Japanese Cinema
Week 8 (3/9) Kurosawa and Samurai Films
Films: Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961) / Rashomon (1950)
Readings:
ASI3111 Winter 2022
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Sato, Tadao. “Japanese War Films” and “The Meaning of Life in Kurosawa’s Films.” Currents in Japanese Cinema. Trans. Gregory Barrett. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1982. 100-23.
Aaron Gerow, “Introduction.” Visions of Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship, 1895–1925. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 1-25.
Week 9 (3/16) Family and Everyday Life in Ozu’s Films
Film: Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) /An Autumn Afternoon (1962)
Readings:
Sato,Tadao. “Ozu.” Currents in Japanese Cinema. Trans. Gregory Barrett. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1982. 185-93.
Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. “Space and Narrative in the Films of Ozu.” Screen (1976): 41-73.
Your second short paper
✓ You can write your second short paper on any topic related to the films of Wong Karwai, King Hu, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee, as well as those of Japanese film directors.
o Please note that the topics we discussed in class are not thesis statements. It is
your responsibility to develop a focus and an appropriate thesis statement in your
paper. A valid thesis is Not a question; it should be understandable and coherent;
a thesis should be arguable: it is Not obvious and would require evidence to
prove.
✓ Length: 2~3 pages (at least 600 words), doubled-spaced, and written in 12 pt. Times New
Roman font. Please be advised that the page count does not include the bibliography and
title page. MLA citation format is preferred, but make sure to use one format
consistently.
✓ Due on Brightspace by March 23, 11:59pm.
✓ Paper rubric:
o Clear claim (2 points possible): Claim is appropriate, sophisticated, easily
identified, clear and precise.
o Effective use of evidence (2 points possible): Clear and precise evidence offered;
specific examples from texts that directly support the claim and analysis.
o Analysis and development (2.5 points possible): Essay does not present
superficial statements of ideas; evidence is shown to be linked to the claim;
complexity of the evidence is addressed; argument advances logically and no
digressions or repetitions.
o Writing Conventions (2.5 points possible): Introduction draws in the reader;
conclusion satisfies without repetition; easily identified topic sentences; clear
links to previous paragraphs; sentences are clear, graceful, and varied in structure;
document is absent of grammatical and spelling errors.
o Length (0.5 points)
o On time Submission (0.5 points)
© Sufeng Xu. All rights reserved
How to cite a film in MLA format
• List films by their titles. Include the names of the directors, the film studios or distributors, and the
release years.
• Farewell My Concubine. Dir. Chen Kaige. Miramax Home Entertainment, 1993. Film.
• To emphasize specific directors, begin the citation with the name of the director, followed by the
appropriate title for that person.
• Chen Kaige, dir. Farewell my Concubine. Miramax Home Entertainment, 1993. Film.
• Give individual names in normal order: surname last for Western names, surname first for East
• Asian names (Chen Kaige) unless they publish in English and write their surname last.
• Exceptions: if the person is known by a name in Western name order, you don’t have to change
the name order (in the case of Ang Lee, for example).
Lecture 2.1
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How to write a paper
Preparation:
Decide on a topic: what do you plan to examine and analyze in your paper? What is your thesis?
How will you go about demonstrating the thesis of your paper?
1. If you want to do a comparison, select two appropriate sources; otherwise, you will find it
difficult to determine criteria that will allow you to generate the kind of information that is
expected.
Writing your paper:
1. Title: should not be too long (more than two lines)
2. First paragraph (Introduction):
Your thesis is clearly stated in the first paragraph (thesis statement)
o Thesis: the point that an essay is trying to prove
A valid thesis:
o It is not a question
o understandable;
o coherent: goes through the entire essay; it should not make two points
– A complex thesis, with interrelated parts is OK, as long as it’s clear
how the different parts relate to each other
o A thesis should be arguable:
– This statement is not obvious, and it would require evidence to prove
o Examples:
– “Gender inequality in China has its roots in Confucian tradition”
– “Although women in Confucian tradition were essentially kept in
an inferior social position, some women also established a degree
of status and power for themselves/there was always complexity
of women’s position”
– …
3. The body of your text:
Don’t present superficial statements of ideas;
Clear and precise evidence offered; specific examples from texts that directly support
the claim and analysis;
4. Conclusion: In your concluding section, you should summarize your main findings and state
a clear conclusion.
5. Bibliography: MLA recommended; or use one citation form consistently
Other requirements:
1. Organization, grammar, mechanics, spelling, punctuation, sentence structures;
2. Length;
3. On time submission
Comparison
• If you want to write a comparison essay, select appropriate sources; otherwise, you will find it difficult to determine criteria that will allow you to
generate the kind of information that is expected.
• First paragraph (Introduction):
• Write one sentence introducing your topic; justify your selection of the two sources
• Providing brief summaries of the two sources being compared, conveying the objectives and main ideas (write about two or three
sentences describing the highlights of each source).
• Your thesis
• The body of your text:
• do not simply provide a single discussion of the features of one source, followed by a discussion of the other—organize your analysis
according to your comparison criteria. In other words, use a “part-by-part” method of organization, rather than a “whole-by-whole” method.
• In your first body section, state the first criterion (or analysis question) as a heading, and provide a sentence which justifies it as a useful
criterion for comparison. Then, compare your two sources according to how useful they are with respect to the criterion. Provide specific
examples.
• Your comparison/review should have at least two such sections, each dealing with a different criterion.
• Conclusion:
• In your concluding section, you should summarize your main findings and state a clear conclusion.
Lecture 4
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Lecture 8
Japanese Cinema
Kurosawa and His Films
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Klein: “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Diasporic
Reading”
• How can the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon be seen as a work of diasporic film?
• The film did not emerge out of any one national or cultural space but from “the boundary-crossing processes of war, migration,
capitalist exchange, aesthetic appropriations, and memory.” (page 21).
• The film is “materially grounded in multiple geographic locations, has multiple aesthetic affiliations, and fails to map neatly onto
one single nation-state or cultural tradition.” (page 21).
• Proof of this can be seen in Ang Lee’s relationship to China, other members of the Chinese diaspora, and Hollywood.
• What are possible explanations for why the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon turned out to be a bigger hit in the West and received
an uneven Asian reception?
• Globalization was reason for this. (Pages 20-21)
• Some people such as Derek Elley believe the film was received poorly because of its cultural inauthenticity and state that
Asianness had been corrupted by Western cinema.
Ien Ang, “Can One Say No to Chineseness? Pushing the Limits of the Diasporic Paradigm”
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The Wedding Banquet 喜宴 (1993)
Directed by Ang Lee, Screenplay by Ang
Lee, James Schamus, and Neil Peng
• Wai-Tung Gao
• Wei-Wei
• Simon
• Mr. Gao
• Mrs. Gao
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Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel, Flushing, NY
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Hinsch, Bret. 1990. Passions of the Cut Sleeve
• General attitudes:
• Overall, there was general tolerance towards homosexuality throughout Chinese history.
• Literature reflected this tolerance while also highlighting the contradictory attitudes that existed
towards homosexuality.
• The West saw tolerance of homosexuality as moral decay, furthering the division between
Westerners and the Chinese.
• To the European travelers, the popularity of homosexuality “was an unforgivable flaw in an
otherwise admirable society”; this became a “focal point” of division between the two cultures.
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Hinsch, Bret. 1990.
Passions of the Cut
Sleeve
•
Homoerotic references:
• “shared peach” (fentao 分桃):
• “cut sleeves” (duanxiu 斷袖/断袖):
• Nanfeng 男風/男风, “male practice”
• Nanfeng 南風/南风, “south custom”
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Homosexuality in Chinese tradition
• Homosexuality and Confucian teaching.
• Unfiliality:
• Mencius: “There are three ways of being
unfilial and the most serious is to have no
heir.”
• The ambiguous concept of friend-friend relation
• Homosexuality and patronage, prostitution, poverty, and
self-fashioning
• Emperors and their favorites
• Masters and servants
• Patrons and patronized
• Two friends: “Lovers’ tombs”
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• Homosexuality and laws
• Yuan and Qing
• Homosexuality and religion:
• The cult of Hu Tianbao in the late
Ming
• Homosexuality and drama:
• the relationship between a literatus
and a boy actor.
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Aspects of Homosexuality in Chinese Culture (the
limitation of the use of the term):
• Homosexuality referred to relations between two men only. There was no conception of lesbians.
• “Favorites” often referred to homosexual relationships between a ruler and special subject.
• Chinese did not truly depict people as homosexual, but as in practicing homosexuality.
• Not usually a permanent practice/relationship.
• Not an equal relationship: dominance/submission; active/passive
• Sexual positions reinforced social positions: the roles of penetrator and penetrated were perceived
as fixed to the “socially dominant” man and the man of lesser dominance, respectively.
• Dominance determined by gender, age and social status.
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Mei Lanfang and Beijing Opera
Chaplin
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Leslie Cheung
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Farewell My Concubine
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Kurosawa and His Films
Overview
•
•
•
•
The “modern period” in Japan
Bushi and Bushidō
Early Japanese Cinema
Kueosawa and His Films
• Rashomon
• Yojimbo
• Students’ presentations
Kurosawa Akira 黒澤明 (1910-1998)
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Modern Periods of Japanese History
Tokugawa period (1603-1868):
Civilization and enlightenment (bunmei kaika)
Meiji Period (1868-1912)
Rich country, strong military” (fukoku kyōhei )
1868 Meiji Restoration (Meiji ishin)
Westernization and Leaving Asia
Taisho Period (1912-26) è The Taishō Democracy
Showa Period (1926-89) èEarly Showa Period (1926-45)
Heisei (1989-2019)
Pan-Asianism
Reiwa (2019-)
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
The Rhetoric of
Justification
The current reign
period of Japan
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Emperor Hirohito
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The “modern period” in Japan begins with the “Meiji Restoration”
Meiji: enlightened rule
1868
A radical (re)creation of the Japanese nation-state
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Re-creation from what?
name of ruling house of military lords-shoguns
Tokugawa 徳川 Period
Edo 江戸 Period
Former name of Tokyo
東京 (eastern capital)
• economic growth,
• strict class structure,
• Sakoku 鎖国, isolationist
foreign policies
1603-1868
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Significant social groups in Tokugawa era
Samurai: abide by martial
disciplines even in time of peace
Daimyō
Farmers: produce agricultures, the root of the nation
Artisans: make wares and utensils for the use of others; not a significant group.
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and, increasingly, a merchant class…
• Growing urbanization
• The spread of popular education
• The Edo merchants supplying the military
became richer than the samurai, many of
whom lived in poverty.
In Confucian ideal, merchants did not produce anything, but only trafficked in goods.
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Black Ship, American warship, woodblock print, ca. 1854.
Nagasaki Prefecture
• Commodore Perry and His Black
Ships:
• Opening of Japan, 1852–1854
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Japan’s initial reaction to the West:
Sonnō jōi 尊皇攘夷 (Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians)
Sūmo (相撲)
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You can think of the Meiji restoration as a
successful coup d’etat
• Constructing the Meiji state was accomplished through:
• 1) Consolidating political power
• Reorganizing the nation-state around the figure of the
emperor.
• Expanding and re-forming Confucian ideals
• Confucianism—allegiance due to older, male
relatives;
• Honor the emperor as the father of the country
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ryousai kenbo
good wife, wise mother
良妻賢母
Constructing
the Meiji state
was
accomplished
through:
2) Consolidating family forms
The Meiji Civil Code 1898 made exclusive
samurai practices standard. People legally
had to register in families.
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wakon yosai
Japanese mind, Western science
和魂洋才
Constructing the
Meiji state was
accomplished
through:
3) Exploration of the West:
leaving Asia; Pan-Asianism
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… Beginning of the expanding empire
Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)
A crowd views war prints displayed at a publisher’s shop.
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Annexing Taiwan 1895
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Russo
Japanese
War 1904-5
Annexation of Korea 1910
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Second Sino-Japanese War: December 13, 1937-January 1938:
Nanjing Massacre (Rape of Nanjing)
Nanjing—capital of
the Republic of China
2020-10-22
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Emperor Hirohito: “endure the unendurable.”
Japanese people kneeling in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and listening to Emperor
Showa to announce the surrender on August 15, 1945.
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• Bushi and Bushidō
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Shi
Gentry family
Samurai 侍,
attendant, showing
their Humble origins
Samurai / Bushi 武士 (warrior)
Unemployed Samurai (ronin 浪人)
Female entertainer (Geisha 芸者)
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Literatus 文士
Unemployed literati (shanren山人) / Xia 俠
Courtesan (mingji 名妓)
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Ukiyo-e
portraits of
samurai
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Samurai, Bushidō, and the Invention of
Tradition
Bushidō, the way of the samurai, is viewed as a defining element of the Japanese national character and even the ‘soul of Japan.’ But Harold
Bolitho argues that this stereotype is based on an invented myth about samurai:
ü Samurai, literally means attendant, showing their humble origins.
ü Bushidō is relatively modern concept.
ü In his Hagakure 葉隠 (In the Shadow of Leaves) written in1716, Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659-1719) showed an obsession with
death. But in this period, the samurai were effectively not needed.
ü For others, Bushidō means the way of the Confucianist rōnin, a moral exemplar who didn’t have to have martial skills.
ü In the Meiji Restoration, the Meiji leaders, who were themselves samurai, disestablished samurai, and they preferred the efficiency of
conscript armies as demonstrated by the Western powers.
ü In his Bushido: the Soul of Japan, Inazō Nitobe (1862-1933) identified what he saw as key elements: rectitude, courage, benevolence,
politeness, sincerity, honor, loyalty, and self-control. But the author lived in the US.
ü In Kokutai No Hongi (Cardinal Principles of National Polity), compiled by the Ministry of Education and published by the Cabinet Office
Printing Bureau in 1937, the compilers extolled the supremacy of Japan and the need to die for the emperor.
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Junzi vs. samurai
• The junzi: an ideal man whose character embodies
the virtue of benevolence and whose acts are in
accordance with the rites and rightness
• Ren, benevolence.
• Zhong [chung], loyalty
• Xiao [hsiao], filial piety
• Ti, the respect due one’s elder brother
• Xin: reliable
• Self-restrained …
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• Virtues of a Samurai:
• rectitude,
• courage,
• benevolence,
• politeness,
• sincerity,
• honor,
• loyalty,
• self-control
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Eiga 映画, motion picture
Moving Picture World 活動寫眞界
(Katsudō shashinkai), January 1910.
Eiga inferred a cinematic revolution, later
called the Pure Film Movement (Jun’eigageki
Undō 純映画劇運動)
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Pure Film Movement (Jun’eigageki Undō 純映画劇運動)
• A trend in film criticism and filmmaking in 1910s and early 1920s Japan that advocated what were considered more
modern and cinematic modes of filmmaking;
• Deeply influenced by foreign cinema with more close-ups, analytic editing.
Kaeriyama Norimasa 帰山教正, The
Glow of Life 生の輝き, 1918
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Murata Minoru 村田実, Souls on the Road
路上の霊魂, 1921
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Benshi 弁士: a performer
providing narration and
comments for silent films.
• Benshi
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Japanese War Films
National Policy Films (kokusaku eiga 国策映画)
• From 1937 -1945, the Japanese film industry fell under the control of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Media Section of the
Imperial Army.
• The Motion Picture Law imposed in 1939 increased movie censorship.
• Further tightening of censorship in 1940 – the Home Ministry issued the following instructions regarding filmmaking:
• Healthy entertainment films with positive themes;
• Appearances of comedians and satirists should not increase;
• Depictions of the bourgeoisie and the wealthy, and those extolling private happiness are prohibited, along with women
smoking, cabaret life, frivolous behavior, and dialogues with many foreign words;
• Films depicting productive sectors of national life, especially agriculture, encouraged;
• Preproduction inspection of all scenarios shall be followed; if violations are found, they must be corrected.
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National Policy Films (kokusaku
eiga 国策映画)
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Three main characteristics:
• The vagueness of the image of the enemy (The films were not intended to galvanize hatred for the
enemy; the enemy was hardly ever shown);
• Concentration on the human side of Japanese soldiers (took up the theme of how to die bravely in
battle – cinematic propaganda as a kind of spiritual training);
• Training scenes were an important part of war films – possessed an air of monotony (repetitive
training, marching, etc.)
The Post-War “Conversion”
• Occupation forces in 1945 wanted Japanese filmmakers to make films about democracy.
• Conversion was a grave issue for scholars, but not for directors and scriptwriters, who were not hounded
during years of Occupation censorship since responsibility for war-time cooperation lay with film
company executives who had since been purged from industry.
• Reasons directors were not held responsible:
• Film was a saleable commodity, even leftist films made from 1929 – 1931 (directors could say their
movies were made according to the orders they were given)
• Since movie making is a group endeavor, it is hard to pinpoint individual responsibilities.
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The Meaning of Life in Kurosawa’s Films
• Kurosawa’s films presented the idea that the meaning of life is not dictated by the nation, but rather
that each individual should discover for themselves through suffering.
• bureaucracy’s petty rivalries and its inefficiencies and its irresponsibility,
• with the generation gap between parent and child, and
• with postwar hedonism
• Those who sacrifice themselves and live wholeheartedly for others and society can die content
despite anguish.
• Kurosawa believed the individual should criticize society; he never ceased to speak out against the
terrorism of gangsters, bureaucracy, nuclear weapons, corruption in business and governments, etc.
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Kurosawa Akira 黒澤
明 (1910-1998)
• The most famous Japanese director outside of Japan;
awarded Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1990.
• Directed 30 films throughout his career, including 12 period
films
• 1936: entered the film industry;
• 1943: directed his first film Sanshiro Sugata
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Most famous works:
• Historical
• 1950: Rashomon
1954: Seven Samurai
1957: Throne of Blood
1961: Yojimbo
1962: Sanjurō
1965: Red Beard
1980: The Shadow Warrior
1985: Ran
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• Contemporary
• 1952: Ikiru (To Live)
Recurring themes:
• Social illness
• Individual hero vs. multitude
• 1960: The Bad Sleep Well
• Meaning of life
• Father/Parents and son/children
• 1990: Dreams
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Rashomon (1950)
https://uottawa.kanopy.com/video/rashomon
• It won The Golden Lion, the highest prize available at the Venice Film Festiv
al in 1951.
• film as an international medium;
• film embodies many of modern list principles (complexity, nuance, and
skepticism, and philosophic self-awareness…).
• Based on Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s 芥川 龍之介 (1892~1927) short story
“In a [Bamboo] Grove”, which provides the characters and plot.
• But the title and setting are from Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s another short
story Rashōmon.
• George W. Linden, “Five Views of Rashomon” : “Rashomon speaks to
everyone, not just the Japanese.”
• Rashomon may be viewed as (1) a commercial venture, (2) a work of art,
(3) a cultural allegory, (4) a film, and (5) a philosophic statement.
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Ryūnosuke Akutagawa 芥川 龍之介
(1892~1927)
• “Father of the Japanese short story.”
• Author of more than 150 short
stories
• Active in the Taishō period.
• Degree in English literature.
• Translator of European
• Founder of modern Japanese literature.
• Interest for classical Chinese
literature, history, and traditional
Japanese literature
• Inherited a mental disease from his
mother; committed suicide at the age of
35.
• Use of Japanese classics and
folklore
• The Akutagawa Prize: Japan’s most
prestigious literary award is named after
him.
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“In a Grove” 藪の中 Yabu no
Naka (1922)
• Plot: varying accounts of the murder of a samurai.
• Characters: woodcutter, a traveling Buddhist priest, a released
prisoner (Tajōmaru), old woman, samurai, samurai’s wife
(daughter of the old woman).
• Traditional story told untraditionally;
• The semantic role of details;
• Who tells the truth?
• Who is the “someone” at the end?
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One irony of Rashomon’s success was that it was not
very successful in Japan when it was released in 1950.
Kurosawa’s 1983 book, Something Like an Autobiography. Trans. Audie
Bock:
“Rashomon…had won the Grand Prix…Later Rashomon won American.
Academy Award for best foreign language film. Japanese critics insisted that these
two prizes were simply reflections of Westerners’ curiosity about and taste for oriental
exoticism, which struck me then, and now, as terrible. Why is it that Japanese people
have no confidence in the worth of Japan? Why do they elevate everything foreign
and denigrate everything Japanese?”
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Yojimbo, Akira Kurosawa,
1961
• https://uottawa.kanopy.com/video/yojimbo-0
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCjsazHO0c
0
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The Films of Akira Kurosawa
By Donald Richie
• Kurosawa: “The idea is about rivalry on both sides, and both sides are equally
bad. We all know what that is like. Here we are, weakly caught in the middle,
and it is impossible to choose between evils. Myself, I have always wanted to
somehow or other stop these senseless battles of bad against bad, but we’re
all more or less weak—I have never been able to. And that is why the hero of
this picture is different from us. He is able to stand squarely in the middle, and
stop the fight.…” (p. 147)
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Tracking/dolly shot
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Tilting shot
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Close-ups
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ありがとうございます!
Arigatōgozaimasu!
© Sufeng Xu
University of Ottawa
Zhao Jiping’s Score in Raise the Red Lantern:
Representing China at a Cultural Crossroads
Justin Munger (7582412)
East Asian Cinemas (ASI 3111)
Professor Sufeng Xu
February 7th 2018
Throughout history and across innumerable nations, art has served as a reflection of the
society and the culture in which it was created. The political and socio-economic atmospheres
surrounding an artist and their work inevitably exert pressure on artistic creation, allowing
elements of these atmospheres to be found within the art. China was no exception to this global
trend, and especially not in the late 20th century. Emerging from a tumultuous century, China
was now at a culturally significant crossroads where the ancient past, the shadows of communist
censorship, and the neon lights of the West were meeting head-on1. It is in this ripe soil that art
began to germinate and take root that expressed some of the Chinese people’s views on this
confusing era. Likely familiar to many Western film buffs, Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red
Lantern was released in 1991, and rose to relative fame on the international film scene, with
western critics delivering high praise for the work2. While Zhang Yimou received accolades for
the direction of the film, significantly less attention was paid to an integral part of Raise the Red
Lantern’s success: Zhao Jiping, a Shaanxi born composer. His soundtrack on the film supported
the underlying political tones, while also providing an interesting synthesis of Western and
Chinese musical elements, which reflected the political and socio-economic climate of China at
the time. Specifically, Zhao Jiping represented the confluence of China’s traditional past, its
Soviet influences, and the influx of Western culture in the early 1990s through instrumentation
and idiomatic compositional conventions.
The first major element of Chinese culture that Zhao Jiping chose to represent in scoring
Raise the Red Lantern was traditional Chinese music. The traditional music’s appearance is
fairly obvious to many a Western ear, as it primarily takes root in three forms: pentatonicism,
Jonathan P.J. Stock, “China, People’s Republic of: Since 1911.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root.
Accessed 6 February, 2018.
2
Roger Ebert, “Raise the Red Lantern,” last modified March 27, 1992. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raisethe-red-lantern-1992
1
2
instrumentation and the appearance of traditional opera. Pentatonicism (the subdivision of the
octave into 5 pitches), although not omnipresent, is common in much of traditional Chinese
music, often heard with embellishments outside of the pentatonic system3. In addition to its
occurrence in traditional music, it is also a stereotypical hallmark of Chinese music to most
Western ears, especially in the 20th century. Zhao Jiping employed this tonal system throughout
the vast majority of the music on the score, especially tracks with vocal music4. Instrumentation
and Chinese Opera are also used by Zhao to represent a more traditional China, with traditional
instruments appearing on almost every track, with special focus on percussion in the opening
scenes of the film, and the use of the flute when played by the Master’s son. Chinese operatic
singing itself is featured heavily in the soundscape of the film due to the Third Mistress being an
ex-opera singer, and her voice can be heard singing in a traditional operatic style at regular
intervals.
The next element of China’s socio-political landscape that I wish to address in Raise the
Red Lantern’s soundtrack is the influence of Soviet music. Soviet music was something that
citizens of China at the time would have been extremely familiar with, as the Chinese
Communist Party used Soviet Socialist Realism5 as the principal artistic ideology during the mid
and late 20th century, especially during the Cultural Revolution6. Zhao Jiping chose to use mass
choirs as the primary representation of this Soviet ideology. These choirs were an integral part of
socialist realism in Soviet art, as they exemplified a genre in which the proletariat masses could
join together. It was symbolically representative of the cooperative efforts of the proletariat, and
3
Mei Pa Chao, The Yellow Bell. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Zhao Jiping, Raise the Red Lantern (Official Soundtrack Album), Milan East, 1994, compact disc.
5
Christopher Norris, “Socialist Realism.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 4 February, 2018.
6
Ching-chih Liu, “Yangbanxi and the Music of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976): Revolutionary Modern Peking
Opera, Ballet, Symphonic Music and Songs.” in A Critical History of New Music in China. Translated by Caroline
Mason. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2010.
4
3
became extremely popular in China under the enforcement of Maoist thought during the Cultural
Revolution7. This style of singing can be most clearly heard on the track Songlian’s Madness End Credits, where multiple female choirs join together singing ostinatos in layered textures with
instrumental accompaniment.
The final element of 1990s China that I wish to address in the soundtrack is the
representation of the Western culture and modernization. Leading up to this period Deng
Xiaoping had begun opening the doors to Western culture, and it made a remarkable impact on
China as the influx of goods and media began. Comparisons between China and the West were
inevitable from both sides, and it caused much reflection on the part of the Chinese as to who
they were as a national identity, and what their place was on the global stage8. Zhao Jiping
seemed to represent this modern and Western concept through the inclusion of a synthesizer in
his soundtrack (although it is mysteriously absent on the official soundtrack released a few years
later). The synthesizer provides large, swooping drones underpinning instrumental music most
notably in the opening scenes of the movie, where it supports frantic percussion as the title
screen and initial credits roll by. The synthesizer was first commercially distributed in the 1960s
by Buchla and Moog, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that more affordable models became available
for the greater public9. This meant that the synthesizer would very likely have been in the initial
waves of Western electronic products beginning to make their way to China in the 1980s, and
would have been a strong musical symbol of Western technology and culture to a Chinesetrained composer.
Paul Tiszai, “Maoism: The Political Philosophy of Mao Tse-Tung the Third Theoretician of Marxism.” PhD
dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1957.
8
Yiman Wang, “Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration.” Positions 15.2 (Fall
2007): 319-343.
9
Hugh Davies, “Synthesizer.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 6 February, 2018.
7
4
Whether these types of representation are wholly conscious or not (and I believe them to
be), elements of the socio-political and economic atmosphere surrounding an artist and their
work will almost always manage to manifest itself within the created work. Zhao Jiping, in his
creation of the soundtrack for Raise the Red Lantern, managed to represent a tumultuous period
for China, and to give voice to the three major conflicting cultural influences at the time, the
traditional past, the Soviet past, and the Western influence of the present. His soundtrack
represents China at a time when its cultural direction was up for debate, and artists all wished to
weigh in and provide commentary. Even today, his compositions provide insight for audiences
into the minds of artists of his day, and augment the messages already present in the film.
5
Bibliography
Chao, Mei Pa. The Yellow Bell. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Liu, Ching-chih. “Yangbanxi and the Music of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976):
Revolutionary Modern Peking Opera, Ballet, Symphonic Music and Songs.” in A Critical
History of New Music in China. Translated by Caroline Mason. Hong Kong: The Chinese
University Press, 2010.
Davies, Hugh. “Synthesizer.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 6 February,
2018.
Ebert, Roger. “Raise the Red Lantern” last modified March 27, 1992.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raise-the-red-lantern-1992
Feldman, Daniel Lewis. “Ideology and the Manipulation of Symbols: Leadership
Perceptions of Science, Education, and Art in the People’s Republic of China, 19611974.” Political Psychology 6, no. 3 (Sept. 1985), 441-460.
Zhao, Jiping. Raise the Red Lantern (Official Soundtrack Album), Milan East, 1994, compact
disc.
McGrath, Jason. “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke: From Postsocialist Realism to a
Transnational Aesthetic.” The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the
Turn of the Twenty-first Century, edited by Zhen Zhang. Durham: Duke University Press
(2007), 81-114.
Norris, Christopher. “Socialist Realism.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed
4 February, 2018.
Stock, Jonathan P.J. “China, People’s Republic of: Since 1911.” Grove Music Online. Edited by
Deane Root. Accessed 6 February, 2018.
6
Tiszai, Paul. “Maoism: The Political Philosophy of Mao Tse-Tung the Third Theoretician of
Marxism.” PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1957.
Wang, Yiman. “Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration.”
Positions 15.2 (Fall 2007): 319-343.
7
University of Ottawa
Zhao Jiping’s Score in Raise the Red Lantern:
Representing China at a Cultural Crossroads
Justin Munger (7582412)
East Asian Cinemas (ASI 3111)
Professor Sufeng Xu
February 7th 2018
Throughout history and across innumerable nations, art has served as a reflection of the
society and the culture in which it was created. The political and socio-economic atmospheres
surrounding an artist and their work inevitably exert pressure on artistic creation, allowing
elements of these atmospheres to be found within the art. China was no exception to this global
trend, and especially not in the late 20th century. Emerging from a tumultuous century, China
was now at a culturally significant crossroads where the ancient past, the shadows of communist
censorship, and the neon lights of the West were meeting head-on1. It is in this ripe soil that art
began to germinate and take root that expressed some of the Chinese people’s views on this
confusing era. Likely familiar to many Western film buffs, Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red
Lantern was released in 1991, and rose to relative fame on the international film scene, with
western critics delivering high praise for the work2. While Zhang Yimou received accolades for
the direction of the film, significantly less attention was paid to an integral part of Raise the Red
Lantern’s success: Zhao Jiping, a Shaanxi born composer. His soundtrack on the film supported
the underlying political tones, while also providing an interesting synthesis of Western and
Chinese musical elements, which reflected the political and socio-economic climate of China at
the time. Specifically, Zhao Jiping represented the confluence of China’s traditional past, its
Soviet influences, and the influx of Western culture in the early 1990s through instrumentation
and idiomatic compositional conventions.
The first major element of Chinese culture that Zhao Jiping chose to represent in scoring
Raise the Red Lantern was traditional Chinese music. The traditional music’s appearance is
fairly obvious to many a Western ear, as it primarily takes root in three forms: pentatonicism,
Jonathan P.J. Stock, “China, People’s Republic of: Since 1911.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root.
Accessed 6 February, 2018.
2
Roger Ebert, “Raise the Red Lantern,” last modified March 27, 1992. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raisethe-red-lantern-1992
1
2
instrumentation and the appearance of traditional opera. Pentatonicism (the subdivision of the
octave into 5 pitches), although not omnipresent, is common in much of traditional Chinese
music, often heard with embellishments outside of the pentatonic system3. In addition to its
occurrence in traditional music, it is also a stereotypical hallmark of Chinese music to most
Western ears, especially in the 20th century. Zhao Jiping employed this tonal system throughout
the vast majority of the music on the score, especially tracks with vocal music4. Instrumentation
and Chinese Opera are also used by Zhao to represent a more traditional China, with traditional
instruments appearing on almost every track, with special focus on percussion in the opening
scenes of the film, and the use of the flute when played by the Master’s son. Chinese operatic
singing itself is featured heavily in the soundscape of the film due to the Third Mistress being an
ex-opera singer, and her voice can be heard singing in a traditional operatic style at regular
intervals.
The next element of China’s socio-political landscape that I wish to address in Raise the
Red Lantern’s soundtrack is the influence of Soviet music. Soviet music was something that
citizens of China at the time would have been extremely familiar with, as the Chinese
Communist Party used Soviet Socialist Realism5 as the principal artistic ideology during the mid
and late 20th century, especially during the Cultural Revolution6. Zhao Jiping chose to use mass
choirs as the primary representation of this Soviet ideology. These choirs were an integral part of
socialist realism in Soviet art, as they exemplified a genre in which the proletariat masses could
join together. It was symbolically representative of the cooperative efforts of the proletariat, and
3
Mei Pa Chao, The Yellow Bell. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Zhao Jiping, Raise the Red Lantern (Official Soundtrack Album), Milan East, 1994, compact disc.
5
Christopher Norris, “Socialist Realism.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 4 February, 2018.
6
Ching-chih Liu, “Yangbanxi and the Music of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976): Revolutionary Modern Peking
Opera, Ballet, Symphonic Music and Songs.” in A Critical History of New Music in China. Translated by Caroline
Mason. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2010.
4
3
became extremely popular in China under the enforcement of Maoist thought during the Cultural
Revolution7. This style of singing can be most clearly heard on the track Songlian’s Madness End Credits, where multiple female choirs join together singing ostinatos in layered textures with
instrumental accompaniment.
The final element of 1990s China that I wish to address in the soundtrack is the
representation of the Western culture and modernization. Leading up to this period Deng
Xiaoping had begun opening the doors to Western culture, and it made a remarkable impact on
China as the influx of goods and media began. Comparisons between China and the West were
inevitable from both sides, and it caused much reflection on the part of the Chinese as to who
they were as a national identity, and what their place was on the global stage8. Zhao Jiping
seemed to represent this modern and Western concept through the inclusion of a synthesizer in
his soundtrack (although it is mysteriously absent on the official soundtrack released a few years
later). The synthesizer provides large, swooping drones underpinning instrumental music most
notably in the opening scenes of the movie, where it supports frantic percussion as the title
screen and initial credits roll by. The synthesizer was first commercially distributed in the 1960s
by Buchla and Moog, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that more affordable models became available
for the greater public9. This meant that the synthesizer would very likely have been in the initial
waves of Western electronic products beginning to make their way to China in the 1980s, and
would have been a strong musical symbol of Western technology and culture to a Chinesetrained composer.
Paul Tiszai, “Maoism: The Political Philosophy of Mao Tse-Tung the Third Theoretician of Marxism.” PhD
dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1957.
8
Yiman Wang, “Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration.” Positions 15.2 (Fall
2007): 319-343.
9
Hugh Davies, “Synthesizer.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 6 February, 2018.
7
4
Whether these types of representation are wholly conscious or not (and I believe them to
be), elements of the socio-political and economic atmosphere surrounding an artist and their
work will almost always manage to manifest itself within the created work. Zhao Jiping, in his
creation of the soundtrack for Raise the Red Lantern, managed to represent a tumultuous period
for China, and to give voice to the three major conflicting cultural influences at the time, the
traditional past, the Soviet past, and the Western influence of the present. His soundtrack
represents China at a time when its cultural direction was up for debate, and artists all wished to
weigh in and provide commentary. Even today, his compositions provide insight for audiences
into the minds of artists of his day, and augment the messages already present in the film.
5
Bibliography
Chao, Mei Pa. The Yellow Bell. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Liu, Ching-chih. “Yangbanxi and the Music of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976):
Revolutionary Modern Peking Opera, Ballet, Symphonic Music and Songs.” in A Critical
History of New Music in China. Translated by Caroline Mason. Hong Kong: The Chinese
University Press, 2010.
Davies, Hugh. “Synthesizer.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 6 February,
2018.
Ebert, Roger. “Raise the Red Lantern” last modified March 27, 1992.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raise-the-red-lantern-1992
Feldman, Daniel Lewis. “Ideology and the Manipulation of Symbols: Leadership
Perceptions of Science, Education, and Art in the People’s Republic of China, 19611974.” Political Psychology 6, no. 3 (Sept. 1985), 441-460.
Zhao, Jiping. Raise the Red Lantern (Official Soundtrack Album), Milan East, 1994, compact
disc.
McGrath, Jason. “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke: From Postsocialist Realism to a
Transnational Aesthetic.” The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the
Turn of the Twenty-first Century, edited by Zhen Zhang. Durham: Duke University Press
(2007), 81-114.
Norris, Christopher. “Socialist Realism.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed
4 February, 2018.
Stock, Jonathan P.J. “China, People’s Republic of: Since 1911.” Grove Music Online. Edited by
Deane Root. Accessed 6 February, 2018.
6
Tiszai, Paul. “Maoism: The Political Philosophy of Mao Tse-Tung the Third Theoretician of
Marxism.” PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1957.
Wang, Yiman. “Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration.”
Positions 15.2 (Fall 2007): 319-343.
7
Lecture 9
1
Family and Everyday Life in
Ozu Yasujiro’s Films
© Sufeng Xu
Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari 東京故事,1953)
An Autumn Afternoon (Sanma no aji 秋刀魚の味, 1962)
mackerel
Tokugawa 徳川 period (1603-1868)
Meiji Period (1868-1912)
1868 Meiji Restoration (Meiji ishin 明治維新)
Taisho Period (1912-26)
Meji slogans:
civilization and enlightenment (bunmei kaika 文明開化);
Showa Period (1926-89)
rich country, strong military” (fukoku kyōhei 富国強兵)
Heisei (1989-2019)
Westernization: Leaving Asia; Pan-Asianism
Reiwa (2019-present)
“Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,”
大東亞共榮圈/大東亜共栄圏
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
2
Ozu Yasujirō 小津 安二郎 (1903-63)
• Directed his first film in 1927, first
sound film (The Only Son) in 1936,
and first color film [Equinox Flower] in
1958.
• Tokyo Story 東京物語, 1953 [Ozu’s
first film to receive international
acclaim].
https://uottawa.kanopy.com/video/t
okyo-story
• An Autumn Afternoon 秋刀魚の味,
1962 (his last film).
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
3
The most Japanese film director
In what way?
• His forte was detailed sensitive portrayal of the daily lives of average people
(shomin geki 庶民劇, drama about common people)
• American films about average people in the 1910’s and 1920’s had a strong effect on Ozu
• Theme: Ozu always used the contemporary Japanese home as his theme, focusing
on relationships between family members:
• the love between parent and child;
• the reconciliation between husband and wife;
• or mischief of children.
• His style: referred to by Paul Schrader as the transcendental style.
• related to Zen arts, haiku poetry (very similar to the five-character quatrains), Noh drama
(static and theatrical).
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
4
Geography of Japan
• Four Main
Islands of Japan
© Sufeng Xu
Lecture 9
5
Lecture 9
北海道地方Hokkaidō
1. 北海道 Hokkaidō
東北地方 Tōhoku
2. 青森県 Aomori
3. 岩手県 Iwate
4. 宮城県 Miyagi
5. 秋田県 Akita
6. 山形県 Yamagata
7. 福島県 Fukushima
関東地方Kantō
8. 茨城県 Ibaraki
9. 栃木県 Tochigi
10. 群馬県 Gunma
11. 埼玉県 Saitama
12. 千葉県 Chiba
13. 東京都 Tōkyō
14. 神奈川県 Kanagawa
中部地方Chūbu
15. 新潟県 Nigata
16. 富山県 Toyama
17. 石川県 Ishikawa
18. 福井県 Fukui
19. 山梨県 Yamanashi
20. 長野県 Nagano
21. 岐阜県 Gifu
22. 静岡県 Shizuoka
23. 愛知県 Aichi
関西/近畿地方 Kansai/Kinki
九州地方 Kyūshū Okinawa
24. 三重県 Mie
40. 福岡県 Fukuka
25. 滋賀県 Shiga
41. 佐賀県 Saga
26. 京都府 Kyōto
42. 長崎県 Nagasaki
27. 大阪府Ōsaka
43. 熊本県 Kumamoto
28. 兵庫県 Hyōgo
44. 大分県 Ōita
29. 奈良県 Nara
45. 宮崎県 Miyazaki
30. 和歌山県 Wakayama
46. 鹿児島県 Kagoshima
中国地方Chūgoku
沖縄地方
31. 鳥取県 Tottori
47. 沖縄県 Okinawa
32. 島根県 Shimane
33. 岡山県 Okayama
34. 広島県 Hiroshima
35. 山口県 Yamaguchi
Onomichi
四国地方Shikoku
36. 徳島県 Tokushima
37. 香川県 Kagawa
38. 愛媛県 Ehime
39. 高知県 Kōchi
© Sufeng Xu
6
Geographical Facts about Japan
• Four main islands surrounded by water;
• A large proportion of the country is
mountainous;
• Mt. Fuji is the country’s tallest peak
located in Honshu;
• Some mountains are volcanic
• Only 17% of the surface area available for
agriculture;
• High population density;
• In mineral resources Japan is relatively poor;
• Natural disasters;
• ……
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
7
Typhoon Jebi hit Japan on September 4, 2018
causing storm surges and lashing buildings with heavy wind and rain
Wave by
Hokusai Katsushika
(1760~1849)
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
8
Japan is the only country to
have suffered atomic attacks.
• August 6, 1945, atomic bomb
dropped on Hiroshima.
• August 9, 1945, atomic bomb
dropped on Nagasaki.
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
9
The native values as reflected in
Ozu’s cinema
• Mono no aware 物の哀れ, man’s emotional response to things.
ü A literary theory of Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 (1730-1801)
ü This had to do with Chinese poetic tradition.
ü Two ideal types human culture and psychology:
ü The feminine-maternal: pure native character;
ü The masculine paternal
ü Examples: Japan’s national flag, national anthem 君が代
• A Zen understanding of life: the awareness of transience of things:
ü Acceptances of vicissitudes of life.
ü Because of Japanese acceptance of the world as it is, the industry does not
make very good propaganda films. It took Japanese film long time to learn
the falsification that propaganda demands.
© Sufeng Xu
Lecture 9
10
Japanese Zen aesthetic
Wabi-Sabi 侘寂
• Acceptance of transience and imperfection
• true beauty comes from imperfection and incompletion
• The late Ming craze for obsession (pi 癖): a perfect
imperfection:
• Zhang Dai: “One cannot befriend a man without
obsessions, for he lacks deep emotion; nor can one
befriend with a man without faults, for he lacks
integrity/genuine feelings.”
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
11
Jifei Ruyi 即非如一
[Sokuhi Nyoichi] (1616-1671)
月白紙一色,眼與墨俱黑。
妙義個中圓,了亦不可得
Moon and white paper are of one color.
The pupil of the eye and the ink are both black.
The marvelous meaning, lodged in the circle,
Is beyond comprehension.
After the fall of the Ming, some Chinese monks such as Yinyuan Longqi
[Ingen Ryōki] 隱元隆琦 (1592-1673) and Jifei Ruyi [Sokuhi Nyoichi] 即非
如一 (1616-1671) went to Japan in 1654. They built Temple Manpuku ji
萬福寺 behind a mountain near Kyoto, where they introduced Chan (Zen
in Japanese) and late Ming literati culture.
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
12
© Sufeng Xu
The modern girl [Moga]: (モダンガール, modan gāru)
• Considered modern: looks and lifestyles.
• How do you describe a modern girl’s appearance?
ü
ü
ü
ü
Fashionable, completely Western;
Wearing short hair (Bob cut);
Wearing pumps and short dresses;
Wearing lipstick……
Lecture 9
13
Japanophile; Japanophilia
Ozu’s superb cinematic technique:
• The low angle shot – he positions his camera no
more than to feet above the ground and shots from
a slightly elevated angle, never from overhead;
• The stationary camera – Ozu hardly ever resorts to
a crane to move camera up and down, or use a
dolly;
• The arrangement of characters – Ozu has actors
facing the same direction, assuming the same
pose, or sitting on tatami mats at the same angle in
order to make them analogous figures in the same
shot in order to create sense of harmony;
Lecture 9
• The avoidance of movement – Ozu avoided violent action in
his films; he also restricted his actors’ movement – they
hardly ever walked across a shot unless it was in the
distance.
• The stability of the size of camera shots – Ozu was always
concerned with making each individual shot beautiful rather
than with continuity; he never took close-ups, and never
used telescopic or wide-angle lens.
• Choreographic acting directions – Ozu’s characters are
usually quite calm, take their time delivering their lines and
speak with a slight smile; they move at the same pace and
speak at the same rate of speed.
è To create an emotional effect while avoiding melodrama
© Sufeng Xu
15
Ozu’s Superb cinematic technique
Editing: The coordination of one shot with the next
Fade-out
Fade-in
Dissolve
Wipe
Cut/jump cut
Linking by means of cutting alone. Ozu never used a dissolve to link shots in his films; probably because of
the resulting disruption. He eventually even abandoned fade-ins and fade-outs.
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
16
Fade-in
Fade-out
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
17
Dissolve
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
18
Wipe
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
19
Camera Angle
Ozu’s camera never looks down on people
• Upper left: low-angle
• Lower left: high-angle
• Upper right: straight-on angle
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
20
Camera Level
Level
Canted
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
21
Camera Height
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
22
Graphically discontinuous shots
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
23
When two or more characters appear in the same shot, they are often
facing the same direction and assuming the same pose.
• Ozu manipulated his players like
puppets
• but he created scenes of
incomparable, formal beauty
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
24
Camera movement techniques
The static shot: no camera movement at all.
Camera’s position does not change
Camera’s position changes
• Pan (Panorama) movement: to rotate the camera
horizontally, left or right while remaining in a fix
location.
• Dolly movement:
• Tilt movement: a tilt directs the camera upward or
downward.
• The tracking shot moves the camera through a
scene, typically following the subject.
• dolly in zoom out;
• dolly out zoom in.
• Crane shot: a shot taken by a camera on a
moving crane .
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
25
• Panning shot
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
26
• Tilting shot
The avoidance of movement:
Ozu hardly ever resorts to a crane to move his camera up and down, or a dolly
Crane
Dolly
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
28
Lecture 9
• Tracking shot
29
© Sufeng Xu
• Crane shot
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
30
Ozu never took close-ups
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
31
Tokyo Story 東京物語, 1953
Onomichi: a
mountainous town
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
32
TOKYO
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
33
Visiting their son,
daughter, and
widowed
daughter-in-law
Lecture 9
34
Their widowed daughter-in-law
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
35
FamilyID=Office_ArchiveTorn
So beautiful and so lonely
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
36
Illness and death
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
37
Minimalism and great emotional power
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
38
An Autumn Afternoon 秋刀魚の味, 1962
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
39
© Sufeng Xu
Discussion questions
• Can the combination of cinematic constructions in Ozu’s work be described as “realistic”? Or is the
effect one that is apparently “constructed” or idealized?
• Is Ozu’s cinematic style reflective of his American film influences, or a minimalist Japanese aesthetic
seen in other forms of art?
• If Ozu’s slower-paced works were able to draw in a strong following over three decades despite the
lack of action of a film by Kurosawa or other directors, what can be inferred about its appeal from the
audience’s perspective? Could there be a socio-political or historical context against which to
understand this appeal?
• In what way we can consider Ozu the most Japanese film director?
Lecture 9
40
How do you describe/define “Japaneseness”
• Traditional,
• Modern, cool, unconventional, fashionable,
• Hierarchical, old-fashioned, conservative;
• Unaggressive, modest, polite, respectful;
• Self-constrained, disciplined,
• Peaceful, harmonious, adaptable, yielding,
concealing;
• Transcendental, tranquil, mysterious,
• Aggressive,
• Gentle, even tempered; slow-paced, proper,
considerate;
• Militaristic,
• Emotion, love, joy, sorrow, melancholy;
• Insolent;
• Aesthetic, artistic, poetic, refined, sophistic;
• Aloof, detached, high self-esteem;
• ……
• Natural, minimalist;
Lecture 9
© Sufeng Xu
Feminine;
Mono no aware
物の哀れ
41
42
Thank You!
ありがとうございます!
Arigatōgozaimasu!
© Sufeng Xu
Lecture 9
University of Ottawa
Zhao Jiping’s Score in Raise the Red Lantern:
Representing China at a Cultural Crossroads
Justin Munger (7582412)
East Asian Cinemas (ASI 3111)
Professor Sufeng Xu
February 7th 2018
Throughout history and across innumerable nations, art has served as a reflection of the
society and the culture in which it was created. The political and socio-economic atmospheres
surrounding an artist and their work inevitably exert pressure on artistic creation, allowing
elements of these atmospheres to be found within the art. China was no exception to this global
trend, and especially not in the late 20th century. Emerging from a tumultuous century, China
was now at a culturally significant crossroads where the ancient past, the shadows of communist
censorship, and the neon lights of the West were meeting head-on1. It is in this ripe soil that art
began to germinate and take root that expressed some of the Chinese people’s views on this
confusing era. Likely familiar to many Western film buffs, Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red
Lantern was released in 1991, and rose to relative fame on the international film scene, with
western critics delivering high praise for the work2. While Zhang Yimou received accolades for
the direction of the film, significantly less attention was paid to an integral part of Raise the Red
Lantern’s success: Zhao Jiping, a Shaanxi born composer. His soundtrack on the film supported
the underlying political tones, while also providing an interesting synthesis of Western and
Chinese musical elements, which reflected the political and socio-economic climate of China at
the time. Specifically, Zhao Jiping represented the confluence of China’s traditional past, its
Soviet influences, and the influx of Western culture in the early 1990s through instrumentation
and idiomatic compositional conventions.
The first major element of Chinese culture that Zhao Jiping chose to represent in scoring
Raise the Red Lantern was traditional Chinese music. The traditional music’s appearance is
fairly obvious to many a Western ear, as it primarily takes root in three forms: pentatonicism,
Jonathan P.J. Stock, “China, People’s Republic of: Since 1911.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root.
Accessed 6 February, 2018.
2
Roger Ebert, “Raise the Red Lantern,” last modified March 27, 1992. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raisethe-red-lantern-1992
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instrumentation and the appearance of traditional opera. Pentatonicism (the subdivision of the
octave into 5 pitches), although not omnipresent, is common in much of traditional Chinese
music, often heard with embellishments outside of the pentatonic system3. In addition to its
occurrence in traditional music, it is also a stereotypical hallmark of Chinese music to most
Western ears, especially in the 20th century. Zhao Jiping employed this tonal system throughout
the vast majority of the music on the score, especially tracks with vocal music4. Instrumentation
and Chinese Opera are also used by Zhao to represent a more traditional China, with traditional
instruments appearing on almost every track, with special focus on percussion in the opening
scenes of the film, and the use of the flute when played by the Master’s son. Chinese operatic
singing itself is featured heavily in the soundscape of the film due to the Third Mistress being an
ex-opera singer, and her voice can be heard singing in a traditional operatic style at regular
intervals.
The next element of China’s socio-political landscape that I wish to address in Raise the
Red Lantern’s soundtrack is the influence of Soviet music. Soviet music was something that
citizens of China at the time would have been extremely familiar with, as the Chinese
Communist Party used Soviet Socialist Realism5 as the principal artistic ideology during the mid
and late 20th century, especially during the Cultural Revolution6. Zhao Jiping chose to use mass
choirs as the primary representation of this Soviet ideology. These choirs were an integral part of
socialist realism in Soviet art, as they exemplified a genre in which the proletariat masses could
join together. It was symbolically representative of the cooperative efforts of the proletariat, and
3
Mei Pa Chao, The Yellow Bell. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Zhao Jiping, Raise the Red Lantern (Official Soundtrack Album), Milan East, 1994, compact disc.
5
Christopher Norris, “Socialist Realism.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 4 February, 2018.
6
Ching-chih Liu, “Yangbanxi and the Music of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976): Revolutionary Modern Peking
Opera, Ballet, Symphonic Music and Songs.” in A Critical History of New Music in China. Translated by Caroline
Mason. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2010.
4
3
became extremely popular in China under the enforcement of Maoist thought during the Cultural
Revolution7. This style of singing can be most clearly heard on the track Songlian’s Madness End Credits, where multiple female choirs join together singing ostinatos in layered textures with
instrumental accompaniment.
The final element of 1990s China that I wish to address in the soundtrack is the
representation of the Western culture and modernization. Leading up to this period Deng
Xiaoping had begun opening the doors to Western culture, and it made a remarkable impact on
China as the influx of goods and media began. Comparisons between China and the West were
inevitable from both sides, and it caused much reflection on the part of the Chinese as to who
they were as a national identity, and what their place was on the global stage8. Zhao Jiping
seemed to represent this modern and Western concept through the inclusion of a synthesizer in
his soundtrack (although it is mysteriously absent on the official soundtrack released a few years
later). The synthesizer provides large, swooping drones underpinning instrumental music most
notably in the opening scenes of the movie, where it supports frantic percussion as the title
screen and initial credits roll by. The synthesizer was first commercially distributed in the 1960s
by Buchla and Moog, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that more affordable models became available
for the greater public9. This meant that the synthesizer would very likely have been in the initial
waves of Western electronic products beginning to make their way to China in the 1980s, and
would have been a strong musical symbol of Western technology and culture to a Chinesetrained composer.
Paul Tiszai, “Maoism: The Political Philosophy of Mao Tse-Tung the Third Theoretician of Marxism.” PhD
dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1957.
8
Yiman Wang, “Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration.” Positions 15.2 (Fall
2007): 319-343.
9
Hugh Davies, “Synthesizer.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 6 February, 2018.
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Whether these types of representation are wholly conscious or not (and I believe them to
be), elements of the socio-political and economic atmosphere surrounding an artist and their
work will almost always manage to manifest itself within the created work. Zhao Jiping, in his
creation of the soundtrack for Raise the Red Lantern, managed to represent a tumultuous period
for China, and to give voice to the three major conflicting cultural influences at the time, the
traditional past, the Soviet past, and the Western influence of the present. His soundtrack
represents China at a time when its cultural direction was up for debate, and artists all wished to
weigh in and provide commentary. Even today, his compositions provide insight for audiences
into the minds of artists of his day, and augment the messages already present in the film.
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Bibliography
Chao, Mei Pa. The Yellow Bell. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Liu, Ching-chih. “Yangbanxi and the Music of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976):
Revolutionary Modern Peking Opera, Ballet, Symphonic Music and Songs.” in A Critical
History of New Music in China. Translated by Caroline Mason. Hong Kong: The Chinese
University Press, 2010.
Davies, Hugh. “Synthesizer.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 6 February,
2018.
Ebert, Roger. “Raise the Red Lantern” last modified March 27, 1992.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raise-the-red-lantern-1992
Feldman, Daniel Lewis. “Ideology and the Manipulation of Symbols: Leadership
Perceptions of Science, Education, and Art in the People’s Republic of China, 19611974.” Political Psychology 6, no. 3 (Sept. 1985), 441-460.
Zhao, Jiping. Raise the Red Lantern (Official Soundtrack Album), Milan East, 1994, compact
disc.
McGrath, Jason. “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke: From Postsocialist Realism to a
Transnational Aesthetic.” The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the
Turn of the Twenty-first Century, edited by Zhen Zhang. Durham: Duke University Press
(2007), 81-114.
Norris, Christopher. “Socialist Realism.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed
4 February, 2018.
Stock, Jonathan P.J. “China, People’s Republic of: Since 1911.” Grove Music Online. Edited by
Deane Root. Accessed 6 February, 2018.
6
Tiszai, Paul. “Maoism: The Political Philosophy of Mao Tse-Tung the Third Theoretician of
Marxism.” PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1957.
Wang, Yiman. “Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration.”
Positions 15.2 (Fall 2007): 319-343.
7