Yamanaka Sadao

Humanity as fragile as a paper balloon

Yamanaka’s Brief Career • Yamanaka Sadao 1909-38• 24 films in seven years. • Only three have survived.• All 24 films are jidai geki (p

eriod piece)• Division of work in the Japa

nese studio system• Gendai geki (modern dram

a) in Tokyo studios and Jidai geki in Kyoto studios

Yamanaka’s Brief Career

• Studios in Tokyo made modern dramas almost exclusively, while those in Kyoto period dramas.

• The major studios had two studios: one in Tokyo and one in Kyoto

• Shochiku Shimogamo Studios and Kamata Studios

Yamanaka’s Brief Career• 　　　　　　　　　 Born and brought up in Kyoto and entered

a studio, Makino Studi

os, after graduating from high school at the ag

e • of 18.• Moved to the newly established film producti

on studios, Arashi Kanjûrô Production.

Yamanaka’s Brief Career

• Arashi Kanjûrô, who appeared in more than 300 films, founded a production studio in 1928, following the successes of his popular swordplay vehicle, Kurama Tengu.

• Yamanaka employed as a scriptwriter.

Yamanaka’s Brief Career

• Other stars who went to film production after the success as an actor - Bandô Tsumasaburô and Chiezô Kataoka.

• Makers of sheer entertainment films starring themselves.

Yamanaka’s Brief Career

• Inagaki Hiroshi and Itami Mansaku, talented filmmakers came out of Chiezô Production.

• These film companies which were concerned with the production of commercially viable films gave young and unknown film directors chances.

Yamanaka’s Brief Career

• His early survived scripts - all samurai films• Not grand heroes but lovable anti-heros, thos

e who do not try to be a hero.• In 1932 he was given a chance to direct a fil

m

Yamanaka’s Brief Career

• The first film that Yamanaka directed, Isono Genta

• Yamanaka made six films for Arashi Kanjûro Production and, then, moved to Nikkattsu

Three Survived Films

• Tange Sazen Yowa - Hyakuman Ryo no Tsubo (Tange Sazen Story - Million Ryo Vase, 1935) - a precious vase which was sold to a junk dealer by a samurai who does not understand its value becomes a target of the pursuit of various interested parties.

Three Survived Films

• Tange Sazen - a typical nihilistic hero who beats evil and promote good. More than 30 Sazen films made since 1928. In Yamanaka’s film, Sazen is depicted as a comical figure.

• Hayashi Fubo’s protest against Yamanaka’s interpretation. ∞

Three Survived Films• Unlike other Sazen, Yaman

aka’s is likeable, affectionate, even domestic, and is not without foible and human weakness.

• Colloquial language.• Deconstruction of the exist

ing image and character of Sazen.

• Reinvention of the genre.

Three Survived Films

• Yamanaka’s interest in more complicated and multi-dimensional characters.

• Deeper understanding in and love and sympathy towards his fellow human being.

• Respect of heroic action by ordinary humans.

Three Survived Films

• Kôchiyama Sôshun (1936) - O-Nami is selling sweet sake in a market. Her younger brother is a punk gambling and flirting with women. When he lets his childhood girlfriend die in a double suicide and survives himself, it turns out that the dead girl

Three Survived Films

• has just been bought by a yakuza boss for his mistress. Hirotarô, O-Koma’s brother now has to pay an enormous amount of money for compensation but he cannot raise it. His sister decides to sell herself to a brothel.

Three Survived Films

• However, they have unexpected helpers from a bodyguard of a yakuza boss and a secular Buddhist priest. However, their efforts came to nothing in the end.

Three Survived Films

• No larger-than-life heroes in the film but characters all engage in heroic actions in their own ways - even sacrificing their lives.

• Precise and sympathetic observation of human beings• Creation of utterly convincing and complex

characters.

Three Survived Films

• Deconstruction and reinvention of the genre - melodrama

• Against the format of entertaiment film• Unhappy ending, sadness, pessimism, hopele

ssness, despite the film’s up-beat of heroism.

Three Survived Films

• Ninjô Kamifûsen (1937, Humanity and Paper Balloons) - is about the people living in a low-rent, run-down tenement. Shinza is a clever, articulate and generous hair-dresser but busier in outwitting and embarrassing the local yakuza than carrying out his vocation. Un’no Matajûrô, also a resident

Three Survived Films

• of the tenement, is a rônin (masterless samurai) seeking an employment in the clan to which his father served for a long time. His repeated request to Môri, who once served for his father in the same clan, is callously refused and he lost his last hope of employment.

Three Survived Films

• No illusion about the sense of duty, honour and loyalty in Bushidô.

• Ninkyô - drifters and gamblers who help the weak and defeat the strong and powerful, now all turned to yakuza, thugs who defeat the weak and help the powerful.

Three Survived Films

• Hyper-realistic representation of the rigidly defined class society in 18th century Edo and its collapse.

• Debilitated samurai now rubs their shoulders with workers and salesmen in tenements, while wealthy merchants are as powerful as high-class samurai.

Three Survived Films

• Puffed-up samurai are protected by yakuza thugs - an allegory of the pre-war, militaristic Japan.

• The film is entirely unconventional period drama and without its clichés.

• Realistic and disenchanted view of the period.

Three Survived Films

• Dark, cynical, and pessimistic - bookended by two suicides of Samurai

• Certain energy found in workers and the identity and dignity of the samurai class in the wife of Un’no Matajûrô

Yamanaka’s Visual Style• Yamanaka’s talent wa

s recognized by Ozu.• Yamanaka respected

and was influenced by Ozu.

• Ozu elements in Yamanaka’s films.

• No camera movement, set design and concerns with details.

Yamanaka’s Visual Style

• Understated but perfect composition• Ozu’s shallow composition in Yamanaka’s films.

Yamanaka’s Visual Style

• However, unlike Ozu, Yamanaka frequently resorts to deep-space composition - clear definition of foreground, middle-ground and back-ground

Yamanaka’s Visual Style

Yamanaka’s Visual Style

• Elipsis in story telling• Significant portions of narrative are not show

n or indicated by using off-screen place.• Not everything should be shown.

Yamanaka’s Visual Style

• Certain recurring images - objects: ditches, paper balloons; scenes - changes of weather condition

• Snow start falling, rain stops and paddles reflecting sunshine