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.