WHO is he?
Prolific Japanese scriptwriter and director who made close to a hundred feature films in a career that spanned 34 years. Though Mizoguchi’s international recognition arrived relatively late, he is now unanimously considered a giant of Japanese cinema, alongside the more renowned Yasujoro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa. The latter was a great admirer of Mizoguchi and called him one of the “very few directors who can see the past clearly and realistically.”
WHAT are his films about?
Themes
Mizoguchi is generally considered to be the maker of “women’s pictures” and a number of his films deal with women protagonists being swept away by fate in a cruel, hostile world. As a child, he witnessed his sister being sold away as a geisha and the effect of this traumatic incident on him can be seen in all his films. The geishas in his films are treated with dignity and sympathy and they often achieve a grace unavailable to other characters of the film.
Style
The films of Mizoguchi could be classified primarily as melodramas and, like the best melodramatists, he uses an “aesthetic of over-determination” in which the themes of the script are reinforced by the score, the staging, the acting and the cinematography. Mizoguchi is known for his camera movements. His eloquent, smooth tracking shots have the effect of gliding over an ancient scroll. Also remarkable is his use of interior architecture, such as the way he uses doors, windows and pillars as tight framing devices.
WHY is he of interest?
Critic Gilbert Adair once said: “[Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff ] is one of those films for whose sake the cinema exists.” Like Adair, many other filmmakers and writers consider Mizoguchi to be one of the supreme artists of cinema and have regularly likened his work to that of Shakespeare. Since his discovery, Mizoguchi’s finest films have become a staple in every major film canon.
WHERE to discover him?
Although his very last film, Street of Shame (1956) is perhaps the best starting point for someone out to explore Mizoguchi’s filmography. The film follows a group of prostitutes in a brothel in Yoshiwara district at a time when the government passes a law to ban prostitution. Mizoguchi’s extremely empathetic and moving film neither patronises nor judges and instead chooses to show us the women as they are, in all their nobleness and fallibility.
