Take One (Jul 1978)

character in Japanese language (‘‘Miyoe’’) as her mentor. Mizoguchi often pictures the two women in the same frame, alternately. emphasizing their initial differences and emerging similarities. One of the two will often appear in the foreground of the frame, while the other remains in the background, their emotional and psychological connections to one another reinforced by the director’s customary use of deep focus. For instance, Eiko is ‘‘arranged’’ by two male servants for her entrance into geisha life in the right middle ground of a shot, while in the left foreground, Miyoharu sits apparently preoccupied, an enigmatic smile the only indication of the conflicting emotions she is experiencing. The progression of such two-shots forms a recurring motif throughout the film, paralleling Eiko’s resistance to the inhibitions of the profession she has chosen, with the older woman’s growing disenchantment with a way of life that has sustained her adult yeats. A Geisha then is not so much about Eiko’s initiation into the rites of the geisha, as it is Miyoharu’s tragic realization that her life has been formed through continual subjugation to unexamined, unquestioned codes that have circumscribed her freedom and individuality. Eiko’s outward rebellion feeds Miyoharu’s inner doubts, a process of self-examination Mizoguchi beautifully evokes ina series of shots poising Miyoharu in an opening between the folds of a scrim-like curtain. When Eiko rushes off excitedly to a party a prospective benefactor Kasuda (Seizaburo Kawazu) is giving, Miyoharu is isolated in deep focus, seated between two gauze cloths as she finishes her meal in silent resignation. This exact visual placement recurs when Miyoharu, ostensibly vacationing in Tokyo with Eiko and her would-be patron Kasuda, learns from him the true purpose of the trip, namely, his seduction of Eiko while Miyoharu services an important client in an adjoining compattment. It is this deceit which simultaneously precipitates Eiko’s physical attack on Kasuda—filmed in one take, its savage thrust intensified by a stationary frame broken by a violent pan right as they fall to the floor out of camera range—and both women’s banishment from their profession in Kyoto. Throughout A Geisha Mizoguchi displays his genius in uniting his thematic concerns with the appropriate formal elements, repeating identical images in varying contexts until the entire film trembles with associations and reverberations. This is sublime filmmaking, the like of which may never be seen again in our lifetime. One need only compare the humorous expectations with which Miyoharu introduces her protégée in the streets of Kyoto near the film’s beginning, Mizoguchi’s camera gleefully tracking alongside them as they greet one and all, to the unsettling mixture of resignation and thwarted hope that accompanies their walk along those same streets in the closing shot of the film. FILM REVIEWS A corrosive indictment of a society that consigns its women to varying forms of degradation. Woman’s sacrifice to perpetuate a system of outmoded values in Japanese society is a major theme throughout Mizoguchi’s oeuvre, but some measure of his greatness lies in his understanding that men are similarly victims of oppression. The desperate lengths to which Kasuda goes to clinch a vital contract depict the corrupting link between business and sex, as well as the degradation to which human beings will subject themselves in order to survive. One of the most moving moments in the film occurs when a smitten suitor pours saké for Miyoharu, a stunning reversal of accepted ritual that momentarily shocks the geisha but also reveals her client’s genuine feeling for her. Within its 87-minute running time, A Geisha encompasses an awesome range and density of emotion. Kyoto’s narrow streets, resembling corridors more than thoroughfares, convey the physical and spiritual constraints exerted on the characters. Shots A new Screenplay Library title... F. Scott Fitzgerald's Screenplay for ‘Three Comrades”’ by Erich Maria Remarque Edited with an Afterword by MATTHEW J. BRUCCOLI Fitzgerald’s screenplay—his own, the one he tried to save from alteration by others— -shows that the writer, if not the man, had survived the famed “crack-up.” $10.00 cloth; $3.95 paper. ///us. Also available The Blue Dahlia A Screenplay by RAYMOND CHANDLER $10.00 cloth; $3.95 paper M SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS Carbondale, IL 62901 of incredible beauty linger in the memory, e.g., Eiko breathlessly running across a little bridge anticipating her first day of work, the early morning light sparkling playfully, expectantly on the water below. And there is the old servant woman who bears silent witness to Eiko and Miyoharu’s suffering, and who, by the film’s end, comes to represent the endurance of all women everywhere. When finally, Miyoharu realistically accepts that she must resume her geisha’s life in order to support herself and Eiko, her decision contains equal elements of tragedy and hope. As she prepares to give herself at last to the man whose satisfaction will reinstate both her and Eiko with their proprietress, Miyoharu joins Oharu, the potter’s wife in Ugetsu and the women of countless other Mizoguchi films in an ultimate act of self-sacrifice. Miyoharu’s unwinding of her obi thus becomes at once a submission to destiny and an assumption of grace—and yet another glimpse into the infinite from one of cinema’s supreme artists, Kenji Mizoguchi. George Morris George Morris is the author of Errol Flynn, Doris Day, avd John Garfield, three of the volumes in the \\lustrated History of the Movies series. His book on Hollywood melodrama of the 50s will be published late this year.