed is that we are not shown battle scenes between the armies. We see the fighters frequently, but mostly we see them looting and scrounging for food.

Ben’s pick

Our next movie will be Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Several of us have rated it on Film Affinity, but we all gave it a nine, so I’m hoping that none of you will mind seeing it again.

A Rather Off Topic Question

I’ve a question about a magic castle. That is perhaps only a weak link to our present movie, but my question really picks up on kc’s question about the action effects in “The Lavender Hill Mob”. Has anybody seen Cocteau’s 1946 movie, “Beauty and the Beast”? Cocteau had some association with the Surrealists and in the magic castle in BB he said that he didn’t want to do “movie” special effects but instead wanted concrete surreal images. If you’ve seen the movie, what do you think of the effects?

Mizoguchi as a Social Critic

Mizoguchi made quite a few movies in his life. The only other one I’ve seen is “Sansho the Bailiff” which was made a year after our film. It is a good film, but is rather rambling and doesn’t have quite the impact of the tightly focused and integrated “Ugetsu”. For at least a few years when he was younger, he moved in leftist circles and made at least one movie that offended the authorities. He is known for movies that focus on women and their suffering. On the other hand, at least in his latter years, he seemed to support traditional gender roles and, for instance, didn’t want women as filmmakers.

If you wanted to draw some broader conclusions from our movie, one would be that Mizoguchi is showing that women suffer worse in war. But do you think he draws our attention to the role the structure of society plays in this? I suspect that in his other films he generally doesn’t, but I would very much like to see more of them and find out.

Next pick

OK, the next pick goes to Ben, then. We are back to our alphabetical order — for now. Sara and Amys, if you want to jump in with a pick, though, just say the word. The more the merrier.

A Commercial Consideration?

Mizoguchi reportedly wanted to have Tobei coldly and cynically advance his military career and forget about his suffering wife. But the studio baulked at the idea and talked Mizoguchi into having the two reconcile.

Since it was never made, we can have little idea how good Mizoguchi’s version would have been. But I have my doubts. There is that good scene in the brothel where, right before he finds his wife, Tobei is boasting about his skills and knowledge in warcraft. He namedrops many famous writers who he has never read, and he offers up as deep wisdom the shallowest ideas. Clearly this man would soon crash and burn in a culture of proudly professional warriors. Also, by having Tobei go back home with his wife, there is a more resonate parallel between the two couples, and particularly between the two men and what they have learned about themselves and their world.

Ghosts?

Have you listened to the commentary track by Tony Rayns? He suggests that instead of ghosts, Lady Wakasa and her servant are delusions that Genjuro has during a spell of madness. I had that same idea the first time I saw the film right at the scene where Lady Wakasa’s father’s helmet starts chanting. But I like that Mizoguchi doesn’t force our hand and allows us to see the Lady Wakasa interlude as either supernatural or madness.

Likewise, that wonderful scene with the boat in the fog is the most ghostly in the whole movie. But the other boat that appears out of the gloom carries a wounded man who takes a drink and then dies—not a ghost at all.

A little gem

This has nothing to do with our current discussion, but if you are ever in the mood for a fascinating, charming documentary, check out "Who the Fuck is Jackson Pollock?" It's about a lady truckdriver who bought a painting for $5 at a thrift shop that some people think is an original Jackson Pollock worth about $50 million. Most of the show is about how absurd the art world is. It's really, really delightful.

DAMN IT

I rented Yi-Yi!

I'll look for Ugetsu after work tonight. Bloody hell.

The Characters

The movie has four characters that we follow with differing degrees of attention. What do you think of the characters and the balance between them?

Ugetsu

Why don’t we start our discussion of “Ugetsu” with the broad what-did-you-think-of-the-movie question?

A few things that might be worth considering as background:

This movie came out in 1953 just after the restrictions of the U.S. occupation had been lifted. And prior to the American controls, the Japanese military government had long controlled the content of film. So there was a new freedom at this time. But there were also new commercial pressures. Mizoguchi was at a big studio that was releasing a feature film a week. Other studios were as well. And there were imports.

“Ugetsu” was made near the end of Mizoguchi’s long career. I gather that he had explored quite a few different styles of filmmaking over the years.

Japanese filmmakers were having some success internationally with movies that had historical settings, for instance, Kurosawa, but films set in contemporary Japan, such as those of Ozu, were not watched much abroad.

Next pick

We'll start discussing DW's pick on Monday! Sara, you should announce the next pick then (if you are so inclined!).

Has anyone seen ... ?

Before we leave the subject of British films, has anyone seen any movies by director Shane Meadows? I actually wanted to pick "This is England" from him, but I noticed it wasn't on Netflix, and then "Lavender Hill Mob" caught my eye. Meadows sounds really interesting, particularly the "This is England" film, which is about a little kid who is befriended by some skinheads. He also did "A Room for Romeo Brass" (about the friendship of two young boys) and "Dead Man's Shoes" (about a soldier seeking revenge on some guys who brutalized his brother). He has other films, but those are the ones I've heard of. Has anyone seen? If so, what did you think?

Best movie I've seen this summer:

Have any of you seen the 2000 movie “Yi Yi”? It was from by Edward Yang, another filmmaker who died this summer.

“Yi Yi” is his only film I’ve seen, and I was very impressed. This movie shows a fine mastery of the “long-shot, long-take” form and uses frequent framing that is well matched to that style: many scenes with reflections through glass. Yang has outstanding casting including a couple of kids in their first film. By gracefully maintaining parallel perspectives, he gives a portrait of a family. And he provides everything you would ever need out of flashbacks without ever leaving the present. In fact, it is better than flashback because it preserves the crucial feature that memory is of the past and not the present. Very cool.

Unfortunately, this is the only Yang film that Criterion has released. I haven’t yet looked to see if any of his earlier work is available elsewhere.

How effective?

I found the motion effects really charming, because they were so amateur by our standards: running down the Eiffel tower (they just looked like they were running in place), the nausea at the end, the car chases with people bouncing up and down while scenery moved around them, the unspectacular, Keystone-coplike crashes. I wonder if that was considered well done in its time. I saw part of "Jaws" recently and was shocked to see how fake it all looked. And that was from the '70s. It makes me wonder whether motion effects that we consider really realistic today are going to be laughable in 20 years. Or do you think big-budget filmdom has pretty much mastered the special effect?

Does anyone have a guess on what the first film was to use the device of newspaper headlines?

Merry men

One thing I find really enchanting about heist movies, as opposed to other crime movies, is that the audience is almost always intended to thoroughly identify with and root for the thieves (I suppose there is a British tradition of this way back to Robin Hood), who are generally good-natured and well-meaning in their own ways. We hope they succeed and get away with the crime. Part of the impulse is that they have to be really smart to succeed, and audiences always appreciate and want to identify with a smart "anti-hero." The cops in these movies are usually sort of bumbling and not really well-matched to their foes, although they sometimes get their man. And there's usually some unforeseen glitch (like the gold statuettes falling into the hands of a recalcitrant British brat).

Do you have any thoughts on this as a heist film, particularly a comic heist film?

Interesting ranking

On the British Film Institute Web site (a selection of the favourite British films of the 20th century), LHM comes in at No. 17. While I enjoyed the movie and I am dubious of all ranking systems, I found it puzzling that this film would crack the Top 20. I need to read more about it to get more context, to see what is so special about it, but in the meantime, do you have any thoughts on that ranking? Do you have a favorite British film?

A Ghost Story, Perhaps?

Criterion should be applauded twice. First, they are bringing back important films that are otherwise unavailable, and second, they do their transfers to DVD with the highest standards and the greatest care. A wonderful example is their edition of Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu” which is deserving on both accounts.

This movie shows a smooth mastery of every facet of filmmaking. Mizoguchi pays close attention to endless details, but it is all on behalf of his well integrated and multi-layered story. If you are half as taken with this film as I am, you will want to watch it at least once more.

Keeping busy

One thing I've really liked about the Almodovar films we've watched is the pace. Everything feels so hectic. All these life-changing, usually pretty damn depressing things are happening to people, but there's always so much other zany shit going on (Muslim hijackers, spiked gazpacho, insane wives, frantically feeding film crews, moms coming back from the dead) that the bleak points — gut-wrenching breakups, sexual assaults — don't get a chance to be truly bleak. No sooner does the girl stab her stepfather to death than the mom is in there — in a comic nod to professional housewifery — with her bucket and mop expertly dealing with the mess, and I for one was thinking boy, that scarlet pool of blood looks really pretty on that aquamarine floor. Almodovar makes "dark" comedies, but the darkness is always kept at bay by the manic carnival and color of life.

La madre muerta

Did you at any point believe the mom was actually dead? Did you think there'd be an explanation that was not supernatural?

Kim's pick

This is a British classic that I've heard about forever but have never seen — with the great Alec Guinness (plus a cameo by a very young Audrey Hepburn).