mizoguchi kenji ‘one-scene-in-one-shot’ his visual style

Mizoguchi Kenji

‘One-scene-in-one-shot’

His visual style

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style (Montage)• LONG-TAKE

* Take = a single continuous recording• Shot - Scene - Sequence

*shot = the shortest unit of film which is continuously shown without interruption, that is, editing;

*scene = a shot or a series of shots that comprise a single, complete event or action;

*sequence = a series of scenes which show related events, settings or stories

• ‘One-scene-in-one-shot’; an entire action in a scene is shown in one shot

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style (Montage)

• Why does Mizoguchi rely on long-take or insist one scene in one shot?

*Average Shot Length (ASL) = a cinemetrical measures; 5.9 second per shot in D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance and 2.5 seconds in American films made in 2007)

• 22 seconds in Osaka Elegy, 33 seconds in Sisters of Gion, 57 seconds in Chrysanthemum, 92 seconds in The 47 Ronin, 29 seconds in Ugetsu

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style (Montage)

‘… the most precise and specific expression for intense psychological moments.’

Mizoguchi Kenji• Long-take is an effective way to create

psychological tension• Though demanding for performers and cameramen

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style (mise-en-scène)

• Expansive screen space• Continuous space created by

fluid pan and traveling shots

(Oharu)• Skillful uses of on- and off-

screen space• Off-screen space further

indicated by repeated sound effects (e.g. Chrysanthemums)


• One of the great mise-en-scene directors along with Murnau, Ophüls, and Wells

• Mise-en-scène = ‘staging’ (‘to put it in the scene’)• It includes all the elements placed before the

camera or within a frame - actors, their performance, sets, props, make-ups, costumes, etc.

• It also includes the way in which those elements are shown - visual arrangement and composition - lighting, camera angle, camera movement, shot size, lens choice, etc.


• Chiaro-scuro lighting - strong contrast between light and shade

(Rembrandt lighting - Mizoguchi learned western paintings when young.)

• Atmospheric, moody and powerful images


• Rembrandt Lighting


• Mizoguchi’s chiaro-scuro cinematography

(e.g. Sansho the Bailiff)


• Long-shot (a camera view of a character or object from a distance)(or no close-ups)

• Related to long-take; the longer a take is, the more information needs to fill the screen, so that the viewer can spend more time seeing and contemplating on it. Long shot provides more information.

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style (mise-en-scène)• The scene in Ugetsu

where the heroine is dying in agony while the soldiers on the run squabble for pathetic rice balls for which they killed her.

• A tragedy and human waste is staged in a long shot with multiple actions.

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style (mise-en-scène)• REALISTIC and

SYMBOLIC representation

• Visual REALISMConstruction of sets,designing costumesfinding locations

based on meticulous historical research


• Sansho the Bailiff : The opening shot shows travelers walking across a river bed.

• Its symbolic visual meaning retroactively becomes apparent as the film progresses.

• Our life is a only journey-in-progress from eternity to another eternity.

Realistic and Symbolic Representation

• Symbolic meaning of water• Passage from one life to another• Passage separating this world from the other

world• Repeated in many films by Mizoguchi


• A canal separates Gion, a Kyoto pleasure district, where two sisters work as geisha and commercial its districts.

• Water trade / ephemeral world / floating world


• The lake Biwa separate a village from a large town

• The lake Biwa also separates this world from the other

Realistic and

Symbolic Represent

ation

• The world on reality and dream in Oyu Sama• Giving up the torrid triangular love, a woman lives

like a recluse in a house near the Yodo River. Her former lover secretly visits her, but being no longer able to distinguish what he is seeing is real or not.


• Water is an important motif in Lady of Musashino• Fleeting affairs between a married woman and a

younger student• Water separates the mundane world and the

dreamy world


• Frequent uses of sharply angled shot

• Mizoguchi’s aesthetic choice

• Composition inspired by traditional prints and scroll paintings


• POV from high in the air and looking down on a scene

• High angle shot like the traditional Japanese painting

• The beginning of Legend of the Taira Clan (Shin Heike Monogatari, 1955)


• Formal characteristics of composition and movement

DIAGONAL

Composition and movement

• Mizoguchi’s aesthetic sensibility as a painter


• Diagonal compositions constructed from the lines of floor, ceiling, beam, and tatami are frequently seen in Mizoguchi’s films.


• Horizontal composition (examples)• Ozu preferred horizontal to diagonal


• Naruse Mikio, follower of Ozu in his penchant for horizontal composition


• Painterly cinematography - composition and subdued colour scheme reminding of the ink painting

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style (montage)

• Montage - editing• The same or similar

visual motifs repeated in a film

• Young Anju and Zushio breaking tree branches and collecting grass for a shelter. The similar scene with the same composition to be repeated later. Sansho the Bailiff

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style

• LONG TAKE, LONG SHOT, OFF-SCREEN SPACE, SOUND EFFECT, DIAGONAL COMPOSITION AND MOVEMENT articulate emotions, intensify drama, clarify meanings, provide aesthetic and formal pleasure.

• The Life of Oharu

Mizoguchi’s Visual Style

• Miraculous openings of The Tales of the Taira Clan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAFoPMRnCPk




mizoguchi kenji ‘one-scene-in-one-shot’ his visual style

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