Blue Moon, You Saw Me Standing Alone

Blue Moon blogging,

from Rogers and Hart (1934)

to Elvis (1954)

to the Cowboy Junkies (1987),

essay 1 of 2

Let’s consider the song “Blue Moon” as a work in progress:

Version 1:  Rodgers and Hart in 1934

Eighty years ago, composer Richard Rodgers nailed the melody of “Blue Moon” first time out.  He tossed it off, genius-style.

Richard Rodgers, seated, and Lorenz Hart.
From Wikimedia Commons.

Lorenz Hart, a genius in a different vein, struggled with lyrics to fit the tune.  His first three efforts were clever but not magical.  The whole package didn’t click.  On his fourth try, Hart uncharacteristically delivered a nearly straight love song.  He couldn’t resist some shades of irony from entering—it was his natural default—but the new words described a formulaic situation (boy meets girl, love-at-first-sight) in an openly sentimental way.

This was the version of “Blue Moon” that became a beloved standard.  The song opens from the perspective of a lonely guy, with the initial emphasis falling on the “blue,” or sad, nature of the moon.  But blue moon riffs on the idea of a rare moment as well, and the classic once-in-a-lifetime moment occurs on the song’s bridge:

And then there suddenly appeared before me,

The only one my arms will ever hold

I heard somebody whisper, “Please adore me.”

And when I looked,

The moon had turned to gold.

The last verse revels in the new-found prospect of eternal love:

Blue moon,

Now I’m no longer alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own.

That’s about as happy-ever-after as things get in a song.

While this version of “Blue Moon” became hugely popular, I like to think that there has always been a disconnect between music and lyrics.  Rodgers’ original melody hinted at depths that Hart’s lyrics evaded.

Version 2: Elvis Presley in 1954

Memphis, Tennessee:  In the aftermath of their regionally popular recording of “That’s All Right,” a 19-year-old kid named Elvis Presley, producer Sam Phillips of Sun Records, and guitarist Scotty Moore were poking and prodding “Blue Moon,” trying to find an Elvis song in the old standby.  Elvis, Scotty, and bassist Bill Black played “Blue Moon” late into the night and quit unsatisfied.  The recordings went into storage.

Elvis in 1956.

A month later in August 1954, they tried again.  But Phillips remained unenthusiastic about the approach and declined to release the song.  When the major label RCA signed Elvis 18 months later, they took the Sun recordings, too.  Culled from the August 1954 session, “Blue Moon” was released in 1956 on Elvis’ first RCA album, the classic Elvis Presley. 

Elvis’ version never gets past the first half of the Rodgers and Hart song.  He sings the first two verses and then repeats them.  This means he never gets to the bridge or the third verse, where the lovers meet.  Without the love-at-first-sight climax, all that’s left is the yearning for love.  Happiness is replaced by melancholia.

And melancholia is Presley’s gift to the Rodgers and Hart song, with Elvis punctuating the melody with a falsetto wail that I think is heartbreaking but my daughter finds creepy.  In either case, it represents a radical reinterpretation that locates a sadness in the Rodgers tune that never found voice in Hart’s lyrics.

Version 3:  The Cowboy Junkies in 1987

In 1987, a Canadian indie rock band called the Cowboy Junkies refashioned the stripped-down Elvis version of “Blue Moon,” adding a framing story to explain the sorrow.  They called it “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)” and it can be found on their 1988 album The Trinity Sessions.

Margo Timmins, lead singer of the
Cowboy Junkies.

The Elvis “Blue Moon” was an odd hybrid of country and blues, taking things in a different direction than the rockabilly of the early Elvis hits.  This was an idiom that the Cowboy Junkies felt comfortable exploring.  From the outset, their music was low-key, thoughtful, and unabashedly pessimistic.  For their second album, they rented the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto for a day, gathered around a single microphone and played their music.

The implied loss in the Elvis version finally becomes explicit in “Blue Moon Revisited.”  Elvis’ eerie falsetto wailing becomes linked to the death of a lover:

You see I was afraid

To let my baby stray

I kept him too tightly by my side

And then one sad day he went away and he died.

Reference Sources

Rodgers and Hart by Samuel Marx and Jan Clayton
Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick

© 2014 Lee Price

Sansho the Bailiff: Compassion

Sansho-blogging, 
essay 6 of 6 on the film
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Calligraphy: Kannon;
Always, Pray to the
Bodhisattva Kannon,
Hakuin Ekaku
(Japan, 1685-1768),
hanging scroll.
From the collection of the
Los Angeles County
Museum of Art.

Sansho the Bailiff:  Introduction to this Essay Series

A profound meditation on compassion and mercy, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff (1954) builds its power through the ethical wisdom of its narrative and the beauty and power of its visual expression.  The images embody the message.

Cruelty and mercy evenly divide this world.  Although the societal conventions of 1954 may have somewhat restrained the graphic illustration of torture and cruelty, several scenes painfully suggest the story’s horrific content—the brandings and mutilations.  For this series of six essays on Sansho the Bailiff, I’m opting to concentrate on the answering scenes of compassion.

For each entry, there will be a two-pronged focus, first on the ethics of Sansho the Bailiff and second on visual analysis of targeted scenes.

The Ethics of Sansho the Bailiff:  Compassion

Sansho the Bailiff tells the story of the children Zushiô and Anju.  Thanks to the sacrifice of his sister Anju, Zushiô escapes the slave compound of Sanshô the Bailiff and is reunited with his mother Tamaki.  The movie opens with Zushiô and closes with him.  Therefore the movie might be more reasonably, and informatively, called:

Zushiô and Anju or Anju and Zushiô or

Zushiô the Governor or Citizen Zushiô or even

Zushiô Unchained.

Revisiting the book Figures Traced in Light by acclaimed film theorist David Bordwell, I was delighted to see that he addresses one of the most puzzling mysteries of Sansho the Bailiff, namely:

“Why is it (the movie) named after him (Sanshô)? I always ask my classes.  Isn’t it a bit like changing the title of Othello to Iago?  My own view is that for Mizoguchi the world we live in, unhappily for us, belongs to its bailiffs.”

This is my view, too.  Sanshô is mean, vicious, and sycophantic, but he’s not a rare breed.  His kind still walks among us.  I read a quote today from the poet Philip Larkin that reminded me of Sanshô:

“Most people, I’m convinced, don’t think about life at all. They grab what they think they want and the subsequent consequences keep them busy in an endless chain till they’re carried out feet first.”

Sansho with a
branding iron.

Sanshô is a first-rate grabber of things he wants.  In his world, greed is the primary mover.  When he presents a chest of valuables to a royal envoy, he assumes that wealth can buy happiness.  The envoy responds just as expected—he wants wealth and power, too.  This is the world according to Sanshô.  As Bordwell says, “the world we live in… belongs to its bailiffs.”

But remember that Sanshô lives within the same prison walls that enclose his slaves.  They’re all inside together.  Freedom is on the other side.  It’s not easy to cross over and is it even worth the risk?  Life is harsh on the other side as well.

Our last view of Sansho, trussed up and soon to be
sent into exile.

At the conclusion of Sansho the Bailiff, we are left with several worlds to contemplate.  There’s the ego-driven world of Sanshô.  Contrasting with that, there’s the benevolent world of Zushiô’s father Masauji, who believes all people should be treated with mercy and compassion.  Zushiô returns to his father’s path, embracing the ideals that his father and sister lived and died for.  Neither ends well:  Masauji is sent into exile and the movie closes with Zushiô in poverty.  This is the opposite of American prosperity theology where goodness is rewarded by material wealth.  As the end title appears on the screen, this is what we’re left to grapple with—a choice to cast our lot with either Sanshô’s materialist world or the impractical ethical idealism of Zushiô’s father.  We’ve seen that both roads can lead to unhappiness and exile.

Most of us are rarely presented with even that clear a choice.  There’s a third way, perhaps the easiest way, where one maneuvers through life disengaged from the work of either ambition or mercy.  The final crane shot carries the viewer away from the love of Zushiô and Tamaki and leaves us instead with a seaweed gatherer, calmly doing his job, oblivious of the scene taking place nearby.  It’s a haunting closing image that reminds me of the concluding stanza of W. H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts”:

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

The seaweed gatherer is like the ploughman.  His life goes on—he has work of his own to do—even as something amazing happens just yards away.

The seaweed gatherer toiling on the shore.

Compassion Expressed in Images

“Is the sea safe?”

Tamaki’s question is really beside the point.  The sea is unavoidable, inescapable.

In Sansho the Bailiff, seas and lakes are emphatically not safe—they are strongly associated with separation and death.  Yet the movie also presents these bodies of water as the settings for healing and mourning.  They appear primal, suggesting a world outside of time.  In the essay “The Ghost Princess and the Seaweed Gatherer,” film critic Robin Wood points out the difficulty of assigning easy symbolic meanings to the imagery in Sansho the Bailiff:

“Mizoguchi never imposes symbolism on the action.  Accordingly, the significance of the recurrent imagery is to be interpreted flexibly, in relation to the events with which it is linked;  as the film progresses, it accumulates complex emotional overtones from the shifting juxtapositions, until by the end the visual presence of the sea makes emotionally present for us all the past events with which fire and water have been associated, becoming one of the means by which Mizoguchi deepens and intensifies our response to the last scene as the point to which every impulse in the film has moved.”

 Above: A kidnapping at sea.
Below: A lament by the sea.

The children Zushiô and Anju are separated from their mother Tamaki in a harrowing abduction scene in which Ubatake, the family servant, drowns.  Later, Tamaki runs to the sea in a hopeless attempt to escape from her life on Sado Island, only to be left crippled and crying for her lost children on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Anju dies in a lake.  As if in a series of pilgrimages, Zushiô returns to each member of the family in the second half of the movie.  In each case, a body of water is positioned as an important element within the frame.  Zushiô visits his father’s grave, located at the top of a hill with the sea in the background.  He visits the lake where his sister took her life.  And he meets his mother in a cove by the sea.

Zushio's pilgrimages to father, sister, and mother.

Zushio's descent to the cove,
with a giant tree in the foreground
and the sea in the background.

In the final scene, the sun is nearing the horizon as Zushiô reaches the end of his quest.  He enters a landscape that appears timeless, passing giant trees and entering a picturesque cove, austere and sheltered from the world.  Life and death go unnoticed in this place—a tsunami struck here two years previous, but no one seems to know the names or the number of the dead.  For another movie equivalent of the trees, think of the Sequoias in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958)… and for the cove, both the stretch of beach where astronaut Taylor pounds the sand in Planet of the Apes (1968) and the beach where Anthony Quinn breaks down at the end of La Strada (1954).  Quests often end at the shoreline.

Looking closely at that last scene in Sansho the Bailiff, the first shot—following Zushiô on his descent into the cove—is introductory.  Then the second shot serves as the real beginning of the final sequence.  This is the shot that will be reversed to close the movie, forming a sublime set of bookends enclosing one of the most moving scenes ever filmed.  The opening bookend is a crane shot that ascends to a significant height, finally uniting Zushiô and Tamaki within the frame.  Then, following eight medium shots and close-ups that take the viewer through the heart-rending details of their reunion, Mizoguchi retreats to a closing crane shot that leaves Zushiô and Tamaki, now clinging to each other with nothing left to say, and pans left to end on a final image of the steadily-working seaweed gatherer and the eternal sea.

Above:  Zushio and Tamaki hug in the penultimate shot.
Below:  Cut to a crane shot that pans left to return to
the image of the seaweed gatherer still at work.

Reference Sources

Personal Views: Explorations in Film by Robin Wood

Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema by Tadao Sato

“Sanshô dayû and the Overthrow of History” by Carole Cavanaugh, essay included with Criterion DVD

“Mizo Dayû” by Dudley Andrew, essay included with Criterion DVD

Criterion DVD commentary by Jeffrey Angles

Watch Sansho the Bailiff…

Purchase Sansho the Bailiff through The Criterion Collection, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble

Rent Sansho the Bailiff at Netflix or other rental service

© 2013 Lee Price

Sansho the Bailiff: Forgiveness

Sansho-blogging, 
essay 5 of 6 on the film
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Kannon Shrine at Kiyo Falls,
Sakanoshita, Tokaido.
Katsuoshika Hokusai,
Japan, circa 1833-34,
color woodblock print.
From the collection of the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Sansho the Bailiff:  Introduction to this Essay Series

A profound meditation on compassion and mercy, Sansho the Bailiff (1954) builds its power through the ethical wisdom of its narrative and the beauty and power of its visual expression.

For each of these six entries, there will be a two-pronged focus, first on the ethics of Sansho the Bailiff and second on visual analysis of targeted scenes.

The Ethics of Sansho the Bailiff:  Forgiveness

“One of the most profound human interactions is the offering and accepting of apologies.  Apologies have the power to heal humiliations and grudges, remove the desire for vengeance, and generate forgiveness on the part of the offended parties.  For the offender, they can diminish the fear of retaliation and relieve the guilt and shame that can grip the mind with a persistence and tenacity that are hard to ignore.  The result of the apology process, ideally, is the reconciliation and restoration of broken relationships.”

 Aaron Lazare

On Apology

There are three scenes in Sansho the Bailiff that can reduce me to tears.  Two of them are obvious.  Anju’s suicide and Zushiô’s climactic reunion with his mother are widely acknowledged as emotional powerhouses.

But there’s a third scene that I find nearly as powerful and it’s received comparatively little attention.  This is the short but devastating scene where Zushiô voluntarily humbles himself and begs for forgiveness:

Zushiô has been appointed governor of the province.  Remarkably self-composed, he asserts himself within Sanshô’s compound, orders Sanshô taken prisoner, and then confidently walks out of the manor to speak to the slaves.  His voice breaking with emotion, Zushiô declares that all slaves are now free, with a choice to either leave or remain and work for fair wages.  Zushiô pauses, seeing a familiar face:  Nio, an old man whom he once branded.

Zushiô kneels in front of Nio, who studies his face and then recognizes him.  The brand is still clear on Nio’s forehead.  Zushiô says:  “My sins in branding you can never be erased.  But I ask you to let this (the declaration that frees the slaves) make up for part of it.”

Above: Zushio brands Nio, with Sansho
in the background, indicating approval.
Below: Tamaki is tortured offscreen as
her master watches, indicating approval.

Zushiô’s apology refers back to the scene where he branded Nio at the request of Sanshô.  The branding was the rock bottom of Zushiô’s character arc.  To make it even more appalling, Zushiô’s cruelty is linked to a subsequent scene where his mother Tamaki, living as a courtesan on the far-away island of Sado, is brutally punished by her owner by having her Achilles tendon cut to prevent her from further attempts at escape.  In a movie where family relations are paramount, Zushiô’s act is doubly condemned by its association with a horrifying punishment exacted against his mother.  From this low point, the story documents the redemption of Zushiô, fueled largely by the self-sacrificing act of his sister Anju.

Returning to his family’s ethics, Zushiô seeks redemption through his political actions as governor by a morally just prohibition of slavery in his province.  But Zushiô cannot find redemption simply through a well-meaning political act.  He has to directly confront his past actions in order to move ahead with his own life.  He must kneel and apologize.  This act follows the definition of apology set forth by Aaron Lazar, former Chancellor and Dean of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, in his book On Apology:

“(The word) ‘apology’ refers to an encounter between two parties in which one party, the offender, acknowledges responsibility for an offense or grievance, and expresses regret or remorse to a second party, the aggrieved.”

The personal encounter is necessary.  Zushiô, the offender, must accept responsibility and ask for remorse from Nio, the aggrieved.  The scene is even more moving for its stress on the difference in social status between the two.  The governor kneels and begs forgiveness of the slave.

Then Zushiô stands and asks what has become of his sister.  As he learns the tragic news of Anju’s death, he realizes that his redemption is not yet complete.  The emotionally-wrenching apology is only one step along the hard road that he must follow.

The scene immediately following the forgiveness scene:
Zushio visits the lake where his sister took her life.

Forgiveness Expressed in Images

In interviews, director Kenji Mizoguchi promoted his cinematic vision of one-shot/one-scene.  He asserted that a moving camera should be able to capture all necessary details and build the appropriate emotional climate from the beginning to the end of a scene.  No cutting between shots should be necessary.  In film language, this approach privileges mise-en-scène (design and arrangement within the frame) over montage (editing from one shot to the next).

In practice, Mizoguchi rarely held to the ideal that he preached.  While the key scenes in his movies take strong advantage of crane shots, tracks, pans, and tilts, he nevertheless usually cuts to individual shots.  And the scenes are typically more powerful for his intelligent, though limited, use of montage.

Zushio descends into the
crowd of Sansho's slaves.

The forgiveness scene in Sansho the Bailiff approaches his one-shot/one-scene ideal.  Starting at the moment when Zushiô sweeps out of Sanshô’s manor, the scene consists of only two shots.  The one cut comes in the middle and is so smoothly handled that the scene could easily be recalled as a single take.

The scene begins with an overhead exterior shot of Zushiô grandly exiting Sanshô’s manor and walking down the steps into a crowd of slaves.  Zushiô’s bright ceremonial clothes brilliantly contrast with the drab and ragged clothing of the slaves.  As he moves toward the camera, the camera keeps Zushiô centered in the action while slowly craning lower to finally settle into an eye-level perspective.  This visual approach establishes Zushiô’s political control over the situation, even as he delivers his speech with evident emotion.  He dominates the shot, establishing him as a formidable figure—to a much greater degree than Sanshô has ever been privileged in a shot.

Cut to…

The old slave Nio, the brand on his forehead fully visible.

Zushiô’s perspective, looking down upon Nio, the old slave he once branded on the forehead.  As Zushiô kneels, he re-enters the frame.  For their brief dialogue, Zushiô is filmed from behind (echoing the earlier scene where he humbly listened to his father’s teachings).  Seen in closeup, Nio becomes the focus of the viewer’s attention.  Their shared humanity is emphasized, both through the visual composition and Zushiô’s public apology.

When Zushiô stands, the camera rises with him (via a tracking crane movement), following him as he retraces his steps back through the crowd.  As he approaches a group of women, the camera moves ahead of Zushiô to create a new composition.  Instead of the primary focus upon Zushiô, he now shares the frame with Kayano, who shares the news of Anju’s death.

The camera moves to follow Zushio as he makes his way
back through the crowd...

Kayano answers his question,
revealing Anju's fate.

It’s intimidating to consider the directorial mastery necessary to organize a remarkable scene like this.  Each of the three actors deliver performances that sear into the memory.  Two of these actors are separated by a considerable distance, only united by the movement of the camera.  Linking the movement and serving as the center of the narrative, the actor Yoshiaki Hanayagi who plays Zushiô must convey a strength of character that the viewer has not previously seen in his character.  He pulls it off beautifully.  Meanwhile, Mizoguchi must direct and choreograph the unruly crowd, keeping their actions believable.  The moving camera must capture Zushiô’s power and status as governor and then just as effectively convey moments of intimate confession.   In over a century of filmmaking spread across hundreds of countries, only a few dozen directors have shown a comparable mastery.  This one scene is like a film school in miniature.

1954 Japanese poster for
Sansho the Bailiff.

Reference Sources

Personal Views: Explorations in Film by Robin Wood

Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema by Tadao Sato

“Sanshô dayû and the Overthrow of History” by Carole Cavanaugh, essay included with Criterion DVD

“Mizo Dayû” by Dudley Andrew, essay included with Criterion DVD

Criterion DVD commentary by Jeffrey Angles

Watch Sansho the Bailiff…

Purchase Sansho the Bailiff through The Criterion Collection, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble

Rent Sansho the Bailiff at Netflix or other rental service

© 2013 Lee Price

Sansho the Bailiff: Self-Sacrifice

Sansho-blogging, 
essay 4 of 6 on the film
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Kannon Bosatsu,
Japan, 12th century,
carved wood.
From the collection of the
Los Angeles County
Museum of Art.

Sansho the Bailiff:  Introduction to this Essay Series

A profound meditation on compassion and mercy, Sansho the Bailiff (1954) builds its power through the ethical wisdom of its narrative and the beauty and power of its visual expression.  For each of these six entries, there will be a two-pronged focus, first on the ethics of Sansho the Bailiff and second on visual analysis of targeted scenes.

The Ethics of Sansho the Bailiff:  Giri

My son Terry says that I have to address giri.  I trust him on this.  A fairly sophisticated follower of anime, Terry has picked up on a fair amount of Japanese culture over the years.  He recently watched Sansho the Bailiff with me and liked it very much, but thought I was probably missing some cultural attitudes that are assumed in the movie.

Of course, he’s right.  Noted film critic Robin Wood dealt with a similar problem in the opening paragraphs of “The Ghost Princess and the Seaweed Gatherer,” his essay on director Kenji Mizoguchi and Sansho the Bailiff.  A friend confronted Wood with the question of whether an outsider—with limited understanding of Japanese culture—should even attempt critical analysis of a movie like Sansho the Bailiff.  Wood thoughtfully responded that it was possible:  “… (give or take a few details) the essential significance of Sansho Dayu can be deduced from the specific realization of the film.”  Although I suspect some those pesky give-or-take details may be more important than Wood suggests, I’ve nevertheless blundered forward with these essays, hoping that I am seeing enough of that essential significance.

Terry would have challenged Robin Wood, too.  His contention is that you have to have some understanding of giri to see it.  After all, it would be unreasonable to expect Wood or me to pick up on a subtext that’s never mentioned.  And, unfortunately, it’s in the nature of giri to remain unspoken.

Zushio's letter of resignation.

It’s not helpful that the word giri has no English equivalent.  It’s a concept that is largely foreign to Western culture, referencing a very different code of behavior.  To the best of my understanding, giri refers to a sense of obligation that individuals nurture toward their communities (family, neighborhood, business, and state).  With giri, there is always an unspoken expectation that duties will be fulfilled and debt-based obligations will be repaid.  The businessman will stand by the company that employs him; the son will stand by his family.  Gifts will be appropriately reciprocated.  The individual will not bring shame upon others in their community.  It’s an elaborate and unwritten social code that is silently followed.  You’re just supposed to know these things.

Zushio fulfills his obligation,
resigning the governorship.

Giri is probably most explicitly depicted in Sansho the Bailiff in the scene where Zushiô  resigns his governorship.  In following his obligations to family, Zushiô  is aware that he has overstepped his proper bounds as governor and therefore he accepts the unspoken expectation that he must respond appropriately.  He submits a letter of resignation and walks away, silently fulfilling his side of the social contract.

But that’s not the only place where giri is operative.  Terry thinks giri is a significant component of the scene where Anju sacrifices herself in a suicide by drowning.  In the context of the narrative, she commits the act solely to benefit the family.  It increases Zushiô ’s chances of succeeding in his escape from the slave compound and it increases the obligation of Zushiô  to maintain his side of the family contract.

My Terry-inspired research into giri uncovered yet another Japanese concept that may be in play during the key scene of Anju’s suicide.  It’s the Zen Buddhist concept of enso, in which a circle symbolizes, well, practically everything—the yin and yang of the universe, along with our potential mental ability to achieve an enlightened awareness of a great unity.  I think the spreading circles on the water are enso.  Even without an understanding of the specific spiritual ideas behind enso, it may be impossible to miss the universal nature of the symbol.  This may count as that “essential significance” that Wood believes is available to all viewers, even when we’re unaware of the exact culture referent.  Anju’s act will create ripples that will expand outward from the center.  Even a solitary act taking place in seclusion can have universal significance.

Enso, a Buddhist concept.

Self-Sacrifice in Action

Anju (Kyoko Kagawa). 

Some viewers feel that Sansho the Bailiff is all anti-climax after Anju’s suicide.  Certainly the movie breaks into two at this point, switching from a narrative about two children to a narrative about one.  As Anju is the most overwhelmingly sympathetic character in the movie, her death is a devastating moment.  The cutaway from the lake to the interior of a monastery begins the introduction of new themes and subplots that need time to simmer before there can be any scenes of comparable power.

The movie slows down for Anju’s suicide.  Up until this point director Kenji Mizoguchi has employed his full arsenal of visual movement—tracking shots, pans, and crane shots.  Within individual shots, he’s emphasized strong diagonals.  But all these elements are dropped for the scene by the lake.  Now the camera setups are static and the key imagery is circular and vertical.  It’s a clear break from the action, with the imagery and pacing reset for meditation.

Kayano framed by the gate.

The old slave woman Kayano, who has just helped Anju leave the compound, is drawn by curiosity to the door of the gate herself.  The fence of the compound is a natural part of the plot, but functions symbolically as well.  Slavery is inside the fence;  freedom is outside.  The prison bars of the fence divide this world and the doors are usually well guarded.  Outside the gate, Kayano first moves to the right but then returns as she looks for Anju, her figure framed within the doorway.

The series of shots of Anju at the lake are visually haunting.  The first of them is from the greatest distance, approximating the perspective of Kayano looking down the hillside to the hazy lakeshore.  Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa was known for painting leaves to achieve the high contrast of a painted screen or scroll in his exteriors—he may have done that here.  As Anju says a prayer then removes her sandals, her mother’s song quietly enters on the soundtrack.  Anju walks into the lake and Mizoguchi cuts to a closer shot of her, with the foreground vegetation framing the shot to create a circular composition.  She descends into the water to her waist.

Anju descends into the lake.

Kayano falls to her knees and prays.

Cut back to Kayano, watching on the hill.  It’s a closer shot that frames her within the vertical bars of the doorway.  She falls to her knees in prayer.  This shot discreetly spares us a view of Anju’s last moments.

When the movie cuts back to the lake for an even closer shot, all we see are the expanding concentric circles.

Expanding circles on the lake.

There is no dissolve to the next scene, even though it constitutes a major break in the narrative.  It’s a straight cutaway to a static shot of men praying in front of a giant Buddha in a monastery.  Visual themes from the past scene are beautifully retained.  The doorway frame that we just saw Kayano praying through now becomes a frame of pillars, still containing an image of prayer.  From the expanding circles of the lake, we move to a Buddha, framed in circles.  Anju’s act is spiritual, linked to the compassionate Buddhism that informs the movie.

Vertical frames, prayer, and circles silhouetting
the Buddha, as the scene abruptly shifts
from the lakeside to the monastery.

Reference Sources

Personal Views: Explorations in Film by Robin Wood

Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema by Tadao Sato

“Sanshô dayû and the Overthrow of History” by Carole Cavanaugh, essay included with Criterion DVD

“Mizo Dayû” by Dudley Andrew, essay included with Criterion DVD

Criterion DVD commentary by Jeffrey Angles

Watch Sansho the Bailiff…

Purchase Sansho the Bailiff through The Criterion Collection, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble

Rent Sansho the Bailiff at Netflix or other rental service

© 2013 Lee Price

Sansho the Bailiff: The Primacy of Family

Sansho-blogging, 
essay 3 of 6 on the film
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Kannon Holding a
Lotus Seat and Seishi
in the Pose of Orant,
wood and gilt lacquer,
Probably 17th century,
Edo Period, Japan.
From the collection of the
Yale University
Art Gallery.

Sansho the Bailiff:  Introduction to this Essay Series

A profound meditation on compassion and mercy, Sansho the Bailiff (1954) builds its power through the ethical wisdom of its narrative and the beauty and power of its visual expression.  For each of these six entries, there will be a two-pronged focus, first on the ethics of Sansho the Bailiff and second on visual analysis of targeted scenes.

The Ethics of Sansho the Bailiff:  Duty Toward Family

The conclusion of Sansho the Bailiff reminds me of the equally masterful (as well as equally ambiguous) closing scene of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931).  In his poignant comedy, Chaplin’s focus is on the nature of romantic love—a fragile emotion in a world of poverty.  Similarly, in director Kenji Mizoguchi’s Buddhist-inflected climax, Sansho the Bailiff presents love (family love in this case) persevering in a world of poverty.  In each movie, the beauty of reunion is tempered by harsh reality.

Love in a world of
poverty and blindness.
Above:  The climax of Sansho the Bailiff.
Below:  The climax of City Lights.

The love between family members in Sansho the Bailiff is understated yet undeniable.  The husband and wife love each other, mother and children love each other, and the brother and sister love each other.  The cry of the mother for her children is the most powerful force in the movie, supernaturally carrying across land and sea.  But there’s another important dimension to the love that yokes them together as a family:  Father, mother, daughter and son share a world view (as directly stated in the father’s precepts) that defines who they are.  Each of them accepts a duty to keep the family intact by retaining the principles symbolized by the miniature figure of Kwannon, the goddess of mercy.  In their lives, love and duty become entwined to the point where they are inseparable.

The children, Zushiô and Anju, must find their individual paths to express their commitment to the family and the shared ethical precepts.  Ultimately, their efforts lead neither to wealth nor happiness, but significantly they do lead toward reunion.  In the ethical perspective of the film, wealth and happiness are worth nothing compared with the completion of the circle—the reunion which confirms the family’s values.

Anju (Kyoko Kagawa)
as she urges her brother to return
to the family's values.

Both Zushiô and Anju must follow hard paths.  Anju is spared Zushiô’s internal struggle;  her moral compass is almost preternaturally unerring.  Moving through the fallen world of the slave camp, she remains unblemished by the ugliness around her.  Zushiô must face greater struggles as he moves along a more dramatically compelling character arc.  Survival instincts spar with compassion, an emotion which does not come as naturally to him as it does to Anju and Sanshô’s son Taro. Zushiô must struggle to maintain the integrity of his family in his own actions.

In the end, when Zushiô apologizes to his mother for his actions, she responds, “You do not need to apologize for anything.  I can tell by your presence that you have obeyed your father’s precepts.”  In the stark visual imagery of the climactic scene, as the two figures cling together on a tsunami-ravaged beach, it’s impossible to hear her words ironically.  They are from the heart.  Zushiô’s triumph is to end in poverty.  We are asked to accept and respect that.

And it’s a similar triumph to the one that Chaplin can claim at the close of City Lights.  Both Zushiô and Chaplin end as tramps, forgotten by a world filled with blindness and yet redeemed by their fidelity to their core values.

Left:  Zushio reunited with Tamaki in Sansho the Bailiff.
Right:  The tramp and the blind girl reunited in City Lights.

Familial Responsibility in Action

In order to call her brother Zushiô back to the teachings of the family, Anju asks him to assist her with an act of compassion.  She requests that Zushiô help her gather material to create a shelter for the ailing slave Namiji.

Above: Zushio and Anju break a
tree branch as children.
Below:  Zushio and Anju as adults.

Anju’s request sets up a situation that parallels an earlier scene, where Zushiô and Anju as children gathered branches and reeds to create an overnight shelter for their family.

The overhead shot of Anju reaching for a tree branch is a close visual replay of a memorable shot from the earlier scene.  In both cases, Anju solicits Zushiô’s help to break off a branch and they must work together to accomplish the task.  They tug at a branch and fall to the ground when it breaks, the work dissolving into child’s play as they laugh at themselves.  The brother and sister are united in their work ethic and in their deep love and respect for each other.

Left:  Breaking a tree branch, Zushio and Anju
fall to the ground as children.
Right:  In an echo of earlier times, Zushio and Anju
fall to the ground as adults.

The dialogue further reinforces the ties between the two scenes.  Anju explicitly makes the connection with the past, while Zushiô silently accepts her implied admonition that his current work for Sanshô is unworthy of his family.  In a borderline-supernatural moment, Anju then hears her mother calling their names, a distant sound barely perceptible on the soundtrack.  This, also, echoes the earlier scene, where the children heard their mother calling them back to the shelter.

The cinematography, the soundtrack, and the dialogue all work together to call Zushiô back to his familial responsibilities.  The scene climaxes at the critical moment when Zushiô says, “Anju, let’s run away.”  With this statement, the narrative of Zushiô’s life shifts.  He has returned to the family and his story must now play out according to the family’s values.

Brother and sister working together:
Anju plans Zushio's escape from Sansho's slave compound.

Reference Sources

Personal Views: Explorations in Film by Robin Wood

Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema by Tadao Sato

“Sanshô dayû and the Overthrow of History” by Carole Cavanaugh, essay included with Criterion DVD

“Mizo Dayû” by Dudley Andrew, essay included with Criterion DVD

Criterion DVD commentary by Jeffrey Angles

Watch Sansho the Bailiff…

Purchase Sansho the Bailiff through The Criterion Collection, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble

Rent Sansho the Bailiff at Netflix or other rental service

© 2013 Lee Price

Sansho the Bailiff: The Impermanence of All Things

Sansho-blogging, 
essay 2 of 6 on the film
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Kannon Bosatsu
(Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara),
Princess Misuko (Japan,
1634-1727)
Hanging scroll, ink on silk.
From the collection of the
Los Angeles County
Museum of Art.

Sansho the Bailiff:  Introduction to this Essay Series

A profound meditation on compassion and mercy, Sansho the Bailiff (1954) builds its power through the ethical wisdom of its narrative and the beauty and power of its visual expression.  For each of these six entries, there will be a two-pronged focus, first on the ethics of Sansho the Bailiff and second on visual analysis of targeted scenes.

The Ethics of Sansho the Bailiff:  Impermanence

Sansho the Bailiff depicts a stoic acceptance of change as a proper attitude to bring to life.  Buddhists talk of impermanence as the way of the world.  Everything will change.  It’s not surprising to see:  Governors and wealthy bailiffs sent into exile;  high-born sons turn their back on luxury and accept a life of monastic poverty;  and refined ladies descend into prostitution.

But while everything changes, in another sense nothing changes.  That’s the paradox at the core of the last scene.  In order for the family to remain true to itself, the surviving members must accept the sacrifices and the degradation brought upon them.   As the mother says to her son, “I know that you have followed your father’s teachings, and that is why we have been able to meet again.”  Although utterly devastated, the family is intact and justified.

The year after he made Sansho the Bailiff, Kenji Mizoguchi directed his version of the classic 12th century story The Tale of the Heike, under the title Taira Clan Saga (Shin heike monogatari).  The opening lines of this ancient epic poem were translated by Helen C. McCullough in 1988.  They have resonance for Sansho the Bailiff:

“The sound of the Gion shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sōla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline.  The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.”

The Tale of the Heike

Translated by Helen C. McCullough

Zushio paying respect at his father's
grave and at the lake.

In Sansho the Bailiff, impermanence is the natural order of the world.  No one grieves about change, even when it is painful.  It is accepted.  Zushiô stands by the lake where his sister drowned and kneels by the grave where his father is buried.  And then he resumes his course, endeavoring to live the life that they have pointed him toward.

The concept of wabi, a cultivated appreciation of all aspects of existence, enables meaning to be found even amid the chaos of change.  Dichotomies of good and evil, divisions between the ugly and the beautiful, lose their meaning in this philosophy. 

“Wabi means that even in straitened circumstances no thought of hardship arises.  Even amid insufficiency, one is moved by no feeling of want.  Even when faced with failure, one does not brood over injustice.”

Wind in the Pines:  Classic Writings on the

Way of Tea as a Buddhist Path

Edited by Dennis Hirota

These concepts are so ingrained in Sansho the Bailiff that the wrenching final scene on the beach retains a deep sense of dignity.  The hardship is counterbalanced by the beauty of the completed circle of reunion.  Maybe it’s wabi.  Transcendence is touched even in the trappings of outward misery.

Impermanence Expressed in Images

Detail of the road that Taro travels.

“You have a difficult road ahead of you,” Sanshô’s son Taro cautions Zushiô while protecting him in the Imperial Temple.  The roads are very difficult and unpredictable in Sansho the Bailiff.  Eventually, all the major characters set out upon these winding paths (and that even includes Sanshô, who spends most of the movie haughtily confident of his situation).  The very first shot of the movie introduces the family as travelers on a forest path.  These roads head into uncertainty, and the characters must stoically accept the impermanence of their situations.

In Sansho the Bailiff, the far shots of people following paths are beautifully composed, usually serving as a memorable last image to close a scene.  They signal key transitional moments in the lives of the characters depicted.

The young man Taro is nothing like his father, the villainous bailiff Sanshô.  Taro is drawn to the enslaved children, Zushiô and Anju, and he embraces the ethical teachings that Zushiô recites to him.  Disgusted with the greed and cruelty he sees around him, Taro resolves to make a clean break from the brutal world of his father.

As he prepares to leave the slave compound forever, Taro stops by the hut where the children are sleeping.  In an act of compassion to begin his new life, he tenderly covers the children with a blanket of straw, the equivalent of a parent pulling up the covers.  It is a beautiful grace note.

Taro covers the children then goes
to the gate of the compound.

Then Taro leaves the compound.  The final image is a magnificent far shot of Taro disappearing into the distance on the mountain path.  He accepts the necessity of transition—the impermanence of his position in life—without looking back.  It is the last shot of the first half of the movie, leading into an intertitle that announces the passage of ten years.

The far shot of Taro’s departure is later echoed by a similar shot when Zushiô flees the compound.  As with Taro, Zushiô performs an act of compassion as he leaves, carrying the ailing slave Namiji with him to freedom.  At this point, Zushiô’s life is in transition once again.

From the other side of the fence, the camera tracks with Taro as he
approaches the gate and walks out into freedom, released from
the barred prison of his father's world.
Dissolve to...

Taro walking off into the distance down the winding road.

In a visual echo of the departure of Taro,
Zushio must follow winding paths during his escape
from Sansho's slave compound.

Later, Mizoguchi employs a very different visual strategy to capture another key point of transition in Zushiô’s life.  When he resigns his governorship, the camera follows Zushiô as he walks behind a translucent screen, the shot lingering upon his indistinct image as he leaves this part of his life forever.  When we see him seconds later, Zushiô will be dressed as a peasant.  The images smoothly carry us from royalty to poverty using only a screen and a dissolve to elide a precipitous transition.

Zushio behind the screen in the background
in a visual transition from governor to peasant.

Reference Sources

Personal Views: Explorations in Film by Robin Wood

Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema by Tadao Sato

“Sanshô dayû and the Overthrow of History” by Carole Cavanaugh, essay included with Criterion DVD

“Mizo Dayû” by Dudley Andrew, essay included with Criterion DVD

Criterion DVD commentary by Jeffrey Angles

Watch Sansho the Bailiff…

Purchase Sansho the Bailiff through The Criterion Collection, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble

Rent Sansho the Bailiff at Netflix or other rental service

© 2013 Lee Price