Traditional Theater and the Film in Japan

8/13/2019 Traditional Theater and the Film in Japan

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DONALD RICHIE AND JOSEPH L. ANDERSONTraditional Theater and the Film in Japan

The influence of the Kabuki, Noh, and otherforms on film content and style

Well, to be brief, there isn't any. All of theparallels, drawn in Japan as carelessly aselsewhere, are forced; all the pigeonholesare wrongly labeled; all the conclusions, socarefully jumped at, are as false as the as-sumptions upon which they are based.As an opening wedge let us take the cele-brated example of Rashomon. One read allsorts of learned nonsense about the influ-ence of Kabuki, and even the Noh. AkiraKurosawa, the director, read it too andeventually made the statement: I haven'tread one review from abroad that hasn'tread false meanings. .. . If pressed, hewill then tell the story behind the actingstyle of Rashomon.One night, in Kyoto just before shootingstarted, Kurosawa and his staff looked at aprint of a Martin and Johnson jungle pic-ture. They were all much impressed by theanimals, particularly with a sequence of alion on the prowl. Kurosawa said: Well,Mifune, that's Tojomaru. Make the humanlike an animal. Thus Toshiro Mifune madehis role of the bandit Tojomaru as lion-likeas possible.A bit later, the head of the studio saw amovie in downtown Kyoto in which a blackpanther appeared. At his urging everyonewent to see it. This is how they came acrossthe model for Machiko Kyo's character inthe same film. Kurosawa will at this pointobserve that, if he is not mistaken, the per-formances of animals in jungle pictures are

somewhat removed from the Kabuki tech-nique.The truth is that the traditional theater inJapan has given almost nothing to the films.One would think that in a country with oneof the most developed theatrical traditionsin the world, influences and adaptationswould be a natural and common occurrence.This, however, is simply not so. There are,of course, exceptions to this rule. Beforegoing into precisely what these exceptionshave been, however, it might be well to de-fine the different categories of Japanesetheater.

Among the better-known forms are theNoh and the Kabuki and the Bunraku-theOsaka doll-drama. Less familiar are theShimpa and the Shingeki. The former is adramatic form designed to express the en-lightened emotions of the Meiji era. Thelatter is the modern theater of Japan, origi-nally much influenced by Ibsen, Chekov,and Shaw, and now much given to polemic.What remains are the various kinds ofyose or vaudeville. This includes severalforms of story-telling, among them the kodanand the naniwabushi. The former is com-prised of individual stories, always histori-cal, invariably complicated in plot, and end-less in number. Since both kodan and Ka-buki share a similar historical background,they very often share similar material. Andit is from the story-telling art of the kodanthat the Japanese film takes much of its ma-


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terial. Hence the initial confusion. Whatis assumed to be a filmed Kabuki is often akodan story on film.All of the kodan material is so well-known,constituting what is in effect a kind of folk-lore, that the Japanese audience comes tothe theater with the basic story memorized.This prior knowledge is assumed by thefilm-maker and there is no attempt to pro-vide full exposition. These filmed kodanusually concern themselves with under-developed phases of a well-known charac-ter's life. The picture usually becomes aseries of such tidbits; the better-known con-necting sections are left out and anyone notfamiliar with the character is completelybaffled.The favorite stories are, naturally, thosemost often filmed. They usually centeraround a favorite feudal hero: MataemonAraki, Chuji Kunisada, the Soga brothers,or Musashi Miyamoto. This latter hero evengot himself exported to America where hewon himself an Academy Award in the filmcalled Samurai.The movie, called Miyamoto Musashi inJapan, was the remake of a remake and,

NARAYAMA BUSHIKO: The son (Teishi Takahashi)carries his mother (Kinuyo Tanaka) to the top ofMount Nara-there to leave her to dieof starvation and exposure.

moreover, was merely the first part of a newversion of the familiar kodan story-in thiscase based upon an even further popular-ization by Eiji Yoshikawa, the KennethRoberts of Japan. Its receiving an AcademyAward surprised everyone because, strictlyspeaking, the film wasn't finished yet. In away it was like giving an award to the firstchapter of a Pecos Bill serial.In it, Director Hiroshi Inagaki assumedthat his audience would already know allabout Musashi and did not feel at all con-strained to fill in on anything that happenedin between the portions shown. Foreigncritics found much to praise in what theythought was the director's devotion to theessence of a situation, unmindful of thesuperfluous exigencies of plot and Inagakiwas very surprised.

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RASHOMON: An unusedpublicity still satirizingthe attitudes of theusual period-film.Toshiro Mifune hams it upwith the sword whileMachiki Kyo screamsby his side.

Such then is the usual kodan hero whenhe gets in the movies. There may be newinterpretationsand new minor charactersbut the story is assumed to be always thesame. These kodan tales are the backboneof the period-filmand are all hardy peren-nials. It is a rareyear that doesn'tyield itsharvest of new versions,differingfrom theold versionsonly in thatwidescreen or coloror different actors are used. There is noquestion of borrowingtechniques from thetraditional heater since the traditional hea-ter is not involved.One of the hardiestof all the perennials,however,justhappensto be a Kabuki. Thisis the famous Chushingura (The LoyalForty-seven Ronin), new film versions ofwhich are made about twice every year.Here, one thinksat last, is Kabuki nfluence.

There is, to be sure, a certain amount.The storyis takendirectlyfrom the Kabuki,yet anyoneseeing any one of these filmver-sions-and there must be near half a hun-dred of them by now-is not likely to con-fuse it with the traditionaltheater.The reason is that, like the filmed kodan,they are all rigidly realistic,which the Ka-buki as a theatrical form is not. One maybe remindedof Errol Flynn'sRobin Hood,or Robert Taylor'sIvanhoe; one is not re-

minded of the theatrical style known asKabuki.Even when well-knownKabukiactorsap-pear (and Chushingura s the only Kabukiplay favoredby the films) they usuallymod-ulate their performancesuntil they are justas matter-of-fact, ust as like-you-and-measeveryoneelse. They may, however,includea bit of Kabukibusiness-for after all, theironly reason for inclusion is that they arefamous Kabuki actors and are intended toraise the tone of the production.There is, for example, a celebrated Ka-buki stance known as the mie. It is usedto indicate moments of great emotionalstress and consists of an attitude duringwhich the eyes are crossed and the tongueis partially stuck out. In a 1956 version ofChushingura, he featured Kabukiactorin-dulged in a very modified mie during theletter scene. In the realistic context of thefilm, the foreign observermight well won-der what had happened, why had the manbecome cross-eyed,why was he stickingouthis tongue in that odd way? The Japaneseobserver would recognize it as a fugitiveglimpseof Kabuki echnique,inserted to letyou know that the actor was the real thing,and would disregardit.And this is about all the Kabuki nfluence

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5there is on the Japanesescreen. It gives afew plays to the films and shows itself insmall and ratherself-consciousways. Thereare many reasons for this. One of them isthat the content of the Kabukidrama s veryslight. Everythingdependsuponthe actors'performances.It is, in fact, an actors'thea-ter. The audience alreadyknows the story.It goes merelyto see so-and-so n such-and-such.

Anotherreason is that the Kabukistyle ofacting is simply too big for the film. It in-corporatesand depends upon dancing andsinging,neitherof which are appropriate othe realism which the Japanese film hasfrom the first insisted upon. Since the ko-dan, a story-telling art, has no theatricalstyle, the Japaneseperiod-filmshave alwayscontented themselves with an absence ofstyle. Films about MusashiMiyamotoandChuji Kunisadaare therefore as much in-fluencedby the Japanesetraditional heateras are Americanfilms about Billy the Kidand Jesse James.ThatactinginJapaneseperiod-films eemsvery grand and expansive to foreign audi-ences is due more to the blustering way ofthe samuraiand the truly native Japaneseinability to hold back emotion than to anyinfluence from the traditionalstage.If the Kabukihas any influence at all, ifthe period-filmhas any historicalprecedentin the traditional heater,it is in the Kabukiaragoto, the rough-house plays generallyabout famous swordsmen. This Kabukigenre is full of action, elaborateposturingand stylized swordplay-the kind of Ka-buki that the Japanese love to show for-eigners.Somecritics,however,thinkthateven thislinkbetweenKabukiandfilm s suspect.Thefilm critic Tsuneo Hazumi says: Unfortu-nately, there has never been any real con-

nection between Kabuki and films....The Kyugeki [the earliestword for period-film], a poor substitutefor genuine Kabuki,was given by rural troupes which had noconnectionwith the great Kabukitradition,and none of its art. The filmstar,Matsuno-suke, was essentiallyan imitator of Kabukirather than a performerof it. And evenMatsunosuke-Japan's irst full-fledged star-though his filmswere little more thanpho-tographed theatrical tableaux, was in fullrevolt against the traditionaltheater.Thus,while Kabukiand the kodan-basedperiod-film ometimessharesimilarmaterialand often sharesimilarthemes (since bothwere broughtto their presentform entirelyin the feudal Tokugawa eras) they sharelittle else. This, one might observe, doesnot at all disturb the Japanese filmgoer.Fully ninety percentof the people in Japanhave never seen the Kabuki. They know itexists, they have heard about it, theyvaguely approve of it, but they don't un-derstand it and they aren't curious aboutit. Along with the Noh and the Bunrakuit is a part of the cultural heritage. It istakenfor granted-that is, it is ignored. Oneeven hearsNoh definedas simplysomethingthatforeigners ee whenthey cometo Japan.There have, however, been isolated ex-periments n adaptingKabukito the screen.At least three of themhave been highly suc-cessful filmsartisticallyand deserve the at-tention of the West.The firstof these was Kurosawa'sTorano0 o FumuOtokotachi The MenWhoTreadon the Tail of the Tiger) which was a filmversion of the Kabuki play Kanjincho. Itwas finishedjust before the end of the warin 1945but notreleaseduntil 1953. The rea-son for the delay was that the Occupationwas using both the Kabukiand the period-film as whipping boys-in the meantime in-


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6stituting such healthy and democraticgenresas the brutalgang-film.Thus,thoughthe Kurosawafilm is in essence antifeudal,it was banned.The picture followed the Kabuki plotratherclosely, though the style of the filmwasrealistic,andinserteda subplot n whichthe comedian Ennokenbecame the embodi-ment of the common man. The comic ironyof the filmlay in the plot parallelsbetweenthe inflated and sententious sentimentalityof tile Kabuki heroes and the sly burlesqueof the comedian. The director'saim-as inmost of his films-was to show the equalityof all humanemotionsdespiteartificialclassor social barriers,and he succeeded bril-liantly.Another successfulexperimentwas Kimi-saburo Yoshimura'sBijo to Kairyu (TheBeautyand the Dragon), a 1955 filmbasedon one of the eighteen chief Kabukiplays.Yoshimurahad alreadyrichly satirizedtheperiod-filmhero in Morino Ishimatsu(Ishi-matsuof the Forest) in whichhe maintainedthat the famous and blustering Ishimatsuowed his reputationmostly to good publicrelations. Now he used Kabukias a vehiclefor satirizing contemporaryJapanese so-ciety. Japan is shown suffering a terribledrought;the priest who controls a dragonwho controls the rainis so convinced of hisown virtue that he is unapproachable. Fi-nally a princessdecides that the only wayto save the country is to tempt the priestuntil he falls fromvirtue. This, she reasons,will release the dragon.The filmwas made as a spiritedattackoncontemporaryself-righteousness and big-otry:by inferencethe priestswere the mod-ern politiciansand intellectuals. The prin-cess, thoughvery period-film-correct,eallyhad the mind of a modern postwar girl.Like all good Japaneseperiod-films t was

an experiment,an exceptionto the generalrule.Technicallythe film was very interesting.Somewhat like Henry V, it began with areconstruction f a performanceof the play,anaccuratelycreatedhistoricalperformancein the properclassicalstyle,and thenmovedon, as a film, nto a morecinematic nterpre-tation. It was highly praisedby the Kabukiauthorities,not because it was a literal re-

production but because it was a freelyadapted modern version made completelyin the spiritof the original.The third,and perhapsthe most success-ful experimentis Keisuke Kinoshita's1958filmNarayamaBushiko(The Songof Nara-yama), based on ShichiroFukazawa'sprize-winning short story of a mountaincommu-nity, so short of food that they traditionallythin out the populationby exposingthe vil-lage elders to the elements on the top ofMount Nara. Thisstoryhad been extremelysuccessful in a Kabukiversion in the sum-mer of 1957, and although Kinoshita tookhis adaptationdirectlyfrom the original,hedeliberately chose a theatrical manner ofpresentationin order to heighten the dra-matic effect.The film opened in the manner of a Ka-bukiwith one of the maskedassistantsbang-ing the wooden hyoshigewhich heraldsthebeginningof the play, and thenthe running-curtainwas drawnto expose the firstsceneof the film. Throughout, he Kabukinagautawas used, that vocal samisen accompani-ment which describes and commentsuponthe action. The samisen not only providedthe backgroundmusic, it was also used forsound effects. At one point it was heardinstead of the natural noises of a storm;atanother,it was the sound of snow falling.At yet anotherpoint it was used to createthe sound of the aged heroine as she pur-


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7posely breaks her teeth so that she will lookmorepresentablyold.The visualsin the filmwere handledwithan effortlessvirtuosity. Divisions betweenscenes, for example,often consistedof sud-den light changes at which whole sectionsof the sceneryslid away; intimateconversa-tions were accentedby carefulspotlighting;bushes and brancheswere parted to reveala set piece behind; often the entire back-groundwould suddenly drop to reveal thenew set, the new actors.Yet, with all this stagecraft, Kinoshitaremained constantly aware that he wasmakinga film and hence there was nothingstagy about the finishedpicture. The mov-ing camera was used to superlative effect,and color was most imaginativelydesigned:pistachio skies, blue snow, and sunsetswhich looked like forest fires. The pacingand general tempo of the film revealed theart of cinema at its most creative.Shochiku 1956 version of CHUSHINGURA:the mo-ment before the final raid in a typical perioddrama. The man in the milddle is from the Kabukiand that is about all the Kabuki influence in the film.

Thus, all three directors-Kurosawa,Yo-shimura,and Kinoshita-have pointed waysin which the Kabukicould actually enrichthe film and make Kabuki nfluence morethan an empty critical phrase. Still, how-ever,no one follows their lead.The other forms of traditional theaterhave, if possible, had even less influenceon the Japanesefilm. The Bunraku sharesits materialwith the Kabukiand,very occa-sionally, with the kodan and the naniwa-bushi. Both share the same repertoire,andoccasionally films like Mizoguchi's Chika-matsu Monogatari (A Tale from Chika-matsu) use one of the plays. It is perhapsindicative of the self-consciousness of thisuse that Mizoguchi did not call his excel-lent film by its proper name, that is, thename of the play upon which it was based.It is a bit like calling Othello, in a film ver-sion, A Tale from Shakespeare.The Shimpa has given even less. Origi-nally it dealt with Meiji problemsin Meijisettings and, with no vital creative impulseof its own, had to look elsewhere for its in-spiration. After 1890, Shimpa playwrightsrelied more and more on popularnovels or


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KUMONOSU-JO: The messengerbrings the head of Duncan.sensationalnews items fromthe daily press.Originally the Japanese screen was clut-tered with filmed Shimpa but nowadays,though the Shimpa attitude of sentimen-tality for its own sake has found a secureplace for itself in the Japanese films, rela-tively few pictures use Shimpa stories. Ofthese, foreignershave seen at least one, thelachrymose Konjiki Yasha (The GoldenDemon), based on a Shimpa version of apopularnovel. Actually,at presentthe ma-jorityof Shimpa plays are based upon suc-cessful films.

Shingekioffers even less. Though it fur-nishes a few plays to the screen it is muchmore concerned with static discourse thanvisual actionor even characterization.It is,in fact, an unhealthy little theater of purepolemic. Like the Shimpa it now adaptsnovels or gives foreign plays and is com-pletely separatefrom the films.

Finally, one may at last think, there isthe Noh. But, here again, no there isn't.There have been very, very few film adap-tions of Noh plays and the Noh has hadalmostno influence on the film art of Japan.One of the reasons is that the form of thedramacould not be furtherremoved fromthe requirementsof the film. A total adap-tation would be necessary. Another is thatonly a relatively few Japanese have everseen or care much about seeing the Noh.If one out of ten has seen the Kabuki,onlyabout one out of a hundred has ever seenthe Noh.Despite all the nonsenseabout the influ-ence of the Noh on the Japanesefilm (writ-ten, one might add, in Japan as well asabroad) the leading Noh critic, MichizoToita, has rightly said: One must lookhard,almost invent influences f writing on

this subject. . . . Movies in their earlystages were often cheap imitations of Ka-buki but althoughNoh is greater n its stageart,I knowof no instanceof its theories andtechniques having been really utilized byfilm-makers.If there is any Noh influenceat all it tendsto be oblique. In Kumonosu-JoThe Castleof the Spider's Web), shown abroad asThrone of Blood, Kurosawa makes con-scious use of elementsof Noh. Scenes withthe witch (this film versionof Macbethusesone instead of Shakespeare's hree) werereconstructed from the director'srecollec-tions of a Noh he had once seen. The make-up of Isuzu Yamada-who played the roleequivalent to Lady Macbeth, the back-ground music, the movements,the generaltiming of the intimate scenes were allcaught by Noh fans but by no one else.And all of these elements were consciouslyandexperimentallyncluded. Theirappear-ance was most unusual.


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9One may perhapsunderstandbetter whythe traditionalJapanesetheater,one of therichest theatrical raditions n the world,hasgiven so little to the Japanesefilm by look-ing at the parallel reluctance to use Jap-anese music in films. (Narayama Bushikois an exception.) It is used if it has a placein the plot: lonely girl finds solace in herkoto; celebrated geisha shows off with hersamisen;couple in love attendlocal festival.

One of Japan's better-known composers,YasushiAkutagawa,claims that he finds apositive reluctance on the part of many di-rectors to accept film music in any way re-lated to the Japanesetraditionalforms.One of the reasons orthis is that in Japan,Japanesetraditionalmusic is taken entirelyfor granted. There are at least a dozen na-tionallyknownmagazinesdevoted to West-ern-style music in all of its various forms,but there is not one widely,distributedpub-lication of any repute devoted to Japanesetraditional music.Another reason is that, no matter howexotic the style and action of the period-film appears to foreign audiences, to' theJapanese his filmstyle is a partof the realisttradition,adoptedfrom the West and there-fore withoutconnectionto the classicalJap-anese drama. Because so much Japaneseclassicalmusic exists only in relation to theclassic drama,the use of this music in filmsmust present a severe stylistic clash. Themusic is identifiedwith classicalacting butthe acting on the screen is not classical.Thereforemany film producersin Japanfind satisfying combinations which wouldchill most foreignersto the bone. In a 1934version of Chushingura, he mranwho didthe musicused Schubert's unfinished ym-phonyto backthe climactic scene where theronin attack their lord's enemy. This use

continues to be highly praised by certaincritics for its perfectunion of a Japanesedramatic classic with a Western musicalclassic.A more famous example is the music forRashomon,duringwhich surprisedforeign-ers found themselveslistening to somethingdepressingly ike Ravel'sBolero. Somehavesaid that the film was made primarilyforexport and that the music was composedaccordingly. This is not so: Rashomonwasa self-consciousexperimentand was madeover everyone's dead body, includingDaiei's. The fact that it was sent into com-petition at all was only because the Japa-nese representativefor Italiafilmhappenedto know a good filmwhen she saw one.Actually, Rashomon'scomposer-the lateFumio Hayasaka-was one of Japan'smostoriginal composers,filled with an integrityrarein any countryand rarer n Japan. Hewas ordered to write something like theBolerobecause Kurosawa elt that it wouldbe closer to the style of the film, a stylewhichwas neveronce intendedto be Japa-nese in the period-filmsense of the word.The critics-more astute than usual-agreedentirely,findingRashomon o be Kurosawaat his most Western.This, then, is the real reason why theJapanesetheater has had so little influenceon the Japanesefilm. They are thought ofas being entirely separate. The Noh, theKabuki, are thought of as being entirelyJapanese. And so they are, in a way. Atleast, those theatrical elements from othercountries which originally helped inspirethe Japanese forms have long ceased toexist. Movies, however, are only half acenturyold. The art of the film is still con-sidered foreign to traditionalJapanesethe-atricalart.

Traditional Theater and the Film in Japan

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