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back of the technique that has been followed in this country and, accordingly, the in¬ nermost artistic sense, are entirely at variance with those of Europe and America. This difference is clearly revealed everywhere in the general run of pictures produced in Japan. The lyrical and suggestive methods, for instance, to which I referred in the foregoing paragraphs, have risen from this difference. Hence the Japanese cinema cannot be said to come under the tradition of dramatic technique peculiar to the modern play of the West.
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But in saying this I am not contending, by implication, that the present acting technique of the Japanese cinema has sprung from the tradition of the Kabuki play. There is a group of film plays called “Magemono” or “ Jidai-geki” whose subject matter, like that of the Kabuki, is concerned wholly with the feudal era. But even this type of film, not to speak of Japanese cinemas as a whole, boasts a technique which is essentially at odds with that of the Kabuki. In contrast with the graphic nature of the Kabuki performance, the salient characteristic of the Japanese film play lies in the fact that it is developed entirely in accordance with the time method peculiar to the literary form of story-tell¬ ing. The present technique of the Japanese film actors represents, in a word, the perfec¬ tion of the lyrical type of realism in conformity with this characteristic. During the feudal era of this country, not merely the Kabuki, but such story-telling performances as the “Kodan” and the “ Rakugo ” which were opposed to it, reached a very advanced state of development. They are directly linked with the popular novels of today, not to men¬ tion the group known as “literature of the mass” which deals exclusively with subjects pertaining to the feudal era. Even the other group which concerns itself with con¬ temporary subjects attracts its readers by means of the old-fashioned story-telling art. The people who formerly patronized the “ Kodan ” and “Rakugo” show-houses, today read these popular novels and see Japanese movies. Accordingly, the Japanese cinema is no other than a means which provides visual images to the story-telling performances of the feudal age and the popular novels of today. A continuity of illustrations, as it were, that revolve on an axis consisting of a typical narrative tale — such is the essential nature of the Japanese cinema today.
Obviously the constructive method of the Japanese cinema which has pursued this narrative medium, is a somewhat different thing from the so-called “pure movie constructive sense”, such as is employed by American and European directors and which is considerably removed from the literary narrative method. Whether or not the dif¬ ference bewteen the two can be explained away with the simple statement that the American and European schools constitute an advanced step in the making of film plays, and that the Japanese school is a step behind the times, is a moot question indeed. The
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