Idealism vs Realism in the Golden Age of Japanese Film

日本映画の黄金時代のリアリズムたいアイデアリズム

It's always problematic to assign traits universally to the body of work of an entire nation.  In the end, nations do not define individuals, and for all the Buddhist and Shinto influences throughout the golden age of Japanese cinema, the creation of art remains the most individualistic act imaginable.  This does not mean, however, that Japanese cinema as a whole does not possess certain fascinating traits, stemming from its history of theatrical art, social dynamics, the world (if this were in Japanese, I'd use the word "yo") around them, and it's the confluences of all these things coming together that makes Japanese cinema (and Japan in general) so fascinating.

One of the things that keeps appearing in Japanese film is its relationship to romanticism and idealism versus realism.

(Note, just so that it's clear, when I talk about romanticism and realism in this essay, I generally mean the style of art, not their more commonly used definitions.)

Maybe the first film we watched even provides an interesting example involving experimental filmmaking.  A Page of Madness - 狂った一ペイジ - is a highly unconventional film for a number of reasons.  One might talk for many thousands of words about its use of film theory, but this is perhaps related still to something more underlying: a will to not only express an idea but to express it from a certain point of view that is not the point of view of an objective observer.  From the very first scenes, we are shown a vision that is not the cameraman's but of a character.  By Kinugasa sensei's use of juxtaposition and imagery, something is presented to us in a way that is fully aware that it is a presentation, and which uses it to show a world not objective but subjectively a construct of the ideas of a certain character.  Yet, though this is not the "real world" being shown, the film (however vaguely) attempts to say some things about the real world, emotionally and as commentary.

The katana was an elegant weapon for a less civilized age.

Still, that's not exactly what I'm talking about.  Maybe the most interesting example that immediately comes to mind is the Seven Samurai - 七人の侍.  In a very real way, this film is attempting to reconcile an idealized, subjective view of the samurai with the social realities of the time, which is reflected in, among other things, the film's imagery.

When we are introduced to the samurai, it is evident that all except for Katsushirou and Kikuchiyo are experienced soldiers of many battles.  Their profession is war, and they've spent their lives honing their skills.  It defines them.  Their mission is a noble one.  Yet, through the course of the film, we find out that these warriors have only survived so long not only because of skill - no amount of skill will make you that lucky - but because they're of the run-away-Sir-Robin school of combat.  Kyuuzou's grace with a katana is sublime, and yet, as the actual battle begins, it's a noisy, confused, dirty affair.  On a higher level even, the actor playing Kyuuzou had never held a katana in his life: the confidence and elegance he portrayed was itself very far away from any of combat's realities.  The peasants they fight for are disadvantaged and threatened by the menacing ronin, yet they are not all the meek common folk who the samurai bravely step in to defend.  Our peasants are very much flawed and human, doing everything in their power, unethical things, rash things.  These are our meek that the strong samurai defend, and yet they are also the result of the realities of feudal Japan.  Even as the film ends, the ronin routed, and the day won in ways both heroic and ignominious, Kanbei stands under the graves of his comrades and realizes the truth: for all their seemingly heroic actions, the Samurai are all going to die alone and lonely, either on the battlefield or, without knowing any trade besides war to support them, enfeebled and desperate on the town streets.

Stop.  Kyuuzoutime.

In the imagery of the film, this is reflected as well.  We see sweeping, composed, larger than life shots on a regular basis.  Heck, this film is the trope codifier for the now common shot of bad guys riding silhouetted over the hilltop.  Images in this film are highly romanticized as a rule.  Yet at the same time, despite the stylization, they often portray things that are not in any way idealistic or even romantic, but in the end, realistic.  Though the battle in the rain is a choice made very much out of stylistic judgement, the effect it has is to illustrate some rather ignominious things.  Really, stylistic choices like these seem to occur quite often in Japanese film for a couple of reasons, but that's a topic for another essay (one that I'd like to write after we've seen Akira and Spirited Away).  Anyway, even though its an example of realism in that Seven Samurai is a film trying to make a point, it has this competing current of romanticism flowing right along side it, and yet, the two don't seem to conflict.  Seven Samurai is a very complicated film in that regard.

For a bit of a more mono-dimensional take on the same dichotomy, we have Mizoguchi sensei and his Sansho the Bailiff - 山椒大夫.  Mizoguchi sensei's filmmaking is naturalistic but highly planned, with its long yet well framed takes and distant crane shots.  It is not as obviously stylized as Ozu or Kurosawa sensei's works, but it's also quite evident that everything is very well planned and staged.  He is not a filmmaker where the elements of his art can be easily distinguished but one where you'll find yourself surprised if you start imagining how different any given shot would be like if it were even the slightest bit altered.  In a more literal sense, this is a bit of a "realism vs idealism" dichotomy, but really that's not what I mean.  Really, Sansho the Bailiff pretty much pure realism, what with the melodrama serving mainly to illustrate sociopolitical points, but it's the fact that it also comes with these wistful, romanticized shots that makes it an example at all.  Were it only more genuine...

On a side note, the "disadvantaged" of Sansho the Bailiff are dealt with in an equally interesting manner.  It seems that Mizoguchi sensei had few illusions as to the nature of peasants either.  Maybe another paper could discuss how Japanese films of this era, often with such liberal agendas, can at the same time be so even handed about the lower classes.

｢ゴジラだ!　逃げて，今逃げて!｣
｢でも．．．すごいな〜｣

One film in which there are some somewhat romantic elements that serve to increase the effectiveness of a point is the (original Japanese version of) Godzilla - ゴジラ.  Here, it's not so much that there are two concurrent currents, but rather what I think is the more common occurrence in Japanese cinema of the time: wherein a film is about something emotional or visceral but has applicability - on purpose - so that it may also be considered to have elements of realism.  With Godzilla, the film is about a nigh unstoppable force, raising its way across Japan, melting away the JSDF and brushing off their small arm and artillery fire, playing to the still fresh memories of the vast formations of American B-29 strategic bombers dropping firebombs, and eventually, nuclear weapons over their regrettably flammable cities.  This, in other words, is a film about fear and uncertainty in the face of an unstoppable, incomprehensible power.  That is the theme at its center, and as such, it would not be inaccurate to call this film, in many ways, an example of romanticism.

However, that would be a misrepresentation of the film as a whole, because it's most certainly a film with a message and a purpose other than the exploration of an idea.  In case you didn't notice, Godzilla is nuclear warfare, and the conventional military is useless to deal with such a paradigm shift, and most people's fate is simply to be swept up.  Honda sensei's metaphor is absolutely nothing if not clear (even if it's a bit schizophrenic).  However, unlike Seven Samurai, the two currents are not interweaving but parallel to each other: one does not particularly affect the other.  Actually, that's not quite accurate either, because it's more like the idea of the film is what empowers its more realism like features.

Things happen in Japanese cinema that simply don't with any frequency anywhere else, and the golden age of Japanese film represents a time when there was enough money in the market to make films that could compete with their foreign counterparts in terms of production values - when the two had equal footing.  It was a time of ideas and auteurs that wanted to express them, and moreover had the money and freedom to do so.  It's really no surprise at all that cases like the above were common.

Come to think of it, I might be tempted to make the argument in a later blossay that Japan had another sort of less recognized and visible golden age during the late eighties and nineties - this time, in animation - but we'll see.

The Magnificent Seven Samurai