Paths Between the Spiritual and the Real
On the Intersection of Musical Style, Symmetry, and Cycle in Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v3i1.19Keywords:
<i>Ugetsu</I>, Mizoguchi, Hayasaka, original film scoreAbstract
As is well known, Kenji Mizoguchi’s postwar masterpiece Ugetsu sets forth a complex layering of realms—dream world, spiritual world, underworld, reality, even the world of the “film itself.” Each realm is distinct, yet with transparent boundaries such that characters can pass between them. Moreover, broad cyclical patterns and symmetries in the dramatic structure both support the complex layering and integrate the narrative threads of the four main protagonists. This article explores the role of music, specifically musical style, in the creation of the film’s various realms. The article argues that music style enacts a rich web of associations that contributes to the film’s constantly shifting perspectives, and helps to articulate the cycles and symmetries that encompass both individual scenes and the film itself.
References
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Pacun, David E. 2006. “Thus we cultivate our own world, and thus we share it with others”: Kósçak Yamada’s visit to the United States in 1918–1919. American Music 24, no. 1 (Spring): 67-94. doi:10.2307/25046004
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Smith, William E. Ugetsu Monogatari. Mimeographed note for Program no. 6 of New Japanese Film Series. Seattle: University of Washington, Continuing Education and Office of Lectures and Concerts (Autumn).
Stilwell, Robynn J. 2007. The fantastical gap between diegetic and nondiegetic. In Beyond the soundtrack: Representing music in cinema, ed. Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert. Berkeley: University of California Press, 184-204.
Stravinsky, Igor. 1970. Poetics of music in the form of six lessons, trans. Arthur Knodel and Ingolf Dahl. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wood, Michael. 1995. The magician’s doubts: Nabokov and the risks of fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wood, Robin. 1973. Mizoguchi: The ghost princess and the seaweed gatherer. Film Comment 9, no. 2 (March–April): 32-40.
Brophy, Philip. 2007. How sound floats on land: The suppression and release of folk and indigenous musics in the cinematic terrain. In Beyond the soundtrack: Representing music in cinema, ed. Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert. Berkeley: University of California Press, 143-47.
Burch, Noël. 1973. Theory of film practice, trans. Helen R. Lane. New York: Praeger Publishers.
———. 1979. To the distant observer: Form and meaning in the Japanese cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Burkholder, Peter. 1995. All made of tunes: Charles Ives and the uses of musical borrowing. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Davis, Darrell William. 1996. Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental style, national identity, Japanese film. New York: Columbia University Press.
Fukunaka, Fuyuko. 2008. A Japanese zero-hour? – Postwar music and the “re-making” of the past. In Music of Japan today, ed. E. Michael Richards and Kazuko Tanosaki. New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 55-65.
Galliano, Luciana. 2002. Yo?gaku, trans. Martin Hayes. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.
Gilson, Réné. 1959. Les Contes de la lune vague après la pluie. Cinéma 59, no. 36 (May): 98-100.
Harootunian, Harry. 2000. Overcome by modernity: History, culture, and community in interwar Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Herd, Judith Ann. 1989. The neonationalist movement: Origins of Japanese contemporary music. Perspectives of New Music 27, no. 2 (Summer): 118-63. doi:10.2307/833406
———. 2004. The cultural politics of Japan’s modern music: Nostalgia, nationalism, and identity in the interwar years. In Locating East Asia in Western art music, ed. Yayoi Uno Everett and Frederick Lau. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 40-56.
Kirihara, Donald. 1992. Patterns of time: Mizoguchi and the 1930s. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Kurosawa, Akira. 1983. Something like an autobiography, trans. Audie E. Bock. New York: Vintage Books.
Le Fanu, Mark. 2005. Mizoguchi and Japan. London: British Film Institute.
McDonald, Keiko I. 1984. Mizoguchi. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
———. 1993. Ugetsu. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press. (Includes McDonald, Ugetsu: Why is it a masterpiece).
Michimoto, Lindsay. 1973. Ugetsu Monogatari. Program note no. 4 of Masterpieces of Japanese cinema film series. Seattle: University of Washington, Continuing Education and Office of Lectures and Concerts, October 30.
Mizoguchi, Kenji. 1953. Ugetsu. Criterion Collection DVD. (Includes Two worlds intertwined: Masahiro Shinoda on Ugetsu, and Tony Rayns, audio commentary.)
———. 2005. Sansho Dayu (1954). Criterion Collection DVD.
Pacun, David E. 2006. “Thus we cultivate our own world, and thus we share it with others”: Kósçak Yamada’s visit to the United States in 1918–1919. American Music 24, no. 1 (Spring): 67-94. doi:10.2307/25046004
———. 2008. Style and politics in K?saku Yamada’s folksong arrangements, 1917–1950. In Music of Japan today, ed. E. Michael Richards and Kazuko Tanosaki. New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 39-54.
Richie, Donald. 1996. The films of Akira Kurosawa 3rd edn. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rosar, William H. 2002. Film music—What’s in a name? The Journal of Film Music 1: 1-18.
Sato, Tadao. 2008. Kenji Mizoguchi and the art of Japanese cinema, trans. Brij Tankha. Oxford: Berg.
Shindo, Kaneto. 2005. Kenji Mizoguchi: The life of a film director. DVD: The Criterion Collection.
Smith, William E. Ugetsu Monogatari. Mimeographed note for Program no. 6 of New Japanese Film Series. Seattle: University of Washington, Continuing Education and Office of Lectures and Concerts (Autumn).
Stilwell, Robynn J. 2007. The fantastical gap between diegetic and nondiegetic. In Beyond the soundtrack: Representing music in cinema, ed. Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert. Berkeley: University of California Press, 184-204.
Stravinsky, Igor. 1970. Poetics of music in the form of six lessons, trans. Arthur Knodel and Ingolf Dahl. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wood, Michael. 1995. The magician’s doubts: Nabokov and the risks of fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wood, Robin. 1973. Mizoguchi: The ghost princess and the seaweed gatherer. Film Comment 9, no. 2 (March–April): 32-40.
Published
2010-12-22
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Pacun, D. (2010). Paths Between the Spiritual and the Real: On the Intersection of Musical Style, Symmetry, and Cycle in Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953). Journal of Film Music, 3(1), 19-36. https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v3i1.19
