Yamanaka Sadao
Humanity as fragile as a paper balloon
Yamanaka’s Brief Career
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Yamanaka Sadao 1909-38
24 films in seven years.
Only three have survived.
All 24 films are jidai geki
(period piece)
• Division of work in the
Japanese studio system
• Gendai geki (modern
drama) in Tokyo studios
and Jidai geki in Kyoto
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 Studios,
after graduating from
high school at the age
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of 18.
• Moved to the newly established film production
studios, Arashi Kanjûrô Production.
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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, those
who do not try to be a hero.
• In 1932 he was given a chance to direct a film
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,
Yamanaka’s is likeable,
affectionate, even domestic,
and is not without foible and
human weakness.
• Colloquial language.
• Deconstruction of the
existing 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,
hopelessness, 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 was
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 shown 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