After watching Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (1939) I was struck by an odd but familiar thought. Thinking over the pictured I’d seen I wondered what seeing it on the big screen must have been like. Usually this thought occurs to me in the case of epics and adventure films like John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), but here it had formed with regard to a family drama characterized by shots and scenes contained to single rooms. But my interest here was not in camera movement. Rather my concern lay with the movement on the faces of Mizoguchi’s characters, and those idiosyncratic actions contained therein which are lost when content is streamed to the pixels of a digital device.
I didn’t love this film but I felt the power of its story throughout, and I feel that a better look at the characters might reveal deeper emotion. Some movies and some performances are meant to be looked up at, projected on thirty foot walls and marveled at from below. Be it Indian Jones’ cunning and skill with a whip or the quiet moments of intimacy in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), some moments can’t be experienced staring at a hand held device resting in one’s lap. The emotion that these moments and these characters were meant to convey can’t and shouldn’t be confined by the edges of an iphone. Seeing this picture streamed online felt like reading the outline of a Shakespeare play, so much so that I feel compelled to create a list of films of which to seek out theatrical screenings (Saving Private Ryan, 1998; the aforementioned The Searchers; Raging Bull, 1980). There are some films in which the audience is meant to be forced into spaces with their characters, at the mercy of their surroundings right along with them. There is a scene late in Chrysanthemums in which this is certainly true.
The adopted son (Shôtarô Hanayagi) of a famous Tokyo Kabuki actor longs to live up to his father’s great name by becoming a star performer himself. His determination is strong, but he lacks talent. He knows that his troop keeps him on and praises his performances only for his father’s sake. Still, he seems to have found a legitimate admirer in the wet nurse (Kôkichi Takada) of his adoptive brother. She encourages his work and before long he has fallen in love with her beauty and her faithful compassion. However, his parents forbid a marriage on the grounds of class difference and cast the woman out of their house. When he follows her, the two abscond and elope, determined to return once he has become a success.
For years they travel, succumbing to the poverty of performers and the weariness of the road. Her health begins to suffer and they fight over both things that matter and trivialities, but throughout their love remains evident. Slowly, his skills begin to develop and by chance he is awarded a coveted role. The performance proves to be a breakthrough and his troop is soon poised for a triumphant return to Tokyo. Having found success the actor is sure that his family will accept both he and his wife back into their lives. However, when he visits to announce his return they hold fast to their disapproval. Driven by his desire for appreciation the actor abandons his lover, and is welcomed home as a conquering hero. Then he hears that her health has taken a grave turn.
The scene in which he visits her at her parents’ home is heartbreaking. The tension is evident but contained. In a western film, her father would confront the actor and chastise him, but in Japan he is forced to bow to the now great Kabuki star. He kneels humbly, fanning the two as they talk. In a theatre this moment would hold even an aloof spectator prisoner to its depth. Through pixels it is engaging, but lacking. The actor comes with good news. His parents have recanted their feelings. They accept her as his wife. Near death, she is overjoyed. She encourages him to go to a parade for the troop being held in his honor. Reluctantly he leaves, planning to return as soon as the processional is over. Baring a misunderstanding of Japanese culture, The Story of the late Chrysanthemums isn’t difficult to follow. In fact, I was almost surprised by this simplicity coming from the director of Sansho the Bailiff (1954). Still, emotionally it is a film with tremendous depth. Mizoguchi drew heavily from his own experiences as a Kabuki, and it’s clear he understands the hardships of life as a traveling performer. I only wish that I could have seen this film as a larger than life projection. Perhaps only then could I have appreciated all that he put into it.
Language: Japanese
Runtime: 142 Minutes
Available @ Youtube.com (under the “ZM” title)
Grade: 2.5 Hats Off
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