While Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956) remains one of the incontestably great – even iconic – humanist filmmakers (including Ozu, Kurosawa, Ichikawa and Naruse) of mid-century Japanese cinema (indeed, all of cinema), his legacy continues to seek popular exposure in the West. Of his nearly 100 films, dating well into the silent period, only 31 exist today; the master himself claimed he didn’t know exactly how many films he had made over the years. Part of this is due to the fact that he made a film every few weeks during his early period, but late in his career he still made three features in 1954, two of which are acknowledged masterpieces of cinema (Sansho Dayu and Chikamatsu monogataari, or Crucified Lovers) and the third (Uwasa no onna or The Woman of Rumour), which is a lesser known but fascinating glimpse into geisha life and Japanese social mores.
Mizoguchi and his favorite screenwriter Yoshikata Yoda combine an 18th century tale by playwright Chikamatsu with the Saikaku novel that inspired The Life of Oharu (1952) to fashion a striking morality tale almost told in reverse: a printer’s wife is falsely accused of the capital offence of having an affair with an apprentice, but when the two escape to save their lives, they subsequently discover that they share a secret love for one another. Chikamatsu Monogataari has a towering reputation in Japan as the ultimate expression of Mizoguchi’s famed long takes and graceful tracking shots (“I hate close-ups,” he was to have said), illustrating the lovers’ sacrificial persecution by society, and in particular the printer’s manipulative money lenders.
Uwasa no onna details a romantic triangle between Mrs. Mabuchi, the “woman of rumour” who owns a successful Kyoto brothel, her daughter Yukiko, who has recently returned from Tokyo and disapproves of her mother’s profession, and a young doctor. Acclaimed for its dual compassion for mother and daughter, the film generated its own drama behind the scenes; Mizoguchi’s relationship with his famed actress, Kinuyo Tanaka (who starred in half of the filmmaker’s extant films), ended amid rampant speculation that his romantic advances had been spurned, a tragic but fitting end to the elegiac films of which they were known.
Based on a centuries old tale with roots in real events, Chikamatsu Monogatari (A Tale From Chikamatsu, aka The Crucified Lovers) tells the hauntingly tragic story of a forbidden love affair between a merchant's wife and her husband's employee in an era when the punishment for adultery was crucifixion.
When a series of innocent events lead to the false accusation of an affair, the accused pair are forced to flee an almost certain death sentence. On the run, the outlaw couple grow closer together, drawn inexorably towards the romantic crime of which they are accused.
In the hands of Mizoguchi, Chikamatsu Monogatari depicts two people caught up in a constricted world where true love and social obligation are at odds. His portrayal of the lovers' dilemma lead famed director Akira Kurosawa to describe the film as 'a great masterpiece that could only have been made by Mizoguchi.'
Released the same year, Uwasa no Onna (The Woman in the Rumour) offers a contrasting portrait of attitudes and mores concerning love and relationships. Set in a modern Kyoto geisha house, the eponymous woman in the rumour is Hatsuko (Kinuyo Tanaka, star of countless Mizoguchi films, in her last role for the director with whom she was often romantically linked).
Video discussions about both Chikamatsu Monogatari and Uwasa no Onna by acclaimed Japanese film expert/critic, festival programmer, and filmmaker Tony Rayns
Original theatrical trailers
56-page booklet featuring writing by Keiko I. McDonald (author of Mizoguchi) and Mark Le Fanu (author of Mizoguchi and Japan), as well as extracts from Chikamatsu Monzaemon's 'The Almanac of Love' and Ihara Saikaku's 'What the Seasons Brought to the Almanac-Maker', texts adapted by Mizoguchi in Chikamatsu Monogatari.
Ugetsu Monogatari + Oyu-Sama (Masters of Cinema)
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Chikamatsu Monogatari + Uwasa No Onna (Masters of Cinema)
