<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > noh drama representation in Kenji Mizoguchi's films</h1>
Cheng Jiaojiao
(College of Liberal Arts, Henan University, Kaifeng 475001, Henan)
[Abstract] Kenji Mizoguchi's films are extremely oriental and classical, and "Noh Drama" shows the mysterious beauty of the ancient East in his films. He implanted the noh drama into the film in three intuitive audiovisual languages: first, he performed the plot of the noh drama (or to watch the noh drama) through the people in the play to narrate, lyrically, etc., the performance method of this stage paragraph performance is the most externalized, it is the most direct folk element symbol; second, through the performance of the film actors themselves, so that the film has a strong sense of formal beauty; third, through a large number of noh music to set off the film's theme of the mood, enriching the auditory enjoyment brought by the noh to the audience. The successful transplantation of this noh aesthetic in the use of film has valuable enlightenment for contemporary Japanese films.
[Keywords] Kenji Mizoguchi; Noh drama; performance
Since its inception, Japanese cinema has drawn nourishment from the classical theater stage culture of the country, and "the earliest surviving japanese film "Momiba Hunting" was directly composed of Noh repertoire. Many Japanese directors have adapted their works to Noh, or to use Noh for modeling or narratives" [1]. Noh is one of Japan's most representative traditional art forms, derived from Chinese loose music and dance. Noh in the narrow sense refers to a theatrical performance centered on the song and dance performance of the protagonist actor, and the singing and music of the accompaniment. As an ancient national culture in Japan, the whole picture of "Noh" is strictly speaking, "generally called 'Noh' when introducing the repertoire, 'Noh' when introducing theatrical performances, and 'Noh' when introducing other situations"[2]6.
Kenji Mizoguchi is the most researched Japanese film director on traditional theater, and has won the Venice International Film Festival three times with his unique oriental charm of his images "Nishizuru Generation Girl", "Rain Moon Story", and "Doctor Yamabet". He used a variety of rich means to integrate Neng into the film.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" >, in the form of stage paragraphs</h1>
The characters in Kenji Mizoguchi's films are often geisha, kabuki artists, etc., and in his early successful work "The Tale of the Remnant", he directly used a large number of noh stage performances as the content of the film, either for narrative, or to shape the characters, or to express certain emotions, including kabuki, kyogenism, and humanoid pure glass.
The Tale of the Fallen Chrysanthemum tells the story of the social life of Kabuki actors in the Japanese theater industry at the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the film, the male protagonist Kikunosuke Ogami starred in Tsuruya's representative drama "Four Valleys strange talk", as a representative work in kabuki drama, he used the plot for the theme of his film - projecting the idea of male selfishness, sacrifice of women, and women's selflessness and greatness in such a ghost revenge story into the theme of this movie. Its works are often based on the praise of great women and the condemnation of selfish men. It can be said that the theme of taking "Four Valleys of Strange Talk" as a microcosm to care for the entire film work is That Kenji Mizoguchi uses Noh drama as a means of expression and character shaping, and he successfully applies the form of kabuki to the film.
As a narrative means, Noh drama is applied to a scene in "The Daughter of the Western Crane Generation" (1952) in which Ah Chun is forced to marry into the noble palace as a concubine, and everyone watches the humanoid pure glass drama (Wenle) together. In the movie, this clip has no character dialogue, and Mizoguchi only uses a noh stage performance to handle many complicated situations such as Ah Chun's favored status after marrying into the palace, his lost mood, and the jealousy of his wife. It is precisely because this noh performance is wang ye in order to please Ah Chun, which makes zheng's wife jealous to the extreme, and expelled Ah Chun from the door.
In "The Woman Talking in the Streets" (1954), Kenji Mizoguchi uses the purpose of "wild speech" to use the language drama form that makes people laugh, to show that the first son in such a social morality, at the age of the half-old Xu Niang to pursue love, will be heralded by what kind of worldly white eyes, and convey to the audience the uneasiness of the first son. In addition to the narrative, in this film, the performance fragments of Kabuki also serve as a kind of "emotional container". Hatsuko and her favorite young doctor go to the theater to watch a Kabuki performance, and the two people sitting in the audience go back and forth to compete for the details of the cast list, which is the director's hint that the two have not met. For Kenji Mizoguchi, a director who treats art extremely strictly, even harshly, the next shot of a kabuki actor performing with mobile shooting does look amazingly long — this shot, which was originally just a row of Kabuki actors holding and fan performances, greatly exceeded the scene that showed the changes in the relationship between the first two. This is influenced by traditional Japanese culture, and when expressing a subtle and indescribable emotion, it is often not too much to show the events and characters "exactly how", but to insert a shot (mostly empty shots) that are not very related to the characters and plot. In this film clip, Mizoguchi uses kabuki performances as a "container of emotions", sucking the unspeakable emotions between Hatsuko and the young doctor's "yearless love" and the audience's complex feelings about it into this long moving shot, naturally and smoothly transitioning the plot and the audience's emotions into the next paragraph. Here, the stage segment performance of Noh drama becomes a form of expression in the film that approximates the function of lyrical empty shots.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > second, in the form of actor performance</h1>
In 1953, Kenji Mizoguchi's masterpiece "The Tale of the Rainy Moon" won the Silver Lion Award at the 17th Venice Film Festival. The biggest charm of this film is that it relies on the influence of energy. Tanaka, who plays Miyagi, is not so much a wife as a mother with infinite warmth. This female ghost is the most attractive female figure in Mizoguchi's life to depict many women. Ghosts are one of the most important themes of traditional Japanese drama. In particular, many of "No's" masterpieces are expressed in the form of ghosts meeting human walkers and narrating their own life and death hatreds. "Kenji Mizoguchi is the most researched person in Japanese cinema on traditional drama. Therefore, he is interested in ghosts, nothing more than to introduce the theme and form of noh drama into the film." [3] In the 180 film, Wakasa was a noble lady before she died, but she died without even experiencing love, and this regretful death made her a ghost to fulfill her wishes. "The clothes she wears are Noh's clothes, which Kenji Mizoguchi borrowed from the Noh family. Makeup is also based on the various mask expressions of Noh, and even the walking posture imitates the performance form of Noh." [3] In 188, the ghost ruo narrowly walked almost entirely using the performance method of "folding the foot" in the play, that is, the sole of the foot was close to the stage surface, and the special footwork of the ankle part was not lifted.
If, in "The Tale of the Rainy Moon", the clip of Wakasa Being genjuro dancing is still the use of this element by Kenji Mizoguchi's externalization of noh drama into a stage performance, in "Nishitsuru Generation Girl", Mizoguchi Kenji quietly integrates the noh element into the film through the performance of actress Tanaka Atsuyo. At the beginning of "Nishitsuru Generation Girl", Tanaka Atsuyoshi slowly walks step by step to the main hall of the temple, and the camera slowly follows from behind her, bringing the audience into a quiet and mysterious atmosphere, which is exactly the rhythm that Noh drama has. Then she entered the main hall and saw that the Buddha statue thought of the samurai she had loved when she was young, and the camera stayed on her face, which was almost expressionless at this time, almost a "noh face". However, it is meaningless to say that the energy surface is meaningless and inaccurate. In the noh drama, the noh actor must perform with the noh face, and the great joy and sorrow of the characters are not expressed on the noh side at all, but the noh face is the carrier that can express all the joys and sorrows of the world, even more abundant than the expression of human beings. In fact, in the performance of noh drama, it does not reflect the conflict and twists of the plot through performance, but pursues a slow rhythm, delicate movements and other forms to produce a solemn and elegant mysterious beauty.
This unique technique is derived from the traditional Japanese performing arts, such as kabuki and some basic performance forms in Noh, which are strongly and intensively reflected in Mizoguchi films. This is the unique temperament of his films. For example, in traditional performing arts, such as Japanese dance, both the rhythm and the movement will have a pause after a section – the point is here, and the beauty of the form is between this movement and stillness, such as in "Doctor Pepper", a dance at the family banquet of Doctor Pepper. Many similar scenes can be seen in Mizoguchi films: actors who have just experienced intense conflict and fighting will pause for a moment to maintain a beautiful posture, which is called "stillness" in Japan. There are many such treatments in his films, and there are screen images that cooperate with each other. For example, in Doctor Pepper, when a man is threatening a woman, he stands and she sits; if she resists and he backs down, the man slowly sits up and the woman stands up. On The Japanese tatami mat, behind this fall is a change in strength, highlighting the personality of the character and illustrating the change of position relationship is a very effective expression method, which is widely used in Kabuki. Apparently he borrowed from that. In the performance of noh movement and stillness, it conveys an indescribable sense of slenderness and silence. In Noh performances, the emotions conveyed by the actors' performances are the first to bear the brunt. Mizoguchi was extremely demanding of the actors when shooting, and attached great importance to the appeal of the emotions conveyed by the actors' performances. In the final climactic scene of "Doctor Pepper", the scene is next to a log cabin on the beach. It was a location scene, but Mizoguchi insisted on building a simple set to complete the shooting, he thought that the location was easy to distract the actors, and the best background was a simple white wall. Obviously, he moved the way the stage environment in the play affects the mood of the actors to the screen.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" >3, in the form of music</h1>
Kenji Mizoguchi's pinnacle was eight works concentrated between 1952 and 1956. Almost invariably, Noh is used on film scores. Four instruments are used on the instrument: noh pipe, large and small drums, taiko drums, and shamisen. The music played by these four instruments generally does not use one alone to play, but is used intensively and simultaneously, and in the case of different performance effects, it complements each other. Noh pipe is a kind of transverse flute that can blow a very high sound, and the whistle is like a pigeon whistle in the clear sky, so that all the noise disappears. During the stage performance of noh drama, as a prelude played by the band at the opening time, the first clear tone is played by noh, and at the end of the repertoire performance, it also ends with the sound of noh. It has the role of making the audience sit in front of the precarious position and concentrate on the attention. The beginning and end of "Rain Moon Story" are scored with noh pipes. Mizoguchi is a director who attaches great importance to the emotional impact of music on the audience, and the purpose here is also to direct the audience's emotions to this world in the story that is also real and illusory, virtual and real. The instrument played in the soundtrack at the beginning of the film is a noh pipe, with subtitles based on classical Japanese paintings. "Although there are only four instruments in the performance of Noh, and basically only the rhythm has no melody, it can make the stage performance of Noh full of active power, and it has to be said that it is a miracle effect in simplicity." In addition to these four instruments, there is also a sound that plays an important and indispensable role throughout the stage performance. This sound both drives the plot forward and reminds and assists the characters in performing, i.e. the shouts from the mouths of the actors of the drums and taiko drums. [2] 34 The roar is the sound of "ah-", "ha-" or "yo-ha", "yo-ha-ah", "yo-ha-ah" when drumming. In the film, this sound is high and low, or the length of the auxiliary instruments is sparse, or it greatly enhances the tightness of the rhythm of the film
The more miraculous effect of the sense of compulsion is that they can be accompanied by a gentle drum beat, leading the audience to the empty paradise. This is Kenji Mizoguchi's pursuit of the mysterious beauty of traditional Japanese classical culture. The soundtrack played by the big and small drums and taiko drums often becomes a way for Mizoguchi to express the psychological emotions of the characters. In "The Tale of the Rainy Moon", Genjuro, who is bent on making more money, makes porcelain with an anxious and impetuous mood, and at this time, the soundtrack is mainly based on taiko drums and supplemented by pipes to match the performance of the character's psychology. In Japan, due to the lack of python skin as a drum face for stringed instruments, the shamisen with cat skin as the drum surface has become a traditional Japanese instrument, and the sound of playing conveys a faint sadness and desolation. The sound emitted by the shamisen is more able to show the delicate and sentimental "material mourning" temperament of the Japanese than the three-wire isostring instrument. This is also very much in line with Kenji Mizoguchi's cinematic temperament. Contemporary film giant Akira Kurosawa also often applied the music of Noh drama to film music, kurosawa Akira as a means of expression in pursuit of stage drama effects, the most obvious being the performance clip of Toshiro Mifune in "Spider's Nest City". However, Mizoguchi differs in that when he applies Noh drama music to non-stage passages, he naturally integrates into the film, and through accurate rhythm grasping, with the flow of emotions, the sense of disparity brought to the audience by Noh drama is minimized.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="20" >4</h1>
Kenji Mizoguchi explores the perfect form of combining the new art and theatrical art of film, revealing a strong national style, which has a certain enlightenment for contemporary Japanese films and even film creation in the context of globalization: domestic films seek development in the context of globalization, how to make films better absorb the culture of their own people, so that domestic films have their own national cultural styles, and how to get rid of the danger of "identity" under the situation that Hollywood films in the United States are sweeping the world.
[Resources]
[1] Chifina. Akira Kurosawa costume film in the infiltration of Noh[J]. Contemporary Film,2010,(3):20.
Zuo Hanqing. Nippon Noh[M]. Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,2011.]
[3] [Japanese] Tadao Sato. The World of Kenji Mizoguchi[M]. Chen Duchen, Chen Mei, trans. Beijing:People's Publishing House,2011.]
[About the author] Cheng Jiaojiao (1990-), female, is a master's student at the College of Literature of Henan University, mainly engaged in chinese and foreign comparative drama research.
![The taste of Kenji Mizoguchi's Japanese tofu "from old movies to new realities" is all economics[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)