Week 11, March 20th
Asian and Third World Cinema
Eastern Europe
Readings: Thompson & Bordwell, Chapter 18
Postwar Cinema beyond the West pp 391- 414;
Chapter 25 New Cinemas and New
Developments: Europe and the USSR since the
1970’s pp 605- 632; Chapter 26 Latin America,
Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa since the
1970’s pp 633–648.
Screening:
Rashomon (1950) and Ran (1985); Akira
Kurosawa; “The man who left his will on film”
(1970) Nagisa Oshima; Yellow Earth (1984) Chen
Kaige; Farewell my Concubine (1992), Chen
Kaige; Red Sorghum (1988) and Raise the Red
Lantern (1991) Zhang Yimou. A Short Film about
Killing (1988) Krzystof Kieslowski; Three
Colours: Blue (1993); White (1994) Red (1994)
Krzystof Kieslowski
Japanese Cinema
Jidai-geki historical films
Gendai-geki contemporary films
Influence of
Kabuki
Noh Drama
Japanese painting
Akira Kurosawa 1910-1998
Influence
The first Japanese film director to win
international acclaim, with such films as
Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven
Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957),
Kagemusha (1980), and Ran (1985).
• Rashomon (1950) won the Golden Lion at
the 1951 Venice Film Festival, and an
Academy Award for best foreign film
Seven Samurai. (1954)
• Dersu Uzala (1975)
• Kagemusha (1980)
• Ran (1985) Oscar. Another 25 wins & 15
nominations
“Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves.
They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. This
script ["Rashomon"] portrays such human beings - the kind
who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are
better people than they really are. It even shows this sinful
need for flattering falsehood going beyond the grave - even
the character who dies cannot give up his lies when he speaks
to the living through a medium. Egoism is a sin the human
being carries with him from birth; it is the most difficult to
redeem. This film is like a strange picture scroll that is
unscrolled and displayed by the ego."
(from Something Like an Autobiography by Kurosawa)
Ran (1985) 160 min
The story was inspired by Samurai legends of the
daimyo Mori Motonari, as well as on the
Shakespearean tragedy King Lear.
'Ran' is the Japanese word for chaos, riot,
dissension.
Japanese Sengoku-era warlord Hidetora Ichimonji
(Tatsuya Nakadai) abdicates to his three sons, and
the two corrupt ones turn against him.
Major themes
Ran is “a relentless chronicle of base lust for
power, betrayal of the father by his sons, and
pervasive wars and murders that destroy all the
main characters.”Stephen Prince The Warrior's
Camera. Princeton University Press 1999: 284
A warning to the destructive power of war.
Despotic power leads to self-destruction.
War
"When I read that three arrows together are
invincible, that's not true. I started doubting,
and that's when I started thinking: the house
was prosperous and the sons were courageous.
What if this fascinating man had bad sons?"—
Akira Kurosawa
War 2
All the technological progress of these last
years has only taught human beings how to
kill more of each other faster. It's very
difficult for me to retain a sanguine outlook
on life under such circumstances." — Akira
Kurosawa
King Lear
“What has always troubled me about 'King
Lear' is that Shakespeare gives his characters
no past. ... In Ran, I have tried to give Lear a
history." — Akira Kurosawa
In place of Lear’s daughters, Goneril, Regan and
Cordelia, Lord Hidetora has three sons, Taro, Jiro,
and Saburo. In both, the warlord foolishly
banishes anyone who disagrees with him as a
matter of pride — in Lear it is the Earl of Kent and
Cordelia and in Ran it is both Tango and Saburo.
King Lear 2
The conflict in both is that two of the lord's
children ultimately turn against him, while
the third supports him, though Hidetora's
sons are far more ruthless than Goneril and
Regan. Both King Lear and Ran ultimately
end with the death of the entire family,
including the hapless Lord.
Characteristics
•
•
•
•
Visually expressive
Slower pacing
Somewhat didactic… & moralistic
Mood and atmosphere heightened with
Sentimentality occasionally evident
• Action and dynamic use of cinematography
• Theatrical traditions of noh (No) drama and
kabuki plays.
The Chinese “3 Cinemas”
The history of Chinese-language cinema has
three separate threads of development:
• Cinema of Hong Kong
• Cinema of China
• Cinema of Taiwan.
Origins
Motion pictures were introduced to China in
1896. The first recorded screening of a
motion picture in China occurred in
Shanghai on August 11, 1896, as an "act"
on a variety bill. The first Chinese film, a
recording of the Beijing Opera, was made
in November 1905.
1st ‘golden period’ of Chinese cinema
However, the first truly important Chinese films
were produced beginning in the 1930s, with the
advent of the "progressive" or "left-wing"
movement, like 's Spring Silkworms (1933), Sun
Yu's The Big Road (1935), and Wu Yonggang's
The Goddess (1934). These progressive films were
noted for their emphasis on class struggle and
external threats (i.e. Japanese aggression), as well
as on their focus on common people, such as a
family of silk farmers in Spring Silkworms and a
prostitute in The Goddess
The 2nd Golden Age, late 1940s
The film industry continued to develop after 1945.
Production in Shanghai once again resumed as a
new crop of studios took the place that Lianhua
and Mingxing had occupied in the previous
decade. In 1946, Cai Chusheng returned to
Shanghai to revive the Lianhua name as the
"Lianhua Film Society."This in turn became
which would go on to become one of the most
important studios of the era, putting out the
classics, (1948), The Spring River Flows East
(1947), and Crows and Sparrows (1949).[
The Communist era, 1950s-1960s
The number of movie-viewers increased sharply,
from 47 million in 1949 to 415 million in 1959.
Movie attendance reached an all-time high of 4.17
billion entries in that same year. In the 17 years
between the founding of the People's Republic of
China and the Cultural Revolution, 603 feature
films and 8,342 reels of documentaries and
newsreels were produced, sponsored mostly as
Communist propaganda by the government
Cultural Revolution
During the Cultural Revolution, the film industry
was severely restricted. Almost all previous films
were banned, and only a few new ones were
produced, the most notable being a ballet version
of the revolutionary opera The Red Detachment of
Women (1971). Feature film production came
almost to a standstill in the early years from 1967
to 1972. Movie production revived after 1972
under the strict jurisdiction of the Gang of Four
until 1976, when they were overthrown.
mid-late 1980s
Beginning in the, the rise of the so-called
Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers
brought increased popularity of Chinese
cinema abroad. Most of the filmmakers who
constitute the Fifth Generation had
graduated from the Beijing Film Academy
in 1982 Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang,
Chen Kaige, and others.
Key Chinese films in the 80’s & 90’s
Rejection of traditional methods of storytelling and opted
for a more free and unorthodox approach.Zhang Junzhao's
One and Eight (1983) and Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth
(1984) in particular were taken to mark the beginnings of
the Fifth Generation. The most famous of the Fifth
Generation directors, Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, went
on to produce celebrated works such as (1987), Ju Dou
(1989), Farewell My Concubine (1993) and Raise the Red
Lantern (1991), which were not only acclaimed by
Chinese cinema-goers but by the Western art house
audience
Yellow Earth (1984)
Yellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist
soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect
folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There
he stays with a peasant family and learns that the
happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist;
the songs he finds are about hardship and
suffering. He returns to the Army, but promises to
come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has
been spellbound by his talk of the freedom women
have under Communist rule and who wants to join
the Communist Army.
Farewell My Concubine. A classic Chinese love story, of
the warlord, Xiang Yu and his beloved Yu Ji. Locked in
battle, he tries to send his mistress to safety but she refuses,
saying she would rather die by his side than live without
him.
Sixth Generation
The recent era --the “return of the amateur
filmmaker” as state censorship policies have
produced an edgy underground film movement
loosely referred to as the Sixth Generation.
Films are shot quickly and cheaply, a documentary
feel, with long takes, hand-held cameras, ambient
sound; c.w. Italian neorealism and cinéma vérité
Not the often lush productions of the Fifth
Generation.
Chen Kaige; Farewell my Concubine (1992),
Krzysztof Kieslowski
(1941-1996) Three Colours: Blue,
White Red
A distinctive voice in Polish cinema, known
for his uncompromising moral stance,
Kieslowski first came to attention in the
early 1970s for his incisive (often shelved)
documentaries and shorts on the political
reality of life in Poland.
His features of the late 1970s explored the
relationship between the personal and the
political with style, directness and a raw
edge of realism, making him a key figure in
the 'cinema of moral unrest'.
Blue (1993.)
Juliette Binoche won the Cesar Award and
the Venice Film Festival Award as Best
Actress for her role in the first film of
Kieslowski's acclaimed Three Colors
trilogy. She plays a woman who becomes
entangled in a mysterious web of passion
and lies after she digs into the past life of
her recently and unexpectedly deceased
husband.
White (1994, 92 mins.)
The second part of Kieslowski's trilogy is
also the wittiest of the three. Zbigniew
Zamachowski stars as a Polish man whose
life disintegrates when his new French bride
(Julie Delpy) deserts him after only six
months. Forced to begin anew, he returns to
Poland and plans a clever scheme of
revenge against her.
Themes
Kieslowski often deals with illness, loss and
death, but deep pools of humor float
beneath the surfaces of his films. There is a
sequence in "White" (1994) where his hero,
a Polish hairdresser, is so desperately
homesick in Paris that he arranges to be sent
back to Warsaw, curled up inside a suitcase.
His friend at the other end watches the airport
conveyor belt with horror: The bag is not
there, it has been stolen by thieves who
break the lock, find only the little man, beat
him savagely and throw him on a rubbish
heap. Staggering to his feet, he looks
around, bloody but triumphant, and cries
out, "Home at last!"
Red (1994.)
Kieslowski's striking conclusion of his
trilogy stars Irene Jacob as a model,
separated from her lover, who is brought by
accident into the life of the aging JeanLouis Trintignant, a retired judge and
electronic peeping Tom. As Jacob's
character slowly uncovers her lover's secret
life, she discovers that her own past is
inevitably linked to her destiny.
Irene Jacob as Valentine, a woman in
Geneva whose car strikes a beautiful golden
retriever. She nurses the dog back to health
and returns it to its owner, a retired judge
(Jean-Louis Trintignant), who tells her she
can keep it. He is beyond worrying about
dogs.
He occupies his days intercepting the
telephone calls of his neighbors, and he
watches them through his windows almost
like God--actually, just like God--curious,
since they have free will, what they will do
next. After a lifetime of passing verdicts, he
wants to be a detached observer.
Kieslowski made most of his early work in
Poland during the Cold War, and because
his masterpiece "The Decalogue" consists
of 10 one-hour films. He has still not
received the kind of recognition given those
he deserves to be named with, such as
Bergman, Ozu, Kurosawa, Fellini, and
Bunuel.
Columbia University professor and film
critic Annette Insdorf, who knew
Kieslowski well and often translated for
him, says, “It's rare that you say about some
film director, 'What a good man.' But he
was. Very by-the-way, emotional, very nonsentimental, dry in his wit and in his
bearing, but he really made an impression.”
Free will?
Her book, Double Lives, Second Chances:
The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski,
provides the key to his work in its title.
Kieslowski almost never made a film about
characters who lacked choices. Indeed, his
films were usually about their choices, how
they arrived at them, and the close
connections they made or missed.
sources
Film History: An Introduction. Kristin Thompson
and David Bordwell. Second edition. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2002.
The Oxford History of World Cinema. Geoffrey
Nowell-Smith (ed). Oxford University Press,
1999.