"The Story of Yuyue" begins with two slow rolls. The camera slowly sweeps across the empty scenery around the village and then the panorama is fixed on two actors who are trying to load porcelain into the car. Some are similar to the scrolls in Japanese classical paintings slowly unfolding. In his early years, Mizoguchi Kenji had participated in the work of drawing a yukata pattern design agency because of his family's poverty, and he worshipped a certain painter as his teacher. Therefore, his lens aesthetics was greatly influenced by Japanese painting. Contrary to Western paintings that emphasize perspective and highlight the focal point in close-up style, Japanese painting emphasizes "the composition of the overall picture", and the viewpoint is basically similar to a telephoto lens, with multiple centers in one picture. Therefore, he often uses a small depth of field lens to put all the characters involved in the lens, and the audience chooses the visual center point by themselves. This method of shooting was later highly praised by the French New Wave movement. Later, the famous Greek director Theo Angelopoulos was deeply influenced by his lens aesthetics.
Mizoguchi Kenji advocated that Japanese movies "should stand quietly in front of plain and ordinary Japanese paintings to understand." He introduced the flowing, slow passage of time and the continuous change of space that was shown in his paintings into his narrative style. Just like this mysterious talk between Yuanjuro and Ruoxia, the director treats the time very imaginary. It is difficult for us to fully connect the actual time with the time required for the story to happen. The use of only a few image-filled scene alternations promoted the development of the story.
Mizoguchi has a very stubborn shooting technique, he insists on shooting one by one. It means that the scene in a place should be filmed uninterruptedly. Just like Ozu did not explain his low-angle director skills from beginning to end, Mizoguchi did not leave any theoretical explanation for his one-by-one aesthetic theory. In the 1920s, Japanese films were deeply influenced by Western montage theories, and Mizoguchi often admired the shooting technique of subdividing shots. This tendency can be clearly seen in his early film "Tokyo March", but in his later creations, he gradually shifted to the long-range shooting method.
Because of the use of long shots and small scenes, Mizoguchi is very particular about the natural tension in the performance. He asked the actors to perform completely in a realistic way. No specific instructions are given to the actors, but they are required to meet the requirements of their own hearts. Juandai Tanaka, who played Miyagi in "The Story of Rainy Moon", was a long-time actor of Mizoguchi, and even became Mizoguchi's lover in his later years. From her role in this film, we seem to be able to see Mizoguchi's request for the direction of the actors' performance. It must be natural and decent, but it is in harmony with the rhythm and style of the film.
Japanese movies have just started and are closely related to Japanese classical drama Kabuki. In the early film shooting, the camera was often placed in a fixed position, like a stage play, one scene after another. Mizoguchi’s movies are often reminiscent of Kabuki performances. However, unlike the simple fixed camera positions of early Japanese movies, Mizoguchi was very particular about the movement of the shots and the scheduling of the actors. He often uses the overhead lens, which makes the people in the movie show some pitifulness and blindness. They stand in the lowest place and accept people's scrutiny, but they don't know it, and they are still busy in their lives. Most buildings in Japan have low walls, and if you open the doors and windows of the house, you will get a very wide visual space. Therefore, Mizoguchi often allows the camera to jump over the wall to capture the activities of the people inside the house. For example, after being warned by the monks that Ruoxia is a ghost, Genjuro returned to the palace in the ruins, the scene where Ruoxia and the guards appeared was taken down from outside the wall. The characters move in the room with right angles, and the shadows sometimes appear on the closed paper doors. The lens is very unique.
Mizoguchi Kenji is one of the representative figures of the new Japanese drama. The new school drama was established at the end of the nineteenth century and is a new kind of drama after the reform of Kabuki. The content is influenced by Western romance dramas, while the form is dependent on Kabuki. Mizoguchi has worked in Kyoto all his life. Kyoto is the birthplace of traditional culture, where he thoroughly studied kabuki, noh, Japanese dance, bunraku, bang music, etc. This undoubtedly had a great influence on the establishment of his film aesthetic style in the future. It can even be speculated that his shooting method one by one is not unrelated to Japanese classical drama.
In "Rain Moon Story", the passages of Wakaxia and Genjuro have a very strong color of Noh. Her makeup is based on the expression of Noh's mask, and she is also dressed in Noh costumes. And the dance that Ruoxia dances to Genjuro can almost be regarded as a short Noh performance.
The camera always follows Ruoxia, and the background sound is a solemn male voice, responding gently to Ruoxia's singing. The light slowly dimmed, Ruoxia seemed to be stunned by the low male voice, his voice became louder and louder, and the drum beat of the accompaniment rushed up, and the meaning of oppression became stronger and stronger. Ruoxia jumped into Genjuro's arms and told him that it was his father's voice. The camera moves over, and Ruoxia's so-called father is just an armor with a hat. In Mizoguchi's films, women have always been oppressed by men. Even if Xia is dead, she still lives under the rule of patriarchy. To a large extent, the wish of her dead father became the goal of her life.
Because of family poverty, when Mizoguchi was seven years old, his sister Shoushou was given to be an adopted daughter. When Mizoguchi was fifteen years old, Shoushou, who was a geisha, was redeemed by Viscount Matsudaira Nakamasa, who was born before Mizoguchi became famous. In the days, he almost completely depended on his sister to live. It was also because of the funding of his sister that he was able to freely choose his career and even became one of the four great masters of the golden age of Japanese film. But this has also formed a strange phenomenon. Shou Shou itself belongs to a weak person, and life is not satisfactory. She only lived in the house where the butler lived in the Viscount's house. After the defeat in 1947 and before the abolition of the Chinese system, Shou Shou had only a slightly higher status in the Viscount’s house than a maid. A man depends on a woman in a disadvantaged position to support his life, and this support is almost at the cost of squeezing the woman out of himself. I don’t know what kind of impact and impact this wonderful relationship has on Mizoguchi, but in Mizoguchi almost In all the films, women are kind and tolerant and admirable. Men always have one or another problem, timid, selfish, lazy, and cowardly. Their mistakes are often resolved at the expense of women’s self-sacrifice. And this kind of themes that men survive to atone for women has become an important theme that often appears in the works of Kenji Mizoguchi later.
In "Yueyue Monogatari", Genjuro has always thought that making his wife and children live a better life as an excuse to leave his hometown again and again. But the ultimate goal of his actions should be to satisfy his own needs for a good life. Although at the beginning of the film, whenever he makes money, he always buys a kimono for his wife, but when a better life comes, the man just struggles symbolically and immediately falls completely, and the family suffers immediately. Arrived abandoned. There is no news from the man, but the woman will never forget her mission in the family, waiting for the man to raise the man's children.
There is a very interesting scene in "Rainy Moon Story". After Ruoxia finished dancing, the guard asked Yuanjuro to marry Ruoxia. The camera slowly moved down with the guards, looking down slightly to shoot the three people. Genjuro only showed the back of his head in front of the camera, and Ruoxia was lying on his back. After the guard made a request, he slowly turned his head, looked at Ruoxia and moved a few steps, the camera followed, Ruoxia also followed, saying "every time I hear his voice" and hug him. He, the two people hugged each other, and the scene was dark. All of Yuanjuro's concerns about the family, all the emotions and struggles were only blacked out between a scene and Ruoxia's embrace. Men's love is too thin, they can't use both lenses, so they quickly choose the path that makes them most comfortable. Here, I don’t know if Mizoguchi can be understood like this.
Mizoguchi Kenji's father was a cowardly man, he did nothing all his life, and his life later depended mainly on longevity. Mizoguchi hates and hates this father, which also affects the portrayal of some characters in his movies, and perhaps directly aggravates the depiction of male sins in his movies. Men always stupidly want to gain profits and gain fame, but they always make girls sacrifice and suffer disaster. In "Rain Moon Story", Tengbingwei wanted to become a samurai, and took the money he earned to buy armor. While chasing him, his wife was raped by guerrillas and turned into a prostitute. Later, Tengbingwei, who had somehow lost his feces, finally realized his daydream. When he returned home, he met his wife who had become a prostitute and blamed himself deeply, gave up everything he had gotten, and returned to his hometown with his wife. This ending resembling a fairy tale comes more from the production company than Mizoguchi, which also makes the character setting of Tengbingwei and Abin largely meaningless. A better ending should be that Teng Bingwei is not willing to change his status quo for Abin. He may let Abin go with him the good days of his dreams and become part of his satisfying personal hero dream. I was hit by the pain in the dispute and went straight away. Only in this way can the comparison between the two groups of characters be completed. Genjuro is a more practical man who wants to satisfy his desires. Tobeibei is stupid and fanatical who wants to achieve his dreams. Two people succeed and one is down, but they both bring women irreversible. s damage. At the same time, the two women, one gentle and virtuous and the other pungent and cheerful, both endured the same bad luck brought by men.
Because of his respect and compassion for women, Mizoguchi has devoted his life to filming films related to women. He often shoots stories that reflect the life of geishas and is known as a master of feminism and realism. Starting from "Foreign Concubine Aji", he turned to naturalistic realism from the new school drama. But the few films that really established his status as an international film master still came from adaptations of classical works. For example, in 52, 53, and 54 awards at the Venice Film Festival, "Nishizuru Generation Girl", "Yuyue Monogatari", "Doctor Sansho" and a little later "Kinmatsu Monogatari". Mizoguchi Kenji is very good at absorbing nourishment from classical materials. His films are often full of ethics related to ancient benevolence and justice.
Mizoguchi often has an almost harsh paranoia about form. The only "Genesis of Genroku Loyalty" that he filmed in his life was the minimal compromise of wartime militarist policies. Because he couldn't grasp the essence of the Bushido spirit, he turned his attention to the pursuit of form and was keen on perfection of appearance. He transformed the spirit of Bushido into that the samurai pays great attention to politeness and other aspects in terms of entering and exiting, so this movie is more solemn and courteous than any historical drama in describing the behavior of the samurai. Mizoguchi's paranoia about the perfect appearance also continued in his later masterpieces.
In "Rainy Moon Story", there is a breathtaking shot schedule. Genjuro escaped Ruoxia's ghost and returned to his hometown. He walked into the house through the front door and found that there was no one inside, so he walked out the side door while calling his wife's name. The camera shook from the side door back to the front door, and we could see Genjuro who was looking for anxiously from the gap in the window. He turned around and walked in again through the front door. At this time, we were surprised to find that Miyagi had been sitting quietly in the middle of the room surrounded by firewood cooking. This is really a wonderful shot scheduling, a visual miracle that only movies can show us. Mizoguchi did not use close-up shots or close-ups at the scene of the reunion of husband and wife like most directors, emphasizing the excitement of the two. He still uses a fixed panoramic lens, a dignified and comfortable music throughout. When Genjuro was holding the child and talking with Miyagi, the music was mixed with an ethereal and mysterious flute sound from time to time, laying the emotional foreshadowing for the village chief to reveal the fact that Miyagi was dead the next day.
"Rainy Moon Story" was filmed after the war, so it is inevitable to impose anti-war ideas on the original theme. But this performance is not very prominent. Tombei and Miyagi are of little significance because of the ending setting. So the combination of theme and content is not perfect. But Mizoguchi's genius directing skills made up for all this, making "Yuyue Monogatari" a shining pearl in the history of film. Mizoguchi himself, along with Ozu Yasujiro, Naruse Mikio, and Kurosawa Akira, are regarded as the four major directors of the golden age of Japanese cinema because of his numerous masterpieces.
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This is a student work written in college. A considerable part of the views and sentences come from "The World of Mizoguchi Kenji" by Tadao Sato
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