Deciphering "A Page of Madness"

(Kurutta Ippeji, 1926)

By Donald Richie

Teinosuke Kinugasa's "A Page of Madness" ("Kurutta Ichipeiji," 1926) was long thought lost. Only some 75 years later did the discovery of the missing negative allow the picture to be finally viewed by the present generation. At the same time there emerged a critical need to evaluate it because it seemed a somewhat strange entertainment.
Nominally scripted by Yasunari Kawabata, directed by Kinugasa, a shimpa drama specialist formerly an onnagata (female role specialist), it seemed stylistically advanced. It was composed of well over 800 shots, many more and often much shorter than those of the average film (estimated at between five and seven seconds during this period), with some scenes only a few frames in length.
These sketched the story of a man who takes the job of janitor in an insane asylum in order to be near his wife whose madness he feels responsible for. The asylum was vividly rendered but conventional narrative was so ignored that the picture was said to be impossible to understand. It was thus early agreed that here was an avant-garde film, one from outside the industry, made by a group of youngsters (the average age of staff and cast was 25) who created a personal and poetic film, with Kinugasa as an early auteur.
Since stylistic revolutions come from outside, critics noticed that this film and the seminal "Cabinet of Doctor Caligari" (Robert Weine, 1920) shared an insane asylum locale, recalled the experiments of Abel Gance's "La Roue" (1923) and the fact that Kinugasa had several times seen F.W. Murnau's "The Last Laugh" (1924) and had cited it as the "best artistic film" of 1925 in a magazine poll.
In general it was thought Kinugasa was influenced by the French avant-garde film (impressionistic), not the German (expressionistic), and that the editing could not have profited from famous Russian examples since the first Soviet film was not imported into Japan until 1927. This early reading of the picture is still with us, but the burden of Gerow's often brilliant book is to show us that there are other readings.
One is that the Japanese audience was not all that baffled by the imported extremes of impression/expression since they had already encountered these in foreign film imports. And since one of the qualities of the Japanese audience was to find foreign influences as merely "foreign," the differences between avant-garde and avant-derriere are not useful.
The Kinugasa "experimental" film is also larded with scenes that could have come straight from old-fashioned shimpa, and if this is not now apparent, it is because several such scenes are no longer in the available prints. (The original print was 103 minutes, the existing print at the National Film Center is 78 minutes.) The lost scenes are, however, in the extant scenario. Gerow here translates them and very shimpa-like they indeed are.
Other readings are possible. In his autobiography Kinugasa says he decided to make a film about the insane after having seen "the entourage of a certain noble gentleman," one whom "secret whisperings" identified as Yoshihito, who later became the Emperor Taisho. The film could thus also be read as political allegory.
Gerow, who is just as interested in film theory as he is in "A Page of Madness," says reading the film as melodrama or avant-garde, as naturalism or modernism, as literature or cinema is a tempting prospect. But "we would be remiss to simply impose an external privileging on a film that complexly and sometimes contradictorily navigates between such poles."
His advice is to follow the film's lead and ourselves navigate among the various definitions. A single perspective cannot do justice to Kinugasa's picture. Rather, it is important for us "to understand the ways in which people have tried to deal with this text, as well as our own role, through reading this film, in continuing the debates on cinema and modernity that 'A Page of Madness' originally posed."
This Gerow firmly accomplishes giving us the fullest account so far of the film and, particularly, of its reception. Heretofore the most satisfactory have been those of Vlada Petric and Marianne Lewinsky. That of Audie Bock, in some ways the fullest, has never been published and hence does not appear in Gerow's otherwise complete bibliography.
It is indeed fortunate we have this book since our chances of seeing the film itself are slight. Besides the isolated print in the National Film Center, there are in Japan only two rentable versions — identical but one 16 mm and one 35 mm. So far as I know "A Page of Madness" has never been commercially available on VHS or DVD.

Notes:
- The situation described by Richie at the end of the article changed this month. An astonishing new print aired on TCM this month and the quality is just great. Be sure to grab it here.

Akira Kurosawa: Tradition in a Time of Transition

(Akira Kurosawa filming Dersu Uzala, 1975)

Known as the ‘Emperor’, Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) began his career as a painter, did illustrations for popular magazines and joined Japan Proletariat Artists’ Group in the late 20s. In 1936 he answered an advertisement seeking assistant directors in the studio that later came to be known as the Toho Motion Picture Company. He learnt basic filmmaking in Kajiro Yamamoto’s group for six years, wrote scripts and began to direct films. His Rashomon, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in 1951, gave him international fame and recognition. No Regrets for Our Youth, The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Ikiru established him as one of Japan’s leading directors.
He won the Academy Award for his Siberian epic Dersu Uzala. After Kagemusha won the Golden Palm at Cannes it was distributed worldwide by 20th Century Fox.
Kurosawa is also known for his adaptations of western classics like Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Gorky’s The Lower Depths, Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Throne of Blood) and King Lear (Ran) as well as his use of elements from Kabuki and Noh and his work with his regular actors, Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura. He innovatively used new cinema techniques like long lenses and multiple cameras in his sword-fighting and samurai films and Panavision and multitrack Dolby sound in Kagemusha.
He was preparing a new film when he died on September 6, 1998.
Tadao Sato looks at Kurosawa’s work in the context of postwar Japan and the ‘discovery’ of Japanese cinema by the west.

(Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune)

By Tadao Sato

In the postwar period, Japan found itself oscillating between the extremes of an inferiority and a superiority complex vis-a-vis the west. In this article I will discuss what bearing this had on Japanese films in general and on Akira Kurosawa in particular.
When Japan opened its doors to the outside world, breaking the shackles of isolation in the mid-19th century, it was shocked to find that most of Asia had been colonized by the west and Japan lagged far behind in terms of scientific advancement. This gave birth to a deep sense of inferiority and in order to overcome it Japan tried to emphasize its spiritual tradition which was believed to be superior to that of the west. One such tradition was bushido – the feudal samurai spirit characterized by values like valor, loyalty, a sense of mission and self-sacrifice. A number of people believed that if this samurai spirit were enhanced, Japan might be able to unite Asia under her lead and pose a strong challenge to the might of the west. This in turn, gave birth to a feeling of superiority with regard to Asian countries which suffered a crushing blow during the Second World War. Japan then entered its most humiliating period ever. The postwar history of Japan is one of a recovery from this inferiority complex and a regaining of self-confidence.
For more than 50 years from 1910 when mass production of films started in Japan, nearly half of the 300-odd films produced annually had feudal themes where the protagonists were either samurai or gangsters (yakuza), who had a samurai-like code of conduct. Such films were called jidaigeki (period films). Feudal themes being filmed in such large numbers over such a long period is something that has no parallel anywhere in the world.
Such themes, which could be said to belong to the genre of action or stunt films loved by audiences the world over, also reflected the Japanese desire to identify with the samurai. The positive impact of these films was to lift the morale and the self-respect of the Japanese, but at the same time they definitely led to the growth of a militant spirit in the country.
Kurosawa made his directorial debut in 1943 with Sanshiro Sugata, just before the Japanese collapse. It is the story of a judo expert who was inspired by the samurai spirit at a time when the samurai class had ceased to exist. The scene where the protagonist knocks down an American boxer was seen as symbolizing the victory of the Japanese samurai spirit against western aggressiveness. The film was a runaway hit so a second part was also made.
In 1945, after Japan was defeated in the Second World War bushido came to be regarded as an outdated reactionary sentiment. The Japanese wanted to forget about bushido altogether and learn, instead, about democracy. However, surprisingly enough, it was the samurai films that came to be known and appreciated by westerners, principally after Kurosawa won international renown with Rashomon in 1950.
While jidaigeki became famous the films that portrayed modern Japan were ‘discovered’ by the west only in the 70s, through the works of Yasujiro Ozu, Nagisa Oshima and Shohei Imamura. Kurosawa himself made several films on contemporary life, starting with Ikiru. For my generation of Japanese who spent their youth in the immediate postwar years, films like No Regrets for Our Youth, One Wonderful Sunday, Drunken Angel and Stray Dog, which vividly portrayed the realities of that age and carried a strong moral message, gave us the courage to live. And additional factor was that we discovered that films could also be a source of entertainment. However, in my opinion, only a handful of people saw these films outside Japan.
For foreigners, the modern lifestyle of the Japanese, where people seemed to have lost their traditional values, were morally confused and were only imitating the west, was of little interest. In contrast, the jidaigeki, in which the pre-modern lifestyle and the value system of the Japanese was portrayed in a glorified manner, proved more attractive to the outside world. But not all Japanese jidaigeki were appreciated by the foreigners. Among the films which won international acclaim in addition to those by Kurosawa were only a handful such as Harakiri by Kobayashi Masaki, and Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff by Kenji Mizoguzhi.
In the mainstream jidaigeki there were many stereotyped stories and acting styles and most of them were associated with the thoughts and emotions typical of a feudal society. The manner of expression of loyalty between the ruler and the ruled was stylized to the minutest detail and was embedded in tradition. Breaking the shackles of such a stylized from was the hallmark of Kurosawa’s jidaigeki.
These period films were made in special studios, by specialist directors and stars and enjoyed tremendous popularity. Interestingly, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi and Kobayashi were not products of these studios. All of them made primarily gendaigeki (contemporary-life films) and took to making jidaigeki as an experiment. They believed that employing the realism of modern drama while making jidaigeki could by highly interesting.
In his first jidaigeki – Men who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (1945)– Kurosawa took up a noted work entitled Kanjincho, known for its accurate representation of feudalistic behavior patterns with various Kabuki themes and, while retaining its basic form, he made a daring and successful experiment by parodying it into a modern musical comedy.
His second jidaigeki was the famous Rashomon but in this work he took up a story set two centuries ago when feudalistic thought and behavior patterns were yet to be established. It was thus a unique film which was totally unrelated to the mainstream jidaigeki.

(Rashomon, 1950)

Rashomon

Rashomon won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival in 1951. It came as a complete surprise but, subsequently, when it was screened in many countries, it won widespread acclaim. With Rashomon Japanese cinema arrived on the world map which was a significant development not only for the history of Japanese cinema but also for world cinema since, until then, only American and European films were shown and appreciated worldwide and there was almost complete ignorance of films being made in other countries. In a number of Asian countries, films were being made in large numbers from the beginning of this century and there were many which were classics. But they were not known internationally.
Teinosuke Kinogasa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, among others, had been making films since the 20s that were well-known within Japan but not internationally. Even if there was a rare opportunity of showing them in the west, they did not attract much attention. The Japanese, therefore, tended to believe that the standard of their cinema was much lower than in the west and that since Asian films were very slow, they were unacceptable to outsiders. No Japanese was present at the Venice film festival when Rashomon was screened, because no one expected it to win the Golden Lion.
Westerners also could not imagine that films with international appeal could be made outside America and Europe. For that very reason, Rashomon came as a big surprise to the outside world and paved the way for a new age when it was accepted that good films could be conceived and made throughout the world and not just in America and Europe. Kurosawa’s films made an impact because they had thoughts and emotions which were universally understood.
Rashomon opens with a robber who meets a travelling samurai and his wife in the woods, dupes the samurai, ties him up and rapes his wife in front of him. Such a shocking story had never been filmed anywhere before this. That such a barbaric act had been filmed at wall was symptomatic of the transitional period that Japan was passing through after World War II and it also symbolized a liberation from existing morals. Kurosawa was the most celebrated Japanese director of the time and he not only successfully filmed such a shocking scene but showed deep insight into people’s emotions. The film offered a sophisticated analysis of attitudes and feelings: the tendency to over-estimate oneself, the tendency of the protagonists to fabricate tales to suit their own ends, the strong sense of honor. The film had a unique beauty and intensity – neither purely Japanese nor western – and it was this fusion of traditional Japanese and western aesthetics which impressed people everywhere.
The nucleus of the story is three eyewitnesses who make contradictory statements; they fabricate their statements not to save themselves but to present themselves in the best possible light. They even stake their lives on the question of honor.
This was the intrinsic part of the samurai culture and the main theme of traditional drama. The most representative work on this theme was the noted Kabuki work, Chushingura, the story of 47 samurai who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for the honor of their lord. This is linked with the feudal values of loyalty to one’s master and the pre-modern attitude of vendetta. Although one of the most representative works of Japanese traditional drama, the story cannot be called universal in the modern context. Rashomon, while retaining the behavioral pattern of proud men with these feudal values from the traditional theater, analyses the pattern from the modern point of view of individualism. It tries to show that the desire to show oneself in a good light can easily end up in self-deception. It liberates the Japanese from the traditional them of belief in loyalty, honor and pride and develops it into a more universal theme. Moreover, by showing Japanese women with strong sense of self, under-played in traditional theatre, he provides a counterpoint to the theatre of men. Here the strong character of women as seen in modern western theatre or literature is quite apparent. In the court scene Kurosawa uses traditional Japanese landscape architecture very skillfully, making it seem like modern abstract painting. In the scene where the spiritual medium (miko) appears, the effects of both the tradition of Shamanism and the surrealism of modern western art are present. In this way, Rashomon is a unique blend of elements from traditional Japanese and modern western cultures.
Japan’s Pacific war against America and England was, in a sense, a violent outburst of its long-held inferiority complex as much as an expression of a distorted sense of honor. Samurai pride which was damaged by this inferiority complex against the west gave rise to an illusion that Japan had a mission to fulfil – to guide Asia, to liberate it from western imperialism. It will be an exaggeration to say that in Rashomon there is a criticism of the extreme sense of honor among the Japanese. But making this film in the fifth year after the debacle of the war had a historical meaning. Rashomon was a special film which was totally different from the mainstream jidaigeki. Usually in the sword-fighting scenes in mainstream jidaigeki, the spectators would become active participants. For years, therefore, specially trained actors enacted these sequences so acrobatically that they became unrealistic. Since Kurosawa did not want an unrealistic sword fight between the robber and the samurai, he used actors like Toshiro Mifune and Masayuki Mori who had never acted before in a jidaigeki, gave them swords and made them engage in a realistic fight which was totally different from other films.

(Shichinin no Samurai, 1954)

The Seven Samurai

The Seven Samurai was an attempt, after the experiment with Rashomon, to look again at a fight set in the 15th century between a bandit gang and a group of farmers led by samurai. This too was totally different from mainstream period films.
However, it is debatable whether Seven Samurai was really a work of realism. Since at that time there was hardly any historical study of the lifestyle of the masses, Kurosawa used his imagination and came up with a story where farmers who did not know how to fight, took on a group of bandits by engaging the samurai. Today, however, studies are available about the life of Japanese farmers of those times which provide much greater detail. According to these studies the farmers, when threatened, were well-equipped to take on even the regular forces of the Daimyos, what to speak of bandits. Not only were they well-equipped, they also had an elaborate set of rules. For instance, there was a rule that if an intruder entered the village, the first person to notice him would shout for help and everyone would immediately rush there, leaving whatever work they were doing. Those who failed to do so would be punished by the village authorities.
If we take these recent studies to be accurate, then the portrayal of farmers in this film who, without the guidance of the Seven Samurai would have been defenseless, is not correct. In fact, Kurosawa tended to glorify the samurai but did not have much regard for the traditions of the farmers, merchants and artisans. This is amply substantiated in subsequent films like Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo and Sanjuro.
However, it was customary in mainstream jidaigeki to portray samurai as heroes and the common masses as ordinary people with no courage, and Kurosawa was not the only one to do so. Moreover, in the mainstream jidaigeki, men who did not come from the warrior class but still behaved in a heroic manner, were mostly the yakuza or professional gamblers. Yakuza films – which are a genre by themselves – are mostly of this type. Kurosawa, being a moralist, did not think of glorifying such rogues or, in other words, of making a yakuza film. However, he once cast Mifune in the role of a yakuza, The Drunken Angel, which was of course not a jidaigeki film. Kurosawa portrayed this character in a highly critical manner, as a weak-willed, foolish person. But young cinegoers idolized and appreciated him. Subsequently, Kurosawa cast Mifune in a youth’s role who had a strong sense of justice in The Quiet Duel and Stray Dog, as if trying to prove that he had no heart for yakuza.

(Ikiru, 1952)

Of Morals and Men

Kurosawa was critical of himself for glorifying the samurai too much. He cast Mifune as a strong samurai, a superman in Yojimbo and Sanjuro. The violent scenes in these films had an influence on the mainstream jidaigeki and brutal sward fights became popular. Kurosawa held himself responsible for this new phenomenon and he went on to make Red Beard to counter this trend. It portrayed a team of doctors who devote themselves to the treatment of the poor, the weak and the sick.
Shugoro Yamamoto, on whose novel this film was based, was an exception among period novel writers who always wrote entertaining works glorifying the samurai. Unlike the others, Yamamoto wrote about the moral behavior of the common masses – poor people who have self-respect and the forms in which it manifests itself. In Red Beard too there are several episodes where poor patients maintain their moral stance even in trying circumstances. After Red Beard Kurosawa made Dodeskaden based again on Yamamoto’s novel, on the moral values of the lower classes.
However, Kurosawa who showed an unusual power of expression when portraying strong samurai, did not show the same sort of expressive power when portraying self-respect among poor and weak people. Dodeskaden was not as successful as his other films – either in Japan or abroad.
In the later part of his life, Kurosawa maintained his international reputation with Kagemusha and Ran. These films were excellent works which were as beautiful, as paintings, but they did not carry a powerful message. His old Japanese fans defended Kurosawa by saying that he was accepted internationally only when he made jidaigeki. On the other hand in his modern films, Dreams and Not Yet, he displayed his talent as a painter, but as drama they were tame and, therefore, not successful.
In conclusion, one can say that Kurosawa drew upon the positive elements of past morals, like bushido and other traditional forms, and offered them as a moral support for the Japanese who were shattered and were suffering from an inferiority complex. In this respect, he showed an unparalleled creative power. But the work that was a true expression of these bushido morals was ironically not one whose protagonist was a samurai; in Ikiru the protagonist is an ordinary civil servant who is ‘doomed’. This petty official, on learning that he has only six more months to live due to cancer, tries to fulfil his obligations within the limited time, devotes himself to the masses and then quietly dies a satisfied man.
This was the true bushido spirit that was revived after World War II and it was this spirit which led to the recovery of Japan after the war.

Notes #17 - Cinema (II)

(Narayama Bushiko, 1958)

The image's slowness
recalls
the car in the garage
the suicide with the gas from the exhaust pipe,
which means,
the vertiginous heart
and the slowness of the world
darkening
in the foggy reels
of the smooth crepuscular motors
or, in other words,
flashes, combustions,
delivered at random in the arteries,
better saying, the pulsations.

- Carlos de Oliveira

A gesture and a pose: the cinema of Mikio Naruse

(Naruse filming Onna ga Kaidan wo Agaru Toki, 1960)

By Audie Bock*
(Original text here)

Mikio Naruse won his accolades in a film world that allowed him to avoid directorial bravura while celebrating the challenges of everyday life. A prolific filmmaker in both the silent and sound eras, he received Japan's "Best One" award in 1935 for Wife! Be Like a Rose! and again two decades later for Floating Clouds. Both of these films show the determination of ordinary young women to find happiness, a theme that pervades most of Naruse's more than eighty works. The vivacious star of Wife! Be Like a Rose!, Sachiko Chiba, would tell me a half century after her divorce from the quiet filmmaker that he was the only man she had ever really loved and that she never should have left him. Late in life her tears atoned for the mistakes of a young star who had failed to see that it was the director who created her winsome screen presence, and not the reverse. A contemporary of first-generation filmmakers Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi, a teacher of postwar humanists Akira Kurosawa and Kihachi Okamoto, and an inspiration to "Japanese New Wave" directors of the '60s and '70s such as Shohei Imamura and Nagisa Oshima, Naruse continues to be rediscovered by twenty-first-century directors like Hirokazu Kore-eda. His posthumous international reach has touched the likes of Martin Scorsese and numerous European filmmakers.

(Ukigumo, 1955)

The Sidelong Glance

The brilliant Japanese actress Hideko Takamine, star of Lightning (1952), Floating Clouds (1955), When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), A Wanderer's Notebook (1962), and Yearning (1964), among other Naruse films, recounted her last conversation with the director as he lay in a hospital bed in 1969. "He wanted to make a movie with no sets at all," she recalled, "just two actors in front of a white curtain backdrop." Even facing death, Naruse's thoughts were caught up in his metier. He was crafting a drama he believed he could still realize. At the end of a long career, he had reached a point where he could conceptualize a film in which scenery was totally superfluous. All that mattered was two people's chemistry bubbling up on the screen.
For Naruse that chemical reaction barely required any dialogue. Those who worked with him over the years, both actors and crew, adjusted with difficulty. Tatsuya Nakadai, known for numerous samurai roles and as the young villain with a gun in Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), remembered with frustration how he, a Shakespearean actor, saw line after line of his dialogue disappear under Naruse's murderous pencil. Each deletion made him feel less worthy. He described Naruse as a taciturn and thoroughly intimidating presence.
What remained after all the deletions was a language of gesture, slight shifts of body weight and sidelong glances. Watch the eyes of Takamine (as Yukiko Koda), her costar Masayuki Mori (as Kengo Tomioka), and the young woman playing the Annamese servant in the opening flashback scenes in Dalat, Indochina, in Floating Clouds. Over a tray of cocktails, the servant girl lets Yukiko know with a long look after the departing Tomioka that he is her man. Tomioka, trying his best to appear gruff and critical over dinner, stares at her hard enough, while insulting her, to reveal that he is attracted to the fresh-faced Yukiko. It is the eye movement, not the dialogue, that lays out the characters of the players who will react to one another in an intense emotional cauldron.
Tomioka, while writing to his wife with faithful regularity, can't keep his hands off any young woman. Yukiko the survivor, running away from the brother-in-law who raped her, will run again--this time from the advances of a forester who claims he replaces the thoughts of women with the scent of perfumed trees--directly into the arms of the feckless Tomioka. The signs are all there in the opening glances. What is maddeningly obvious to the viewer escapes the judgment of the wide-eyed Yukiko, and this is how Naruse introduces the theme of Floating Clouds: We are about to watch a young woman grow up painfully in the moral chaos of wartime and postwar Japan.
Later in the film Yukiko will cry over Tomioka's lies and unfaithfulness. But what we see in the sidelong glances of the flashback fully reveals his character. He is a man superficially devoted to his work and his wife but capable of carrying on affairs with various women. If Yukiko had gained any worldly wisdom from her suffering prior to arriving in Dalat, she too would see it and avoid him; but she is twenty-two and still optimistic, seeing only what she wants to see: an attractive and authoritative older man. She will pay dearly for trusting him.
While watching the sidelong glances, we must also listen for the expressive silences. When Yukiko stands in the entryway of Tomioka's house back in Tokyo, the flute-and-drum music associated with the exotic happy memories of Dalat ceases. Tomioka's wife comes to the door and quickly looks her up and down. The look makes Yukiko lower her eyes ashamedly, then blurt out that she has come as a messenger from the Agriculture and Forestry Department. This little white lie elicits a welcoming, cap-toothed smile from the wife--a complete change of attitude. This exchange is offered in neutral medium shots without any rise in tone of voice or any abrupt movements. It's all very matter of fact: Have an extramarital affair, go looking for your man, instinctually lie to his wife because you can't withstand the suspicion in her look.
Japan is a culture of reticence. Naruse's use of the sidelong glance and small gesture, and blue pencil on the script, creates an economy of cinematic style unparalleled East or West.

(Meshi, 1951)

The Relentless Editor

Naruse's most frequent producer at the Toho Studios, Sanezumi Fujimoto, told me he found the director's pacing extremely irritating. He complained bitterly that there were no peaks and valleys in Naruse's style, no moments of relaxation between the battles the way Kurosawa fashioned his films. In a Naruse film, there could never be a dance like the fire festival in Hidden Fortress (1958) or the rice planting at the end of Seven Samurai (1954). Naruse's characters never get relief or release, even if they are watching a festive performance. The pace of their rush toward destruction never lets up, pile upon pile of medium shots, thousands of fast cuts pushing the protagonist toward a life of loneliness or self-sacrifice or oblivion and death.
Like life, Naruse's films are composed of thousands of short shots of mundane activities and objects. If Ozu can imbue a film with transcendance by holding a shot of a vase in the corner of a dark room while the soft murmur of a father's snoring continues on the sound track (Late Spring [1949]), Naruse will use a cutaway to an inanimate object for a completely different purpose. Both Floating Clouds and Repast (1951), among other Naruse films, offer cutaways to pairs of men's shoes (Japanese, as is well known, remove their shoes on entry into the home). In Floating Clouds the shoes are Tomioka's worn-out footwear, and their condition reveals his failure in life. He has lost everything trying to start a lumber business to supply the postwar housing boom, and now he has sought out Yukiko to borrow money. It is her maid who grasps and straightens the broken-down shoes; Yukiko notices only that Tomioka is wearing an eye patch. Again the viewer is given information that the protagonist ignores. Housed and clothed in luxury by her brother-in-law, Yukiko is only too thrilled to see her old lover.
In Repast the shoes again reveal something about the characters. We see a shot of a husband's brand-new two-tone shoes as he walks into the office; they draw the criticism of a colleague. Though Okamoto (Ken Uehara) claims they are cheap and that he saved up for them by cutting down on cigarettes, his colleague says he would do better to buy something for his pretty wife, Michiyo (Setsuko Hara). Later, when his shoes are stolen from the entryway of his home while he is tending to his niece's nosebleed, his wife remarks that the loss of his shoes is a "punishment." After devoting his attention, money, and time to his uninvited runaway niece instead of his wife, he fails to grasp why he might be being punished.
Naruse's cutaways, whether they are of shoes in the entryway or neatly folded and wrapped clothes in a basket outside the bath, are integral to the storytelling. He does not let them breathe or distract like the clotheslines and chimneys in an Ozu film. He does not let them stand for something outside of the human interaction. His concentration weighs evenly on the verbal and the nonverbal, the establishing shot and the close-up. Nothing appears that does not serve the human story. The stolen shoes in Repast, which require Okamoto to get an advance on his salary to replace them, show the precariousness of these characters' place in the middle class, as well as the fragility of their intimate relationships. It is difficult to imagine an American film where a pair of shoes could be so loaded with the affects of society and intimacy.
Fujimoto's complaints notwithstanding, and screen credits to an editor notwithstanding, we must recognize that Japanese directors of the midcentury era all did their own editing, much of it in camera. I never had the opportunity to see Naruse work in postproduction, but I did watch Kurosawa pull yards of footage through his old Moviola and do the cutting himself, listening to an inner rhythm in his head. Naruse's personal rhythm is that annoying relentlessness of daily life, the rhythm that will not let go. If his characters try to break that rhythm by grasping at something that looks more like happiness, they are quickly recaptured: The family disapproves, the lover betrays, economic necessity interferes. In one of his earliest films, Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts (1935), the young heroine struggling to make her way in the big city as a cafe musician is delighted to be asked to pose for the camera by a passing photographer. When she takes out her compact afterward to look in the mirror, she sees a large cake crumb stuck to her cheek. She frowns a moment and then goes about her business. Something as trivial as a cake crumb can prevent a poor girl from getting a big break like a magazine cover.

(Midaregumo, 1967)

Icons of the Urban Poor

Although Naruse's characters moved up the socioeconomic ladder, as did Ozu's, in the course of his nearly four decades of filmmaking, there is a recurrent symbol of a folksier time that lingers in most of his films. This is the chindonya, a group of street musicians in traditional costume with drums, flutes, and shamisen strings who parade around neighborhoods advertising the opening of new businesses, usually on the local shopping street.
Nobody knows why Naruse had such affection for these almost comical folks. In Repast the young wife and her school friend laugh at them because they can see from the rhythm two chindonya share that they are husband and wife. In this case, calling attention to the marital relationship makes Michiyo think about how much worse her situation could be. Her war-widow school friend with a young child appears later passing out leaflets to commuters, her economic situation clearly deteriorated. The contemplative look on Michiyo's face conveys her realization that her marriage--childless and suffering from poor communication--is still far easier than life as a single mother.
The chindonya image belongs to the Tokyo neighborhoods that Tomioka ridicules in Floating Clouds--Katsushika and Yotsuya, places where country people with thick dialects and few possessions gathered to make their way in the big city. Naruse knew these neighborhoods from his own orphaned and impoverished childhood. He was one of those who did make his way in the big city, through years of apprenticeship for low pay and self-education in poetry, philosophy, and cinema, finally reaching a place where he could pay his own artistic homage to the industriousness of the human race. His characters are seldom happy with the place fate sets for them. They have a yearning for something better, and even if they go back to a dull life, like the young wife in Repast, their awareness of a better reality does not dim. The perfume of the trees in the jungles of Dalat--a place where society does not condemn and love is totally available--always returns, with the haunting beat of the drums accompanied by flute song and strings.
Naruse may have annoyed producers like Fujimoto with the sameness of his rhythms, but he always came in on time and under budget. His films celebrate, without extravagance, the lives of ordinary people struggling for something better than the hand fate has dealt them. Performed with quiet certainty by superb actors, shot and edited with a sure and relentless hand, they raise the ordinary and even the sordid to a quality near sublime. They never succumb to the triteness of a Hollywood happy ending but show instead a noble and stubborn fortitude, proud individuals bumping into one dead end after another, twisting elegantly in the wind.

-----------------------------
*Audie Bock is the author of Japanese Film Directors (Kodansha, 1978) and Mikio Naruse: A Master of Japanese Cinema (1983) and the translator of Akira Kurosawa's Something Like an Autobiography (Knopf, 1982).

A Man Vanishes - Two Views

(Ningen Johatsu, 1967)

I.
Ningen Johatsu

By Shohei Imamura

In the spring of 2002, after receiving a leter detailing her recent situation, I met up with a woman whom I hadn't seen for 25 years. The letter read: "I gained great strenght from advice to "live brazenly". I've told my husband everything about all those years ago - and the fact that I'm going to meet you.
Carefully watching her seemingly serene demeanour, I was surprised by the memories that came flooding back. At the age of 32, this woman, whom we'd nicknamed "The Rat", appeared in my documentary film Ningen Johatsu. I first came across her in 1967 - she was searching for her fiancé who had gone missing, and I decided to film the process of her investigation.
The police authorities had over 80.000 incidents of missing people. I chose the most "ordinary" case I could find: a salesman from northeastern Japan called Oshima Tadashi. The Rat was his fiancée. At the time, newspapers and TV bulletins were full of reports about this phenomenon of missing persons in Japan. This was in an era of rapid economic growth, when droves of young people were leaving the provinces and their rural communities and flocking to the major cities. Many of them were to go missing, their dreams shattered. These young people had suddenly dropped off the face of the earth - where had they gone? How did their home communities cope with their disappearence?
My deep interest in these disappearences was piqued. But to be perfectly honest, I never really warmed to this woman, the Rat. She came across as haughty and completly self-centred.
Runaways weren't treated with any great seriousness by the police authorities, and one would be justified in asking what could a mere film director hope to achieve. Even when we were negotiating her appeareance in the film, the Rat lashed out at me: "You're not at all interested in trying to find him, are you?"
It was through talking with to the Rat that I realised I could make a film focussing on her search, irrespective of wether we found Oshima or not. In order to peel away her mask, so to speak, firstly I decided to examine her daily life with no real preconceptions. The Rat quit her hospital job in Tokyo to take a starring role in my film. I sent a film crew - unbeknown to the Rat - to her leaving party, and this footage became the opening scene of the film. Accompanying the crew was the actor Tsuyuguchi Shigeru who played the role of reporter gathering information on the Rat. I installed a second camera fitted with a long lens on the roof of a building opposite.
When Tsuyuguchi and the camera crew entered onto the scene through a back door, sure enough all hell broke loose! This was because the Rat hadn't told her colleagues anything about the film project. I thought, with her angry and in tears, her secret out in the open, the true character of this woman would be revealed to me. However, my scheme quickly backfired.

(Ningen Johatsu, 1967)

The Rat became more and more "actress-like" as soon as she was in front of the camera. What I wanted to capture on film was a person coping with the harsh reality of the disappearence of a loved one. I was thwarted though, by the Rat's affected performance. I realised she couldn't care less about Oshima Tadashi - all she was interested in was walking around with Tsuyuguchi, to whom she'd taken a great liking.
We searched high and low for Oshima trawling the bars in Fukushima where he'd last been seen. To no avail. We'd hit a brick wall. I'd given up ever tracing Oshima and I was now more excited by focussing the film on the character of the Rat. I wanted to inject more passion into the film. If my subject insisted on becoming more actress-like, then I had a counter-response in mind. On days when no filming was scheduled, I tailed her with hidden cameras. When she was being ferried between sets and her lodgings. I installed hidden microphones inside the cars. At a coffee shop in Shinjuku, I managed to record a secret tryst between the Rat and Tsuyuguchi, where she told him, in tears, how much she liked him.
Then we became embroiled in the Rat's antagonistic relationship with her elder sister, whom we nicknamed "The Rabbit". She was the mistress of a businessman, and the complete opposite in temprerament to her sister. She was rather scruffy in appearence, but she had a broadminded tolerance about her.
I came to the realisation that this triangular relationship could be the reason behind Oshima's abscounding from the scene.
I hadn't shown the Rat any footage until the film was finished. She viewed it with the affectation of a leading lady. But she was startled by the images of herself on screen and she ran screaming from the screening room at Nikkatsu studios. "I've been tricked! It's an invasion of my privacy!" she complained in magazine articles, placing me in a predicament within the wider film world. I realised it was highly remiss of me to have shown her beforehand any footage from the hidden cameras. But in the meticulous work of scrutinising the true nature of a person's character, to a great extent there can be no such thing as privacy. One can't invade someone's privacy without hurting them - frankly it's unavoidable. Our method for disclosing this stranger's dark past created a moral conundrum for Tsuyuguchi and the production crew.
I was absolutely open to a debate on the ethics of confidentiality and privacy, and I prepared myself for an onslaught from the media. However, Nikkatsu initiated a press campaign to counter any scandalm and the brouhaha died down pretty quickly. A short while after that, I met the Rat again at an inn in Yotsuya. By then, I had accepted the quirks of her personality. I prepared myself to be castigated vehemently by her, but she was simply relieved that at last the whole thing was over. I bitterly regretted not filming those scenes with a hidden camera! Here I was, standing on the edge of an abyss, witnessing part of a woman's psyche that was beyond my understanding.
The Rat had become an instructor in needlework and she was now the mother of two married daughters. I received a New Year's card from her telling me that her husband had passed away. I prayed for the response of his soul.

(Ningen Johatsu, 1967)

II
The error of mere Theorisation of technique

By Nagisa Oshima

Director Imamura Shohei's Ningen Johatsu was flung just as it was into the midst of the Japanese film world, and that was sufficient to provoke debate. I was shooting in Kyoto at the time and so wasn't able to participate in the debate, but read later what had been written, and I sensed danger. Everybody was talking about technique. And their way of debating was to say that technique exists a priori and Imamura either had used it well or hadn't. In particular, most pointed out that he had used it well, which will probably give rise to many imitators. Of course, imitators don't usually get as far as the filmmaking stage, but I can easily imagine many spiritual imitators coming into being. This will exert a bad influence on young people who are interested in film. Even if it doesn't, now is the time to flee. People start to avoid discussing theme. At such a time, the dominant tendency is to want to discuss technique only. The discussion of Ningen Johatsu on the basis of technique alone intensified this tendency. I would therefore now like to discuss the significance of Imamura's technique.
What did Imamura think would emerge from the pursuit by his fiancée of a man who had disappeared? Had he known, he could have written a script and made it into a dramatic work. He didn't know what would come of it. Or, if he did know, he felt it would be dangerous to draw a conclusion based on it. He felt that it wasn't quite enough. One of these two motives, probably the latter, caused Imamura to start using documentary technique. (He later said that this was fiction, but it is a fact that he started by using the documentary technique and nothing can change that.)
Next there is the problem of theme. Was there a theme from the beginning, was it anticipated to some extent, or was there none at all? I think that there was hardly any theme.
If you combine the above two points, the result is that Imamura had, to a certain extent, assumptions about how the situation would evolve, but he couldn't anticipate the type of theme that would result. But itsn't it likely that Imamura set out with thoughts along the lines of "We'll probably find a theme to go along", or "Let's get on with it?"
This is the crudest starting point for a documentary. From the perspective of today's television documentaries, it is probably about five years behind the times. Of course, stupid directors influenced by the experimental "happening underground" might proceed this way. (In the future some fools will probably attempt to imitate Ningen Johatsu). Superior television documentarists, at least, wouldn't start out like this. However, there must have been a strong inner tension in Imamura as he dared to use the documentary technique, which he had never used before, even if it was a crude technique. I don't know much about Imamura's relationship with politics, nor can I be sure about the kind of pressure that forced him to change his technique. However, there was no likelihood of his being able to produce the film he had been wanting to do, Kamigami no Fukaki Yokubo, and he was probably driven by his reputation as an erotic artist. It may not be possible to ascertain the reason, but something in Imamura made it inevitable that he choose a new technique. Once he got started, Imamura showed great tenacity. It is only his inner tension that makes the first half of Ningen Johatsu worth seeing. If vulgar artists and imitators had set out from the same starting point, it would be impossible to sit through ten minutes of their work.

(Ningen Johatsu, 1967)

But, but... It is totally untrue to say that a documentary's theme is discovered in the process. Imamura realised that, of course, midway through the film. A decisive change in direction takes place there. It turns toward fictionalisation. After that Imamura's inner tension changes qualitatively as well. His desperate effort as a professional artist who has to make the story consistent at all costs comes to the surface in the way it gropes simultaneously for technique and theme. Mori Kota's Kawa: Ano uragiri ga omoku contrasts with this. Mori also sets out thinking that he'd discover a theme along the way, or that it would at least become clear, and although he despaired of this during the proces, he brazened it out. The freshness of an amateur is there, but there is a limit. The relationship between the fiancée and the older sister becomes interesting and Imamura focuses on them persistently. However, this turns out to be a vicious circle, and no theme is discovered there. At that point, the concept is brought out high-handedly for the last time: "I don't understand the truth."
"I don't understand the truth": is that the theme? I put this question to the many reviewers of Ningen Johatsu? This is neither a theme nor anything else, since this type of conclusion can be drawn from any work. Also, it has no connection with the themes of any of Imamura's other films. An abstract theme like "I don't understand the truth" may be of interest to would-be essayists who find it clever, but if true authors make it an issue, it should always be argued in the context of the specific truth that is not understood. If he has no general understanding of the truth of facts, an artist should just give upwriting. It would be distressing if a fraudulent concept of this type were to pervade the critical world like a form of mas hysteria. Ningen Johatsu is a film that started off with the very mistaken notion that a subjective theme would emerge midway through, failed marvellously, made a tremendous effort to redeem itself, and had charm in that great effort. Although most of those who reviewed Ningen Johatsu should see this mistake in technique, they see a triumph of technique. Actually, this must be considered a film that exmplifies the failed documentary.
Imamura probably said that he doesn't understand the truth because he thought he doesn't understand "truth in the documentary". Thus he declares his revocation of the documentary technique that he had once used. Conceivably, people will differ as to wether they view this delcaration of revocation and the high-handed way of redeeming the work as sincere or not.
In any case, Imamura will probably come to see the error of his ways and cease making work depicting truth. Imamura does not worry me, but those, fascinated by his example, who consider only technique are the ones who distress me. They demean themselves and lead others into error. For their benefit, I wanted to talk about how strange it is for technique to be debated in isolation from the artist and his theme.

Between Comedy and Kitsch: Kitano's Zatoichi and Kurosawa's Traditions of "Jidaigeki" Comedies

(Takeshi Kitano on the set of Zatoichi)

By Rie Karatsu, Massey University
(in Scope, #6)

Introduction

"If I make a film starring Kitano, it will be Zatoichi. (Akira Kurosawa, quoted in Sugimura, 2003: 96)."

The "jidaigeki," or Japanese historical drama, has seen a resurgence in recent years, fuelled by interest in the genre and action by Japanese and Western directors. Films such as Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2003 and 2004) and The Last Samurai (2003), have produced interesting and popular films borrowing from the style and conventions created much earlier in the development of Japanese jidaigeki films. Any samurai film, whether made in or outside Japan, undoubtedly draws comparisons with Akira Kurosawa's samurai classics. In none of these works is recognition of a specific cultural context more important than in Takeshi Kitano's recent adaptation of the original Zatoichi (1962).
Set in nineteenth-century Japan, Kitano's Zatoichi (2003) tells the story of Ichi (Takeshi Kitano); a blind, wandering masseur with a gambling problem and sword-fighting skills. Ichi wanders into a remote mountain town ruled by corrupt officials and a gang of rough mobsters. When he befriends a widow (Michiyo Ookuso) and her nephew Shinkichi (Gadarukanaru Taka), a dice gambler, he learns that the town is in the middle of a massive gang war in which two mob bosses (Saburo Ishikura and Ittoku Kishibe) lay waste to the competition with the help of the highly skilled ronin named Hattori (Asano Tadanobu). Hattori takes a job as an assassin for one of these gang lords in order to pay for treatment for his sick wife. Meanwhile, Ichi meets and attempts to help two geisha assassins, Okinu and Osei (Yuko Daike and Daigoro Tachibana), who seek revenge on the criminals who slaughtered their family. Ichi eventually finds himself in conflict with Hattori, and demonstrates the virtues of training and humility in equal measures in despatching the arrogant forces of wickedness afflicting the lives of those he cares for. Having done so, he continues his wandering, not unlike an ancient version of Shane (1953).
Zatoichi is Kitano's biggest domestic box-office success to date, with around two million Japanese theatre admissions. Like Kurosawa, Kitano has had more success abroad than in Japan. Foreign audiences began to take notice of Kitano after the 1993 release of Sonatine. Hana-bi (1997) paved his status internationally as one of the foremost Japanese filmmakers of his time. For years, Kitano's largest audience had been the foreign highbrow or non-mainstream audience. Zatoichi was consciously targeted at a younger, more mainstream Japanese audience, for the first time taking advantage of moving cameras as opposed to his more characteristically static method to the action.
The film was both a commercial and critical success; it won several international film awards, including the Silver Lion (Special Director's Award) at the sixtieth Venice Film Festival. The success recalls the moment when Japanese cinema first hit international headlines, when Akira Kurosawa won the Gold Lion at Venice in 1950 with Rashomon, deconstructing the code of the jidaigeki genre. Needless to say, Kurosawa's classics influenced not only Kitano's remake, but also the very Zatoichi original. Kurosawa's classics influenced the director, Kenji Misumi, in filming the original Zatoichi. Misumi made an intensive study of Yojimbo (1961), Seven Samurai (1954) and other Kurosawa samurai classics. Misumi assembles some kinetic and visceral elements of Kurosawa's cinematic actions and violence, but he does so to reassure audiences and eradicate difficulty. Kitano's remake is both parody and homage to the reassuring aesthetics of the original Zatoichi.

(Zatoichi Royaburi, 1967)

In this paper, I contend that Kitano offers us a vivid, comprehensive example of how a Japanese artist can translate both Kurosawa's classics and the myth of Zatoichi, reflecting on contemporary Japanese concerns about the gap between youth and their preceding generation. To bring about this achievement, Kitano deploys both the comedy inherited from Kurosawa and the aesthetics of kitsch translated from the original Zatoichi. The points of reference in this paper are not only divided between Kurosawa and Kitano, but also triangulated across the comic, popular and critical. In order to meet the triangular points of reference, I will first trace how Kurosawa's classics have influenced the original Zatoichi, before dealing with Kitano's adaptation.
Divided into two parts, Part I of this article examines the receptions of Kitano's Zatoichi in order to explore how they reflect Japanese social anxieties caused by the generation gap. Part II examines how Kurosawa's classics have influenced the original Zatoichi. I argue that the original Zatoichi assembles some of the kinetic and visceral elements of Kurosawa's classics, but it does so to soften the "facts of life and death." I present arguments which claim that the original Zatoichi replaced Kurosawa's ethic and aesthetic goals with commercial ends, namely cynicism, fetishism and iconicity, an amalgamation of which is regarded as ethically and aesthetically immature. Part III discusses Kitano's adaptation of the original Zatoichi, and Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies, in particular those with "happy endings." Among them are The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945), Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo, and Sanjuro (1962). Kitano's Zatoichi, it will be argued, draws on the comic code that his predecessor, Kurosawa explored in his early jidaigeki. Like Kurosawa, Kitano explores the balance between the facts of life and death, the theme of individual and society, the relationship between audience and the film. It should be noted, however, that Kitano reinforces non-authenticity, fragmentation and repetition, and places comedy in a quite different context from Kurosawa. I shall further argue that Kitano adopts Kurosawa's critical comedy without discarding the aesthetics of kitsch from the original Zatoichi. Thus, Kitano both reflects and resists Kurosawa's comic traditions simultaneously.

(Zatoichi Royaburi, 1967)

1. Two Generations and the Receptions of Kitano's Zatoichi

Kitano's Zatoichi's domestic commercial success was unexpected considering that the jidaigeki movie seems to have fallen out of favour with Japan's young audience and jidaigeki's popularity has tailed off dramatically since its heyday over thirty years ago. Today, as a genre, jidaigeki is as deeply unfashionable as the Western movie has been perceived in America. NHK's (Nippon Hoso Kyokai, Japan's public broadcaster) Sunday night historical drama, Yoshitsune (2005), failed to invigorate the jidaigeki's declining popularity, despite a desperate effort from NHK to get a young audience by casting a pop star in the leading role. A majority of jidaigeki fans are of the older generation. For this older generation, the original Zatoichi represents what jidaigeki should be like.
The original Zatoichi franchise has its roots in the stories of writer Kan Shimozawa, and was first brought to the silver screen in the 1962 film entitled Zatoichi Monogatari, starring Shintaro Katsu and directed by Kenji Misumi. Ichi is a blind wandering swordsman who disguises himself as a masseur and occasionally hires out his skilful sword-fighting services to various clans in order to make a living. The character of Ichi proved highly popular, repeated by Katsu in the original series. The original Zatoichi turned out to be one of the longest running series in the history of jidaigeki. It consists of twenty-six films and one hundred TV episodes spanning almost three decades (1962 -1989).
Kitano's Zatoichi (2003) is a completely different style in every conceivable way from the original. It is interesting to note that Kitano's first reference to the original Zatoichi appeared as a ten minute parody sequence in his 1995 comedy Getting Any?, in which he lampooned the character of Ichi. Although Kitano had little interest in this character other than as a foil for a parody, he later revealed that his affection for the character of Ichi did have a place in his creativity. His 2003 remake was a fresh take on the character of Ichi.
The original character of Ichi has been virtually synonymous with the late Katsu. Some unfamiliarity of Kitano's remake troubled the jidaigeki fans, in particular those of the original Zatoichi, while it enjoyed a positive reception from a younger audience who are not jidaigeki fans. According to Asian film scholar, Tatsu Aoki:
Katsu freaks are everywhere in Japan, because he's one of the biggest heroes for the older generation. They felt this role pretty much belonged to Shintaro Katsu and didn't want to see Ichi played by a different actor. I talk to younger people now, who kind of like this new Zatoichi. We are of the generation to say, "No, this is not the real thing," but to them there wasn't any real thing to begin with. So we split our opinion on that. (Hart, 2004)
The jidaigeki convention represented in the original Zatoichi does not appeal to the younger generation. Jidaigeki is saddled with the conventions and stereotypes, formulas and clichés which were established in postwar Japan. All these are codified into the jidaigeki genre. Jidaigeki has epitomised Japanese national identity, its masculine past and the dialectic of the relation between individual and society, modern and traditional. In today's Japan, these boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred, and what has emerged is the fashionable cult of cool mixed with individualism. Jidaigeki is what Japanese young people come to regard as "oyaji-kusai," "jiji-kusai," "toshiyori-kusai," "ossan-kusai" (meaning "old fashioned"), "sekkyo-kusai" (preachy), "shibai-kusai," and "engi ga kusai" (overacting/artificial). "Kusai" (smell) is here referring to emotionally-charged atmosphere.
To Japanese young people, the jidaigeki offers incongruity. It is precisely because the cult of cool has taken root with Japanese youth. The unaffected and unaffecting culture is represented in the slang, the despised "uzai," an adjective for young people to describe older people who are "uncool." The Japanese young audience can sit back and be amused rather than being affectively involved. In today's Japan, indeed, the very notion of an embodied engagement is eschewed. The challenge Kitano has to respond to is the radical detachment of the postmodern kind, different from what Kurosawa did in his time. In contrast to Kurosawa, who challenged the postwar collective conformity and sentimentality, Kitano tackles the contemporary context in which the cult of cool mixed with individualism imposes ethics, and in which society is undervalued.
The current Japanese cultural shift to the overvaluation of individualism, the undervaluation of the society is caricatured by Kitano's Zatoichi. Kitano's concern is expressed in one of his books, in which Kitano criticises Japanese young people's unconditional worship of North American individualism as the best policy to emulate without considering its historical background. The Japanese conceptualisation of "individualism" is, in his view, merely "me-ism." (Kitano, 1998: 177) According to Kitano what has emerged full-blown in today's Japan is the state of "super-free." (Kitano, 2003a: 204)

(Zatoichi Royaburi, 1967)

Such a cultural and social climate provides some insight into how he approached updating the Zatoichi legend for contemporary young audiences. Kitano tackles this generational incongruity and misunderstanding in a new Japan, which is quite different from the Japan of postwar decades. Kitano creates a comedy of misunderstanding with the mobster who, in the enthusiasm to attack Ichi, draws his sword with such force it cuts his comrade's arm standing next to him; the merchants who want to test their new sword on a passing Ichi, suffer similar consequences; "the idiot son of a neighbour," a semi-naked lunatic man with a spear who runs around yelling and bumping into things. These scenes caricature the generational malfunctioning of communication. They could also allude to the old generation's perception that young people are so self-absorbed that they are not able to focus on their surrounding and the impact of their actions.
The most hilarious scene of misunderstanding involves the formation training sequence in which Shinkichi attempts to train a group of neighbours in the art of combat with swords, while three men wind up taking turns beating Shinkichi on the head rather than striking his sword. This scene is reminiscent of the young generation's perception that the old generation is obsessed with archaic ritual and routine. Kitano's success lies in his ability to comically deal with the generational incongruity that prevails in contemporary Japan. Playful anachronism can be found everywhere: not in the least by representing Ichi with blonde hair and tap dancing.
Comedy and dance decentre main characters and the narrative effect. That is to say, comedy and dance are located beyond the primacy of narrative or diegesis, and the limit of realist film. Comedy and dance remain a source of audience fascination that compete directly with plot and character development. Comedy and dance develop in sufficient number and demand enough interest that these comic and dance details cease to be servants of the narrative. They instead assume a greater affective charge than the narrative within which they are embedded. It is Kitano's way of embedding the modern inside the traditional. Such an extensive use of comedy and dance is absent in the original Zatoichi, as it is strictly within the scope of the generic conventions of realist jidaigeki, and its dominant tone is cynicism. In the following section, I contend that the original Zatoichi, in comparison to Kurosawa's films, is immature cynicism, which renders the film ethically and aesthetically imbalanced.

(Shin Zatôichi monogatari: Kasama no chimatsuri, 1973)

2.1 Critical vs. Popular: From Kurosawa's Comedy to the Cynicism of the Original Zatoichi

"Yana tosei dana" (It is a terrible world) is a catch phrase of Ichi, the protagonist of the original Zatoichi. Ichi, a wanderer, has a sense of justice, protects the weak, and criticises society from an outsider's "objective" point-of-view. Ichi, in the original Zatoichi, is a cynical, victimised thinker. As Stuart Kaminsky points out, there has been a tradition of physical deformity in postwar jidaigeki resulting from the disgrace of defeat (Kaminsky, 1972: 313). Ichi is an example of such a victimised hero; discriminated, shunned and ridiculed because of his disability. He is treated like an outcast in every town he visits. Like the samurai in a jidaigeki, and the gunman in a western movie, Ichi is driven by a desire for revenge. [1] What makes Ichi a hero is that he is always one step ahead of society: The blind man "sees" much more than those who have perfect eyesight. The original Zatoichi invokes and satisfies audience expectations, allowing an uncritical identification with Ichi.
The original Zatoichi emphasised liberal-individuals and their values to such a degree that the film departed from jidaigeki tradition because jidaigeki traditionally showed the samurai acting as part of a group. The huge commercial appeal of the original Zatoichi is predicated on the growing belief in liberal-individualist values in postwar Japan. David Desser positions the original Zatoichi as a Sword Film, a subgenre of jidaigeki in his essay, "Toward a Structural Analysis of the Postwar Samurai Film." Desser states:
The Sword Film, as defined here, begins with Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961). Although typically described as a "Japanese Western," Yojimbo has much in common with American gangster films, hardly surprising … The introduction of elements from the Westerns and gangster genres (with their very different mythologies) marks a change in the mythos of the Samurai Film. (Desser, 1992: 156)
In new or postwar jidaigeki, liberal-individualism has been defined as a powerful cultural drive. Traditional or prewar jidaigeki shares the characteristics observed by Desser as "the overvaluation of society, the undervaluation of the individual." (Desser, 1992: 162) Darrell Davis draws attention to the effects of government intervention on prewar jidaigeki and its changes toward nationalistic collectivism between the years of 1936-41. He has dubbed the prewar jidaigeki the "monumental style." The style is best exemplified in Genroku Chushingura (1941), which prizes loyalty to one's lord over all other virtues (Davis, 1996: 131).
The original Zatoichi reversed this, instead emphasising the undervaluation of society, the overvaluation of the individual. Initially, the traditional jidaigeki was the dominant form of samurai drama but, with the new wave of directors in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a shift in focus towards the new jidaigeki with morally ambiguous, troubled and, at times, narcissistic heroes/anti-heroes.
Needless to say, Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo helped free the samurai genre from traditional collective morality. He popularised the figure of the "ronin" who mocked conformity and compliance. Kurosawa's jidaigeki were all created in a historical context in which authority strongly imposes ethics and morals upon an individual. Disturbed by the fanatical militarism present in Japan during World War II, and ruthless postwar capitalism, Kurosawa aimed to reshape Japanese society for ideals of individual autonomy. As examined by Stephen Prince (1991), Kurosawa forged a politically committed model of filmmaking, and participated as a filmmaker in the tasks of social reconstruction. The image of Toshiro Mifune on the watchtower in Yojimbo, watching the conflicts below with amused detachment, is an apt metaphor for individual autonomy. Prince refers to the ethics of Yojimbo as "one of isolation, a celebration of alienation." (Prince, 1991: 235) Like a typical new jidaigeki, Kurosawa's Yojimbo and its follow-up, Sanjuro, mock the over-valuation placed on "bushido" (the Way of Samurai) and the samurai's loyalty to the clan as being more significant than life itself.
Despite his emphasis on the liberal-individual, Kurosawa maintains the composition and balance of contrasts with society, in particular through the use of comedy. In Yojimbo, the playful music fitting the scruffy hero scratching his unclean head, the dog trotting with a human hand in its mouth, and foolish villains, all provide the audience with the significant mood of a sometimes savage comedy. In Sanjuro, much of the humour emerges from the contrast between Mifune's shabby samurai, always asking for money, and his incongruity with the stereotypically noble, virtuous behaviour of nine clean-cut samurai and two genteel ladies.
Kurosawa mentions in an interview that he ensures that comedy is activated in balance with dramatic tension in his film (Shibutani, 1993: 26). Comedy is a significant means by which Kurosawa creates a certain moral equilibrium of power between individual and society, life and death.
Kurosawa's first jidaigeki, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, is a comedy and an adaptation of a famous medieval Japanese tale that became a "kabuki" play, Kanjincho. [2] The film was shot under the strict regulations of the Japanese military authority during World War II, and the American authority during the early days of American occupation. The story relates to Yoshitsune (1159-1189), who is a fugitive from Yoritomo. Kanjincho tells the story of Benkei's desperate attempt to protect his young lord Yoshitsune by disguising him as his servant and beating him, in order to pass the barrier at Ataka which is guarded by an officer. Kurosawa criticises the way modern kabuki sentimentally rationalises bushido, including its rigid sense of loyalty and duty. Kurosawa comments on his claim that Kanjincho as a modern kabuki exposes unnecessary sentimentality:

(Shin zatô Ichi: Yabure! Tôjin-ken, 1971)

For example, out of sight of the barrier, Yoshitsune thanks Benkei for his resourcefulness. Bursting into tears, Benkei excessively apologizes to his lord for what he had to do to fulfil his duty. I feel that there is something wrong about pushing sentimentality forward in this manner. (Shibutani, 1993: 46)
In Kurosawa's adaptation, the kabuki repertoire of feudal devotion was parodied as a musical comedy. Challenging domestic viewers' familiarity with the kabuki format, Kurosawa creates a new role of the porter as fool. As a result, the film was the object of double censorships: Japanese censors accused him of trivialising an authentic historical drama, and postponed the release of the film. Ironically, the American Occupation authority also delayed the film's release, because they perceived that the film promoted a feudalistic loyalty. The film finally reached cinemas in 1952, seven years after its completion. The porter's constant comic presence is Kurosawa's ingenious way of both playfully mocking the deadly-serious proceedings, and allowing the audience to participate and witness the action through his eyes. The porter is both an insider and an outsider; an insider in that he is a character in the film, an outsider in that he does not quite understand the meaning of samurai conventions. The porter plays an essential role as a comic character caught betwixt and between, "neither the one thing nor the other." By making the porter play the role of the catalyst for the threshold between "play" and "real," Kurosawa stimulates his audience's critical self-reflexivity.
Such an artistic homage to comedy given by Kurosawa to his jidaigeki is absent in the original Zatoichi. The director, Misumi, only makes a half-hearted effort in humour. For example, Katsu stumbles at the beginning of the original Zatoichi. As the tone of the comedy is attempted but is not established successfully, the audience do not find this scene funny. Despite some awkward humorous scenes and slapstick touches like this example, comedy never plays any significant role in Misumi's original Zatoichi. The overall tone of the original Zatoichi is static cynicism, which replaced Kurosawa's comic dynamism and integrity. Cynicism in the original Zatoichi is particularly evident in the scenes where the protagonist overhears the villains' secret conversation involving their doubts and fears over the effective usefulness of a blind swordsman in the upcoming war with a rival gang. When Ichi eavesdrops on villains' conversation, confronts them and gives a speech of victimisation, he has a highly ironic tone. In contrast, a similar scene in Kurosawa's Yojimbo has a clear playful and comic tone: The swordsman played by Mifune listens to the villains plotting his death with jocular flippancy.
While Kurosawa's Yojimbo has a comic tone, the original Zatoichi is predominated by a tone of cynicism. The shift from comedy to cynicism clarifies what differentiates Kurosawa's jidaigeki from the original Zatoichi. The original Zatoichi inherited the liberal-individualist dimension of Kurosawa, by adapting the image of the anti-hero wanderer. The individual-oriented Kurosawa's style was persuasive in the original Zatoichi, even as the comical and balancing integrity of Kurosawa's filmmaking was not. The original Zatoichi is a cynical indictment of the society, and the over reliance on the individual destabilising the balance of work.

(Shin Zatôichi monogatari: Oreta tsue, 1972)

2.2 Comedy to Kitsch Abuse

The original Zatoichi replaced Kurosawa's cinematic goals with a further commercial end, namely not only cynicism, but also kitsch abuse. In his influential 1939 article "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," Clement Greenberg defines kitsch as "vicarious experience and faked sensation." (Greenberg, 1965: 10) He defined kitsch broadly to include Hollywood movies, jazz, advertising, commercial illustration -- all of which are generally regarded now as popular culture. What may mark kitsch as low-brow, especially in cinema, is the perception that kitsch is a form of popular discourse that aim primarily for a physical rather than an intellectual response. Kitsch creates a mood of intimacy, and calls for the spectator's bodily, affective immersion. In this sense, kitsch can be regarded as necessary for successful cinematic communication. In this paper, beyond the conventional negative view of kitsch, kitsch is viewed as a necessary, heavily but not entirely, commercial mode of discourse. That is to say, kitsch can be employed for good cause, or abused for bad cause.
The aesthetic problem with the original Zatoichi is not that it is kitsch, but that it misuses or indulges kitsch. In the original Zatoichi, Ichi is not only a killer but he is a masseur who gives comfort and erotic pleasure to people. Katsu played Ichi as a lovable character, a teddy-bear persona who hides a sense of justice and skill for swordplay. While tenderness and eroticism are at odds with the cynicism-oriented dimension of the anti-hero, they are deployed to make him and the film more sexually available. For example, in the first episode, when Ichi meets rival Master Hirate Miki, he realises that they are akin to one another; both are for-hire lone swordsmen. In the original Zatoichi, Ichi and the bodyguard become friends, sympathise over their tragic history, dream of escaping their irreversible plight and fight, however reluctantly, in the final scene. As the original Zatoichi series developed, subtle touches in homoeroticism, romance, and Ichi's "nureba" (love scenes) with bawdy women were added. The indulgence of kitsch is what destabilised the balance between audience and work in the original Zatoichi. These misused qualities make the audience respond to the film in an uncritical way. Such a relationship between the audience and the film leaves the audience emotionally saturated.
Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies restrain their kitsch elements by means of laughter. A prime example can be seen in Hidden Fortress which revolves around two comic peasants, Tahei and Matakichi and their journey with more "serious" main characters, General Rokurota and Princess Yuki. In the plot, the peasants are coerced into a scheme to smuggle a fugitive princess and her cache of gold back to her homeland.
A clichéd romance between the Princess and the General is absent, in spite of Tahei and Matakichi taking for granted that the Princess and the General are sexually involved. The peasants are depicted as sexually uninhibited, licentious and indulgent, repeatedly attempting to make sexual advances towards the young princess. Kurosawa tackles voyeurism by "presenting" the audience's expectation through the actions of Tahei and Matakichi. The fetish gaze toward the princess's body is presented through the eyes of the peasants only to be playfully mocked at the next moment. On one hand, Kurosawa deploys "serious" characters, The General and the Princess, to satisfy audience desire for heroism, loyalty and honour. On the other hand, he deploys comic characters, Tahei and Matakichi, to tease the audience so that the audience acquires critical self-reflexivity. The two comic peasants are employed as a mirror to reflect the audience's initial expectation and desire. The playful shift from attachment to detachment prevents Kurosawa's films from misusing and indulging kitsch.

(Zatoichi to Yojimbo, 1970)

2.3 Comedy to Iconicity: Mifune to Katsu

As mentioned earlier, the original Zatoichi became associated with the actor Katsu, who repeatedly appeared in the television series. The problem with Katsu's iconic status was his ubiquity. Katsu's Ichi corresponded with his eccentric star persona image (his involvement in a series of scandals being one factor). Katsu's body became a construction site for the personality that consists of separate parts moulded together by the camera. The close-up shots of Ichi's closed eyes and ears, for example, had enormous implications for the spectator's relationship to Katsu as a star. Misumi commercially foregrounded Katsu's personality. Misumi's cinematic image disassembles Katsu in order to reconstruct it for the spectator. Presenting Ichi in this way proved to be more enduring than Kurosawa's creation, Yojimbo, by evolving into a fetishised meta-icon.
In contrast, Kurosawa dealt with the actor in a different way. Needless to say, Toshiro Mifune is an actor who came to be a celebrated star in parallel with Kurosawa's rise to glory. Mifune's athleticism, rugged handsomeness, and intense screen persona made him a popular jidaigeki hero in dozens of jidaigeki made by various other directors. Kurosawa repetitively employed Mifune in his jidaigeki comedies. In those films, Mifune succeeded in a variety of different roles including comic (Yojimbo and Sanjuro), honourable (The Hidden Fortress) and wild and reckless (Seven Samurai). Kurosawa mentions in his autobiography, "Mifune's attraction is something his innate and powerful personal qualities pushed unwittingly to the fore," which "could turn into a terrible burden." (Kurosawa, 1982: 162) To negotiate an actor's subjectivity and the weight of his own art, Kurosawa deploys comedy as a creative equaliser. This is evident in Kurosawa's use of Mifune in his role of Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai. Kurosawa cast Mifune for this comic role at the height of his stardom. Kikuchiyo is a character who poses as a samurai but actually comes from a poor farming village. Kikuchiyo's restless actions and monkey-like exaggerated giggles and laughter, serve as a contrast to the group-oriented samurai. His individuality is symbolised by the huge sword that he carries over his shoulder, in contrast to the other samurai who have swords that are fairly ordinary-looking. Individualism should never supersede the group, and when Mifune's character does, he is reprimanded.
In the original Zatoichi, such a powerful use of comedy is absent. Katsu's personal component was indulged in the original Zatoichi, while Mifune's is restrained in Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies. In comparison to Kurosawa's films, the original Zatoichi is ethically and aesthetically imbalanced between audience and actor. Kurosawa extracts his actor's blustering and bravado range for all its comic effect. Kurosawa takes liberties with Mifune's character, maximising his humour for the audience. Using the power of comedy, Kurosawa prevents the actor's personal component from pushing unwittingly to the fore.

(Zatoichi to Yojimbo, 1970)

3.1 Kitano's Zatoichi and Kurosawa's Jidaigeki Comedies

I wanted a sense of balance to the film. I didn't want to have just action scenes throughout the film. I wanted to add some humour to lighten up the film. (Kitano, 2003b)

The comical and balancing integrity of Kurosawa's film is revivified in Kitano's Zatoichi in a unique manner. Like Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies, Kitano's Zatoichi negotiates balance and maintains a constant level of comedy throughout the film. In his early years as a film director, Kitano drew a veil over a part of his career as a comedian (Gardner, 2000). His early films such as Violent Cop (1989) and Boiling Point (1990) disturbed audiences with their absurd violence and nihilistic humour, disconcertingly combined with asceticism and emotional inscrutability. Comedy and laughter, beyond nihilistic humour or cynicism, started to be interwoven with increasing emotionality in his later films, Hana-bi (1997) and Kikujiro (1999). An element of comedy was introduced with the melancholy displayed in Hana-bi (1997). Comedy is further developed with more joy and plenty of self-deprecation in Kikujiro (1999). In the new Zatoichi, Kitano's comedy is seen to full effect, along with comic symbols such as "tengu" (goblin) and tap dance, also evident in Kikujiro. Building on Kurosawa's comic traditions, Kitano deconstructs the jidaigeki code of genre further. In contrast to Kurosawa's realistic and authentic jidaigeki comedies, the constant reminder that we are indeed watching artifice punctuates Kitano's Zatoichi.
Comedy decentralises both the main characters and also the narrative effect. It is true that the new Zatoichi has some "serious" characters -- Oume, Hattori and Hattori's wife, Okinu -- who are located strictly beneath the primacy of the narrative. However, it also has destructive characters -- Ichi and Osei -- who travel back and forth between serious and comic, and the entirely comic character, Shinkichi. These destructive and comic characters decentre not only the serious characters but also themselves.
This is particularly evident in the scene following the escape from town by Ichi, Shinkichi, Okinu and Osei, during the storm to Oume's house. While talking about the painful past and the present it becomes apparent to Okinu that Ogi, one of the bandits, may well be one of the men responsible for their parents' murder. At the height of this serious revelation, Oume turns to Ichi for his thoughts on the matter. Her face suddenly breaks into a smile and she says, "Masseur, don't make those eyes at me." It is then that the camera switches to Kitano and the audience see that he has two fake eyes painted on his eyelids. This, of course, was done to allow Ichi to cover his identity when escaping from the villains of the town. Oume's amused reaction to Ichi's made-up eyes concludes the scene in a hilarious tone.
Kitano's destruction of fascination is also made manifest in the scene in which bandits decide to set fire to Oume's house to force out Ichi who, unknown to them, has already left. Shinkichi is forced to flee the house whilst still dressed as a geisha, complete with white face make-up and kimono. The local neighbours then arrive to see what is happening. After being drawn to the house fire, they slowly become aware of Shinkichi's appearance. Their bewildered looks at his feminine attire provide the audience with another destructive comic interlude to the narrative.
The comic rhythm deliberately destroys the audience identification with the film itself and the major characters such as Ichi, Hattori and Osei. In the conventional jidaigeki, identification with these characters would have been natural, and would have caused the audience to become absorbed in the diegesis. By using comedy in the new Zatoichi, Kitano evokes our sense of what is and is not real, and maximises "real" in contrast with "play". That is to say, Kitano's Zatoichi pushes the notion of comedy even further than Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies, probing the relationship between the recording of actual space and the spectators' perception of space as symbolic.
Our sense of what is and is not real is stimulated by two comic characters in the new Zatoichi: Ichi and Shinkichi. As both a director and a TV comic star, Kitano negotiates his own personal assets; before Zatoichi's release, Kitano bleached his hair for several months so that people would have a notion of what to expect. The Ichi played by Kitano is a comic character, in-between star and director, and insider and outsider. The characterisations of Kitano's Ichi, far from the cynical anti-hero with a victimised past in the original Zatoichi, is acutely evocative of two agrarian ritualistic figures, namely, "tengu" or a comic goblin and a scarecrow.

(Zatoichi, 2003)

Firstly, Kitano-as-an-actor's association with tengu is implied by Ichi's red cane, and the symbolic appearance of tengu in the form of a mask, which appears in the final ritual dance scene. In Japanese folklore, tengu has a red face, long nose and looks like a wandering Buddhist monk, wearing "geta" (wooden clogs). The tengu is the patron of martial arts, and is always portrayed as having a mischievous sense of humour. Tengu's mischief is only equal to its arrogance. "Tengu-ni-naru" is an expression still commonly used to ask for someone not to be as arrogant as a tengu.
Like the folkloric tengu, Ichi is a skilled swordsman, using the blade hidden in the cane to dispatch the villains in brutally satisfying ways. Like the tengu, Ichi is both arrogant and mischievous. Ichi's character lacks psychological complexity; he has neither background nor human motivations. The only flashback the audience sees of Ichi's past is his bloody swordfight in the rainstorm without context.
Secondly, Ichi's association with a scarecrow is suggested in several scenes. The first instance is the scene where villagers are bringing the scarecrow to place in a field to protect their crops. They pass Ichi, walking the other way, which implies that Ichi will play a similar role as a scarecrow in protecting them. The scarecrow has a sword, so does Ichi. Furthermore, the scarecrow exhibits an erected phallus as a humorous reminder of Japanese traditional fertility rituals which glorify human genitals. The second instance is just before the climactic final battle, when Ichi passes by a scarecrow left in the middle of the path, he picks it up and plants it back into the field. With his hair bleached a yellow-blonde, straw-like colour, Kitano further insinuates Kitano-as-an-actor's association with the scarecrow. In the film, although a scarecrow is at first provided with fertility offerings of food and flowers at its feet, it ends up being a victim of the village children's mischievous swordplay. Drawing a parallel with their ritualistic meanings, the symbol of the scarecrow represents the passiveness and vulnerability of Beat Takeshi as a star, and the symbol of tengu represent the aggressiveness, human hubris and arrogance of Kitano as a director. Ichi is shaped within the comic characterisations of a scarecrow and tengu.

(Zatoichi Goyo-Tabi, 1972)

The comic quality of Ichi is contrasted with that of Shinkichi, Ichi's luckless dice-gambler friend. Most of the humour in the film surrounds Shinkichi, played by the comedian Gadarukanaru Taka. Ichi's actions are repetitive not only in swordplay, but also in gambling. Ichi hardly talks, or shows any expression at all. Even during the gambling scenes, he does not engage in the trickery displayed by Katsu's Ichi in the original, but just sits quietly winning round after round while Shinkichi idiotically amuses himself beside him. Shinkichi is an essential foil for Ichi. Ichi and Shinkichi create a liaison with the audience and highlight the make-believe nature of the show. The interaction between the two is reminiscent of the Japanese stand-up duo comedy, "manzai," combining the fool ("boke") and the straight foil ("tsukkomi"). Ichi evades reality, while Shinkichi faces it. The frame of comedy duo allows Kitano to reflect his own two personas, the director Takeshi Kitano and the TV comic star "Beat" Takeshi, and dramatises a constant tension between the two.
In the new Zatoichi, Kitano discards the cynicism, fetishism and iconicity that prevail in the original Zatoichi. Kitano incorporates the fool as "audience within the film." Shinkichi plots to overcome all the other major characters, including Hattori who is deadly serious. Kitano directs the audience to participate and witness the action through Shinkichi's eyes and body. Shinkichi becomes infatuated by three major characters, Ichi, Hattori and Osei, and attempts to mimic each character in the following distinctive ways. Firstly, when Shinkichi sees Ichi's dice skills, he tries to emulate Ichi's dicing mannerism. Secondly, as Shinkichi peers at Hattori's flamboyant swordplay, he attempts to imitate Hattori and his masculinity but fails. Shinkichi tries to teach a group of neighbourhood boys how to stage a sword fight with strikes in the right sequence to match his blocks. However, after a short period of success, they break the routine which Shinkichi arranged, and start to attack him at random. Lastly, after he sees the beautiful dance of Osei, the female impersonator, he attempts to experiment with make-up to transform his gender identity like Osei.
Throughout these actions, we are aligned with Shinkichi, who assumes the audience's point-of-view in the most overt way. It is through Shinkichi's eyes that we witness and "try out" Ichi, Hattori and Osei. Kitano incorporates Shinkichi as the audience within his films. In this way, Shinkichi assists in the make-believe game and fools around with other characters, who evade reality or, rather, realise a dream. Leading his audience to another angle and another perspective, Kitano is interested in moments of disjunction where perception is momentarily put into question and boundaries are revealed, challenging the viewer to make connections between one context of meaning and another. An unseen dimension in something familiar surprises the audience. Kitano's comedy encourages them to see the relative nature of meaning with its explicit shifts in perspective between fiction and reality, film and audience.
Kitano, therefore, generates critical self-reflexivity through comedy, and upstages the great jidaigeki comedies of Kurosawa in his adaptation of the original Zatoichi. The next section explores a further achievement of Kitano in the new Zatoichi, specifically that critical self-reflexivity is generated through comedy without damaging kitsch, the sensational and affective part of the equation. Kitano's adaptation of Kurosawa's critical tradition does not necessarily mean that he discards kitsch or commercial essences from the original Zatoichi. While celebrating Kurosawa's artistry, Kitano pays equally high regard to the kitsch essences in the original Zatoichi.

(Yojimbo, 1961)

3.2 Kurosawa's Noh-oriented Aesthetics and Kitano's Kabuki-oriented Aesthetics

In Kitano's Zatoichi, kitsch essences, which carry an affective charge, are not condemned. As a director, actor, screenwriter, novelist, essay writer, film editor, poet, painter, musician, game show host, stand-up comedian, and even tap dancer, Kitano straddles Japanese popular culture with ease. In a closer and more embodied way, wholly different from Kurosawa's carefully detached way, Kitano understands Japanese culture innately, deeply, and across the boundaries of social classes. Kitano's vision is comic, and he is an observer of himself and the Japanese society while acting. Unlike Kurosawa with a family of samurai descent, Kitano was born to a drunken gambler father and an education-oriented mother in Tokyo's "shitamachi" (the old working class neighbourhood). Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies often encourage the emotional detachment inspired by high culture, while Kitano celebrates affect, sensation, and sentimentality inspired by popular culture.
In terms of aesthetic and kinetic orientation, Kitano differs from Kurosawa. Both directors affect the senses of the audience in a direct manner. Kurosawa, however, unlike Kitano, encourages emotional detachment inspired by "noh." Noh theatre is the art that most obviously feeds into Kurosawa's cinema, and it is this tradition that disrupts and contests the comfortable conventions of immature sentimentality. Kurosawa regards a good structure for a screenplay as "that of the symphony, with its three or four movements and different tempos." (Kurosawa, 1982: 193) Kurosawa has suggested as a rhythmical model "the noh play with its three part structure: 'jo' (introduction), 'ha' (destruction) and 'kyu' (haste)." By pacing the whole work in the living rhythm of noh, he builds a critical detachment as the vehicle by which a sensory charge is translated from filmmaker to audience, whole attention is deflected away from empathy and onto detached critical contemplation. Kurosawa's stylistic and semiotic borrowings of noh art forms reflect his concern about issues of aesthetic detachment. He states:
Watching something does not mean fixing your gaze on it, but being aware of it in a natural way. I believe this is what the medieval noh playwright and theorist Zeami meant by "watching with a detached gaze. (Kurosawa, 1982: 195)
Kurosawa often expressed his dislike of modern kabuki elements celebrated in the conventional jidaigeki. In an interview in 1966, Kurosawa remarked:
Today's kabuki is no longer kabuki in a real sense. The kabuki in a real sense is more tolerant and magnanimous. Nowadays kabuki has become like a shingeki with psychological details. (Shibutani, 1993: 45-46)
Kurosawa regards the emotional detachment of noh as essential to the dramatic experience, while emotional exaltation seen in kabuki is either downplayed, or included as necessary to refer to stereotypes that can be exploited for parody.
Kurosawa's images and sound arouse "yugen" and "wabi-sabi," the aesthetics of noh, which value the practice of restraint in expression, to make the images and sound resonate with his audience in a detached manner. Yugen is the aesthetic sense of distance; "Yu" (invisible) and "gen" (profound). Kurosawa elaborated the "wabi" idea, seeking richness in an individual detached from society. As wabi was derived from "wabishi" (lonely), "sabi" came from another similar word meaning loneliness, elderliness and calmness. In its background, there stands the Buddhist worldview recognising the existential solitude of all human beings, trying to resign oneself to that solitude, and to discover its aesthetics.

(Yojimbo, 1961)

Yugen and wabi-sabi aesthetics are evident in Kurosawa's kinetic action scenes, such as those involving dance and violence, which are intrinsic to Kurosawa's classic. Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies are an artistic exploration of cinematic yugen and wabi-sabi. In most of Kurosawa's jidaigeki, dance scenes, such as the dance of noh, farmers' ritual and festival, are used to emphasise emotional detachment. In Hidden Fortress, for example, the fire festival scenes show the tension within this relief. In these scenes, the protagonists mistakenly get caught up in a fire festival deep in the woods; joining in this festival dance provides them an opportunity to hide from their enemies. Kurosawa frequently mediates fire in front of the participants and characters by way of executing detachment. Kurosawa makes tension visible in this spectacular fire-worshipping sequence, in which the participants dance wildly around a bonfire and sing: "This floating world's a dream, so burn in mad abandon":

The life of a man
Burn it with the fire
The life of an insect
Throw it in the fire
Ponder and you'll see
The world is dark
And this floating world
Is a dream.

This song returns later in the film to emphasise the emotional restraint of the yugen and wabi-sabi. Furthermore, wabi-sabi aesthetics signify liberation from materialistic and emotional anxieties. This ascetic attitude toward "the floating world" is apparent in the novel beauty of Kurosawa's classics.
"The floating world" has a derogatory meaning according to Kurosawa's "highbrow" aesthetics. From Kitano's perspective, "the floating world" is the aesthetic ideal of libertines, emphasising the transience of earthly existence. In sharp contrast to Kurosawa, Kitano draws his material from the Japanese theatrical tradition of kabuki in order to encourage emotional bond and embodiment. Influenced by his grandmother who was a "gidayu" (kabuki chanter) with whom he lived in his childhood, he was familiar with the traditional sentiment that is expressed in kabuki. Unlike Kurosawa, who incorporated the higher art and noh aesthetics for his jidaigeki, Kitano reimagines the traditional kabuki's aesthetics which Kurosawa judged to be missing in modern kabuki. Kitano reproduces kabuki's original, subversive roots, its common touch, its association with the masses with everyday vulgar low life, involving an intensive interplay between eroticism and comedy.
Kitano's Zatoichi could be regarded as a rediscovery of the emotional aesthetics lost in modern kabuki, namely, "iki" aesthetics. [3] In iki aesthetics, as in kitsch aesthetics, the embodiment of emotional and corporeal pleasure, fear and pain is a virtue. In the former, unlike in the latter, eroticism and laughter are related. [4] Kitano originally debuted as a comedian performing in the strip clubs and vaudeville theatres of Tokyo's Asakusa district in the 1960s, where he mastered the expertise of period dramas and sword fighting. Inspired by the Asakusa culture of entertainments, Kitano rediscovers melodramatically refined iki aesthetics, quarrying the low art distinct from the high art form of kabuki. A clear example of this can be seen in Kitano's use of Daigoro Tachibana in his role of Osei. Osei's character is a cross-dressing geisha who travels with his sister in search of their parents' murderers. He is portrayed as a sympathetic character who was molested as a child and eventually prostituted himself and acquired dancing skills in order to survive. Osei's urge to live is contrasted to Hattori's drive to death. Kitano uses the flashbacks to Hattori's past when he was a samurai with a master, being humiliated and maliciously beaten by a ronin. They suggest that his choice to become a paid killer results from a desire for revenge. Hattori ignores the pleas of his consumptive wife to stop killing. Hattori's mental state reflects upon the physical illness of his wife, emphasised by her scene in a white kimono signifying death. The flashbacks to Hattori's past not only explain the motives and intentions for his own brutal killings, but also reveal Hattori's victimisation, which differs from Osei's.

(Zatoichi, 2003)

To recreate iki aesthetics, Kitano takes his inspiration from an art-form that is considered as "lower" and as more popular than kabuki, namely the "taishu engeki" (traditional Japanese "boulevard theatre" or vaudeville). Kitano underscores the combination of eroticism and laughter in casting Tachibana, an Asakusa female impersonator or "onnagata" star who is a part of the taishu engeki. Kitano revitalises iki aesthetics through the melodrama combined with comedy. The melodramatic scenes are as intensive as the comedic scenes. The audience's corporeal reception is intended to generate a sensory awaking. Kitano reproduces a sense of shared space outside of immediate body-to-body encounters. Furthermore, Kitano accomplishes humour without turning the melodrama into mere parody. This is manifested in Osei's extensive dance sequence.
When Okinu and Osei practice their song and dance routine in harmony with the rain outside, Okinu sadly remembers how Osei prostituted himself and learned his dance moves as a child in order to make money. Kitano uses montage by inserting the same dance sequence during his past and present practice, culminating in the sister breaking down in tears. By crosscutting between Osei practising his dance routine as an adult to his dancing as a boy, Kitano evokes iki aesthetics consisting of three features, "bitai" (erotic allure) with "hari" (warrior-like pride) and "akirame" (resignation and also sophisticated indifference) (Kuki, 1979: 23). Kitano attributes iki to Osei's vitality manifested in her dance.
This is immediately followed by Shinkichi, moved to tears by the performance, who decides to go in to town and asks to borrow Oume's umbrella. The scene then shifts to the outside where it is raining heavily. Shinkichi emerges from the doorway and puts up the umbrella, which is so torn and full of holes it is virtually no use at all. The audience then see a comical dance sequence of farmers in a muddy paddy field. These humorous scenes detach the audience from the previous melodramatic scene. The audience have to adjust their bodies to accommodate the mood they should now adopt for themselves. Before the audience finish laughing, the scene ends just as abruptly as it started.
Laughter is also enhanced by the confusion of gender in Tachibana's role for Osei. On one hand, Osei assumes the melodramatic character in his relationship to his elderly sister, Okinu. Kitano allows the viewer to witness his sister's dominance over Osei. Osei's effeminate and erotic posture effectively dramatises the frustration and helplessness of those victimised. On the other hand, gender distinctions comically blur the characterisation of Osei in relation to Shinkichi. This is evident during the scene when Shinkichi is about to take a bath:

Shinkichi: I'll have a bath.
Osei: Me too.
Shinkichi: No! Men first.
Osei: I am a man!
Shinkichi: …

Then, Shinkichi and Osei take a bath in the same bucket. The conversation continues:

Shinkichi: I have to say it's incredible. You really look like a woman! Does make-up make men beautiful?
Osei: It doesn't work on everyone. It depends on the face.

Through the sexually ambiguous presence of Osei, and his interaction with Shinkichi, Kitano achieves high humour without turning it into mere pantomime. His best trick is to amalgamate eroticism and laughter, dream and reality without diluting the power of either.

(Zatoichi, 2003)

3.3 Comedy and Kitsch Firework: Kitano's Dance Scheme as Embodiment and Kurosawa's as Detachment

I enjoyed the process of presenting comedy, fighting and dancing in distinctive ways, and intersecting them. (Kitano, 2003a: 36)

"Kitano's Zatoichi might best be described as the first samurai musical," wrote the correspondent of The Guardian (2003). Limiting verbal language in Zatoichi, Kitano takes full advantage of the viscerality celebrated by the musical genre. Viscerality is based on deep feeling and emotional reactions rather than on reason or thought. He does so in such a way that the action restores kitsch to his practice. In Zatoichi, the dance is as central or dominant as comedy. Dance, along with comedy, decentres the characters and the narrative. Dance is almost destructive to the diegesis, not only as a jidaigeki, which usually glorifies masculine control and violence, but also as a musical in which the central character plays the dominant role in the dance scenes. The dominant roles in the dance scenes are taken by the supporting roles, Osei and the four nameless villagers. Kitano employs specialist dancers for each dance form: Tachibana for classical Japanese dance, and performance group, "The Stripes," for tap dance. The Stripes appear as farmers and carpenters dressed in traditional kimonos and wooden clogs and they perform a contemporary-style of tap dancing accompanied by Keiichi Suzuki's hip-hop rhythms.
Film musicals, as Jane Feuer asserts, promote "conservative" self-reflexivity, the myths of audience, and integration. According to Feuer, "successful performances are intimately bounded up with the integration of the individual into a community or a group, and even with the merger of high art with popular art." (Feuer, 1977: 319) The new Zatoichi conforms to Feuer's definition. Like the conventional film musical, Zatoichi celebrates kitsch, exploiting the wholesome myth of integration the genre has itself developed. Zatoichi borrows some "up-lift" elements from the musical genre as the myth of integration. It creates a mood of intimacy, and seeks its spectator's bodily, affective immersion. Kitano achieves an amalgamation of comedy with kitsch elements with an equal dynamism. Through the amalgamation of comedy with kitsch, Kitano eliminates a predominating tone of cynicism found in the original Zatoichi. The shift from the cynicism to the comic illuminates what differentiates the new Zatoichi from the original.
The greatest kitsch and the comedy fireworks are undoubtedly found in the final musical sequences when a group of carpenters, in classic Broadway style, make music from their tools as they work on rebuilding the farmhouse burned down by the villains. Later, two final dance sequences take place on the outdoor stage or shrine. The shrine stage is a meta-cinematic device of the frame-within-a-film that draws attention to the conventions of kitsch. Within this textual focus, it is the kitsch that becomes the critical area of interest. Kitano reminds the audience of the textuality of kitsch, and acknowledges its status as a construct. In this sense, Kitano's hermeneutical achievement in Zatoichi could be best described by the great Hans Georg Gadamer, as "a transformation of texts back into speech and meaning." (Gadamer, 1989: 354f)
The first dance performed by four dancers is reminiscent of "okagura," an agricultural festival which traditionally associated human fertility with the ripeness of the harvest. Two villagers wear demon masks of "yamabushi" tengu or "mountain priest" tengu, and "karasu" or "crow" tengu, the other two wear God masks signifying fortune, those of "otafuku" and "ebisu" (two of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune), which are crucial actors at Japanese traditional festivals. They perform the ritual under beating drums. The performers initially go around in a small circle, and gradually face toward the camera in line. Drums beat wildly and a ring of other villagers chants exultantly behind these performers. By using these villagers as audiences-within-the-film, Kitano initially provides a point of identification for audiences of the film. The second dance sequence accompanied by Keiichi Suzuki's hip-hop rhythms is a contemporised and cross-cultural version of "takatsuki," a kabuki tap form, where the dancers wear Japanese wood clogs. This dance, joined by all the villagers, provides a sense of participation for the film audience. The ending of Kitano's Zatoichi is openly orgiastic, particularly because the film concludes with a dance featuring most of the supporting cast.

(Zatoichi Kenka-daiko, 1968)

Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is a compelling study in contrast. Kurosawa famously adapted western music to his jidaigeki, but did not adapt non-Japanese dance to jidaigeki. In Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies, the dance scene is part of the narrative, and is not meant to be spectacular. In Seven Samurai, dance in general exists for artistic exclusion and detachment. Dance in Kurosawa's works is not intended to impress the viewer. It is located strictly beneath the primacy of the narrative and the limit of realist film. Kurosawa closes his film with the farmers sowing, accompanied by music and dance, made possible by the village's victory over the attacking bandits. Kurosawa's camera technique distances the audience from the space of the enclosure. His filmic strategy of withdrawal is done via the long take and the long shot. Kurosawa's camera refuses the audience participation or identification with the enclosed space of the dance ritual. We are outside the ritual and remote from it. In this way, the dance ritual in Kurosawa's jidaigeki comedies discourages the audience from identifying with it. The sequence of the farmers planting while the samurai are watching from the bridge signifies their exclusion, conveying that there is no longer a place for the samurai in this village. The samurai mediate the ritual scene so that the reaction of the film audience does not mimic the sensations experienced by the villagers in the film. Through the lenses of samurai, Kurosawa excluded the observer from participation and directs him to remain detached.
In Zatoichi, Kitano's intention to elevate the dancers to heroic status is obvious in his reliance on their spectacular performance. The village's colourful and vivacious festival is interrupted by Ichi's dark fight scenes. Although Ichi's fight scenes occur as an isolated interlude to the dance sequences, they share the echo of the distant "taiko" drums of the village's festival. That is to say, villagers are shot on the higher level than Ichi. Juxtaposition of these contrasting scenes thus leads spectators to stand on the threshold between reality and fiction, life and death, comedy and irony, motion and stillness, vivacity and poise.
Furthermore, Kitano's kinaesthetic and affective designs combined with comedy prevent his audience from critical identification with Ichi. It contrasts with the final scene of Seven Samurai, in which Kambei, the head-samurai, states that it is the villagers who have won and not the swordsmen. In Kitano's Zatoichi, the victory of villagers is not expressed in words but signified in dance by their powerful percussion, which leads Ichi to stumble off on his lone way out of the village at the end. It is an interesting contrast to Ichi, who stumbles at the beginning of the original, Zatoichi Monogatari. The dance scenes in the new Zatoichi, along with the other shots in the last ten minutes of the film, are taken to endorse the playful statement that it is the villagers who won and not the swordsman. In the new Zatoichi, therefore, both dance and comedy are emphasised beyond the limit of the realist film, and they destroy the unity of the diegesis. Dance and comedy escape from the control of the narrative and become purely critical spectacle.

(Zatoichi Monogatari, 1962)

Conclusion

In his adaptation of Zatoichi, Kitano dramatised Japanese anxieties regarding weakening generational ties. Kitano translates both Kurosawa's classics and the myth of Zatoichi, so as to deal with the troubling generation incongruity with creative sensitivity. I have discussed the way Kitano deployed both the comedy inherited from Kurosawa, and the aesthetics of kitsch translated from the original Zatoichi. With Zatoichi, Kitano has developed the jidaigeki genre for contemporary audience in historically innovative ways, moving away from both the cynicism of the original, and Kurosawa's aesthetics of detachment. Kitano's cultural challenge is the reversal of Kurosawa's: Kurosawa's jidaigeki were made in a historical context in which authority strongly imposed ethics and morals upon an individual. Kurosawa aimed to reshape postwar Japanese society for ideals of individual autonomy and aesthetics of detachment. In contrast, Kitano's cultural challenge is the privatised lifestyle and mode of consumer culture, where society is losing not only the responsive bodies to absorb culture, but also the minds to think critically. In order to create an opposing energy against what Kitano calls "me-ism," the cult of cool, and the contemporary self-centred detachment, Kitano activates an embodied engagement and cultural absorption through kitsch, as much as evoking critical self-reflexivity through comedy. Creating a mood of intimacy, and seeking for the spectator's bodily, affective immersion, Kitano therefore uses kitsch elements for good cause. Using kitsch elements from musicals, Kitano provides a comic commentary on swordsman's lives while he affectionately mocks the jidaigeki genre convention.

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Notes:
[1] Stuart Kaminsky observes that the samurai in jidaigeki often shares with the gunman in westerns a drive for revenge. See Stuart Kaminsky (1972) The Samurai Film and the Western, The Journal of Popular Film and Television 1 (4), p. 319.
[2] Kabuki is the popular traditional theatre as opposed to the more aristocratic noh theatre.
[3] "Iki" is the term born out of traditional kabuki's original subversive roots and erotic relationship refined in 'lowbrow' geisha culture in the Edo period (1603-1886). Geisha epitomised for the people of the epoch the ideal of iki, which was manifested in "ukiyoe" prints by artists (Kuki, 1979).
[4] The eroticism of Edo connected with laughter can be found in many ukiyoe prints. Particularly, ukiyoe prints of sexual intercourse in whatever combination (male-female, male-male -- the threesomes being the most common) were called "waraie" (laughing pictures). The term waraie denotes sensual pictures that provoke laughter.

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