Women in Glasses, Japanese Films from 1953-1954

In McDonald’s book on understanding Japanese film, he lays out this cinema’s defining characteristics: onnagata (female impersonators), benshi (commentators), and center-front long shots following strict continuity (2). Much like other national cinemas, female actors were not equally represented at the inception of film. For Japan, this seems to be more out of cultural norms for performative theater rather than discriminatory intentions. The onnagata continued kabuki tradition from the early Edo period when, in 1629, the Tukugawa shogunate banned women from any kind of theatrical performance (McDonald 2). It was not until 1868 (the time of Meiji restoration) that Japan was brought into the modern world with regard to the treatment of females (McDonald 2). Then, the shingeki (New Theater) movement in 1916 called for technical innovation and more realist acting (McDonald 3). This meant that females were now expected to play the parts of women. The first time actual female actors were used on-screen was in 1920 for the film, Island Woman (McDonald 3).

Throughout the US occupation of Japan (1945-1951), many Japanese films dealt with women’s new roles in society and their need to become more assertive in order to rebuild Tokyo and the nation as a whole (McDonald 7). The first female director was Kinuyo Tanaka who made six films from 1953-1962 (McDonald 244). Shindo’s films in the late 1960s and 70s had a theme of women using their sexual prowess to challenge Japan’s feudal structure, like The Villain (1965) (McDonald 109). In his films, Shindo tapped into the dramatic potential of female sexual frustration. In the 1980s, Higashi portrayed women as victims in Japanese society (The Rape, 1982) (McDonald 233). By the 1980s, films like Ryoko’s A Taxing Woman (1987) showed Japanese women’s double burden of “proof”: upstanding character and worthiness in the job market with predominantly men (McDonald 167).

Post-occupation, Japanese films began to seriously question women’s place in society.Though Mizoguchi portrayed women’s lives in his films, they had less to do with redefining women’s roles and more to do with the struggles of womanhood in Japan. He depicted women as geishas and courtesans who were forced to earn money using their youth and beauty (McDonald 170). Mizoguchi showed women in trouble, and they were his most prominent and passionate subject (McDonald 17). In his films, Mizoguchi showed women’s age old struggle between conformity (giri) and rebellion (ninjo) (McDonald 17).

In Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi, 1954), Anju and her brother Zushio are sold into slavery and separated from their mother. While Zushio becomes a cold-hearted young adult man who brands a fellow slave, Anju shows compassion. She takes care of an older, sickly woman and exhibits a certain degree of concerning her brother’s actions. Anju wants to escpae, believing their mother is still alive. When a young girl comes to the Bailiff’s grounds, Anju hears her singing a song of longing. Anju soon recognizes that this song was written by her mother and pleads with the girl for information of her mother’s whereabouts. She relays this to Zushio, and the two begin seriously considering running away, though the punishment if caught is torture. When the time is right, Zushio begs Anju to run with him, but she is more concerned for her brother and dying friend than herself. This selflessness is above and beyond human compassion, and Anju is painted by Mizoguchi as a saint-like character in the midst of her suffering.

When Anju decides to take her own life, she is filmed in a near reverent manner, with the camera showing her full, upright and calm body, rather than her facial expressions. She is seen placing her hands together in what is most likely a prayer. Unlike the young peasant girl in Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954) who is seen by her father as simply a vessel for the men to take advantage of, the focus on Anju is never her young, slender body or inner turmoil. Rather, it is her steady strength, resolve, and self-sacrifice that take center stage.

In this time frame directly following the US occupation, Japanese main stream films were finally able to comment on the events of WWII and the effect firebombing/destruction had on the common people of Japan. From 1953-1954, considered the Golden Age of Japanese cinema, these issues were addressed in an artistic and allegorical fashion. Ozu, considered one of Japan’s greatest directors, often portrayed the Japanese family in their post-war reconciliation of traditional families values and reformed ideas of wives’ duties and motherhood.

In Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953), Noriko is the daughter-in-law of the Hirayamas. Her husband, who fought in the war, is at this point presumed dead. In Japanese culture, the wife of the son is adopted into his family, while leaving her own family ties behind. But since Noriko has no children, her link to the Hirayama family was severed with her husband’s death. In the film, Noriko, played by the beloved actress Setsuka Hara ( a favorite of Ozu), is also portrayed in a saintly manner. She is all smiles throughout the film, and seems more caring towards the parents than the Hirayama's biological children. Noriko takes in the mother and even gives her money. Even so, Noriko is portrayed as a modern woman through her dress and hair style. She also lives in Tokyo by herself and works in the city. She is self-supporting and misses her husband dearly.

This is certainly a departure from Ozu’s earlier film I Was Born, But… (1932) where the mother, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, never seems to leave the house and is always preparing meals or helping her husband dress. She has very little sway in disciplining her two young boys, and can only comment discreetly to her husband when she feels he has stepped out of line. She is shown in traditional clothing, and gets few point of view shots. From behind her glasses, it is hard to tell what she is feeling, as her acting is not as expressive as Noriko’s performance in Tokyo Story.

The war certainly changed the cultural landscape of Japan, and women were no exception. Gojira (Honda, 1954) is in part a commentary on the horrific devastation the Japanese people faced during and in the wake of the nuclear bombs that paralyzed their ability to continue fighting in WWII. The film's leading lady is the young Emiko Yamane who is in love with Ogata, despite a hinted at arrangement with Serizawa. Emiko is very tender. She dresses Ogata’s wound after a fight with Serizawa and attempts to be the peacemaker in arguments. Her actions are all out of love, not self gratification. Throughout the film, she plays a middle man of sorts between her father and Ogata. However, she remains in the background while the men make the final decisions. She knows her place, but tactfully uses her sway with the men in her life in order to share her views on what should be done about Gojira.

Emiko shows a wide range of emotions throughout the film, from love to heavy sadness. She cries over Serizawa’s decision to use the oxygen destroyer, and her acting posture mirrors Kabuki melodrama tradition. Noriko is portrayed as an intelligent, head strong woman who understands the gravity of the situation in Tokyo. She also wishes to marry Ogata for love, despite the intentions of her father and the cultural precedence of parent-arranged marriages, which were remnants of the feudal system in Japan.

As with Anju and Noriko, Emiko’s body is not sexualized. This respect for women is not seen in other national cinemas during this time like Hollywood films during 1953-1954, such as Gentleman Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe and Rear Window with Grace Kelly, which mostly reduced women to the place of ideal lover or homemaker. This tendency of male-driven became so apparent, it sparked the famous essay by Laura Mulvey in 1975, the thesis of which states that the gaze of the camera is male and objectifies women. While women are certainly not treated as equals of men intellectually and authoritatively in the Japanese films, the respect for women by the camera’s gaze and the plot’s understanding of their stuggles is apparent. Even with the love story that takes place in Gojira, these young women filmed in the 1950s showed a strength in the femininity of Japanese youth, which the country most certainly needed to see images of in their post-war society.

Works Cited

McDonald, Keiko I. Reading a Japanese Film: Cinema in Context. USA: University of Hawaii Press, 2006.