#832: MIZOGUCHI, Kenji: The Story Of The Last Chrysanthemum (1939)

MIZOGUCHI, Kenji (Japan)
The Story Of The Last Chrysanthemum [1939]
Spine #832
Blu-ray

This heartrending masterpiece by Kenji Mizoguchi about the give-and-take between life and art marked the first full realization of the hypnotic long takes and eloquent camera movements that would come to define the director's films. Kikunosuke (Shotaro Hanayagi), the adopted son of a legendary kabuki actor who is striving to achieve stardom by mastering female roles, turns to his infant brother's wet nurse for support and affection — and she soon gives up everything for her beloved's creative glory. Offering a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of kabuki theater in the late nineteenth century, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum provides a critique of the oppression of women and the sacrifices required of them, and represents the pinnacle of Mizoguchi's early career.

143 minutes

Black & White
Monaural
in Japanese
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2016

Director/Writers

Based on the story by Shofu Muramatsu.

Screenplay by Matsutaro Kawaguchi and Yoshikata Yoda.

Kenji Mizoguchi was 41 when he directed The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum.

Other Mizoguchi films in the Collection:

Eclipse Series 13: Osaka Elegy (1936)
Eclipse Series 13: Sisters Of The Gion (1936)
Eclipse Series 13: Women Of The Night (1948)
#664: The Life Of Oharu (1952)
#309: Ugetsu (1953)
#386: Sansho The Bailiff (1954)
#949: A Story From Chikamatsu (1954)
Eclipse Series 13: Street Of Shame (1956)

The Film

The actors

Shotaro Hanayagi is Kikunosuke Onoe VI, the adopted son of Kikugoro Onoe V (Gonjuro Kawarazaki).

Kikugoro Onoe V was a real person — a celebrated Kabuki actor in the Meiji era.

Kakuko Mori is Otoku, a nursemaid to Kiku’s baby half-brother. She comes from a lower-class family and is therefore unfit to be Kiku’s wife. This sets the tragedy in motion.

Story

The life of Kabuki actors — both the famous Tokyo troupe, and the itinerant traveling troupes (see Ozu’s 1934 silent, The Story of Floating Weeds {Spine #232}) — make up most of the story, with the Kiku-Otoku relationship intertwined.

Film

Despite the excellent restoration, any time the music is heard, there is an annoying amount of distortion. The dialogue is faint and distant (turn up the volume!) … none of this should really bother the viewer, who is seeing one of the masterpieces of prewar Japanese cinema.

Mizoguchi is content to tell a straightforward story, but he is not ever satisfied with a boring scene. Long takes create flowing, psychologically tense storytelling, and traveling shots which stop and start (reference the scene where Kiku and Otoku first walk together) create satisfying dramatic effect. A “scroll” shot.

He avoids close-ups, preferring instead to shoot from behind barriers (Kurosawa was greatly influenced by this technique), to the point where a character might be completely obscured.

The scenes of the Kabuki are all extraordinary — the discerning viewer will be able to tell the difference between Kiku’s “bad acting” and when — after his years of poverty — he emerged as a “great actor.”

It is the doomed Otoku who made him great. Thus the cliché “behind every man is a great woman” is something embedded in almost all of Mizoguchi’s films.

Film Rating (0-60):

56

The Extras

The Booklet

Twelve page wraparound featuring an essay by film scholar Dudley Andrew.

“The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum has the air of ambition. Massive in length it is composed of scenes that play out in blocks exhibiting few fissures of montage. Shigeto Miki, Mizoguchi’s chief camerman since his beautiful 1933 Meiji-mono, perched a wide-angle lens (unusual for Mizoguchi) about eight feet off the ground for many shots. From this position, we look far into Hiroshi Mizutani’s astonishingly complicated sets. And we do more than look into those sets; we sometimes move around and within them, through either a slight pan that forms a fully distinct composition, or a daring track that may even come around on  another side. Meiji-era architecture, with small rooms, sliding shoji, and interconnected balconies, lends itself to a mise-en-scène in which characters may resituate themselves several times over in the course of the emotional flow of a scene, often observed by other characters who peek through openings.”

Commentary

None.

Interview

With critic Phillip Lopate about the evolution of Mizoguchi’s style.

“There are 140 cuts in The Story of the Last Chyrsanthemum. There are usually between 400-800 cuts in a film of this length.”

Aa

Extras Rating (0-40):

34

56 + 34 =

90

By Director
By Spine #