Naruse in the 1960s: Stranded in Modernity, 1958-1967

Chapter Six of Catherine Russell's book, The Cinema of Naruse Mikio (2008), is called "Naruse in the 1960s: Stranded in Modernity, 1958-1967." This was a tough time for the film industry as film goers were drawn away to television. By 1965 half of all films produced were roman porno, or "pink movies": soft-core pornography. That being said the postwar peak occurred in 1960 in terms of films produced and active theaters. Despite Naruse's liberal politics he was removed from the "New Wave" generation because he didn't fully embrace the new attitudes and directness. For example, his refusal to offer narrative endings with strong messages reflected everything the New Wave was rebelling against. However, not all of Naruse's protagonists are victims, but survivors of a dysfunctional society. It is also a time where Naruse is trying to stay relevant to the changes in modern cinema and he experiments in ways that are anathema to his past methods by employing wide-screen, filming in color, and incorporating complex flashback scenes in his films. During this period he filmed some of his most impressive films such as Summer Clouds (1958), When A Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), Yearning (1964), and Scattered Clouds (1967). In Naruse's last decade he released 14 films for Toho that spanned a variety of genres and styles: Summer Clouds, Whistling in Kotan (1959), When A Woman Ascends the Stairs, Daughters, Wives And A Mother (1960), Evening Stream (1960), The Approach of Autumn (1960), As A Wife, As A Woman (1961), A Woman's Place (1961), A Wandereer's Notebook (1961), A Woman's Story aka Horoki (1963), Yearning, The Stranger Within A Woman (1966), Hit And Run (1966), and Scattered Clouds. Of the fourteen I have seen six: Summer Clouds, When A Woman Ascends the Stairs, Daughters, Daughters, Wives And A Mother, Yearning, The Stranger Within A Woman, and Scattered Clouds.

Summer Clouds (1958) is Naruse's first color and widescreen film and uses the rural scenery effectively. The script was written by Shinobu Hashimoto (he wrote the Kurosawa masterpieces Seven Samurai and Ikiru as well as two of Masaki Kobayyashi's finest films Hara-kiri and Samurai Rebellion). In this film Yae (Chikage Awashima) needs to negotiate family issues of marriage and landholding with the family patriarch, her brother Wasuke (Ganjiro Nakamura in excellent form) while running her own farm, doing freelance journalism-which leads he rot an affair with a married journalist (Isao Kimura). This is not the first adulterous affair in a Naruse film, but desire and sexuality is more keenly felt. The subtext of the film is about the declining rural population that was starting to recede drastically in the postwar years. The epic quality of the film is heightened by the impressive orchestral score composed by Naruse regular Ichiro Saito.

When A Woman Ascend The Stairs (1960) is probably Naruse's best known film in the U.S. because of it's release on Criterion. It is the story of a Ginza bar hostess, Keiko (in one of Hideko Takamine's finest roles)  and widow who is supporting a mother, her brother, and his ailing child. She struggles to be successful and is not against the idea of opting out of the Ginza hostess rat race through marriage; her only other option, in her eyes, is to open a bar on her own. She agrees to marry a kindly customer, who turns out to be already married and something of a pathological liar and cheat. Then she goes on a bender and sleeps with a client who is being transferred to Osaka with his family, thus her options dwindle and she continues to climb the stairs to work in the bar. I've always had trouble believing that this was her only option, she claims to her family that she has to keep up the facade and have a Ginza apartment, taxis, and the latest kimonos, I'm skeptical. However, I can accept that, like many of Naruse's heroines, she is trapped in a life that is less than what she had hoped for and will continue on in this situation.

In another of the four films Naruse made in 1960, Daughters, Wives And A Mother, the situation is very similar to that of Ozu's masterpiece, Tokyo Story. The theme of the story is dissolution of the family, as they lose their family property and splinter.  And it is yet another a non blood relation that is most kindly to the aging parent. One of the problems of the film is that there are 16 central characters, so it's a bit of a chore to follow who is who at first, and to give them all ample time in front of the camera to flesh out their characteristics. In this film it is  Hideko Takamine as the oldest son's daughter who shows the most concern for the soon to be homeless matriarch. Setuko Hara play a recently widowed daughter who marries a cold-blooded tea ceremony master from Kyoto in order to see to it that her mother is taken care of, but her mother refuses to join her in Kyoto anyway. There is no resolution, but Naruse is tries to provide a prompt for viewers to think about how they will care for the aging members of society.

Yearning (1964) is one of Naruse's most acclaimed films. And it is worth noting that the literal title of Midereru in English is closer to "confusion." As Russell states, the film is about desire and resistance to desire however it is also about the disintegration of the a family under the economic development and changing urban geography. Hideko Takamine plays the role of Reiko, a widow of a soldier who has helped her husband's family's grocer business in the postwar years who is the object of her deceased husband's younger brother, Koji (Yuzo Kayama). This attraction excites and repels her in equal measures. Complications arises about selling the family business and getting rid of Reiko. There is an ambiguous tragic ending to this film, that has come to be a common trait in Naruse films over the years.

The Stranger WIthin A Woman (1966) is somewhat of an anomaly for Naruse-a film noir crime thriller. It is the first and only time Naruse adapted a Western novel, English author Edward Atiyah's novel The Thin Line. In this film Tashiro (Keiju Kobayashi) strangles and kills the wife (the sultry Akiko Wakabayashi who would later star as a Bond girl in You Only Live Twice) of his best friend Sugimoto (Tatsuya Mihashi). He is racked with guilt and confesses to his wife (Michiyo Aramata) who asks him to keep it to himself when he feels the need to confess to the police, she takes matters in her own hands and poisons him to saved the dignity of the family-they have two small children.

Scattered Clouds (1967) is Naruse's final film and one of a select few made in color. It includes many of his motifs from his oeuvre: the car accident, the widow, the unrequited love affair, the business of the geisha and professional entertainer, the transferred salaryman, the traditional architecture sets, the city, and a return to the Aomori countryside, specifically lake Towada. It is also the only film in which the irrepressible composer Toru Takemitsu wrote the score. The star crossed lovers in this case are Yumiko (Yoko Tsukasa) whose husband is killed by the man she will fall for through fateful circumstance, Mishima (Yuzo Kayama). As Russell points out, the film is organized around cinematic moments in which time, space, and performance are crystallized in minute details. Naruse closes out his career in grand fashion.

Comments

[Edward]

Have you thought about writing Wikipedia articles for some of the Japanese films you've seen. I can't imagine they all have entries. Perhaps you could bring a few of your chosen classics with you to NZ in case of bad weather. Not sure if a laptop would do them justice mind you.

[MC]

I watch most of them on the computer due to DVDs being out of print, etc. I can bring a few on a memory stick if you're interested.