And where better to start than the director/DP combination that for my money created the most consistently astonishing images in cinema: Shohei Imamura and Shinsaku Himeda. I mean, look at that fish on the banner! look at the composition, the lighting, through water even! Damn... and look at these shots:
That last shot reminds me - contemporary Japanese filmmakers still know their way around the image - compare it to this shor from Kiyoshi Kurosawa's (and Akiko Ashizawa's) Retribution:
There's plenty more where that came from...
I can do this for pretty much any Japanese films I can put my hands on - I may before I'm done. (I haven't been collecting screenshots off my (Akira) Kurosawas, my Mizoguchis, my Suzukis - I may be back here with some more of this...) Right now, I'll leave you all with a hint of the essay to come - shot from a filmmaker perhaps not noted for his stylistic extravagance, this shot - it's almost worthy of Yoshida, or Oshima - it's the man you can see going down the stairs in the window that makes the shot...
4 comments:
Yeah, more of this. More!
I totally agree with you - cinematography in Japanese films is one of the reasons why I started digging deeper. One of my own posts for the blog-a-thon is crammed with screenshots too, but they aren't with as much care as yours.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a particular fave of mine - "Retribution" didn't get a lot of attention, but I thought it was terrific. He seems to like using frames and borders within the frame to separate his characters. He does this a great deal in "Tokyo Sonata" - can't wait to see that again.
Looking forward to your Ozu piece - I'm woefully uneducated about his films.
Yes - almost every Japanese film of any value at all looks great - high art, pop films, everything - and not just looking great, but looking exciting - dynamic, surprising... wonderful stuff.
I wish I had some Oshima or Kiju Yoshida on hand - or Teshigahara - they all tend to push things, even by Japanese standards....
And Kiyoshi Kurosawa is fantastic - I have a copy of Doppelganger on hand - I may have to grab some shots off that... they're great looking films, and they use a variety of different patterns - Retribution has that pattern of putting light sources and openings in the back and side of the frame... Tokyo Sonata didn't do that, but like you say, creates a complicated system of frames and screens inside the image... I look forward to his films as much as I look forward to anyones...
You've reminded me to seek out Retribution since it's one of the few Kiyoshi Kurosawa films I haven't seen.
And I couldn't agree with you more when it comes to Japanese cinematography. I'm often amazed by the quality of images that directors and their photographers are able to capture.
I think it has a lot to do with the whole "cult" (I use that term loosely) of aesthetics in Japan. There's an artistic thoughtfulness that goes into so many aspects of Japanese culture from the food they prepare to the films they create that's just staggering.
I've been to Japan three times but the beauty of the people, the country and so many aspects of their way of life still amazes me.
Japanese culture is very aesthetic - and very visually aesthetic - it does seem that everything about it looks good... I'm not sure how these things work together, but I think there is a link between the type of art produces in Japan and the way its films look - I think Japanese art in general seems more 2 dimensional, and more focused on design, than European art - which carries over into theater, in the difference between the visual design of stage and costume, again emphasizing what the stage looks like as vision, and the tendency in wester theater to make the stage into a deeper, more "realistic" space... And that into film - so Japanese films tend to emphasize the screen as a design, as a composition... where great American or European cinematography tends to work by creating deep, emotionally charged, realistic spaces... rather than sheer images. That's my theory, I suppose...
Post a Comment