832 The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum

[swo17]

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum



This heartrending masterpiece by Kenji Mizoguchi about the give-and-take between life and art marked the director's first use of the hypnotic long takes and eloquent camera movements that would come to define his films. The adopted son of legendary kabuki actor Kikunosuke (Shotaro Hanayagi), who is striving to achieve stardom by mastering female roles, turns to his infant brother's wet nurse (Kakuko Mori) for support and affection—and she soon gives up everything for her beloved's creative glory. Featuring fascinating glimpses behind the scenes of kabuki theater in the late nineteenth century, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum is a critique of the oppression of women and the sacrifices required of them, and the pinnacle of Mizoguchi's early career.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with critic Phillip Lopate about the evolution of director Kenji Mizoguchi's style
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by film scholar Dudley Andrew

[domino harvey]

Upper tier price with only one fucking interview for on-disc extras. Looks like we can all safely just hold onto our AE copies...

[knives]

Yeah, that's ridiculous. This is one of Mizoguchi's best films and there is a lot to talk about with regards to it without having to cull from Mizoguchi general sort of extras.

[andyli]

Upper tier price with only one fucking interview for on-disc extras. Looks like we can all safely just hold onto our AE copies...

The Criterion uses Shochiku's brand new 4K restoration. The AE transfer looks worse than a DVD (not their fault though).

[Moshrom]

Upper tier price with only one fucking interview for on-disc extras. Looks like we can all safely just hold onto our AE copies...

The Criterion uses Shochiku's brand new 4K restoration. The AE transfer looks worse than a DVD (not their fault though).

But to be fair, it doesn't look like there's that much more real detail on Shochiku's restoration -- the grain is much finer of course, but the limitations of the source elements that were scanned really become evident. I bet the image is much more stable, though, which is usually the one consistent improvement these restorations have brought.

[movielocke]

It is better than a barely visible super muddy vhs with sporadically legible subtitles. Luckily I had a live translator fill in the gaps

[andyli]

I bet the image is much more stable, though, which is usually the one consistent improvement these restorations have brought.

Exactly this. I've come to learn that sharpness is only one of the merits of 4K restorations these days. Stability plays an equally important role, which cannot easily be told from looking at screengrabs.

[Michael Kerpan]

Just bought the Japanese Blu a couple of weeks ago....

[Finch]

The AE transfer looks worse than a DVD (not their fault though).

[Michael Kerpan]

The prints I saw screened on a couple of times in the past looked pretty bad.

[Trees]

This is great news. Chrysanthemum is one of the last major Mizo I have not seen. Been holding out, hoping that a better (and more stable) release would come along... and.... Great success.

[Randall Maysin]

Yeah, what the heck, no Tony Rayns, Donald Kirihara, or Kaneto Shindo? Sometimes Criterion doesn't go the obvious route for extras, and then doesn't put anything in their place. Criterion, you need to learn the lesson that, Sometimes...The Obvious Extras are the Only Extras.

[Michael Kerpan]

No extras at all for the Japanese release. But it looked better than any version I've seen previously (despite still being "soft").

[MichaelB]

Stability plays an equally important role, which cannot easily be told from looking at screengrabs.

Cannot at all!

[lubitsch]

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum is a critique of the oppression of women and the sacrifices required of them, and the pinnacle of Mizoguchi's early career.

That's absolute nonsense and irresponsible b***s***. I'm not a fan of political film criticism as executed throughout former decades ad nauseam, but there are limits for sheer stupidity and political naivete and this includes whitewashing of propaganda. Chrysanthemum whatever its formal qualities may be is clearly a fascist propaganda piece about a young man finding his vocation and the woman in his life selflessly sacrificing herself which the narrative clearly approves. A critique of the opression of women is the last thing this film intends.

[whaleallright]

I think that's just the standard line about Mizoguchi (which does apply to other of his films), repeated here reflexively.

[hearthesilence]

My memory of this film isn't strong enough for me to personally discuss its politics, but I don't believe there's a shortage of critics who would argue that it's a feminist classic, at least one for the time.

From Michael Atkinson:

Set in the late 1800s but almost entirely confined to studio sets often lit with sulfurous mist, Chrysanthemum centers on a famed Kabuki troupe, the colorless, spoiled and rather effeminate scion of which, Kiku (Shôtarô Hanayagi), is lauded for his in-drag performances to his face, but mocked as a mediocrity behind his back. Only Otoku (Kakuko Mori), a self-sacrificing wet nurse to his baby brother, tells him the truth, however kindly; immediately, she's the only person on Earth he can trust.

They dally, and as the troupe family cannot have an inter-class marriage, she is summarily fired. Stubborn Kiku hunts her down (in roving shots that make offscreen spaces pop), and they become outcasts together. Because Mizoguchi is all about the tragedy of sexist inequity, doom befalls only Otoku.

Like all of Mizoguchi, the movie is an indictment of the persistent norms that reduce even headstrong women to sex slavery and short lives, a trope Mizoguchi did not own but of which he proved to be the master. Kiku's trajectory is the plot, but Otoku's selfless devastation is the story.

Then there's Glenn Kenny's take on it:

“Chrysanthemum” is a desperately sad story told with utter and potentially unsettling conviction. The film’s ideology embraces Otoku’s sacrifice as necessary; there’s zero irony here, no implied disapproval of the social order that excludes Otoku. But Mr. Mizoguchi’s artistry and empathy are such that he makes Otoku’s ostensibly ennobling pain palpable. Hence, the movie’s tragic dimension is formidable.

[knives]

Admittedly I think this extends to Mizoguchi as a whole, but in the bits you quoted it seems clear to me that the claims of feminist 'for the time' has more to do with the viewers expectations of feminism in older and in Japanese films rather then seriously engaging with the movie.

[hearthesilence]

You don't believe Glenn Kenny or Michael Atkinson is "seriously engaging" with the film?

[Gregory]

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum is a critique of the oppression of women and the sacrifices required of them, and the pinnacle of Mizoguchi's early career.

That's absolute nonsense and irresponsible b***s***. I'm not a fan of political film criticism as executed throughout former decades ad nauseam, but there are limits for sheer stupidity and political naivete and this includes whitewashing of propaganda. Chrysanthemum whatever its formal qualities may be is clearly a fascist propaganda piece about a young man finding his vocation and the woman in his life selflessly sacrificing herself which the narrative clearly approves. A critique of the opression of women is the last thing this film intends.

You may not like political film criticism, but it seems like you're engaging in it yourself here, and in a characteristically hyperbolic way that makes it a bit difficult to respond to. The way Otuku is sacrificed is fully a part of the film's critique of the oppression of women, and the film in no way "clearly approves" of this outcome. You could argue that, but simply stating it as plain fact doesn't make it so. If this were so, Mizoguchi would have made Otoku an inferior character who is there to be used. I see her as just the opposite—her brightness and strength the key to the story the film tells—and I don't feel we're convincingly led to consider that her fate is a worthwhile outcome because we care so much about the spoiled Kikunosuke and his career. Far from it.
The idea that this was a "fascist propaganda" film strikes me as ridiculous because Mizoguichi was known to have been a committed anti-Fascist during the 1930s, whose films went stridently against the demands the Fascist state increasingly placed on the film industry. So why would he have made a Fascist propaganda piece? Because he was forced against his will to do so when he made this film? That's a historical claim that needs some kind of documentation to have any credibility.

[knives]

In the quoted pieces no insofar as it relates to the film being feminist within the text versus some expectation of what a Japanese film form the '30s would be like. I get no sense that they're saying, "Wow, compared to What Did the Lady Forget this is very feminist," for example. Rather it seems more like, "wow, compared to my expectation of what this film would be this is feminist. After all Mizoguchi has this reputation."

Just to break down the Kenny a bit, it seems to be engaging in contradiction a bit. Why is that 'but' there at the last sentence? Without it the paragraph flows nicely with a single idea, but with it it calls into question the earlier parts as if they are a negative. Perhaps that is a subconscious realization that those elements are the fascist stuff Lubitsch mentioned before thus needing a guard such as praising Mizoguchi's artistry which Kenny does. If as Kenny says the film is unironic and does not disapprove of the social order which excludes her how does being artistic change that into feminism?

[hearthesilence]

It sounds like a derisive and inaccurate reflection of Kenny's argument when you say "how does being artistic change that into feminism," and he's not contradicting himself, the implication of what he's saying is pretty clear without being didactic.

Kenny is detailing what he says is a contradiction in the film - it has a plot which as written does not disapprove of the way things are played out, but it's given an empathetic interpretation (in its direction) that would prevent the viewer from endorsing what happens as just. This would be why it's a feminist work.

[Gregory]

Re the hypothetical response of "Wow, compared to my expectation of what this film would be this is feminist. After all Mizoguchi has this reputation."
His personal life aside, he has a reputation for having made films in the 1930s that ennobled women characters, placed their experiences and concerns in the foreground, and stridently showed them butting against social constraints in a time when there was very little of what would later be called "feminist consciousness" in the arts, or acceptance of the later notion that "the personal is political." Anyone who's seen Sisters of the Gion shouldn't be surprised that Mizoguchi made other films that can be understood as "feminist" in the context of their time and place, in my view.
My own quibble with Criterion's presentation of his works from this era is their use of "fallen women" in the title of the Eclipse set, which is such an anachronism in the current century that I'm at a loss to understand what they were thinking by using it. Some would likely roll their eyes if that phrase had been placed in scare quotes, but I think that would have problematized the concept of corrupted, irredeemable women who have been forever changed by giving up their chastity in a way that would be completely in line with the films themselves. To use the anachronistic term as if it accurately describes the women in these films is to misunderstand said films, just as much as most of the other outdated euphemisms such as referring to them as "soiled doves" and the like. Or perhaps it was a "sex sells" concept of subtly promising films about female depravity. I don't want to ascribe anything to Criterion that they didn't intent, but I can't figure out why they a title based on such an antiquated, judgmental term for sex workers (to use contemporary parlance). Maybe something like "Runaway Melodramas" or "Against the System" would have been more apt.

[hearthesilence]

I do enjoy a good ironic title though, even if they aren't typical of reissues - perhaps that was what they were going for in pitting an anachronism against the true meaning of the film?

[knives]

I'd never argue Sisters of the Gion as feminist which is probably the first difficulty we are having. All the same your post illustrates a little of what I'm saying. He has this reputation, but frankly I find it unearned (in the films I have seen) especially when compared to his peers. I find fallen women to be a perfectly okay descriptor to those films since he does often detail women who are initially presented with some social credibility who due to circumstance forces them to go down the social ladder to be redeemed through some sacrifice often death. It's a similar MO to film like Pandora's Box or Faust or some of Dreyer's stuff. While all great I wouldn't necessarily describe any of those films as actively feminist. Also frankly I feel that occasionally Mizoguchi can fall into misogyny due to a need for the classical and parochially pure woman and the need for Mizoguchi, not just society, to punish those who fail this purity test. Now that sexism doesn't make Mizoguchi a bad director, but it definitely doesn't make him the great feminist people make him out to be especially when compared to Naruse and Ozu's films from the same period.

As an aside I'm curious if any women have tackled this subject (Mizoguchi and feminism especially when considering his peers) in any serious critical writings?

It sounds like a derisive and inaccurate reflection of Kenny's argument when you say "how does being artistic change that into feminism," and he's not contradicting himself, the implication of what he's saying is pretty clear without being didactic.

Kenny is detailing what he says is a contradiction in the film - it has a plot which as written does not disapprove of the way things are played out, but it's given an empathetic interpretation (in its direction) that would prevent the viewer from endorsing what happens as just. This would be why it's a feminist work.

My point was that he argues the contradiction poorly and twists himself to not allow himself to say that the film is sexist, but it is nonetheless great. Being empathetic (your word, not his) just shows that he is a good storyteller, but doesn't mean that the film's treatment is a feminist one. Running with Lubitsch's fascism comparison (I don't think this is a good description of the whole film but it lightly works for her sacrifice) it is just as easy to argue and seems more accurate to the text of the film that the empathy is there to show how important and good the sacrifice is which encourages the viewer to endorse what happens. It may personally hurt to fulfill your social roles, but that just shows how great you can be if you still fulfill them. This would be why it is not a feminist work (I'd personally say it is entirely neutral on the idea with the female lead getting the short end of the stick just because of story norms and nothing to do with feminist or anti-feminist feelings).