Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (1975) Movie Script

1
WE WISH TO THANK
THE VARIOUS MAGAZINES,
ARCHIVES, AND ORGANIZATIONS
THAT HELPED US MAKE THIS FILM,
AND THE MIZOGUCHI SCHOLARS
WHOSE WORK WE CONSULTED.
A KINDAI EIGA KYOKAI PRODUCTION
KENJI MIZOGUCHI:
THE LIFE OF A FILM DIRECTOR
FEATURING:
KINUYO TANAKA, YOSHIKATA YODA
MASASHIGE NARUSAWA
KUMEKO URABE, YOSHIKAZU
HAYASHI, MATSUTARO KAWAGUCHI
EIJI NAKANO, HISAO ITOYA
TATSUO SAKAI
MASARU ARAKAWA
KAKUKO MORI, TAKAKO IRIE
MASAICHI NAGATA, GORO
KONTAIBO, SEIICHIRO UCHIKAWA
GENGO OBORA, KYOKO KAGAWA
MICHIYO KOGURE
ISUZU YAMADA, SHIGERU MIKI
KIYOHIKO USHIHARA
FUMIKO YAMAJI
HIDEO TSUMURA, MACHIKO KYO
DAISUKE ITO, KAZUO MIYAGAWA
KENICHI OKAMOTO
TADAOTO KAINOSHO
TAZUKO SAKANE, NOBUKO OTOWA
GANJIRO NAKAMURA
EITARO SHINDO, EIJIRO YANAGI
EITARO OZAWA
YASUZO MASUMURA, AYAKO WAKAO
YOSHIYUKI TAKATSU, MOTOHISA
ANDO, MATSUJI OHNO AND OTHERS
Cinematography by
YOSHIYUKI MIYAKE
Sound Recording by
SHINPEI KIKUCHI
Edited by
MITSUO KONDO and KEIKO FUJITA
Produced and Directed by
KANETO SHINDO
On August 24, 1956, at 1:55 a.m.,
Kenji Mizoguchi died
at the age of 58.
KYOTO MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL
I'm sorry,
but I can't allow you in.
It disturbs the patients.
I understand your situation,
but it's just not possible.
We won't enter
the sickrooms, of course.
We'll just stay in the hallway.
Film director Kenji Mizoguchi
represented the spirit of Kyoto.
He died in a private ward here
on August 24th, 1956.
We're making a film about his life.
We've filmed a lot in Kyoto
over the past ten days.
I assume it's no problem
to shoot the exteriors,
but I'd hoped we could also film
the fourth-floor corridor.
We'll just film it as is,
without lighting.
We won't disturb the patients,
of course.
No photographers are allowed
for any reason.
We don't want patients filmed,
even inadvertently,
and besides,
the nurses are very busy.
PRIVATE WARD, FOURTH FLOOR
MANGAN TEMPLE, KYOTO
KENJI MIZOGUCHI'S TOMBSTONE
STREET OF SHAME
Your films were very often
about women.
INTERVIEW WITH MIZOGUCHI
FEBRUARY 11, 1950
Yes, though that wasn't
my intent at first.
As you know, about 10 years ago,
director Minoru Murata
passed away.
He was like
an older brother to me.
Almost all his films
were about men.
Those were the kinds
of films he made.
The studio couldn't have
two directors making similar films,
so they told me
to make films about women.
It was a commercial decision.
That was the original impetus.
You could say I just fell into it.
But over time, my interest
in the subject deepened.
I read in a newspaper article
that you wrote that,
after making Osaka Elegy
and Sisters of the Gion -
- both masterpieces, in my opinion -
- No, no.
You felt you'd gained a better
understanding of human nature.
Well, in youth you lose yourself
in what you're doing.
Good films aren't made
by conscious deliberation
but rather by an inner passion.
Perhaps I've gained some
understanding of people since then,
though even now I wonder
how much I really understand.
FORMERLY SHINHANA, YUSHIMA
HONGO DISTRICT, TOKYO
MASASHIGE NARUSAWA -
SCREENWRITER
This area used to be called Block 11
of the Shinhana neighbuorhood.
Mizoguchi was born here
on May 16, 1898,
the first son
of Zentaro Mizoguchi.
This was his birthplace.
The Yushima Tenjin shrine
is nearby, isn't it?
Anyway, after his father's
business failed,
they moved to the working-class
district of Asakusa.
He first attended
a small private school,
and then Ishihama Primary School,
where he met Kawaguchi.
MATSUTARO KAWAGUCHI - WRITER
Is the school in Asakusa
where you met Mizoguchi still there?
I have no idea.
I really should check.
The other day
I had some business
in Yoshiwara,
the former brothel district,
so I decided
to take a look around.
There wasn't a single reminder
left of the old days.
ISHIHAMA PRIMARY SCHOOL
FOUNDED JUNE 1907
MIZOGUCHI ENTERED THE SCHOOL
THE YEAR IT WAS FOUNDED
Where a person spends his childhood
has a tremendous impact on him.
For that reason I'm sure
we'll never find another director
so thoroughly Japanese
as Mizoguchi was.
You may be right.
Of course, we'll always have
good directors,
but none able to produce works
so Japanese that only a Japanese
person could have made them.
The way he portrayed
his characters
was so different
from the European approach.
He was thoroughly Japanese.
I think that was precisely
what the Western film world
so valued about him.
His films were unique, with no trace
of influence from the outside world,
and that's why they were so admired,
because they offered something
that could be found nowhere else.
His older sister looked after him.
What was she like?
Their father is said to have been
of high-ranking samurai stock,
but he worked as a roofer,
although the details
of that aren't clear.
He apparently drank a lot
and wasn't very fond of working.
At some point, a viscount
by the name of Matsudaira
met Suzuko, Mizoguchi's sister.
She was working then
as a geisha in Nihonbashi, right?
Where was Viscount Matsudaira's
Tokyo residence located?
He lived much of his life
in Shimoshinmei.
Before that,
I think he lived in Teppozu.
And his ancestral home
was in Shinshu Ueda?
That's correct.
In any event,
she became his mistress.
She later left Nihonbashi
and moved to the viscount's
second residence in Teppozu.
- She lived there?
- Yes, as his mistress.
And she later married him?
Yes, they were eventually
legally married,
so she became Suzuko Matsudaira.
Mizoguchi lived there with her.
They took care of him.
Many of Mizoguchi's films convey
real hatred for father figures.
None depicts the father favourably.
I think the father in Osaka Elegy
is modelled after his own.
IMADOBASHI
He spent his childhood around here.
After finishing school, he went to stay
with a pharmacist relative in Morioka,
but he soon returned.
At 17, he worked
for a patternmaker,
but he didn't stay long.
He enrolled in Seiki Kuroda's school
of Western painting in Tameike.
At 19 he began working
for a newspaper in Kobe,
but that too was short-lived,
lasting only a year.
He entered the film world
quite by chance.
He lived near Asakusa, across the river
from Nikkatsu's Mukojima studio.
The studio was on the riverbank,
only 100 yards from the Shirahige
Bridge, which spanned the river.
He became friends
with actor Tadashi Tomishima,
who introduced him to a director
named Osamu Wakayama.
This allowed him
to join the company very easily.
His ambition was to act,
but he was made an assistant director,
which in those days
amounted to errand boy.
That was in June of 1920.
He was 22.
After a number of false starts,
he'd found his path in life.
NIKKATSU'S GLASS SOUNDSTAGE
It later became a glass soundstage,
but it was a tent when I started.
There was no glass stage.
NIKKATSU CAMERAMAN
GENGO OBORA, 85 YEARS OLD
It was before the age
of the glass soundstage.
Even before Mizoguchi's day.
- That's okay. Please go ahead.
Well, I think this is
documented somewhere...
but the tent flaps
would fly open in a strong wind.
Besides that, there were
gaps in the joints of the tent
that would open up,
allowing sunlight
to shine onto the stage.
We just had to ignore it
and keep shooting.
But it wasn't a workable situation...
and the glass soundstage
was built in 1913.
So in fact you then
made use of the sunlight.
Yes, the sunlight shone
through the glass.
These days the roof is covered,
and they use artificial lighting.
In the old days
we filmed in the sunlight.
If the sky turned cloudy,
the cameraman had to adjust
the exposure himself,
since we didn't have
assistants back then.
You never knew
when the sky might change.
The cameras weren't motorized,
so your left hand focused
while your right turned the crank.
Panning was also more difficult.
You had to pan by winding a gear
with your left hand,
all the while
cranking with your right.
I think cameramen these days,
including your man right there,
have really got it good.
We even had to develop the film.
- The cameramen?
That was all
the cameraman's responsibility,
and it spurred you on to do a good job.
You were always wondering
how the footage turned out.
It's not like today,
when others do the developing.
You did it yourself.
That allowed me
to adjust the developing process
to suit lighting conditions.
How long did it take
to shoot a film back then?
Generally about a week.
It must have seemed over
before it even really began.
It seems fast by today's standards,
but 7-10 days was the norm then.
It took much longer to shoot
The Dance of the Skull, though.
KIYOHIKO USHIHARA - DIRECTOR
I began at Shochiku's Kamata studio
the year it was founded,
when the studio was a tent.
But they soon built a glass studio.
First they built...
the east and south walls,
which were glass,
and then they finished
the rest with wood.
Later they rebuilt it
entirely in glass.
All four sides were glass,
as well as the roof.
What are your memories
of Mizoguchi?
- He was a gentle man.
- I see.
He was fond of women and sake,
but gentle nonetheless.
He really loved women, didn't he?
Boy, did he ever.
- Did you ever talk with him?
- Yes.
- You worked at the same studio?
- Yes.
But I don't know anything
about his personal life.
He was a good person,
friendly and honest with everybody.
He had a deep voice,
but his manner was gentle,
like a woman's.
He was a good man.
He was Eizo Tanaka's assistant, right?
That's right.
EIZO TANAKA - DIRECTOR
Eizo Tanaka was
an ambitious young director
at Nikkatsu's Mukojima Studios
at the time.
The Kyoya Collar Shop, in the naturalist
style, is considered his best film.
Mizoguchi was his assistant
on that film.
In 1920 Jun'ichiro Tanizaki and
Thomas Kurihara made Amateur Club.
In 1919, Norimasa Kaeriyama
made The Glow of Life.
In 1921, Kaoru Osanai produced
and starred in Souls on the Road.
These three films were attempts to turn
Japanese cinema into a serious art.
They brought film into the limelight
as the art form of the new century.
Mizoguchi became a director
after two years as an assistant.
At that time,
men still played women's roles.
That practice ended as Japanese
cinema moved towards greater realism.
Eighteen famous female impersonators,
including Teinosuke Kinugasa,
retired en masse.
The studio was short-handed,
so Mizoguchi was promoted
more quickly than usual.
His first film appeared in 1923 and was
in the melodramatic shinpa style.
Entitled The Resurrection of Love,
it featured biwa lute accompaniment.
Over the course
of the next six months,
he made six more films.
Dramas, detective stories, horror films -
he tried his hand at any genre he could.
When we went
on location in Uenohara,
we'd bring two scripts.
The same actor would have
two sets of costumes.
We'd shoot a scene from film A,
then go nearby and shoot
a scene from film B.
Shooting two films this way
was common practice back then.
When Henry Kotani
came back from the U.S.,
he came to Shochiku's
Kamata studio in a motorcade.
Director Zanmu Kako and I were
shooting in a tent studio at that moment.
Henry's car made a grand entrance
through the gate,
which was very close to the tent.
Henry got out of the car
with a flourish,
took the light reflector
from the assistant director's hand,
climbed up the studio wall,
and aimed the reflector like this,
shining the light on the scene.
Kaoru Osanai led a faction
at Shochiku Kamata
that was pointing the way
to a new cinema.
DAISUKE ITO - DIRECTOR
All the members, young and old,
acted in the films,
including Tsutsumi,
who later became a director.
He was a lodger at my house then.
All of them could act, write scripts,
hold the light reflector,
what have you.
That was the system in place.
At the time,
I was devoting myself
to writing plays for the theatre.
I showed Osanai my one-act plays,
looking for advice.
He hadn't started doing films yet.
Screenwriters do
the same thing these days.
He very kindly gave me
his guidance.
What were scripts like
in those early days?
At Nikkatsu, for example,
the director stood beside the camera
and read the script out loud,
while the female impersonators
did what they were told.
I think it was probably Kaeriyama
who wrote the first real film script.
I didn't really know
how to write scripts...
though I'd been watching
film adaptations of classic books
and reading
Motion Picture Magazine,
in which I found an ad for a guidebook
called How to Write a Scenario.
I had a bookstore
special-order a copy for me,
but the book was useless.
I learned a lot more
just watching Italian movies.
Mizoguchi's fifth film, a naturalistic
tragedy called Failure's Song is Sad,
provided a glimpse of his later style.
THE GREAT KANTO EARTHQUAKE
SEPTEMBER 1, 1923
In 1923, the Nikkatsu studios
were destroyed by the earthquake,
and the company moved all production
to the Taishogun studio in Kyoto.
When I think of how I met
Okochi and Osanai,
Aoyama, Kaji Yamamoto,
and Tomoda,
I feel it must have been fate.
Was Mizoguchi at Taishogun, too?
Yes. Since the earthquake
destroyed the studios at Mukojima,
everyone moved to Taishogun
to make both modern and period films.
TAISHOGUN
FORMER SITE OF
NIKKATSU'S TAISHOGUN STUDIO
Was it around here?
Yes, the gate was here.
KENICHI OKAMOTO -
LIGHTING TECHNICIAN
That was an empty lot
for cars used on location.
The studio was here from 1923 -
Until about 1928 or 1929.
By 1930, shooting had already moved
to the Uzusama studio, also in Kyoto.
The move to Kyoto
had a decisive impact
on Mizoguchi's life.
His character had been shaped
by the old downtown of Tokyo,
but the vastly different Kansai region
infused his blood with a new spirit.
This mixture
laid the foundation
for the art of his later years.
Melodramas, spy thrillers,
action films, comedies:
There was nothing Mizoguchi
wouldn't try at the time,
though none of the films
were very impressive.
While making the spy thriller
Shining in the Red Sunset,
a major event in his life occurred:
He met Yuriko Ichijo.
We're curious about Mizoguchi's youth.
EIJI NAKANO - ACTOR
Can you tell us first about
Shining in the Red Sunset?
I was 19 or 20 at the time.
I just did what Mizoguchi told me.
I don't have much memory of it.
We only worked with him
for three days.
He had to stop because Yuriko Ichijo
literally stabbed him in the back.
Genjiro Saegusa finished
directing the picture.
Today we'd call it a crime of passion.
Was he fired over it?
First he was taken to the hospital.
Newspapers reported it
in the "human interest section,"
not the film section.
The page devoted
to local crimes and gossip.
He was in disgrace.
He locked himself up at home.
- On the studio's orders?
- Yes.
He was put on leave
and did nothing for about six months.
So after I worked with him,
he did nothing for six months.
So she stabbed him in the back?
KUMEKO URABE - ACTRESS
Yes.
But that was before he married.
Long before.
Were you there?
I lived in the neighborhood,
at Yoneko Sakai's house.
Perhaps you know her.
Myself, the actor Koichi Katsuragi,
and an older lady
named Harue Ichikawa
were all there that evening,
having a good time.
Katsuragi was drinking a bit.
We women weren't drinking,
just playing cards.
These days people play mah-jongg,
but back then we played hanafuda.
Suddenly, the wife of a talent manager
named Genzaburo Sasaya
came from next door, all pale,
and told us that Kenji had been cut.
She kept screaming "Kenji!" so
we couldn't really make out her words.
We knew it had to be serious,
so we went running to see.
Unfortunately, my two great mentors,
Mizoguchi and Minoru Murata,
both loved brothels.
They adored them.
They were like characters
out of a Kafu Nagai novel.
- Murata too?
- You bet.
They liked the atmosphere.
Well, Mizoguchi's
most successful films
are often about fallen women.
It's hard to explain why,
although there may be
good reasons.
The woman who cut him, Yuriko Ichijo,
was a prostitute, wasn't she?
Yes, the kind they used to call
a yatona in Kyoto,
one who paid house calls.
I used to join him at bath time to chat
and learn more about filmmaking.
SEIICHIRO UCHIKAWA -
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
I offered to rinse his back,
and that's when I saw the wound.
He gave it a hard slap
and said in a debauched tone,
"You can't understand women
if you don't have one of these."
I followed suit by saying,
"Gee, sensei, I wish I could
get stabbed by a woman too!"
He was stabbed by a yatona
from Kiyamachi, right?
It seems he ran away after it happened,
which was a bit unbecoming,
but I liked that about him.
He apparently cried in pain
instead of toughing it out.
But that's how he was.
He could traffic in weighty matters
and in mundane things,
alternating between them.
He wasn't the sensible bystander,
judging others.
He contained multitudes
within himself, and besides that,
he was able to create
a mythology around himself.
A Paper Doll's Whisper of Spring, written
by Mizoguchi's mentor Eizo Tanaka,
is a love story about common people.
The film demonstrates Mizoguchi's
gradual evolution as a director.
THE PASSION OF A WOMAN TEACHER
(1926)
With this film he worked for the first
time with Matsutaro Kawaguchi,
who would become
a lifetime confidant and collaborator.
You knew Mizoguchi
at the time of the Yuriko Ichijo incident.
After that, he got married.
You knew his wife Chieko?
Yes, she was friends with the woman
I was living with at the time.
My girlfriend often
brought her over to visit.
That's how I came to meet her.
- What did she do?
- She was a dancer.
She worked in a dance hall
called "Paulista" in Osaka.
My girlfriend Chiyoko worked there too.
Chiyoko lived with me
and commuted to Osaka
to work in the dance hall.
So it was you and Chiyoko,
and Mizoguchi and Chieko.
We all got along well.
Mizoguchi and I once shared a house too.
- Where was that?
- He was shooting at Taishogun studio.
I'd been with Nikkatsu
three or four months.
He was living above
a public bathhouse near the studio
called Yamaguchiya.
I had no money and no home.
He took me in.
We lived that way for six months.
His room was bare
except for a futon and books.
Books everywhere,
novels and so on.
He used a box
covered with cloth as a table.
We had our meals out.
For six months
we shared the same futon.
- You and he?
- Yes.
When Chieko and Chiyoko
would come to visit,
Chiyoko and I would leave
so they could be alone.
That's how we all
became very close.
Could Mizoguchi dance?
He learned for her sake.
I taught him how.
So you're the one
who introduced him to Chieko.
And you took him
to the dance hall?
Anyway,
they soon began to quarrel.
Chieko had a husband
whom she hadn't divorced yet.
We first got to know each other
MASAICHI NAGATA -
FORMER PRESIDENT OF DAIEI
at Nikkatsu's
Taishogun studio in Kyoto.
I had come in as a trainee.
Matsunosuke Onoe
was at the height of his fame then.
He was probably the top actor in Japan.
That was around 1924.
In 1925 I started working
as a regular employee
in general administration
at Nikkatsu.
Mizoguchi had just
been made a director.
Our relationship then
was basically collegial
and business-like.
One day it came to my attention
that he wanted to marry Chieko.
I learned that she was separated
but not divorced.
We had to find a way
to settle this matter.
Her husband, who passed away
some time ago, was in Kobe.
He had underworld connections
but was otherwise a decent man.
I talked it over with him,
and he agreed to an amicable divorce.
Chieko and I were chorus girls
at the Naniwa Shojo Kageki music hall,
in the nightlife district of Osaka.
We were good friends.
Why do you think
she married Mizoguchi?
I don't know. I really don't.
One day at the public bathhouse
in Kyoto,
I heard my name.
It was Chieko calling me.
My nickname for her
was "Sagachi,"
and since my name then was
Chidori Toyama, she called me "Tochi."
I heard someone say, "Tochi,"
and who do I see? Sagachi.
I asked what she was doing there.
She said she'd married
the director Mizoguchi
and invited me to stop by their place.
It was quite a surprise.
The Nihon Bridge was a Meiji-period
story by Kyoka Izumi.
Social unrest after the 1923 earthquake
was followed by economic collapse,
corruption and decadence.
It was a time of "EroGroNonsense":
Eroticism - Grotesque - Nonsense.
HOME TOWN (1930)
MIZOGUCHI'S FIRST TALKIE
MISTRESS OF A FOREIGNER (1930)
Metropolitan Symphony,
a so-called "leftist film"
with a conspicuous ideology,
marks his "proletarian period."
The film bears the influence
of Fusao Hayashi,
a radical proletarian writer
with whom Mizoguchi was then friendly.
MAN OF THE MOMENT (1932)
Movies respond to changing times,
and Mizoguchi's films were no exception.
After he made The Dawn of Mongolia,
he started acting a bit strange.
He'd shot so much footage
that he couldn't edit that film.
He left Shinko studios
and did nothing for about a year.
He just stayed at home.
He made his comeback with
The Water Magician.
But that was the second time
I'd seen him have a kind of breakdown.
What do you mean when you say
he started acting "strange?"
He felt lost.
Mizoguchi is unusual
in that his films tend to be
either masterpieces
or complete failures.
I was with him
through two of those failures.
THE WATER MAGICIAN (1933)
To the public you were the image
of the modern woman,
known for
your fashionable style sense.
TAKAKO IRIE - ACTRESS
We were all wondering
how the film would turn out,
with you playing the role
of a water magician.
We were all surprised
at how wonderful the film was.
Could you tell us
about Mizoguchi at that time?
Did you already know him then?
Yes, I'd known him since
Metropolitan Symphony.
But this was my first film
set in the Meiji period.
He was so passionate
about detail,
down to the size of the buttons
on the costumes.
He was very demanding,
even then.
Yes, he was.
Yet he always took the time
to explain everything carefully,
what he wanted
and what he disliked.
Alas, we didn't always
meet his expectations.
Yet he was unfailingly
enthusiastic,
and he had a lovely sense of humour.
He was 35 at the time.
Yes, he was young.
It was a film from his younger days.
How old were you at the time?
Twenty-two, I think.
Because I was 21 when
The Dawn of Mongolia came out.
He'd wanted to make
this film for a long time.
GORO KONTAIBO - THEN HEAD
OF PRODUCTION AT SHINKO CINEMA
Irie was a Nikkatsu star.
She was the most popular,
but in terms of studio rankings,
she was number two.
You might say she sat
in the second seat.
Her brother was the director
Yasunaga Higashibojo.
He thought it was unfair.
He thought she should be No. 1.
At Nikkatsu she was the modern,
upper-crust woman, in fur and all that.
But Shinko wanted her
to be more Japanese.
They said Nikkatsu didn't show
the real Japan - they showed Hawaii!
They felt audiences
wouldn't go for it.
Shinko had its own audience,
and Irie had to please them.
They made it an ironclad rule
that she was to play
70% of her roles in Japanese dress
and 30% in Western dress.
The biggest problem was that
SHIGERU MIKI - CAMERAMAN
there was no finished script
for The Water Magician.
He wrote it piecemeal
from one day to the next.
Mizoguchi's method
was to shoot takes
several times as long
as other directors' takes.
Every single take
was exhausting in itself.
With a director who has
a more relaxed approach,
you can shoot many takes
and not get too tired.
But with him,
we'd get tired after a single take.
I'd lose count
of how many takes we'd done.
He was like
an orchestra conductor,
leading us as if with his baton.
He was good to work for
as a cameraman, wasn't he?
He never looked through the camera.
He just trusted you.
It made you try all the harder
to merit that trust.
When did you first start
working with Mizoguchi?
TAZUKO SAKANE - SCRIPT GIRL
AND FIRST FEMALE DIRECTOR
We began working together
in the autumn of 1929
at the Nikkatsu studios in Kyoto.
Did you work together on
The Water Magician?
Yes, that was the first film
I ever edited.
There were lots of close-ups.
Takes were still
quite short at that time.
Establishing shots
were fairly long, though.
We edited by cutting the negatives,
after inserting the intertitles.
Cutting negatives
sounds outrageous today,
but they were very skilled at it
in the old days.
GION FESTIVAL (1933)
We were filming The Jimpu Group.
I was getting paid by the film.
Before that,
I'd gotten a monthly salary.
But I was getting
about 1,000 yen per film.
That was in my contract.
He said, "Tell you what.
You do a single scene in my film,
and for that you'll get 1,000 yen.
You'll take half,
and the other 500 yen
I'll take as a 'finder's fee.'"
I asked, "So I get 500?
I hope it won't take long."
"I don't want you here long either,"
he replied.
In other words, a part that would take
only a day or two to shoot.
So I basically wrote a scene
for myself to act in,
and we shot it in two days.
After making only one film,
The Mountain Pass of Love and Hate,
at Nikkatsu's Tamagawa studios,
Mizoguchi moved on to Daiichi Films.
He'd fallen into a rut of making
films about the Meiji period
from which he found it hard
to extricate himself.
I founded
the Daiichi Film Company.
I told Matsutaro Kawaguchi
and Mizoguchi
about my plans.
They hadn't been able
to make the films they wanted.
I told them
they could only do that
if they worked
with like-minded people.
The three of us were very close.
We understood one another.
At Daiichi, Mizoguchi made
two of his most famous early films,
Sisters of the Gion
and Osaka Elegy.
OSAKA ELEGY (1936)
YOSHIKATA YODA - SCREENWRITER
We first worked together on
Osaka Elegy,
although I had known him
ever since he was
an assistant director at Nikkatsu.
Once he even asked me to act
in his film Man of the Moment,
though he later changed his mind.
We knew each other quite well
from these experiences.
Later on, I fell ill
and had to quit Nikkatsu.
I was hoping someone
would give me a job,
so I went to see him
after I had recovered.
He immediately asked me
to write a screenplay
based on
Saburo Okada's book Mieko.
It was the story of a cabaret girl.
I later learned that an assistant director
named Terada, among others,
had strongly suggested
that he turn the book into a film.
At the time, Mizoguchi wasn't
in such high spirits.
He'd been in a slump
for quite a while
and was looking for something
to help him break out of it.
He also wanted to give a role
to Isuzu Yamada,
who had just given birth.
Her daughter grew up to be
the actress Michiko Saga, by the way.
Until then Mizoguchi had been doing
a lot of Meiji-period films,
either based on the novels
of Kyoka Izumi or in that vein.
I think he felt that
nostalgia for the past
had cast a kind of spell over him,
and he knew
he had to break away.
He was well aware of this.
He wanted to turn his attention
to a more contemporary story,
one that focused
on some neglected aspect
of modern life.
I had already worked with him,
ISUZU YAMADA - ACTRESS
but Osaka Elegy
holds a lot of special memories.
I think it's his greatest film.
It's also the film that first
made me decide
to commit myself fully
to a career as an actress.
That's why I feel
this film changed my life.
I have so many memories of it.
As you know,
Mizoguchi was very hard to please.
He never gave us
precise directions.
"Think about it," he'd say,
and that was all.
I'll never forget a scene in
Osaka Elegy
where I was coming back
from the police station.
My siblings are all eating sukiyaki.
The atmosphere is very tense,
and my line is,
"Oh, sukiyaki.
I'd like some too."
He wasn't satisfied
with my delivery.
We rehearsed it over and over
for three days.
He had me so frightened
that I was afraid to even
put something on to keep warm.
I was trembling during the bridge scene,
as well as the test shots,
and the breaks, too, during which
I practised my lines over and over.
At one point he came up
silently behind me
and put his coat
over my shoulders.
Imagine someone so strict
doing that.
I had tears in my eyes.
I made my first talkie with him.
EITARO SHINDO - ACTOR
His reputation for being difficult was
well known even in the theatre world,
which is where I was working then,
so I asked him bluntly,
"The theatre director Kitamura
is called 'Roku the Grouch.'
I hear you're known
as 'Kenji the Grouch.'
Are you really that bad?"
I was pretty direct about it.
He often discussed acting style.
Regardless of whether you're playing
a gangster, a lecher, or a drunkard,
skill and technique alone aren't enough.
The style comes from the personality.
SISTERS OF THE GION (1936)
At first it was to be a story
about two brothers in Osaka
working as manzai,
a pair of stand-up comics.
He thought
that would be interesting.
My ideas were based
on that premise.
But he changed his mind.
The new setting was Gion in Kyoto.
The teahouse district
with narrow streets,
where the working classes
used to live.
Gion has two sections.
The lower side is where
the prostitutes and geisha
lived and worked.
That was to be the setting.
We wanted to show that it was a place
of hardship and not just pleasure.
SETTING FOR SISTERS OF THE GION
You yourself lived
in alleyways like those,
so you must know the people well.
Every city has
those alleyways, you know.
But those in Kyoto
are different from those in Tokyo.
FROM THE LAST SCENE OF
SISTERS OF THE GION
If we do our jobs well,
they call us depraved.
So what are we supposed to do?
Why are we tormented like this?
Why do there even have to be
such things as geisha?
Why does the world
need such a profession?
It's so terribly wrong!
It should never have existed!
I was in love
with a geisha named Omocha.
She and I were extremely close.
ISUZU YAMADA AS OMOCHA
So you spoke to Mizoguchi about her?
I said, "Look at the things
going on in the world today!
Why aren't these women's lives
being portrayed?
You don't have to go to Tokyo
to find modern drama.
Where were writers like Monzaemon
Chikamatsu and Saikaku Ihara born?
Right here!"
You went to look at Gion?
Yes, but as you know,
the story takes place
in the lower section of Gion,
not exactly the best part of town,
you know?
After the film came out,
the people of Gion spoke their minds,
saying Gion wasn't really like that.
Every morning a new section
of the script came in like a telegraph.
Mizoguchi didn't have it
finalized ahead of time.
Minor changes?
Heavens, no. Major changes.
We'd arrive in the morning and learn
that our lines for that day
had completely changed.
Mizoguchi and Yoda even made
changes as they were shooting.
Even now I'm not sure
whether the final scene
had been planned from the outset
or just thought up at the last moment.
And since it was a talkie,
the changes meant a lot of work for us.
I'm from the Kansai region,
and the lines were in my native dialect,
so I had no problem learning
dozens of new lines.
Nonetheless, even I had to cheat a little
by reading my lines from blackboards
placed around the set.
Some were even written on a mirror.
My memories of Mizoguchi?
He got rowdy when he was drunk!
I didn't drink very much,
but for some reason
he'd always ask for me,
OWNER - THE YOSHIDA TEAHOUSE
and he even gave me a part in
Sisters of the Gion.
Well, we're making a film
about Mizoguchi.
We're trying to meet
all the people
who were close to him
before the war.
I see. At that time
he was always with a Mr. -
A screenwriter.
- Mr. Yoda.
That's right.
They were always together.
Mr. Mizoguchi held
his cigarettes like this
and chewed on them.
When he got a little drunk -
Back then we didn't wear wigs
like they do today.
We all wore our own hair
up in a traditional style.
He loved to tease me
when he got drunk,
and he'd mess up my hair,
which he didn't do with the others.
He felt at ease with me,
and we got along well.
Some people got the wrong idea
about our relationship.
THE STRAITS OF LOVE AND HATE
(1937)
Daiichi went under after only two films,
Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion.
Shinko Cinema then invited
Mizoguchi to make Straits.
As he put it in his inimitable way,
"All melodrama is based
on Tolstoy's Resurrection."
He told me to write
a script like that.
So we created our own
version of Prince Nekhlyudov.
He would give us a script,
FUMIKO YAMAJI - ACTRESS
and we'd stay up all night
memorizing our lines,
only to learn the next day
they'd been completely changed.
We'd all gather
around a blackboard,
learning new lines
at the last minute,
with the lines from the day before
still stuck in our heads.
That was quite difficult.
There was one scene in a caf
in which I had to act drunk.
In the old days there used to be
lots of little cafs
below the overpass
of Shinbashi station in Tokyo.
I went there to study for my role.
I bought drinks for the barmaid
and even offered her cash,
just to see her get drunk.
He devoted his entire life to film,
and he expected nothing less
from the rest of us.
I'd get to the set early in the morning,
thinking I was the first there,
but there he would be,
sitting alone in the dark.
TOSHIMA DISTRICT, TOKYO
He rented this house and immersed
himself in his work for Shinko.
There he made Ah! My Hometown
and The Song of the Camp.
He then joined
Shochiku's studio in Shimokamo.
THE STORY OF THE LASCHRYSANTHEMUM (1939)
Shochiku wanted him to use
Shotaro Hanayagi,
a Kabuki actor, in the leading role.
But men no longer played
female roles in films.
So they made Chrysanthemum.
It was set in the world of Kabuki,
a world I knew nothing about,
which made it tough.
They used to call us "prop men."
MIZOGUCHI (RIGHT) AT 41
We'd make bamboo spears
MASARU ARAKAWA - SET DECORATOR
and shouldering poles and so on.
At Shimokamo I'd worked
with difficult directors
like Kintaro Inoue.
So I knew what to expect from him,
and we were on good terms.
Besides, the film
was based on a play,
and I knew Kabuki well, since
my father had worked in the theatre,
so the work went smoothly.
Mizoguchi liked me, I think.
I learned a lot about set design
and props from him.
Today he'd be called
a perfectionist.
But his taste in props
was highly personal.
He had a tremendous memory
for things he'd seen and heard.
He got cheated quite often
when shopping for antiques,
but over time he became
a much better judge.
YOSHIYUKI TAKATSU - PRESIDENOF TAKATSU TRADING COMPANY
He once asked me to get rid
of the junk he'd bought by mistake.
I told him to keep it
as a valuable reminder
never to touch such things again.
- Those days are long gone.
- They sure are.
You had very little equipment back then.
MATSUJI OHNO - SET BUILDER
In those days,
the idea of production design
hadn't really taken hold
at Shimokamo.
Hiroshi Mizutani
was the first real designer,
so we were nervous
about working with him.
But Kyoto carpenters
are excellent craftsmen.
You're the ones who brought
Mizutani's creations to life.
He treated us as equals.
HIROSHI MIZUTANI -
PRODUCTION DESIGNER
He discussed things with us
before designing them.
There was something about him
that nobody could imitate.
Working with Mizoguchi and Mizutani
allowed me to do the best job possible.
FROM THE STORY OF
THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM
Doesn't it look good?
Set this half aside.
Hold it for me.
I can do the rest.
It's a very nice watermelon.
Where are you taking it?
- To the back room.
- Here is fine.
- But this is -
- We'll eat together, right here.
- Really?
I'll add some salt.
Try some. Don't be shy.
Thank you.
Let's eat together.
It's delicious.
What are your memories
of Mizoguchi?
KAKUKO MORI - ACTRESS
The first day on the set...
I was hopelessly lost.
I didn't know how to move.
I asked Mizoguchi
what I ought to do.
He sort of looked at me
from the kitchen of the house
where we were filming.
"Forget about your movements
and your lines," he said.
"If you really get
into the heart of the character,
your movements and lines
will come naturally."
I nodded my head.
I was playing a housekeeper
named Otoku.
I wasn't sure I could do it
because I usually played young girls.
His words encouraged me to follow
my instincts in playing that role.
That was an experience I'll never forget.
Mizoguchi seems
to have put a lot of effort
into getting the casting right
for the role of Otoku.
He first cast somebody else
but then called you
when she didn't work out.
- The other actress was -
- Reiko Kitami?
That's right.
For three days they rehearsed
a scene where she walks along a river
holding a baby in her arms.
"You're not doing it right,"
he'd tell her.
"Probably because
you're not a mother.
You aren't even married."
He fired her after those three days
and hired Kakuko Mori.
Mori was hired because
Hanayagi was behind her.
He'd done a lot
of historical research for Mizoguchi,
so Mizoguchi felt obliged to at least
listen to his recommendation.
They did a screen test,
and Mizoguchi hired her.
Hanayagi taught me a lot.
SHOTARO HANAYAGI
In the watermelon scene,
for instance,
he showed me how to remove
the seeds with my hairpin,
the way women did in the Meiji period.
I'd have never thought of that.
I learned many things from him.
He wasn't trying to glorify women
with that character, was he?
His portrayal was unsparing and exact.
There was a real feeling of truth,
not just a concern with beauty.
In a sense it conveyed the image
of "the eternal feminine."
Perhaps we could say
she was the personification
of his yearnings.
It's a bit disrespectful
to speculate like this,
but I know his married life
was rather different from the idea
you just mentioned.
It was a pitched battle, actually.
He was very tense.
While shooting Chrysanthemum,
HIDEO TSUMURA - FILM CRITIC
he and Hanayagi and I
went out to eat.
That was the only time
he invited me to a meal,
and Hanayagi probably
paid for us all.
Your friendship
dates from that time?
We weren't exactly friends yet.
Two years later, in 1941,
Ozu completed The Brothers
and Sisters of the Toda Family.
We had a round table discussion
after the screening
for Star magazine...
with Ozu, Mizoguchi,
Hiroshi Shimizu and me.
He and I got to talk a bit then,
but our friendship per Se
began after the war.
If you get off at Omuro station
on the Kitano line,
walk a few minutes
toward Ninna Temple and turn left,
you'll find a two-story house
with a cypress hedge.
Mizoguchi rented this house,
his second-to-last,
from the autumn of 1940
until near the end of his life.
26TH CENTENARY OF JAPAN
NOVEMBER 1940
No matter what he may have said,
he was very conscious of status and class.
VOICE OF MATSUTARO KAWAGUCHI
So he was elated when he received
the Minister of Education award.
Being recognized by the government,
praised by people outside his field -
all that made him very happy.
He had the Meiji-era mentality
that considered officials
a cut above ordinary people.
He definitely had
a touch of that in him.
A WOMAN OF OSAKA (1940)
That was my first film with him.
I knew his reputation.
KINUYO TANAKA - ACTRESS
I'd heard he was very difficult to work for.
According to Yoda,
his screenwriter,
he was in top form for that film.
That may well be.
You played Ochika,
the wife of a Bunraku performer.
She's a strong woman
who quarrels with her husband Danpei
and even leaves him for a time.
Mizoguchi apparently said
you were marvellous in the part.
Is that right?
I really had to study that character
before I felt I fully understood her.
It took me by surprise.
First I went to Kyoto.
Ms. Sakane, the lady director -
- She was a script girl then.
She came to the inn where
I was staying the night I arrived
with a stack of books this high
wrapped in cloth.
She said, "Please read these.
Mr. Mizoguchi asked me
to tell you to study them carefully
and absorb what's inside."
I'd already studied the script thoroughly.
It was set in the world
of Bunraku puppet theatre...
in Ochika's home, her husband's
dressing room, and on stage.
Many of those books on Bunraku
were meant for scholars.
Not books that a person like me
just sits down
and reads from cover to cover.
There were lots
of difficult technical words.
I was astonished to find
that the artistic life
depicted in these books
was close to my own as an actress.
It was an eye-opener.
We arrived in Kyoto in April,
but we didn't start shooting
until the summer, I think.
Were you preparing all that time?
First he had me read those books.
Then he sent me to Osaka
to see Bunraku live.
I was to drink in the atmosphere
and feel the rigour of that world
in a way the script couldn't convey.
Learning everything was an ordeal.
To tell you the truth, I'd had it easy.
I was used to star treatment.
I thought I'd never make it
through the difficulties.
Mizoguchi was even worse
than his reputation.
He would change lines
right on the set
as we were shooting.
Not because Yoda's script was lacking,
but rather because
when it actually came time
for the actors to read out the lines,
they sounded very unnatural.
Mizoguchi just wouldn't accept it.
And for that reason,
Yoda was always on the set,
and over the course of the shoot,
they essentially rewrote everything.
- They rewrote it all?
- Yes.
They'd have the actors read lines aloud,
then discuss what to do.
If they detected a single false note,
it had to be rewritten.
THE LIFE OF AN ACTOR (1941)
A Woman of Osaka was one film
in a trilogy about artists:
Chrysanthemum, A Woman of Osaka
and The Life of an Actor.
I was about 30 when he hired me.
GANJIRO NAKAMURA - ACTOR
That was the first time
I worked for him.
I was a Kabuki actor,
and I wanted to make movies.
He thought I was kidding,
but I was serious.
I wanted him to call me
by my real name, "Hayashi,"
and not by my Kabuki stage name,
"Narikomaya."
He told me,
"Don't act as you would in Kabuki.
Make the character part of yourself."
So I began saying my lines, "Hey, you!
Who the hell do you think you are?"
We rehearsed a number of times.
I thought I was doing a good job,
good enough
to finally shoot the scene.
But we didn't.
I asked what was wrong.
How was I overacting?
"You're overdoing it with your eyes."
In Kabuki there are times when
we look from side to side like this,
but I swear I wasn't doing that.
Yet he seems
to have sensed something.
"You're acting with your pupils,"
he said.
I thought asking me to control
my pupils was going a bit too far.
Mizoguchi made unrealistic demands
on those who were most capable.
He said nothing at all
to those who were incompetent.
I can understand
less movement of the eyes,
but how am I supposed
to control my pupils?
When I see myself acting today,
I realize to my chagrin
that my eyes are moving too much.
It's strange, but my film acting
was better then than now.
My acting is more calibrated
in that film.
Fortunately, he shot only when
my performance was just right.
I felt safe in his hands.
They don't make directors
like that anymore.
THE 47 RONIN (1941)
HIROSHI MIZUTANI -
PRODUCTION DESIGN
KANETO SHINDO - SET DESIGN
You did a marvellous job
on The 47 Ronin.
I'm not sure about that,
but I think it would be impossible
to build a set like that today.
I was astonished we were allowed
to do all that just for a film.
What surprised me most
was that we actually used
a blueprint for the first time,
for the sequence
in the corridor of the palace.
I think you and I
were both surprised.
That was really amazing,
having a real blueprint
among the design plans for a movie!
Everything was authentic.
No papier-mch or anything like that.
All the props were real antiques.
That kind of authenticity
came to be taken for granted,
and we have Mizoguchi to thank
for that sea change in sensibility.
Perhaps it makes him sound
too pragmatic,
but Mizoguchi said that fake props
were sometimes okay,
and he used a couple of items
he had previously rejected.
I suppose he'd achieved
such a unity of concept for his films
that when a real item
was unavailable,
he was willing to use a substitute,
even one rejected earlier.
He was confident enough in his vision
to know the film would work
even without authentic props.
We began by reading the original.
CHIEF OF PLANNING - SHOCHIKU
We gathered all the volumes
and tried to figure out
how to turn it into a script.
There were 20 -
no, more like 10 people
working on this.
So we were all there,
and I was leading the meeting.
I passed out blue and red pencils.
We went through the volumes
looking for parts to cut.
Mizoguchi was furious.
He wanted to keep the episode
with Seika Mayama.
I asked him if he was planning
to make the film three days long.
I told him, "Each episode
takes two hours on stage.
What would happen if you shot
seven of those, or even three?
You couldn't,
even if you cut all the dialogue!"
The fact is,
he was like a nave little boy.
He was incapable of falsehood,
about his work and himself.
And though he could act like an adult
and put on airs of greatness,
he was utterly incapable of lying.
That honesty made him question
the theme of The 47 Ronin.
He began to think
loyalism was a great misfortune.
That was the beginning of his anguish.
- Yet it became a loyalist film.
- It did.
That's why he didn't want to carry on.
He was disgusted.
There was no script.
I knew that because
production ground to a halt.
His wife succumbed...
to mental illness.
He felt responsible.
In spite of everything, though,
he managed to finish
The 47 Ronin.
The morning his wife was stricken,
we were waiting for him on the set.
We thought he would cancel shooting.
But he arrived in the afternoon
and casually said, "Let's begin."
I think it took all his strength
just to go on.
When his assistant
had gone to get him that day,
he'd found Mizoguchi in the middle
of his living room, weeping.
His wife became mentally ill.
Sakai came and asked me
to halt the day's shooting.
I went to Mizoguchi's house
and found him weeping.
I knew shooting was out of the question.
He was extremely agitated.
So I called off the shoot.
We'd begun shooting the second half.
TATSUO SAKAI - ASST. DIRECTOR
That was to be the palace scene.
It was December 20, 1941.
She'd just returned to Kyoto.
She was still all right
at that time, right?
Yes.
They'd been apart for some time.
That evening, while she was awake,
he didn't notice much out of the ordinary.
And then she went to sleep.
I was staying with them at the time,
and I remember thinking
she'd been acting a bit strange.
I worried she might
be worse the next day.
Mizoguchi came downstairs
in the middle of the night
and woke me up.
He asked me what I'd thought
about her behaviour.
I told him it struck me as somewhat odd.
"It's worse than that," he said.
Then I understood.
Sakai and I went to the hospital
to bring her some things.
She recognized us, but just barely.
- Mrs. Mizoguchi?
- Yes.
That's really all I know.
There was a lot of talk,
but who really knows?
Did Mizoguchi suspect
he'd given her the disease?
There's proof that wasn't the case.
Absolute proof.
- We know that for sure?
- Yes.
Yet he insisted on believing
he'd infected her.
Were blood tests done?
Yes, of course.
Put simply, the blood test
proved it wasn't him.
Nevertheless,
he felt responsible for his wife.
After The 47 Ronin,
he wasn't the same man.
It was the turning point
in his tragic life.
I don't know the facts
in terms of her medical condition,
but he thought it was his fault.
He felt responsible.
His sense of self-reproach
was really overwhelming,
and he threw himself headlong
into his work to forget.
I visited her with Tazuko Sakane.
- At the hospital?
- Yes.
We went there
against Mizoguchi's wishes.
I came back in tears.
- Was she all right?
- Physically, yes.
She was living in the past.
She asked if we'd come
to act in Mizoguchi's film.
She couldn't tell -
- Who you were?
- No, she knew that.
But she thought we were there
to work for her husband.
So I said yes, we were.
I wish I'd known you were coming,
since you've come all this way.
The wife of Mizoguchi the director
was hospitalized here.
Isn't Mizoguchi dead?
Mizoguchi is still alive?
He's dead, but his wife isn't.
I don't believe it.
I'd heard he remarried.
What do you want
to know about her?
Her hospital room was on this corner.
FORMER LOCATION OF BRANCH
OF KYOTO MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL
Mizoguchi and I
often took walks together.
As we'd walk past,
he'd keep saying,
"I wonder how she's doing,"
and sort of linger in the area.
She was in good health.
MRS. MIZOGUCHI'S NURSE
She was quite responsive
when I spoke to her.
She went to the baths.
- She was accompanied?
- Yes, by an attendant.
She seems to have been
quite spry.
Yes, she was.
At the baths
she even washed herself.
We heard you were the head nurse
for Mrs. Mizoguchi back then.
HEAD NURSE NAGAI
Yes, she was at my hospital.
I worked there for a long time,
but I hardly ever tended to her.
I worked mostly
in the outpatient department.
But I remember her face well.
She wasn't a talkative person.
FORMER HOSPITAL CLERK
She was quiet.
I heard she used to speak
about the film studios a bit.
She had many memories of Tokyo.
She'd say,
"I had someone come
from Tokyo to clean the house,"
things that didn't make much sense.
ON THE YANGTZE RIVER AT 45
He followed the army
to the Chinese front
to make a Shochiku-China
Film Company co-production.
It was to be on
"Sino-Japanese peace and friendship."
MIZOGUCHI DEMANDED
FOUR-STAR-GENERAL TREATMENMilitaristic films from that period
were inevitably mediocre.
THREE DANJUROS (1944)
He spent his days travelling by train
to Kyoto and buying rationed sake.
MUSASHI MIYAMOTO (1944)
It was a crude way of life
for a true sake connoisseur.
THE FAMOUS SWORD BIJOMARU
(1945)
I don't even drink,
so it made me queasy.
Imagine stirring
salted fish guts into hot sake.
It looked like phlegm!
He drank that disgusting liquid,
then told me to eat a soft-shelled turtle.
But it wasn't real turtle.
It was turtle extract.
It was like mixing medicine with rice.
Not exactly tasty.
Didn't he buy turtle soup?
When it was available, yes.
When it wasn't, he'd get
the extract from the pharmacy.
It was used in Chinese medicine
for tuberculosis.
He'd put it in rice,
add soy sauce, and cook it.
He'd give that rice gruel
to me and Sakai.
HIS HOME IN OMURO, KYOTO,
AT THE END OF THE WAR
He couldn't quite grasp
the new democracy
of the postwar era.
I think he got carried away
with the belief
that he had to change
as radically as the times.
It was a time of turmoil
when he became a union leader.
Unions immediately after the war
were rather odd.
Up until the Toho strike,
strikes were carried out
per a prearranged plan
between union and company.
THE VICTORY OF WOMEN (1946)
It was a bizarre situation...
with unions cropping up everywhere.
He didn't know where society should go,
UTAMARO AND HIS FIVE WOMEN
but he also didn't think
humanism was the solution.
MIZOGUCHI AT 48
THE LOVE OF SUMAKO THE ACTRESS
(1947)
He felt that everything
old and established
somehow had to be changed.
WOMEN OF THE NIGHT (1948)
He was quite anxious about that.
You can see a definite break
with the past in Women of the Night.
Would you say that with that film
you two made a fresh start
after the war?
Not exactly.
But thanks to that film,
we were, as they say,
back in the saddle.
The film was a story
about prostitutes.
HISAO ITOYA - PRODUCER
He said he and Yoda
had to do legwork for research.
He bought an aluminium lunch box
and asked the ladies at the hotel
to prepare his lunch.
He put on some army leggings
and an army cap,
took his lunch box,
and set out looking for material.
As he said,
he wanted to do "legwork."
I think the leggings and lunch box
put him in a certain mindset.
Yoda went too,
dressed the same way.
They visited a hospital
in the Yoshiwara red-light district,
full of prostitutes
who catered to American soldiers.
The prostitutes were very excited.
It was quite a scene.
"There's a film director here!"
"Liar! Why would a film director
come here?"
But then somebody said...
"I saw his picture in Sunday Mainichi.
It must be true!"
They swarmed around him.
The hospital director called for silence,
and Mizoguchi began to speak.
"The men of the world
are the reason you're here.
They're responsible."
Then he suddenly added,
"And I'm responsible too."
I looked over at him
when he said that.
His head was down,
his eyes welling with tears.
His own personal circumstances
were weighing on him.
MY LOVE BURNS (1949)
It was Mizutani's idea
to have Ichiro Sugai play
left-wing politician Kentaro Omoi
in My Love Burns.
Mizoguchi liked the idea.
But the role was rather difficult,
and Sugai couldn't quite grasp it.
Mizoguchi wasn't happy
with Sugai's acting
and out of frustration told him...
"Something's wrong with your head.
Do you think you might have
cerebral syphilis?"
ICHIRO SUGAI (DECEASED)
Sugai was so in awe of Mizoguchi
that he was practically
mesmerized by this suggestion
and went to the hospital
for an examination.
He was quite all right.
A PICTURE OF MADAME YUKI (1950)
Back then, movie actresses were
practically lionized, unlike today.
So I was expecting
to be indulged like a star.
MICHIYO KOGURE - ACTRESS
But for the first three days,
I was at a loss.
On the third day,
Mizoguchi said to me,
"You can relax now.
I understand your character."
I was playing the daughter
of an aristocratic family in decline.
He said, "You must act
like Madame Yuki off-stage as well.
Treat everyone in the studio,
from the president down,
like subjects."
Each take
was five or six minutes long.
Yet whenever
I made the slightest mistake,
he'd immediately notice
and redo the take.
I was on pins and needles.
These days I have
a nice thin figure, don't I?
Even though I was larger then,
he was obsessed
with dressing me nicely.
You know how in Noh theatre
they have katsugi veils?
This was a gift from him,
by the way.
Anyway, it was a veil
you put on your head like this.
It was woven
on a pine needle loom.
You couldn't tie it with an obi ribbon,
because the cloth was
too delicate and would rip.
It was worth a fortune back then.
He left a lot of things up to me.
EIJIRO YANAGI - ACTOR
He didn't give much direction
for love scenes, did he?
You're right.
Yet there were a lot in
A Picture of Madame Yuki.
Did he let you do those
as you pleased?
Yes, that's right.
There was a bedroom scene
when we're about to go to sleep.
So he says to me...
"There's a gap between you two."
Of course I knew there was a gap,
but my co-star was Michiyo Kogure!
I wasn't afraid of her,
but I couldn't snuggle up to her either.
I told him I'd get closer
when we shot the take.
"Are you sure?" he said.
"The futons aren't together.
They'd better be next to each other!"
"Don't worry.
I'll take care of it," I said.
Before we shot the take,
I told her, "Pardon me..."
and held her very close,
even draping my leg over her.
When the shot was over,
I asked if it was all right.
He laughed and said, "Yes."
MISS OYU (1951)
I first worked
with Mizoguchi on Miss Oyu.
He rather frightened me.
NOBUKO OTOWA - ACTRESS
He always stayed on the set,
even for lunch.
He never even seemed
to use the bathroom.
I asked the crew how he managed.
It seems he kept
a urine bottle on the set.
That's how he relieved himself.
I was surprised.
I couldn't see why he'd go that far.
In time I came to understand
that was just how he was.
I think he wanted to maintain
a certain mood on the set
and therefore never left.
It was after watching him work
that I understood
his method, his demanding personality.
HIS FAVOURED URINE BOTTLE
We'd all eat lunch together
when shooting on location.
He was completely different
from on the set!
It was like
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
He'd listen to Kinuyo Tanaka,
grinning happily.
The difference was so great
I had to remark,
"Sensei, you're a demon on the set
but an angel on location."
Everybody roared.
The disparity was so great,
it put you off balance.
I later learned
it was because he was in love
with Kinuyo Tanaka.
Many of the scenes were shot
in one long take.
One especially long scene
called for a lot of acting.
We rehearsed all morning.
There were mikes everywhere,
dollies for tracking shots, and so on.
We were finally ready to start shooting,
when he suddenly said,
"No! Back to square one!"
"What's going on?" I thought.
We'd worked so terribly hard.
He said, "You've gone over it too much.
It's become lifeless and automatic.
Start all over...
and do everything differently."
LADY MUSASHINO (1951)
"She's not a normal beggar," he said.
THE LIFE OF OHARU (1952)
"Even as a beggar,
she must be feminine.
Femininity is what reduced her to this.
She's not like any normal beggar.
You must somehow express that
with your body.
You must express something
out of the ordinary...
vent your unspeakable hatred
toward those around you."
AT THE GRAVE OF SAIKAKU IHARA...
AUTHOR OF SOURCE NOVEL
FOR OHARU
When I mentioned the wound
on his back, he said,
"You can't understand women
until you've been stabbed by one."
His words sounded pretentious,
but they took my breath away.
Without having had
that experience,
he could never have expressed,
through Oharu's life,
the struggle
between men and women.
It came from that experience.
He'd eat or drink anything
if someone said it was good,
so he often got diarrhoea.
On location you could see
by his walk that he needed to go.
"Sensei, do you need to...?"
I asked one day.
"Yes, come here," he replied.
"See that house?
It's the Okuda residence.
Go and ask
if I may use their bathroom."
So I went and told them
I was Mizoguchi's assistant.
"Mizoguchi who?" they said.
But they let him use it anyway.
He sheepishly entered the house.
Later he asked me to thank them.
He was very shy and timid
in private life,
but once he was on the set,
he insisted on having his own way,
despite all opposition.
He could be merciless that way.
There's a scene where Oharu runs off
with a clerk, played by Ko Oizumi.
It takes place in Kuwana,
but we couldn't get the right seaside feel
in the location
where we were shooting,
so we decided to build a set.
There's a rice-cake dealer on the road
between Osaka and Kyoto.
Next to that is
a road 40 feet wide...
and beyond that
a long embankment,
and beyond that a tributary
of the Yodo River, although it was dry.
The sail of a ship
is supposed to appear
in that scene
to add to the atmosphere.
In the foreground we built a set.
The problem was
the area had a lot of traffic.
Yet Mizoguchi still insisted
on shooting there.
So now there were
two location sets.
The Osaka police
only consented on the condition
that it be built at night
and taken down the next morning,
by 9:00 or 10:00 at the latest.
It was February.
Imagine working all night in that cold!
Sixty or 70 carpenters
built the set that night.
We were shooting the scene
in which Oharu and the clerk
are captured as they're eating
in a teahouse.
It should have been very simple.
After rehearsing it several times,
Mizoguchi called me over.
"This won't do.
The set's not properly aligned.
Move the left side
six feet forward."
I said, "Sensei,
that's impossible at this point.
But Mizutani agreed with him.
We went back to the police
for permission for a second day.
Once we calmed the carpenters down,
they rebuilt the set as requested.
We got up at 5:00,
thinking we'd begin at 7:00.
We started setting up lighting.
As we were about to start shooting,
he called me over.
"You know what?
It doesn't look right."
He said to move
the right side back six feet,
because it didn't have
the right dramatic atmosphere.
In those cases, he'd call over
his closest collaborators -
Mizutani, Arai and me -
and the discussion would begin,
right in front of the actors.
We didn't have
these arguments in private.
It was like a performance,
right in front of everybody.
But now I understand:
He was being like the manager
of a baseball team.
The quarrels created
a creative tension.
He never left us alone.
TADAOTO KAINOSHO - PAINTER
I'd go home for the day,
and then I'd get
a call from him saying...
"Please come right away.
I'll send a car."
"No need. I'm on my way," I'd say.
This happened all the time.
You were a dresser
for the actresses, right?
Yes, I dressed most
of the actresses in his films.
The costumes were made
according to my designs.
I think it changed the way
women wore kimonos in films.
UGETSU (1953)
Mizoguchi had absolutely no intention
of making an antiwar film.
But somehow that theme
became the dominant one.
- How war victimizes women.
- Right.
He originally wanted
to depict the peculiar flavour...
of Akinari Ueda's
Tales of Moonlight and Rain,
that purity and translucence.
The finest silk of choicest hue
May change and fade away
No!
You may not return.
Come with me to my native land.
Quickly.
You played
the enchantress in Ugetsu.
He gave me a small part in 1944
MACHIKO KYO - ACTRESS
in The Three Danjuros.
I was still part
of an operetta troupe then.
When I worked on Ugetsu
much later,
it was only
our second collaboration.
I didn't consider it such a strain.
He wasn't intimidating.
He just expected your very best.
You often worked with Masayuki Mori?
- Quite often, yes.
- You made a good pair?
I can't really say,
but when I saw the rushes,
I thought he was fantastic,
just as Tanaka and Mitsuko Mito were.
I found my own performance
childish in comparison.
There's a scene
where Mori returns home
after my character has died.
I'm a ghost in that scene,
yet the meeting with my husband
had to seem real.
Goodness, was that difficult!
Mori was a great actor.
I was filled
with both fear and anticipation
for many days leading up
to shooting that scene.
That day we rehearsed
a number of times
and then finally began shooting.
The second we finished -
I should point out first
that Mori seldom smoked.
When you worked with Mizoguchi,
you had to keep up
a certain tension
and maintain
the continuity of your character,
so nobody really had time to smoke.
But the second
we finished shooting that scene,
Mori started asking around
for a cigarette.
Somebody gave him one.
Realizing it was over,
I felt faint with exhaustion.
I stood in a daze for a while and then
realized Mori didn't have a match.
He seemed to be searching for one.
Mizoguchi suddenly appeared,
holding out his lighter, already lit.
In over 10 years of working together,
I'd never seen him light
an actor's cigarette,
especially if filming for the scene
might not yet be over.
It simply never happened.
And he hated smoking on the set.
The look on Mizoguchi's face
as he lit Mori's cigarette
was one of supreme contentment.
I'd never seen him look that way before.
Perhaps I exaggerate,
but it was the first time I saw him
practically bow down before an actor.
I'm not sure how to put it.
KAZUO MIYAGAWA - CAMERAMAN
It seemed as if his edginess
and intractability
had somehow been
softened by age.
I feel I met him at a time
when he was profoundly gentle.
For him a film was like
a picture scroll,
with successive images
moving steadily forward,
never turning back.
You follow the story
all the way to end.
Some parts are intense and exciting,
some are touching,
and there are parts
you should just skim through.
He said, "I want my films
to be like picture scrolls."
All are asleep
Slumped over the rudder
EITARO OZAWA - MASAYUKI MORI
The fog is thick. Be careful.
Genichi, this is the lake.
Isn't it pretty?
We're finally out of danger.
It's good we went by boat.
The assistant directors,
including Tokuzo Tanaka,
were stripped down, hiding behind
the boat in the chilly water,
pushing it along.
Boy, did they work hard.
- The camera was on a crane?
- Yes, for the whole scene.
He wanted a subdued effect
with very little contrast,
like in the southern school
of Chinese painting,
with the delicate greys
of diluted ink.
It was difficult,
and we didn't entirely achieve it.
When we printed the negative,
it came out flat.
We couldn't get a deep, warm Gray.
The negative had to be overdeveloped
by one or two points.
I'm talking about monochrome film,
of course.
I knew this from experience.
The shooting had to be in low light
and as close as possible to sunset.
His system was to let us
rehearse by ourselves.
"Study your roles!" he'd say,
and then he'd run off somewhere.
So Mori, Tanaka, and I rehearsed.
EITARO OZAWA - ACTOR
Miyagawa, the cameraman,
also rehearsed with us.
But camera angles weren't set
before the shoot,
so we had to be ready
for anything during shooting.
Some actors can't achieve
the required rhythm
for that kind of filmmaking,
no matter how talented
they may otherwise be.
Either they have it or they don't.
If they do, they can do it right away.
It isn't a question of talent,
but rather of different actors'
peculiarities.
Harmonizing the actors'
various rhythms is the director's task.
I would say
Mizoguchi's signature films are
The Life of Oharu,
A Woman of Osaka,
and Osaka Elegy.
Those are the three I would cite.
Films such as
A Story from Chikamatsu and Ugetsu
are just somehow too refined,
it seems to me.
A GEISHA (1953)
I'd only been an actress
for two or three months.
AYAKO WAKAO - ACTRESS
People told me I was lucky to play
a lead in a Mizoguchi film.
Fortunately, I knew so little then
that the immensity of that fact
didn't scare me.
I guess he wasn't
too demanding with me
CHIEKO NANIWA
because he knew
I was so inexperienced.
Wakao's performance was great.
Chieko Naniwa was also in the cast.
They were always together.
It seems Mizoguchi worked best
when exerting himself
at 70-80% of his capacity,
the way a pitcher throws best
when he's not tense.
I think that's the case here.
It's a wonderful film.
I still remember every take.
SANSHO THE BAILIFF (1954)
I was his drinking buddy.
Well, there was more
to it than that.
We liked to talk about writers
like Akinari Ueda
and Ogai Mori.
I'd invite my friend
and mentor Yoshii,
and the three of us would have lively
conversations over food and drink.
Mizoguchi seemed
to think highly of you,
depending on you
for a lot of things.
Actually, I think
he felt ill at ease around me.
My interest was period dramas while
his was more contemporary stories,
so there was a mismatch.
Was the idea for
Sansho the Bailiff yours?
Yes, in truth. He didn't know
much about Ogai Mori.
THE CRUCIFIED WOMAN (1954)
A STORY FROM CHIKAMATSU (1954)
Please!
Please return home!
Do you think
I could live without you?
You're no longer a servant.
You're my husband!
Forgive me!
I'll never leave you!
You come across
KYOKO KAGAWA - ACTRESS
as very innocent and pure
in that role.
It was the first time in my life -
in my career, that is -
that I played a married woman,
and the first time I had to perform
in Kyoto dialect.
I'd also never walked
in a kimono with a train.
It was all new to me.
He put me in the care
of the actress Chieko Naniwa,
who sadly is no longer with us.
She'd just finished building her new inn,
but it hadn't opened yet.
I begged her to teach me everything.
I moved into her inn and taped her
reading my lines in Kyoto dialect.
I borrowed the costume
and learned how to carry the train.
Naniwa taught me everything tirelessly.
As you know,
Mizoguchi didn't give any advice.
He'd just say, "Okay, start moving."
I had no idea what to do.
I felt quite helpless.
I just did as he told me,
like a puppet.
Never in my life have I worked so hard
or with such complete
absorption in my work.
KAZUO HASEGAWA
Osan, are you ready?
It's because of me...
that you must now take your life.
Please forgive me.
What are you saying?
I'm happy to die with you.
Death is near...
so the gods will forgive
what I have to say.
I must confess this
lest my spirit cling to this world.
I have -
I have always...
loved you!
Loved me?
Hold me tight.
KATATA ON LAKE BIWA
KENICHI OKAMOTO
That scene in which they drown
was extremely difficult.
We had to set up scaffolding
for the camera in the water
and shoot it in one take.
One long take.
Around sunset, right?
How much lighting did you use?
I think about
50 kilowatts altogether.
Mizoguchi entrusted the images
to the cameramen and lighting crew.
That's right.
He never said
anything about lighting.
He didn't?
So the cameraman, Miyagawa, and I
thought it through ourselves.
In A Story from Chikamatsu
YOSHIKAZU HAYASHI -
UKIYO-E SPECIALIShe based the love scenes
on shunga erotic prints, right?
Did he borrow the prints from you?
No, it wasn't a matter
of borrowing or lending.
I don't recall when we started
discussing such matters...
but he didn't have research material
on the erotic life of that period.
He wanted historical authenticity,
so he asked me to gather
prints for him to study.
This was mainly for
Legend of the Taira Clan
and A Story from Chikamatsu.
Mainly for those two films.
When I came across the 15th century
Brushwood Fence erotic scroll,
as well as erotic picture books
from the late 17th century,
I took them all to him.
It seems he took inspiration
from that material
for the boat scene in Chikamatsu.
Yes, and also -
The scene in the mountains?
The scene where she enters
his bedroom by mistake.
THE PRINCESS YANG KWEI-FEI
(1955)
When we arrived on the set,
he'd have our lines
all written out on a blackboard.
He'd stand there
studying the lines he'd written,
saying, "This line is no good,"
or "The feeling isn't right here."
Then he'd revise them.
"Miss Kyo, you'll ruin the scene
reading your line like that!"
He said things like that to me,
his face turning beet-red.
I was paralysed.
I couldn't make the slightest gesture
without thinking about it.
He was like that every day,
take after take.
I was a nervous wreck.
I swore I'd never work with him again!
Shooting the last scene of
The Woman in the Rumor,
he saw a water barrel
out of position.
He climbed off the camera crane
to push it out of the way
and threw out his back.
- He strained it?
- That's right.
It may have been a slipped disk.
He had to wear a body cast
for quite some time.
After shooting Yang Kwei-Fei,
he went to the U.S.,
and he was wearing a cast then too.
When the cast came off,
he felt better.
Did he have a nurse?
Well, she was more
of a housekeeper
than a nurse,
since he lived alone.
He rented the guest house
of an eel restaurant
near Daiei's Tokyo studios
in Tamagawa.
The restaurant made all his meals.
He'd just had his cast removed
and was still quite weak,
so the owner of the restaurant
found the housekeeper for him.
She was a plump woman of around 30.
Was he intimate with her?
I believe so.
So many rehearsals must
have made your life difficult.
Yes. I once stumbled
during an actual take...
yet he kept the camera rolling
and said it was okay.
During the take I realized
I'd stumbled a bit
while climbing the stairs.
But he said the take was fine,
which I thought was very strange.
It later came to light that he
no longer wanted me in the role.
I didn't want to be a burden,
so I took the initiative
and asked to be dismissed.
I was working
on another film at the time,
but I went to Mizoguchi to protest.
Sacking an actress is
a death blow to her career.
"How can you be so heartless?"
I asked him. I was so angry.
He didn't mean any harm, I'm sure.
Perhaps not.
You two were close, so perhaps -
I suppose so.
There may have been
mitigating circumstances.
I'd never heard of such a thing.
I told him,
"An actress's life is at stake.
What will happen to her?"
He replied...
"I have another part for her:
the empress's sister.
The problem is that Nagata -"
the studio head -
"before leaving
on a business trip to America,
said that shooting
had to start by the 28th.
We have to start by the 28th."
I thought things
would go more smoothly
if I just asked to be let go myself.
She was the second actress
he replaced on Yang Kwei-Fei.
She was crying
in the middle of an enormous set.
His sets were always huge,
and she sat there all alone.
I went to her and said...
"Looking at it objectively, Miss Irie,
you used to be his boss,
back when he worked
at Irie Productions.
You hired him as a director.
He was essentially your employee.
Why don't you go
have a word with him?
By crying like this,
you've already given up.
Buck up your spirit
and go talk to him."
Mizoguchi had told her,
right in front of all of us...
"Miss Irie, you're acting like a cat.
That's not what I call acting."
You see, she'd been in Kyoto
playing a ghost cat
in a series of horror films for Daiei.
Yang Kwei-Fei came after that.
He worked very much
in the realist mould.
He could only depict the world
YASUZO MASUMURA - DIRECTOR
and people and society he knew.
Anything else left him baffled.
He was especially at sea
with Yang Kwei-Fei...
and The 47 Ronin.
Of the two, he understood the Edo-period
samurai of Ronin a bit better.
Yang Kwei-Fei is about upper-class
society in Tang-dynasty China.
He knew nothing of that time or milieu,
so that gave him the most trouble.
He didn't even know
where to begin.
But as a "great master," he couldn't
make his bewilderment visible,
so he hid it by rebuilding the set
and firing the lead actress.
Meanwhile, he searched frantically
for some point of entry
through which he could
connect with the story.
As his assistant,
I can state that he did no work
for the first two weeks.
Faced with a story that didn't suit him,
he was candid about being at a loss
and made no bones
about acting out his frustration.
That was very much like him.
Originally it was
the story of a noblewoman
who becomes empress.
Mizoguchi turned her
into a very lowly commoner
who encounters Emperor Xuan Zong
in the middle of the town.
This change allowed him
to refashion the story
to reflect the lives of
the Edo- and Meiji-period commoners
with whom he felt
such a deep connection.
But this felt forced,
like something tacked on.
Unrelated to the real heart
of the story.
The screenplay just didn't work.
The way he floundered
was truly monumental.
I think Irie was a minor victim
compared with the designers
and so on who had to deal with him.
Her suffering was relatively mild.
Did his violent nature
somehow help him?
His violence was that of a child.
He wasn't embarrassed throwing
these tantrums in front of people.
He pushed for what he wanted
without hesitation.
But that honesty and directness
is the mark of an artist.
He was incapable of lying.
Which is probably why people put up
with his petty grumbling.
People quickly understood how he was.
Everyone loved him...
which I suppose is one of the perks
of being a great director.
- Was he an artist?
- Yes, I think so.
When he was sure
about what he was doing,
he never complained,
not even about props and things.
Shooting went very smoothly.
But if he didn't have
a sure grip on the material,
he'd throw fits and cause pandemonium.
On location for
Legend of the Taira Clan,
he was completely distracted.
Rather than directing the actors,
he obsessed over onlookers
far in the distance.
"Somebody's peeking through that wall!"
he shouted, then ran over 200 yards
to give the onlooker a good scolding.
And he was in his 50s then!
That shows to what extent
his heart was elsewhere.
LEGEND OF THE TAIRA CLAN (1955)
STREET OF SHAME (1956)
I had just started out as an actress.
I knew nothing about acting, really,
and those characters' lives
were a complete mystery to me.
Mizoguchi kept grinding me down
until I almost
couldn't see the point of living.
He really pushed me to the edge.
Any performance
I managed to muster
was purely the result of chance.
They had to stop shooting
because of me.
The worst part
was keeping these actors,
all of them older and more experienced,
from doing their jobs.
He said my acting was so poor
that I couldn't even get
my face to look right.
Even my face was wrong!
He liked to have
a few cups of sake after work.
One day as we were eating,
he said...
"I don't like the taste
of sake anymore."
I think he was already ill
by that point.
Too much drink
would send him into a frenzy.
When he drank,
he lost all sense of discrimination.
I think that's why it happened.
When it came to his love life...
he was most interested in women
who'd lived very hard lives,
at the bottom of society.
Those were the women
he was involved with,
the kind that appealed to him most.
I think so.
He invited me to dinner.
The four of us
had dinner together.
His mistress said
a lot of things
that offended Mizoguchi's wife.
Little remarks
dropped here and there.
Mrs. Mizoguchi's behaviour
made her feelings obvious.
It was clear she was upset,
and the atmosphere
became very tense.
That's understandable.
But he just kept quiet
and drank his sake.
- Mizoguchi?
- Yes.
He wasn't obtuse.
- Of course not.
- He felt what was happening.
Do you think
he created these situations
to spur himself on creatively?
On an unconscious level, yes.
He was remarkable in that way.
- Everything he did -
- Contributed to his work.
Whether painful or pleasant,
every experience
enriched his filmmaking.
VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 1953
I travelled to France
for the first time with him
for about a month.
We went to the Louvre.
He stopped before the Mona Lisa
and began to cry in front of me,
Yoda, and the rest of the group.
They were tears of joy.
He was deeply moved
to see it with his own eyes.
Then there was also -
oh, I'm such a scatterbrain -
Van Gogh!
"Yoda, Tanaka," he blurted out,
"learn well from his example.
Van Gogh drove himself insane
in the service of art.
To become a real artist,
one must go that far.
Compared to him...
I'm nothing."
Mizoguchi hung up a scroll of the saint
Nichiren and chanted prayers.
He really wanted that Golden Lion.
We were to go out,
but he was still in his room.
I went and knocked on his door.
There was no response.
I peeked inside.
I smelled incense in the air.
"Sensei, it's time to go.
Everyone's waiting downstairs.
I came up to get you."
He glared at me.
The look on his face was terrifying.
"Do you know what day this is?"
he growled.
"You all can prance about
without a care in the world."
He started spitting out
insults and curses.
I was stunned.
"If I don't win a prize," he said,
"I'm not going back to Japan.
I'm going to stay in Italy
and relearn my craft from scratch.
I won't go back
until I've done that."
Although he made
many films about women,
they say he never had
a really great love affair.
That's one of those things
I really don't know
the truth about,
even to this day. Do you?
I believe -
and I was rather close to him
when he was alive, after all -
that he was in love with you.
You've just given me
an excellent opportunity
to respond to those rumours.
He was very serious about it.
Earlier you mentioned how,
during the filming
of A Woman of Osaka,
he said "Nice to meet you"
at the beginning of filming,
and "Thank you" at the end,
with almost nothing in between.
He was very bashful,
very self-conscious.
Although he may
never have confessed his feelings,
you were the great love
of his life.
There you exaggerate.
Everybody made too much of it.
No, I'm not joking.
In the course of working with you,
I believe he really came
to admire you.
You went to see him
in the hospital
just before he died, right?
Of course.
You must have known then
how much he adored you.
This is a good chance for me
to tell the world
that we were, in a sense,
married on-screen.
That's a kind of marriage
in its own way.
When I said I knew nothing
about his private life,
you probably thought
I was just being coy.
But I really knew
very little about him.
If he really had those feelings,
they were not for me,
Kinuyo Tanaka,
but for the characters
Oharu and Ochika.
That's what I think.
He wasn't in love with Kinuyo Tanaka.
I played roles that embodied
a certain image of women,
an image that he loved.
He was in love with them.
I'm very clear about that.
While shooting
The Life of Oharu,
Mizoguchi was terribly lonely.
He'd even ask me
to dine with him,
despite the fact
he didn't like to treat people.
He rarely invited people
out to eat.
But he treated me
to dinner this one time,
and as we ate,
he jokingly said...
"I'm in love with Tanaka.
What should I do?"
- That was the sake speaking.
- No, he wasn't drinking.
He told Ozu the same thing.
He told a lot of people.
Whenever we met...
Ozu loved to mention it.
"Oh, dear! Not again,"
I'd think.
There was a reporter
who believed the story,
Kinichi Tanimura
of the Yomiuri Shinbun.
He called me up,
asking for an immediate interview.
When I asked why, he said...
"I heard the news
that you and Mizoguchi
are engaged to be married
and have set a date
to exchange betrothal gifts."
I was astonished.
I was still young then.
At the time, I was the great hope
of Mizoguchi's troupe,
so of course
rumours were flying about us.
Yet again, the real situation
had been misunderstood.
The reporter came to my house.
"When's the big day?" he asked.
"Not so fast," I said.
I turned very serious.
I said the first thing
that popped into my head,
though the memory made me break
into a cold sweat later.
"I love the way he directs,
but he's not my ideal husband,"
I said.
The impertinence of youth!
- You had your reasons.
I can't believe I said that!
The reporter then called Kyoto
and repeated to Mizoguchi
what I'd said.
"How do you feel
about your impending wedding,
knowing that Tanaka feels this way?"
he asked Mizoguchi.
Mizoguchi replied,
"It seems she's rejected me."
Don't you think
that's how he felt?
My point is that
he was a gentleman about it.
A woman hurts a man.
The man in turn does nothing
to hurt the woman.
He could have said,
"I never proposed to her,"
which was, after all,
the honest truth.
He never even told me
he loved me.
He wasn't the kind
to say things like that.
I really wouldn't know.
After having responded like that,
I had no idea
how to ask his forgiveness
for quite some time.
Then, little by little -
You see, the problem was that,
let's suppose that I was
in love with him too -
Well, I guess it was
because of that time,
and I know it may
sound odd today,
because if you love someone,
why not be with him, right?
The thing is, I still had
some old-fashioned ideas
and some - for lack of a better word -
pretentious ideas about art.
I felt it wasn't right
for someone like me
to claim for myself alone...
a great director like him,
one of the most respected in Japan.
At the same time,
I felt that if we married -
- Your artistic collaboration would suffer.
- Exactly.
Another huge concern
was that I didn't think
I was capable of being the wife
of such a difficult man.
He probably wouldn't have made
such a good husband.
To be perfectly honest...
he wasn't much fun to be around.
With him it was art all the time.
That was enough for him.
He lacked humour,
to tell you the truth.
Frankly speaking,
his lifestyle held no interest for me.
He only thought about work.
- Yes, he was absorbed in it.
It's like in movies from the West,
where the husband's always working
and the wife takes a lover.
That's the kind of husband
he would have made, I think.
But you said that,
in the course of working with him,
you did come to feel
something like love.
I kept my feelings separate.
But I'll tell you this much:
I'd have done anything -
short of going mad
like van Gogh, that is -
to help Mizoguchi gain
a worldwide reputation.
How badly I wanted that.
There were
some unbearable times for me
during those 17 years
of working together.
But because of his charm,
I was willing to give up my family,
both during the war and after,
without hesitation, to work with him.
I was even willing to give up my life.
Nobody loved their work more than I did.
Of course I also coveted fame.
What actress doesn't?
But I hoped above all
that he'd become one
of the great directors in world cinema.
One thing I really want
to say here is this:
If a man as great as Kenji Mizoguchi
really and truly wanted
to make me his wife,
seeing me as the woman I truly was,
and not only as an actress,
then that alone makes me
as respectable as a married woman,
even if I never married.
Don't you think so?
He really loved Miss Tanaka.
Once, for a PR shot
of the star and director,
the photographer asked him to look
at Kinuyo, but he couldn't do it.
After some prodding, he finally flicked
his eyes toward her then looked away,
blushing scarlet.
That was a tough photo to take.
The hell of shooting hadn't yet begun.
Once filming began,
there was no more blushing!
I personally think he loved her,
but I don't know
how Tanaka felt about that.
She made many great films,
but she must have realized
that Mizoguchi loved her.
Although he didn't express
what he felt, he loved her.
But he set those feelings aside
as he depicted her
playing women of his dreams.
He said things to her on a shoot
no husband would say to his wife.
SCREENPLAY FOR
AN OSAKA STORY
I wish he could have made
this last film.
I think it would have been
his greatest of all.
He had an incredible film
brewing in his mind
right before he died.
It's such a shame.
He seemed to be in unbearable pain
as death closed in.
IN MAY 1956, HE COLLAPSES AND
ENTERS THE HOSPITAL IN KYOTO.
He had a number
of creative peaks.
I worked with him
during his final peak,
after which
he departed this world.
But that period left
a really strong impression on me.
I'm very happy
to have had the honour
of appearing in some
of Mizoguchi's finest films.
It's a pity that he died...
at a time when he was planning
to make some drastic changes
in his way of life.
He wanted to set things right.
- Not just in his films.
- Yes.
I can't say too much...
since he still has living family.
Let's just say that...
the last years of his life
were not peaceful.
He himself told me
how unhappy he was.
He wanted to make
a completely fresh start...
to reform his life.
His illness made that impossible,
but if he'd lived another two or three
years, he may have succeeded.
He could discuss traditional arts
or learned subjects,
but he never kowtowed
to learned scholars
or knowledgeable experts.
He'd bow down only
when something touched
his longing for purity.
He longed like a young boy
for the pure and the genuine.
That's why he could never lie
or cheat in making his films.
I went to see him in the hospital.
He was very picky about flowers.
Every single flower
had to be carefully selected.
It was the time of the Bon festival,
so florists were very busy.
I went to see him at noon
during the midday visiting hours.
I sat at his bedside.
He seemed very pleased.
We didn't speak.
It was like a silent film.
I couldn't find the words,
and neither could he.
I then asked him point-blank
what was ailing him.
He replied, "They don't know yet.
They're studying test results.
It's such a nuisance.
I want to get back to work soon."
He had red needle marks
on his arms.
I remember him saying,
"There's no place left for another shot."
It was painful going to see him,
so I'd have a drink first.
One day he noticed and said...
"You're certainly in a good mood."
I'm sure it must
have seemed odd to him.
I wonder if he realized
the end was near
when he blurted out...
"This is sheer hell."
That was the first time I ever heard him
say something like that.
As if he knew it was all over.
Then he sat up in bed,
I guess because
I'd spent the preceding day
searching for something
he'd mentioned the day before,
but I hadn't been very successful.
Nonetheless, he wanted
to thank me for that.
He sat up in bed and said...
"Thank you for everything."
I turned away
to hide my tears.
It was heart-wrenching.
Three days later, he died.
I was ill in bed
and couldn't leave the house.
They called to say
he was a little better.
My fever lifted,
so I went to see him.
That evening he died.
The others had gone home,
thinking he was better.
I was only there for his last moments
because I'd been too sick to go earlier.
What did he say?
Almost nothing.
He suffered terribly.
I took his hand.
"It's me, Narusawa," I said.
He looked into my eyes,
as if trying to tell me something,
but he just kept staring at my face.
That was his final moment.
What did he want to say?
MOTOHISA ANDO
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
He started writing in the hospital.
Those last writings became,
in effect, his last will and testament.
He wrote down his impressions.
He described the last scene in
An Osaka Story.
He'd received Yoda's book
of poems entitled Roma
and wrote down
his impressions of that.
He also wrote how much
he wanted to work
with all of us again.
As he was writing those words...
he got choked up
and burst out sobbing.
Tears were streaming
down his face.
- Before he wrote that?
- As he was writing it.
AUTUMN'S CHILL
IS ALREADY HERE.
I WISH TO WORK
WITH YOU AGAIN.
"I couldn't have written
those words.
They're all lies.
Those aren't the true feelings
of a dying man."
That's what I think Mizoguchi
would have said about those words.
MIZOGUCHI'S LAST RESIDENCE
11-1 BABA-CHO, UTANO,
UKYO-KU, KYOTO
IT IS NOW A GAS STATION.
THE END