Sunday, December 16, 2007

So, here is an essay I have written on Yasujiro Ozu and Japanese identity. I hope the textbooks I read did not misinterpret Japan, or that I did not misinterpret the textbooks, but lets cross our fingers...

Speaking Visually

Ozu, and the Japaneseness of A Story of Floating Weeds

Yasujiro Ozu is, in the west, often attributed with the title of “the most Japanese of Japanese directors.” This statement is more often than not meant as a historical, rather than substantive, observation, associated most often with the fact that it was not until relatively recently that countries like America had access to Ozu’s line of films. Regardless of the context, however, the epithet has stuck, and with it a very good question is brought up; namely, what did it mean in Ozu’s time to be Japanese, and to what degree were the director’s films such? Ozu’s career spanned 30 years, from 1929 to 1962, and in that interim, few countries have gone through so turbulent a change in identity as Japan. So it would make a great deal of sense, given the difficulty of such a statement, that were anyone to call Ozu some degree Japanese, they would best do so on perhaps a smaller level, through a single film.

1934’s A Story of Floating Weeds conveniently happens to live in a very unique crossroads, both within the context of Japanese film as well as the political-social history of the country as well. Politically, Japan was undergoing reform (for better or worse) that was steps ahead of its neighbors. Yet cinematically, as the rest of the world ventured out of the silent era and into talkies, it was maintaining its last grip onto the young tradition.

Japan, on both the national and filmic level, can perhaps best be defined during this period as a country that could not define itself. It struggled to adopt the ways of the west, wished to maintain a semblance of national heritage, and ended up insurmountably conflicted. Through Ozu’s camera-work, story, and mood, A Story of Floating Weeds manages to convey that same confliction, becoming involuntary a story strictly about this Japanese identity.

To understand the origins of Japan’s identity-paradox, one must start a few centuries earlier, where the source of all this trouble, the West, first became a key part of Japanese history. Starting in the Tokugawa Shogunate, in the mid 17th century, all the way through the mid 19th century, Japan was ruled under a legacy known as the Sakoku period, meaning “country in chains.” Under this rule, no foreigner was allowed into the country and no citizen was allowed out. This policy was implemented as a result of riots started by foreign Christian missionaries in the 1640s, and it was the sincere belief that outside influence could only set to dismantle the status quo. In other words, stability was the most important priority for the Japanese state.

The Sakoku period finally ended with the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry in the 1850s, initiating a new wave of East-West interaction. The Japanese had certainly been aware of the presence of a vastly different culture in the West, through trade and religious missions, but it wasn’t until then that the country as a unit took on the full breadth of what the West was capable of. Only a few years later, its neighbor and economic rival, China, found itself at odds with England over the rights of opium trading, wishing to preempt further interaction, only to incur a full on war. In the aftermath, China was forced to accept a humiliating treaty giving England unequal rights to its ports and trading depots, a relief on nearly all import/export taxes, and military privileges.

Fear of the same fate befalling themselves, as well as overall access to increasingly shrinking world around them, the Japanese sought to reform there mode of national conduct. What thus replaced the Shogun value of stability was the modern value of progress. Hence, the Meiji Restoration, a movement in late 19th century Japan that initiated the ideology that in many ways holds there today. In it, the nation would officially remove the scattered system of the Shogun, and restore the power of the emperor. More importantly, they would revamp their laws and customs to emulate, in a number of ways, the west. Aspects of daily life, such as western dress, technology, and etiquette became synonymous with “modern” conduct. Just as essential to the movement, however, was the concept of a “national essence” (MEA 172) to be maintained, the definition of which became elusive. A consensus among many was to find a median “by adopting universalist aspects of Western culture while retaining valuable aspects of their past.” (MEA 172)

Delineating as such would prove to be difficult, as Japan found itself following Western conduct on a much larger scale (in both scope and in ethics), that of imperial occupation. A Story of Floating Weeds was distributed and is set in 1934, two years after the start of beginning conflicts with China, and three years prior to a full out war predicated over the occupation of Korea. So as much as Japan wished to maintain a uniquely Eastern ethic during its Westernization, one could not help notice the difficulty. Furthermore, as being a country at war, particularly for value so foreign and so new, citizens of both the colony and the colonizer are affected, and knowing what made a citizen Japanese anymore became increasingly cumbersome.

A Story of Floating Weeds is a film about things in motion. The title is a reference to a traditional Japanese metaphor “Floating weeds, drifting down the leisurely river of our lives,” (Ritchie) implying a sort of meaninglessness to life due to its constant, and often aimless, movement. The story also serves this concept, rather bluntly in fact, as it involves a troupe of actors who move into a town in the beginning of the story, and move out at the end. What Ozu makes a particular effort to do, however, is throughout all of this put an equal emphasis on what remains stationary. He does this both in his story-telling as well as in the camera work.

In terms of the camera, Ozu’s methods are quite interesting. Three years prior to the making of this film, Ozu was responsible for the highly successful I Was Born, But…. In it, a memorable, and highlighted sequence shows a tracking shot of children cut against another of adults in the workplace. It is of some intrigue, then, that A Story of Floating Weeds, which revolves around movement itself, contains no panning or tracking shots whatsoever. One of the first shots we get after the opening credits is the arrival of the train carrying the acting troupe. In it, the camera has set up a frame of the tracks. After a moment, the train moves into the frame, and then its head car passes us by, all the while the camera remaining still.

This visual motive repeats itself throughout the film, most of which, happen to be key scenes. The scene where Kihachi goes to visit his son’s mother, thus initiating the plot of the film, involves him walking down the center road of the town, followed by children. In it, a kimono-wearing Kihachi enters from the right, and then exits the frame from the left, a moment passes, and then a group of children, wearing more modern attire, follow him, entering and exiting the frame the same way. Later on, the closest thing to a titular scene involves a stationary shot of Kihachi’s wallet as it floats down the river and out of the frame of him and his son. In one of the major emotional scenes, where Otoki has just opened up to Kihachi’s son, but does not see them ending up together, she wanders down a train track. Shinkichi follows her, as we see his profile stand, and then exit the frame through the right. Rather than follow (as clearly Ozu will not do) the camera stays put, focusing on the background for an almost distracting amount of time (close to 5 seconds). Finally, there is the sister image to the first, a shot of the train with Kihachi on it leaving the frame into the darkness, much as it came.

The significance and purpose of all these shot decisions becomes much clearer in light of its time. Japan had been introduced to, and had even begun making their own talkies for a few years by the time of A Story of Floating Weeds came out. Financially, Ozu was capable of making a talkie himself, but in this particular instance chose not to. One considerable enabler (if not cause) of this was the highly popular presence of benshi. Benshi were men and women who sat next to the film screen facing the audience and explained, interpreted, and acted out the film during its projection. There ability to move the audience was enormously important, and the popularity of numerous benshi rivaled the fame of the actors in the film itself. Often, a poster for the film would show a picture of the benshi performing it, which would in and of itself be a crowd draw (Dym).

The legacy of Benshi, much like that of the Japanese mindset and the themes of Ozu’s film, is rooted doubly in the traditional East and the modern West. Stylistically, they have their root in Kabuki theater, a very loud, charismatic performance originating in the 1600s. But their more direct inspiration comes from the West. When Edison and Lumiere brought their films to Japan to showcase them, they would bring orators to describe what was going on for the crowd. Whether this was resemblant of Kabuki, or simply impressed the crowd, the Japanese loved it, and initiated their own form, thus bearing the Benshi. Whereas the cinema of attraction lost its way relatively soon in the West, it had a far stronger holding in Japanese aesthetics, and through the influence of Japanese showman silent cinema had a longer lifespan than most.

With all this in mind, one can now see what enabled, at least in part, Ozu’s camera work to exist. Firstly, that the Benshi allowed silent film to last through the mid 30s gave film makers the opportunity to make silent film (a pre 1930s art form) with the sophistication of 1930s editing, pacing, and finesse, something Ozu does to a T. One need only look at a scene such as Kihachi’s first encounter with the bar owner to see such an example; the camera cuts from one object, to one face, to another far more quickly than it would have in the conventions of the 1910s or 20s, yet at the same time would not cut around as rapidly as other earlier films, ones that were just settling into the novelty of frantic editing. Instead, the editing is paced so that it is “invisible” by Hollywood standards, but still quick enough to be fresh. Secondly, the presence of Benshi allowed silent directors such as Ozu to have a great deal more freedom visually for their films. Plot is not the be-all-end-all goal of camera placement or mis-en-scene as it is in Hollywood. The director, and the audience both know going in that the benshi will explain or interpret everything he wishes to for the plot, and even make meaning out of it. Thus, the director can explore the space of the film, almost as a visual counterpart to the oration.

This brings us back to the film’s lack of a moving camera. It is, in this light, not a minor detail that Ozu films the scenes the way he does. With the verbal description of the story left to the benshi, one must consider that the only language left exclusively to the director is what is controlled visually. This gives us a chance to revisit the aforementioned scenes, starting with the walk to the sake bar. The difference between tracking a person walk down the street, and seeing him from a fixed position serves two purposes. First, it physically allows for the chronological succession of the crowd of kids, which is on one level just funny. Secondly, it gives us the opportunity to see Kihachi as a man walking away from something, rather than someone we happen to be traveling with. Visually, he is leaving one world and entering another. In the very next shot, however, we see the greater significance of the kids. This time from behind, with the children closer to the camera, we see Kihachi notice the kids, and then wave them away with his fan. They persist to follow him, but again he waves them away, until they give up. They are left stationary, with the camera, as Kihachi moves on. If any analysis can be drawn from the fact that the kids are wearing western outfits, and Kihachi is wearing a traditional Japanese dress, then it may be at the heart of the film’s theme. Likewise, Shinchiki’s scene with Otoki (who earlier in the film was reluctant to seduce someone so young) plays visually the same way. She, too, is wearing a kimono. He is wearing a more western uniform. She is wandering away from the stationary camera. He is closer to us and is staying wear he is at first. Then, from the side view, we see him pause and walk off the screen towards her, and we are left alone with the backdrop of the wilderness.

With each example, the camera is somehow working in conjunction with the action of the characters to set a visual motif. If movement is indeed a theme, it is only with the reference of that being left behind that it has any significance in the film. To go further, it is more often than not a movement of older, traditionally eastern characters moving away from the younger, western characters. The distinction is visual, however, as Kihachi is no more eastern ethically or characteristically than his son. Likewise, none of the troupe players are more eastern than the children in the town. If anything, it is in fact they who are smoking cigarettes, drinking and stealing throughout the film, showing fewer signs of any sort of stability, eastern or otherwise, than the kids.

It is thus in this way, that Ozu speaks through the visuals of his film. From the perspective of the story, the adults are ethically drifting. The kids, with little else to do but absorb the lies, theft, and abuse of their elders, are left to stay where they are and try to make sense of things. In the key visual scenes, where the theme of movement and floating/drifting is emphasized, the camera stays put, with the stationary children. Regardless of the plot, or the interpretations of meaning the benshi may offer, there is a visual story being told. In the spirit of post Meiji Japan, the idea that a national traditionalism would root the Japanese ethically and practically is turned on its head. It is in fact those who purport an eastern “national essence”, a cultural cornerstone, that are doing more drifting, more floating, then any of the western-dressed, modern youth. The kids, in light of all this, are left to try to figure out what will make them Japanese on their own, for a simple loyalty to tradition will clearly not suffice.

Enabled by the climate of both the country itself, and preservation of silent films offered by the benshi tradition, Ozu is able to create a silent, and thus visual, film with the cinematic complexity of a 1930s work. As a result, it is through the camera, working in dialogue with the content of the story and the context of the time that Ozu shows us, if not what it means to be Japanese, at the very least, the amount of struggle involved.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Podcast

HORA!:
The Pressures of the American Examination System

Written and Directed by Alish, Brian and Seho

Monday, October 22, 2007

Hey, so this is our first draft. Some spots are hard to hear, but whatever, its a first draft.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

GOALS

I would like to be able to speak and hear the things we learn in class this semester at a natural speed.
I would like to be able to reproduce a substantial set of Kanji
I would like to watch the Japanese canon of films.
I would like to learn more about Japanese food and etiquette.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007


あたらしにんてんどコンソルがあります。とてもかくいそしてとてもたのしいです。ほしいです。

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Onna no ko wa Nihongo o wakarimas...



omoshiroi desu ne.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

おはよう!

みなさん、

はじめまして。かんじはわかりません。わたしはアリシです。アメリカじんととるこじんです。ウイーンからきました。コロンビヤだいがくのがくせいです。えいががくをべんきょうします。コロンビヤでえいがをみます、ときどきビールとさけをのみます、ほんをよみます。まいあさ、くじにおおきますそれからあさごはんをたべます。ひるにクラスへいきます。わたしのにほんごのせんせいわきれいです。コロンビヤのカンプスわとてもいそがしい。わたしはにほんへろくがつむいかにいきます。

どうぞよろしじゅおねがいします。


アリシ