Kenji Mizoguchi, one of Japan's most famous directors of the last century, often focuses on women in distress in his work, and the viewer is easily attracted by the intense feelings in it.
In many of Mizoguchi's works, weak women give everything for men, but men do not value women's efforts, often abandoning them in loneliness and poverty.
Among them is Kenji Mizoguchi's unique expression of Japanese literature and traditional drama.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >01 "The Tale of the Rainy Moon" – a watershed in creation</h1>
In fact, there is another interesting story about Kenji Mizoguchi, that is, this famous Japanese director is very superstitious.
When his work "The Tale of the Rainy Moon" was shortlisted for the Venice Film Festival competition, he was so eager to receive this award that he hung a portrait of Nichiren Mundo in the hotel room, a high monk of the Kamakura period in Japan.
After hanging the statue of the monk, Kenji Mizoguchi prayed in his room every day, perhaps with sincerity, and he did win a Silver Lion award at the film festival.
This made Mizoguchi's interest suddenly increase, and after he went abroad to participate in various film festivals, he would hang a portrait of Nichiren Zong in the room where he stayed, and the Venice Film Festival's three consecutive awards seemed to confirm all this.
Of course, Kenji Mizoguchi has won many honors in the European film industry, which is also an affirmation of himself.
Kenji Mizoguchi only lived for 58 years in his lifetime, which is far from a high lifespan, but he is very prolific, making more than 60 movies in his lifetime.
After filming "The Tale of the Rainy Moon", he once said a sentence: "I know that I have the ability to use movies to reproduce people's fate." ”
It can be seen that the film "The Tale of the Rainy Moon" has a great influence on Kenji Mizoguchi, and perhaps in Kenji Mizoguchi's heart, he knows the importance of this film better than anyone, which is a watershed in his creative career.
Although Kenji Mizoguchi has been dead for more than 60 years, the discussion about him has never been interrupted in European society, and the mention of his name, his films, people always associate it with the mysterious oriental occult aesthetic.
This requires understanding how Kenji Mizoguchi created the mysterious "Eastern World" in his own films.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >02 "Kikunosuke" in reality</h1>
Another of Kenji Mizoguchi's films, The Tale of the Remnant, was completed during World War II, when regulations in Japan were very tight.
The maid Ade in "The Tale of Residual Chrysanthemum" spent half her life wandering around with the young master Kikunosuke of the drama class, and she silently dedicated her youth, watching the young master Kikunosuke step by step to the peak of art.
In the end, in order to make Kikunosuke achieve higher achievements, Ade chose to quietly leave Kikunosuke's life.
The plot between Atoku and Kikunosuke depicted in the film is actually a story that has been widely circulated in Japan, but japanese film critic Tadao Sato believes that Kenji Mizoguchi's adaptation has raised the story to a new level.
For Ade, it is not just a woman's selfless dedication to men, but more importantly, Ade indirectly dedicates herself to the art that Kikunosuke loves.
At the end of the film, Kikunosuke becomes a world-famous artist, and it happens that at this time he meets Ade, who is seriously ill, does he have a trace of regret and self-blame?
Presumably, there is.
But after this trace of regret and self-blame, he will continue to pursue his art, which means that he will accept the loneliness that art brings him for a lifetime.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03 Exploration of ethnic images</h1>
Kenji Mizoguchi on the set is like a changed person, he is extremely grumpy, which even the actress Tanaka Atsuyo, who works with him the most, is afraid of it.
However, when visiting the Louvre in France, when looking at the portrait of the Mona Lisa, he cried at Tanaka again, and there was still a long way to go between the words.
After carefully enjoying "The Tale of remnants", you will find that Kenji Mizoguchi adopted the melodrama technique that was popular in Hollywood at that time when performing passages related to the plot.
In fact, this is not a strange thing, there are many places in the early Japanese films that borrow Hollywood techniques, and can even be said to be completely shaped by Hollywood methods.
However, in the expression of the theater passages, Mizoguchi Kenji abandoned the Hollywood method of expression, because he believed that this Western method was not enough to show the charm of traditional Japanese drama.
Kenji Mizoguchi has been experimenting with a 1+1 greater than 2, or it can be said that it is an exploration of national images, which is ideally full, but it is very difficult to achieve.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >04 The light of the West, the shadow of the East</h1>
If you look at "The Tale of the Rainy Moon" from the perspective of "The Tale of the Remnants of the Chrysanthemum", you will find some interesting phenomena.
Whether you look at the film "The Tale of the Rainy Moon" from a narrative, photographic or editing point of view, you will find its textbook expression, clean and neat, without dragging mud and water.
Reminiscent of a late-life article by Indian director Sargit Rey, he said: "Cinema is the art of time, and this idea comes from the West, and it is necessary to understand Western art to help understand film." ”
Although the Indian director's work and The work of Kenji Mizoguchi are two very different styles, they have one thing in common, that is, they have mastered the art of film from a Western perspective.
At the beginning of the movie, the male protagonist Genjuro and his family fled the war-torn hometown by boat, when the lake surface was foggy, and the boat calmly passed through this thick fog.
This picture is a beautiful expression in this movie, but it is not to highlight the beauty, between the fog and the fog, the protagonist seems to have crossed from the human world to the fantasy world, and will start a new journey.
From this point of view, "The Tale of the Rainy Moon" can cause great repercussions in Western society, and even determine the status of Kenji Mizoguchi in the European film industry, and there is nothing mysterious about it.
It is only the shadow of the East cast under the light of the West, and as for the language of the film, Mizoguchi Kenji did not do much subversion.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
From the perspective of his latecomers, Kenji Mizoguchi was indeed a great director, and he had an almost fanatical respect for the body and craftsmanship of cinema, and on this basis, he added Japan's unique culture to the broader cultural system, which was his most valuable legacy.
Author: Linhai Listening