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Beauty and Brutality: An Introductory Look at Japanese Cinema
By M. Leary | When Dersu dies in Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzula," two men he never
knew throw dirt on him while a man he knew well watches from a
distance. When Nishi dies in Kitano's "Fireworks," nobody watches, and
we can only hear it from a distance. In these classic scenes we are
confronted with the reality of the Japanese approach. Life's most
important and desperate moments are viewed as if through the wrong
end of a telescope, in steely detachment. Rites of passage are reduced to
stark compositions and forms, and the expected emotional charge of the
scene is diffused in linear objectivity. Empathy is replaced by poetry.
Such is the Japanese motion picture. Even though it was the West
that introduced Japan to cinema, it is Japan that in many ways
introduced the West to the power it has to present the human spirit at its
weakest and its strongest, at its most beautiful and most brutal. Two
clear differences between East and West cinema will be the focus of this
short introduction, and these differences will be highlighted in following
reviews of some key classic and recent Japanese films. First, there is the
different relation between actor and viewer. And second, there are the
different techniques that make watching a Japanese film such a unique
experience.
Narrative and Character in Japanese Drama
In America we have a cultus built around the actor and the screen.
We enshrine actors and characters in magazines and reviews. Our
narratives tend to entertain, leading us outside of ourselves into a
narrative-world. Or our narratives are polemicist, and enforce or expose
an unspoken cultural code. Either way the actor forces our conscience to
participate. But the Japanese actor leads us in the opposite direction.
The barrenness of Japanese narrative first enlists our imaginations, and
then shocks us into understanding. Just as in "Rashomon" we, the
impartial jury, are forced into self-mistrust. Or in "Dersu Uzula" we, the
strong, are forced to confess our frailty. We are left to react and interpret,
and it is only in this act of interpretation that the film serves its purpose.
In short, the actor plays a different role because the narrative has a
different purpose.
Technique and Simplicity in Japanese Directors
Hollywood often tries to "put us in touch with ourselves", but this
fails to take us far enough. Good film should put us in touch with others
by putting us in touch with ourselves. This reciprocity dominates
Japanese drama, a revolving door connecting our neighbor and us. As
Christians, we have a vested interest in such an approach, for truly one
of God's purposes for us is to understand those who are around us.
"How can they hear without a preacher?" is logically followed by, "How
can we preach to those we do not really know?" In forthcoming reviews, I'll show how
Japanese film illustrates this important practical reality.
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Drama has a different feel in the Oriental theater. Before the
innovation of sound reached Japan, many silent films were attended by a
benshi, who would vocalize all of the parts and explain the storyline, thus
a director could focus on abstract visual composition and know the
audience could keep up. Yet the advent of sound brought little change in
this visual and emotionally effective approach. The only abstractly
related scene or motif is commonplace in modern Japanese narrative.
Thus we are often left at the end waiting for a benshi to explain.
As we review individual movies, we will see a vital connection
between camera and narrative. Many elements viewed as innovative
today were used in Japan as early as the 1930s by Ozu and Mizoguchi.
They pioneered the strange angles, extended takes, realistic camera
movement, and wider degrees of scene angle. They were crisply aware
that the camera really is the mind of the story. It is a light that infuses the
scene with emotion rather than an eye that records it. Almost as in the
modern artist Mondrian, simplicity of composition is a key to
transcendence. The intense beauty of every shot imprints the bare bones
of the narrative in our mind, and we will see this again and again in some
movies we will look at.
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