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Tanizaki and film: An introduction with three early writings in translation
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TANIZAKI AND FILM: AN INTRODUCTION WITH THREE
EARLY WRITINGS IN TRANSLATION
by
D. Christian Zeller
A Masters Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OFTHE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
(East Asian Languages and Cultures)
December 1996
Copyright 1996 D. Christian Zeller
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UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CA LIFO RN IA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7
This thesis, written by
ZdL
under the direction of h-£i Thesis Committee,
and approved by all its members, has been pre
sented to and accepted by the Dean of The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
_______ Master o f Arts
Date..
THESIS COMMITTEE
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ABSTRACT
TANIZAKI AND FILM: AN INTRODUCTION WITH THREE
EARLY WRITINGS IN TRANSLATION
D. Christian Zeller
Before Tanizaki Jun’ichiro became renowned as a great man of Japanese letters, he
spent significant time and energy pursuing his interest in the Western medium of film.
Although he would later downplay his interest in the West, and by extension film, between
1915 and 1925 Tanizaki not only wrote several critical articles in which he discussed the
new medium and incorporated the subject of motion pictures into much of his fiction, but
he also took a two year hiatus from literature to become intensely involved in the
production of at least four films. Western studies on Tanizaki typically do not delve into
his interest and involvement in film other than providing an occasional superficial
observation. In this paper I argue that Tanizaki himself engineered this oversight in his
later years by promoting an image of himself that conformed to his “literary persona”; by
publishing highly fictionalized autobiographical memoirs and a volume of Complete Works
in which much of his “Western writings” were left out, Tanizaki attempted to obscure his
early, less dignified image as an hedonistic antinaturalist who was obsessed with Western
culure to solidify an image of himself as an author who had inherited his aesthetic
sensibilities from traditional Japanese culture. I assert that although Tanizaki was
obviously heavily influenced by traditional Japanese culture and arts, his Western
influences— and specifically the role film played— should not be overlooked. This thesis is
an investigation of both the role Tanizaki played in the early development of Japanese film
and the role film played in the development of Tanizaki’s “literary film aesthetic” an
aesthetic sensibility present throughout the author’s extraordinary career.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis would not have been possible without the thoughtful guidance and
encouragement of each of the members of my thesis committee: Peter Nosco, Dominic
Chueng, and George Hayden. I would like to extend special thanks to George Hayden for
giving so generously of his time for the sake of reviewing my three translations in minute
detail. His corrections and suggestions have been critical to the success of this work. I
would also like to thank Darrell Davis, whose courses on Japanese film and literature
provided me with the impetuous to combine my dual interests in and studies of early
Japanese film and the literary works of Tanizaki Jun’ichiro for the purpose of this thesis.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife Gianina, without whose patience and support the
completion of this thesis would have been next to impossible.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I INTRODUCTION: TANIZAKI AND FILM.......................................I
“Popular Perceptions and Reshaping the Past” ......................4
“Tanizaki’s Involvement in Early Japanese Cinema” .............15
“Tanizaki’s Literary Film Aesthetic” .................................... 37
II THREE EARLY WRITINGS IN TRANSLATION
‘ The Present and Future of Motion Pictures” ......................47
“The Human-faced Carbuncle” ............................................58
‘ The Night of the Doll Festival” ..........................................80
BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................91
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INTRODUCTION: TANIZAKI AND FILM
1
In providing translations of three early Tanizaki Jun’ichiro writings which are in
some way or another related to the medium of film, it is my hope that this period of his
career— often written off as a time in which the author unabashedly adored all things
western, or as a “bad period” which directly precedes his coming of age as a truly great
writer— will receive closer scrutiny. Although it is true that the bulk of Tanizaki’s
celebrated literary output has nothing to do with film, and almost all of his work in film or
about the medium has been forgotten, I have found several reasons to consider both the
role Tanizaki played in the evolution of the Japanese cinema and the role his sense of film
aesthetics played in his own evolution as an artist.
As a popular author who wrote Edgar Alan Poe-style “diabolistic” short stories and
a literary figure who engaged in theoretical debates with other prominent writers of the
1920’s (his famous debate with Akutagawa over the importance of story structure in
literature comes immediately to mind), Tanizaki was accessible to both the literary elite and
the common man. By boldly asserting that film was not just an artistic medium, but an art
form that was superior to other art forms, he brought much needed attention to the hitherto
purely intellectual debate concerning the artistic merit of film. Essays in which he asserted
such ideas, published as they were in leading literary journals, reached both a large
segment of Japan’s scholarly population and more typical consumers of popular culture.
Through his high-profile involvement in film criticism and production, his most tangible
contribution to the Japanese cinema is arguably his role as a popular figure who bridged a
gap between the masses of filmgoers, who went to theaters to see their favorite benshi, or
film narrator, and the educated elite, who for the most part saw the benshi and all other
theatrical conventions as totally superfluous and detrimental to the purely visual medium of
film.
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2
Rim criticism worked its way into much of Tanizaki’s writing from about 1915 to
1925, but his most focused discussion of the new medium is found in a 1917 essay
“Katsuddshashin no genzai to shorai” (hereafter referred to as “The Present and Future of
Motion Pictures”) in which he not only promotes several themes of the Jurt’ eiga undo, or
‘Pure Rim Movement,’ but also offers up several insightful observations and almost
prophetically describes how film would go on to develop in Japan. This contribution to
film criticism, although not as complex as works by other Japanese writers of film criticism
from the same period, is worth examination precisely because it is a concise articulation of
‘pure film’ thought. Also, because it was written by Tanizaki, a widely read literary figure,
it was read by many who previously had little connection to or interest in the new medium
of film.
Not satisfied with just commenting on the state of Japanese film and offering up
advice, Tanizaki made substantive efforts to artistically apply early film theory in his own
projects. Rims made from Tanizaki’s scenarios and screenplays, represented here by the
first script he is credited as writing without assistance, “Hinamatsuri no yoru,” or “The
Night of the Doll’s Festival” (1920), arc important in that they were the most successfully
executed jun ’ eigageki, or ‘pure film dramas’ of the day. The films Tanizaki wrote and
sometimes directed stand out because of the new genres they explored, the almost
ideological approach that was taken in making them, and their removal from the
constraining theatrical conventions of dominant film genres. Tanizaki’s short involvement
in film production can be seen as an early and important model of film reform. These
attempts made by Tanizaki and others at the progressive studio Taisho Katsuei, (Taisho
Moving Rcture Company) or Taisho for short, did not result in an immediate overhaul of
the Japanese film industry, but they do represent an important stage of development which
informed later, more broad-based and successful movements to make film into an
independent art form. Early and brief as it was, this part of Tanizaki’s career is easy to
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3
skip over, but his efforts represent an important link in a chain of evolution. Of particular
interest to film historians include: a continuity-style script with numbered scenes marked
exterior/interior; directions calling for close-ups, medium-shots, long-shots, and dissolve
transitions; and stories structured around parallel action, which would require parallel
editing techniques. Published in prominent literary magazines, his scripts represent a few
of only a handful of surviving screenplays from the early 1920’s and offer a glimpse into
the early development of the Japanese screenplay.
Finally, Tanizaki’s evocative descriptions of filmic images, the sensation of
viewing films, and how his sense of what I refer to as the ‘film aesthetic’ worked its way
into his literature are represented here in “Jinmenso,” or “The Human-faced Carbuncle”
(1919). This story of a ‘haunted film,’ which is structured as a story within a story, or
really a film within a story, is one of the best examples of Tanizaki’s conception of the film
aesthetic: the description of the film within the story which takes up half of the entire text is
written in the present tense and therefore contrasts with the rest of the story, giving it a
feeling of cinematic immediacy. Furthermore, it is broken down into cinematic “scenes” in
which visual aesthetics are given top priority. Tanizaki refers to facial expressions as seen
through close-up shots, eloquently describes moonlight moving across a woman’s leg,
evokes a powerful image of subordination in his description of a man bowing down so low
as to repeatedly mb his head in the dirt, and so on. The poetic, visually engaging and
evocative nature of these descriptions allows them to stand alongside the best passages
Tanizaki would ever write, and the descriptions are striking in their similarity to some of
his later, nonfilm-related writings. In the story part of‘The Human-faced Carbuncle,”
Tanizaki describes how various people react upon viewing the cursed film. Mesmerized by
the filmic images, they are driven to the brink of insanity as they are forced to come face to
face with the contradiction of reality and illusion co-existing on screen. This is a theme
Tanizaki returns to throughout his period of interest in film.
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4
The three writings presented in this work, an essay on film, a script which was
written for the sake of film production, and a ‘cinematic’ short story, are only three of a
number of works written by Tanizaki in the late 1910’s and early 20’s in which the subject
of film is directly explored. Because the scope of this study does not allow for the direct
presentation of more complete primary source material, I attempt to use this introductory
essay to create a context from which these three translations can be considered. I hope: 1)
to explain the relevant issues concerning Japanese film and film reform during the late
1910’s and early 20’s; 2) to present Tanizaki’s thoughts on and involvement in the
production of motion pictures; and 3) to discuss the impact film may have had on the
author’s artistic sensibilities. Since it might appear impetuous to suggest that Edwin G.
Seidensticker, Donald Keene, and any number of other western scholars who have written
important essays on Tanizaki simply missed this important chapter in the author’s career, I
will first discuss dominant perceptions of Tanizaki’s involvement in film and provide some
of the reasons film has always been relegated to the status of a footnote in this great
author’s career.
Tanizaki and Film: Popular Perceptions and Reshaping the Past
Seidensticker makes no reference to Tanizaki’s film career in his often-cited essay
‘ Tanizaki Junichiro, 1886-1965” (1966), which the author describes as a “tentative
summation of [Tanizaki’s] work.”! In Dawn to the West, Keene has a little more to offer
Tanizaki’s enthusiasm for the films was genuine, and he was one of the rare
Japanese intellectuals of the time who recognized their artistic potentialities,
but as his first film [The Amateur Qubl suggested, his infatuation with
Seiko [his sister-in-law, who starred in The Amateur Clubl was the most
important reason for his deep involvement with the films. Seiko appeared in
1 Seidensticker, p. 249
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5
only two films, both with scenarios by Tanizaki. His work in this medium
was unfortunately without lasting importance.?
Another prominent study that includes a substantial section on Tanizaki is Van C.
Gessel’s Three Modern Novelists: Soseki. Tanizaki, and Kawabata. In his section on
Tanizaki, Gessel asserts that "much of what reoccurs in Tanizaki’s life and works is a
study in the nature and power of infatuation.”5 It is not surprising that Gessel portrays
Tanizaki’s interest in film as an extension of his infatuation with the West. In explaining
Tanizaki’s budding infatuation with Kansai, an infatuation that would turn into a twenty-
year love affair, Gessel speculates that Tanizaki’s “infatuations with Seiko, with motion
pictures, with ill-fitting Western suits and shoes, were beginning to pall.”4 Gessel does
not go beyond his thesis of infatuation in discussing Tanizaki’s interest in film, and offers
no further insights other than describing it as a “fleeting interest” in Tanizaki’s life.
Of the prominent works on Tanizaki in the West, Ken Ito’s study, Visions of
Desire: Tanizaki’s Fictional Worlds has the most to offer
Tanizaki went through a four year period, between Kojin and Chiiin no ai,
when he “pursued the ‘West’ with a singular intensity.... Tanizaki’s period
of absorption began in 1920 when he accepted an invitation from the Taisho
Katsuei production company to work in the Western medium of film. He
was drawn to the cinema by an almost prophetic insight into its possibilities.5
Ito elaborates on this statement for three paragraphs, discussing some of the points
Tanizaki makes in his essay “The Present and Future of Motion Pictures” and summarizing
Tanizaki’s involvement with Taikatsu Production Company. Ito abruptly ends this
2 Keene, p. 748
3Gessel, p. 71
4ibid, p. 106
5 Ito, p. 74
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6
discussion of Tanizaki’s involvement in film by stating “that his writing suffered in the
process.”6 (That Tanizaki emerged from this “period of absorption” with his first great, or
even complete novel, Naomi, seems to refute this statement.)
And finally, in the Preface of The Secret Window: Ideal Worlds in Tanizaki’s
Fiction, the author Anthony Hood Chambers writes:
At the time of his death in 1965 at the age of seventy-nine, Tanizaki had been
writing fiction, plays, essays, poems, and translations almost without
interruption for more than fifty-five years.7
That there is no in-depth discussion of film in Chambers’ study is not necessarily a fault,
since the author is solely interested in Tanizaki’s literature. However, the fact that there is
no mention of film in this section, wherein the author is establishing Tanizaki’s wide range
of accomplishments, is unfortunate. Furthermore, this omission is indicative of a broad
perception in academia that Tanizaki’s interest and involvement in film ultimately “was
without lasting importance.”8
There are several reasons why Tanizaki’s interest in film and his actual career as a
filmmaker have received so little scholarly attention in the West. For one, Tanizaki’s
involvement in film production was brief. In 1920 he was hired as a ‘script consultant’ for
Taikatsu— a position he made the most of, quickly becoming a writer/director— but quit after
only a year when the mismanaged and poorly financed studio decided to abandon making
‘pure film dramas’ in favor of reverting to the more lucrative and theatrical shimpageki, or
‘contemporary drama.’ Soon after this decision was made the studio was absorbed by
6lto, p. 75
^Chambers, p. vii
8 Keene, p. 748
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Shochiku, Taikatsu’s main rival during its two year existence.9 Another reason Tanizaki’s
film career has not been more widely discussed is that none of his films have survived,
although films made at Shochiku and other studios— and indeed, films written by other
prominent authors during the same time period— can still be seen.10 Furthermore, because
it is still a relatively new medium, and the critical analysis of film and its impact on modem
culture as a field of study is even newer, it is understandable that Tanizaki’s short career as
a filmmaker would receive so little attention, especially in view of the fact that his literary
contributions were so great. A prolific and innovative writer of popular literature, Tanizaki
spanned six decades, three Emperors, and two world wars; his vast body of literature has
demanded, and received, a nearly endless amount of attention from the academy. The
amount of time Tanizaki spent as a filmmaker, by contrast, pales in comparison.
Some of the contributions Tanizaki made in literature are worth noting here,
because, as I will show later in this essay, he employed traits characteristic of his fiction to
further obscure his youthful interest in the West, and by extension, the western medium of
film. One such trait is his tendency to experiment with various formalistic and narrative
structures in his work. This tendency began in 1931 with his novel, A Blind Man’sTale,
written in archaic characters to convey the historicity of the story, and ended with his last
novel, Diary of a Mad Old Man. which, as the title suggests, is written in the form of a
9 Anderson and Richie, p. 39
1 OLike Tanizaki, other literary figures of his generation became involved in the nascent
Japanese film industry, a few of whom produced works that are still extant and are recognized as
important contributions to the early development of silent film. Osanai Kaoru and Kawabata
Yasunari in particular wrote scenarios for two of the most important films made anywhere during
the 1920’s. Osanai’s contribution Roio no Reikon or Souls on the Road (1921) is perhaps the
most important early Japanese film that can still be seen today. Kawabata’s story Kuruta ippeiii or
A Page of Madness (1927), which was directed by Kinugasa Teinosuke of Jigoicu no mon or Gate
of Hell fame, is an impressionist film set in an asylum; it somewhat resembles The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari, but stands on its own both stylistically and thematically. See Anderson and Richie, pp.
43-44, 54-58 resp.
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diary. In Kagi, or The Key (1956), this tendency is perhaps most striking: the chapters of
this novel are comprised of a middle-aged couple’s alternating diary entries; the husband’s
are written in Chinese characters and the masculine phonetic script, katakana, while his
wife’s entries are written in the feminine phonetic script, hiragana.
Although Tanizaki’s literature characteristically has a form which matches its
content, his first-person narratives typically lack credibility. Tanizaki’s diary novels, for
example, include contradictory accounts and thinly veiled prevarications and are highly
subjective. In the course of reading Diary of a Mad Old Man, the reader gradually realizes
that there is nothing mad about the old man. He is infatuated with the idea of madness but
“knows that true madness would not be much fun.”11 Like Tanizaki’s own writings, the
writings of his characters are highly manipulative and seem to surge with a power that can
alter the real world: in The Key, the professor’s entries— which his wife Ikuko reads on the
sly— lead to his wife’s infidelities, or her sexual liberation/corruption, and Ikuko’s entries—
which the professor reads on the sly— fuel the professor’s unhealthy sexual obsession, an
obsession which eventually leads to his premature death.
Tanizaki’s complicated narrative strategies are made even more delicious by his
tendency to mix high-brow traditional Japanese aesthetics with vulgarity, perversity, and
corruption. There are several recurring themes in Tanizaki’s literature that work to this end:
his erotic fixation on ‘Mother,’ his references to excretion and blood, and his foot fetish to
name just a few. For example, in ‘ The Bridge of Dreams,” the protagonist suckles his
stepmother’s breasts well into his adolescence. In The Makioka Sisters, otherwise his
most regal novel, Taeko, the ‘modern girl’ almost dies from dysentery and has an
extremely bloody still-born child; Itakura, Taeko’s common lover, dies in agony from a
gangrene related brain infection brought on by complications from a botched surgery; and
11 Ito, p. 259
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Yukiko, the refined and composed classical Japanese beauty, suffers from diarrhea on the
way to her wedding in Tokyo as the novel comes to an end. Further, Tanizaki’s first
recognized work, ‘ The Tattooer,” is about a man who creates a femme fatale out of a
beautiful virgin he first notices when he sees her feet, and the protagonist of his last work,
Diary of a Mad Old Man, fantasizes about having his daughter-in-law dance on his grave
and goes so far as to make plans to have her feet engraved on his tombstone!
This brief discussion of a few of Tanizaki’s literary traits leads us to the final reason
Tanizaki’s film career has been neglected by scholars: this is the way the author wanted it.
Just as in one of his novels, Tanizaki used the power of writing to manipulate the real
world and to shape the ways in which he would be perceived long after his death. In his
later years, after having gone from being a hedonistic and anti-naturalist writer of
diabolistic short stories to an author who was granted audiences with the Emperor and
whose work had been canonized as representing traditional Japanese aesthetics in their
purest form, Tanizaki made concerted efforts to obscure parts of his early career. In a way
that is typical of one of his novels, Tanizaki used writing to shape reality by reconstructing
his past in such a manner as to downplay western influences while emphasizing the
influences of traditional Japanese theater and arts. In the mid 1950’s Tanizaki compiled a
Complete Works (published in 1957) in which his ‘bad period’ is for the most part
omitted.> 2 (Tanizaki’s ‘bad period’ begins around 1915 and ends in 1924 with the
completion of Chijin no ai, literally ‘A Fool’s Love’ or Naomi as it has come to be known
in the West.) It is apparent that Tanizaki, comfortable with his ‘traditional Japanese
aesthetics’ persona, became somewhat embarrassed by his early, less mature, and
decidedly ‘western’ writings. It is no wonder then that Tanizaki would downplay his early
adoration of all things western.
12 Keene, p. 738
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10
Many scholars who have written on Tanizaki have relied heavily on his
autobiographical account, Yosho iidai. or Childhood Years: A Memoir (1956). In this
ostensibly autobiographical work, Tanizaki elaborates extensively on the role traditional
Japanese literature and theater played on the development of his artistic sensibilities while
making only a few mild references to the role western culture may have played. Tanizaki
writes^ that as a student, he was profoundly influenced by his primary school teacher, Mr.
Inaba, who had his students read historical texts in classical Chinese, and Ueda Akinari’s
Ugetsu monogatari. or Tales of Moonlight and Rain in the language of Edo Japan.
Tanizaki’s recollection of cinema itself is conspicuously brief and matter-of-fact in tone: he
sums it up in a scant page by describing a few films, but does not mention his feelings as
he watched the films, or his impressions of film aesthetics at all. This token section on film
is especially striking when it is considered alongside his unusually superfluous section— a
whopping twenty-three pages— on the great kabuki actors of his childhood: Kikugoro V,
Danjuro IX, and Utaemon V.
Tanizaki not only discusses kabuki actors themselves, but goes on to describe what
profound influences they had on him as a boy: “Danjuro’s tremendous dramatic skill made
a deep impression even on a mere child like me. For a long time thereafter, whenever
occasion arose, I would imitate Danjuro’s voice and manner and announce ‘Kagekiyo
escapes from prison!’ or command ‘Wait for me, villain, in the courts of Hell!’”i-t And in
an unnecessarily in-depth explanation of the kabuki drama “Yoshitsune and the Thousand
Cherry Trees,” Tanizaki again stresses the traditional art form’s influence on his youthful
self: “I was so impressed by it that later I often played at ‘Tomomori with the anchor,’
wearing an improvised suit of cardboard armor in the Kairakuen storeroom or in the parlor
13 Tanizaki, Childhood Years: A Memoir, p. 176
14ibid, p. 101
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at Yukiuchi the wigmaker’s house.” 1 5 Then after quoting several long passages from a
Mainichi Shinbun critic of the day, Tanizaki explains his reasoning: “I have quoted Sugi
Gan’ami’s critical comments at such length not merely out of nostalgia for the past, but to
make a point: the importance of coming in contact with really first-class works of art in
one’s childhood, whether they are dramas, paintings, or music.”1 6 Before finishing this
section on his “beloved Kabuki,” i? Tanizaki makes sure to establish specific connections
between certain performances and actual novels. For example, at one point, he relates his
inspiration for Arrowroot to Kikugoro and Danjuro’s portrayal of foxes.
Throughout the work, Tanizaki quotes from his own works, establishing childhood
experiences and his shitamachi (Tokyo’s “downtown” merchant quarter) upbringing as the
origins of much of his literature. Tanizaki discusses his story about a boy who is able to
use his charisma to take command of a classroom, “Chiisana okoku” (“The Little
Kingdom,” 1918) and its parallels with reality: “...when I reread the following passage
from Chiisana okoku in which the teacher Kaishima goes to the playground at noon one
day, childhood scenes from the Sakamoto school playground come to mind, as if they had
happened only yesterday....”18 The author goes on to quote several pages from the story,
discussing the actual people characters were based on, events that really happened, events
that were made up, and so on. Another one of the numerous stories explored in this
manner is “Haha no kouru ki” or “Longing for Mother” (1919). This time, Tanizaki
15ibid, p. 103
16ibid, p. 110
17ibid,p. 120
18ibid, p. 52
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12
“appropriates for his autobiography a ‘memory’ he had originally written as fiction.”!9
Tanizaki borrows a passage in which he is lying cuddled to his nursemaid’s breasts
listening to a samisen being played by a street vender
“Tempura is what I want, tempura is what I want,” she would hum softly in
time to the samisen’s rhythm. “Doesn’t it sound like that to you? Tempura
is what I want, tempura is what I want. ...Doesn’t in, Jun’ichi?” And she
would peer into my face as my hands pressed against her breasts and my
fingers played with her n ip p le s .20
Significantly, Tanizaki uses this passage and many others in Childhood Years to
locate his literary motifs in his childhood. In the above passage, this “appropriated
memory” is used to place his erotic Mother fixation in reality. In fact, several other similar
descriptions in which both Mother and a fetish work their way into a passage can be found:
“...but Mother’s naked feet, small and white in the dawn, the soles muddy from the road,
did not stop trembling...” and, “Granny used to say in later years that I suckled at my
mother’s breasts till I was six or so; and my memories bear this out.... It was not so much
the taste of the milk that I craved as its sweet smell and the gentle warmth of Mother’s
breast.”21 In one passage, Tanizaki connects his erotic vision of “Mother,” an overt
symbol of writing, and his dread of earthquakes. Tanizaki describes the scene after having
dashed outside when the powerful earthquake of 1894 struck:
Suddenly I became aware that I had a writing brush gripped tightly in my
right hand. (I had, I know, been eating an ice when the earthquake came
and, throwing it down, had dashed out of the house. How, then, did this
brush come to be in my hand? Why had I picked it up, and when?...) As
we stood in the middle of the intersection, holding on to one another as we
19lto, p. 24
20 Tanizaki, Childhood Years: A Memoir, p. 13
21 ibid, p. 32
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swayed back and forth, I began to move the brush, tracing lines in black ink
upon my mother’s breasts.22
The overt symbolism of this memory is impossible to miss. Young Tanizaki
associating writing, mother, and mother’s breasts, with an earthquake that serves to
solidify the whole experience. Also, it should be noted that this and other references to
earthquakes may have an ulterior purpose; it is commonly written that the Great Earthquake
of 1923jolted Tanizaki out of his period of absorption with the West and forced him to
relocate to Kansai, where he rediscovered Japanese culture. Tanizaki gives ammunition to
this argument when he portrays his dread of earthquakes as a life-long phobia:
Mother was terrified of thunder as well as earthquakes.... And indeed it
does seem that my dislike of thunder and even small earthquakes was due to
Mother. I overcame my fear of thunder in my early teens; but the terror of
earthquakes has persisted even into my seventies, so strong is the influence
of one’s mother in early childhood.22
When Childhood Years is taken as an autobiographical account, as it has been by
many scholars, the image of Tanizaki that emerges is monolithic and linear. According to
Tanizaki’s version of Tanizaki, he is a man who inherited his aesthetic sensibilities from the
literature and theater of Japanese tradition; his literature, literary motifs and fetishes all have
origins in childhood experiences, which took place in the traditionally artistic milieu of the
shitamachi;24 and his childhood dread of earthquakes makes it understandable that he
would be so profoundly affected by the Great Earthquake of 1923 that he would rediscover
his Japanese roots.
22ibid, p. 57
23ibid, p. 31
24 the merchants’ quarter was the hub of the arts during the Genroku period, or ‘golden
age’ of Edo Japan
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If one approaches Childhood Years as a possible work of fiction, however, many
fundamental assertions made by Tanizaki become suspect. When he links “woman
worship” back to his grandfather, who, we are informed, married off his sons and kept his
daughters at home, Tanizaki omits an important detail. In describing his grandfather,
Tanizaki writes that it was because he was a “feminist” (a man who preferred women by
Tanizaki’s definition) that he kept his daughters and married off his sons: “Obviously,
Grandfather was what we called in those days a ‘feminist’; and the roots of my own
‘woman-worship’ would thus seem to reach very far back.”25 As Ken Ito points out, there
is some doubt as to whether Tanizaki’s grandfather would qualify as a “feminist” because
“putting sons up for adoption was a common means of avoiding the draft, an
unaccustomed and unpopular duty in the shitamachi.”25 According to Ito, Tanizaki’s
research assistant in writing Childhood Years had spoken with one of Tanizaki’s uncles
and confirmed that draft-dodging had been the motive for sending his boys away, but
Tanizaki preferred the “feminist” theory.2? Ito offers insight into Tanizaki’s motivations
for rewriting the past:
Such creative restatement is not particularly surprising, for making the past
usable was one of Tanizaki’s fortes. Indeed, it is precisely his
reformulations that reveal the most about his sensibilities. His liberties with
the truth in this instance underscore the intensity of his desire to link himself
to his grandfather, this man bom in Edo who had prospered in the new
currents of Meiji.28
25Tanizaki Childhood Years: A Memoir, p. 8
26lto, p. 13
2?ibid
28ibid
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Like so many of his novels, the credibility of Tanizaki’s Childhood Years, written
as a first-person narrative, is dubious to say the least. As the translator, Paul McCarthy,
states in his preface to the work, “we have no way of knowing how accurate or truthful
some of Tanizaki’s recollections may be. They may well tell us more about the man who
writes them in his seventies than about the boy whose sensations, emotions, observations,
attitudes, and actions are d e s c rib e d .”29 An effective writer to the end, it is more than likely
that Tanizaki used his brush to ensure that scholars would focus on certain aspects of his
life, especially those aspects which support the highly crafted perception of his traditionalist
literary persona. Through the power of omission, both in Childhood Years and in his
incomplete Complete Works, Tanizaki also attempted to ensure other aspects of his life,
those having to do with his various interests in the West, would be given less scholarly
attention.
In addition to Tanizaki’s reluctant Western connection, the very act of retracing
childhood years in a memoir is more often a re-creation of another persona which the
author wishes to show to his audience or the world. In other words, it is a conscious effort
to put things in an orderly perspective through which life in the past can be “transgressed”
or “subverted” at the author’s will. That Tanizaki would use a research assistant in
compiling autobiographical memoirs underscores this point. In this light, Childhood Years
can almost be seen as a mimetic process, that is, an imitation or interpretation of his past
events from original reality.
Tanizaki’s Involvement in Early Japanese Cinema
When Tanizaki abandoned his second attempt at a major novel, Kojin, in 1920 to
pursue a film career, he wrote: “I am definitely not doing this work in films as a diversion.
^McCarthy, p. vi
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I believe that it is extremely meaningful, and I consider film to be just as important as
literature. I intend before long to create works of which I can be proud in this m e d iu m .” 3o
And, judging from the intensity Tanizaki brought to his filmmaking efforts during the year
that followed, it appears that he wrote this statement with all sincerity. From the mid-
1910’s on, Tanizaki had become a fan of foreign film, going to see Chaplin films and Mack
Sennett Bathing Beauties comedies on a regular basis. In 1917, Tanizaki aligned himself
with the Pure Film Movement when his article ‘ The Present and Future of Motion
Pictures” was published. And in 1920, this writer of diabolistic stories and fan of western
culture began his short but meaningful career as a filmmaker.
It is impossible to determine Tanizaki’s exact motivation for going into film, but
several conceivable reasons present themselves. Chiba Nobuo, author of a study entitled
Eiga to Tanizaki, or Film and Tanizaki. (1989), suggests that Tanizaki’s film career was
either “an expression of energy in the prime of life or his only recourse during a severe
literary slump. Chiba concludes that in either case, it was clearly both an extension of his
interest in the West, and an experiment to try to achieve something that could not be done in
literature.”31 Another consideration may have been the stability thatTaikatsu’s relatively
high pay offered.3 2 But whatever the reasons, it is clear that Tanizaki was not only
genuinely interested in film as an artistic medium but, more significantly, he was interested
in how his efforts in particular could help improve the quality of films being made in Japan,
which in 1920 suffered in comparison to the films being produced in the West.
30Keene, p. 747
31Bemardi, p. 191
32Ara, p. 399
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Japanese film in 1920 had not significantly changed from Japanese film in 1917,
when Tanizaki first articulated his belief that reform was necessary. The dominant genres
of the era were shimpageki, contemporary drama influenced by shimpa, or “new school”
theater, and kyugeki, or period film, a genre that was highly influenced by kabuki theater.
This form of cinema, the first, and perhaps only pure form of Japanese cinema, evolved
very early in the twentieth century. Even before the first small film companies, Yokota,
Yoshizawa, M. Pathe, and Fukubodo, consolidated to form Japan’s first major film studio,
Nikkatsu, or Nippon Katsudd Shashin Kabushiki Kaisha (Japan Cinematograph
Company) in 1912, the parameters for the popular kyfiha (“old school”) genre had already
been set. Yokota Company had found a talent in Onoe Matsunosuke, the only actor until
the 1920’s “who can be considered to be a star in the modem sense of the w o rd .” 33
Discovered in a rural playhouse and trained by Makino Shozo, who would go on to be
remembered as “the father of Japanese cinema,” Onoe starred in period films that were
phenomenally popular, if only slightly cinematic in nature. Relying heavily on the benshi
narrative system, Makino simply set the camera down in front of the action— usually a
frenzied mass of actors dressed in period costumes and made up like kabuki actors— and
cranked the camera at twelve frames a second (as opposed to sixteen in the West) so the
action would appear that much more fast paced. Makino’s editing techniques were also
minimalist: he cut only when one roll of film ran out and needed to be replaced.
Matsunosuke’s grace, acrobatic skill, and screen presence, accompanied by the
explanations of a benshi, were enough to carry these early films.
Because Makino and other directors of his day were being richly rewarded at the
box office for this theatrical style of filmmaking, monied interests, filmmakers, and fans
alike saw no reason to fix what was not broken. As a testament to the popularity of this
33Anderson and Richie, p. 32
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genre, between 1909 and 1911 Makino and Matsunosuke made 168 films together,
sometimes shooting a film a day.34 However, by 1913 the intellectual segment of Japan’s
film audience began to formulate ideas on the state of domestic films and a discourse
evolved through which rudimentary film theory and aesthetics could be discussed. As such
foreign films as Enrico Guazzoni’s Quo Vadis? (1913), French detective serials like
Giovanni Pastrone’s Fantomas, and W.D. Griffith’s films started to proliferate in urban
movie theaters in Japan, these intellectual-minded movie-goers began to notice a
discrepancy between the domestic product— which appealed to old-fashioned stage
aesthetics such as the use of benshi, oyama or female impersonators, static front angle
photography, and minimal editing— and the foreign product, which was exploring a set of
aesthetic properties considered to be unique to film. Unlike Japanese filmmakers, it
became increasingly obvious that foreign filmmakers considered film to be a new art form.
As a result, foreign films grew in status among the upper-class and intellectuals while the
domestic fare was regarded to be inconsequential. For example, in 1916 Griffith’s
Intolerance opened in the Teikoku Theater and demanded an unprecedented admission price
of ten yen, or fifty times the going rate.33 While foreign films that explored complex
editing techniques and narrative strategies, like the highly influential German expressionist
film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Griffith’s Intolerance, were finding an enthusiastic
audience among Japan’s educated elite, the domestic product was not taken seriously at all:
one writer recalls that the audience for Japanese films was mostly comprised of “snotty
nosed little boys” and “nannies,” and states that until the mid-nineteen twenties, the “fact
34jbid
35Bemardi, p. 77
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that Japanese films were rubbish compared to foreign films was common knowledge for all
intellectuals from middle school students on up. '’36
A few years before Tanizaki became involved in the industry, there were some
noteworthy attempts by filmmakers interested in creating ‘pure films’ to reform the
Japanese industry. This movement, supported by the intellectual film audience of which
Tanizaki was one, was founded by a man named Kaeriyama Norimasu in 1913 with the
publication of a small film magazine which he and his friends named “Film Record.” (In
fact, after Film Record ended in 1918, Kinema Junpo, which is still one of Japan’s
premiere film journals, was founded and carried on in Film Record’s tradition.)37
Kaeriyama’s articles for Film Record focused not only on technical aspects of filmmaking
but also on criticism and analysis. Published twice a month, the magazine served as a kind
of guide to foreign films.38 in 1917, just two months before the publication of Tanizaki’s
essay “The Present and Future of Motion Pictures,” Kaeriyama published The Production
and Photography of Moving Picture Drama, which was compiled from several Film Record
articles and included translated sections from foreign books and magazines. In it
Kaeriyama discusses several themes Tanizaki would echo in his own writings. The central
theme of both Kaeriyama and Tanizaki was the need to develop a jun 'eigageki (“pure film”
drama) genre. Advocates of reform wanted to replace: 1) Shimpa’s stylized romanticism
with psychological realism; 2) its exaggerated theatrical style of acting and movement with
a naturalistic acting style; and 3 )oyama, or female impersonators, with real female
36 ibid, p. 24
37ibid, p. 44
38ibid, p. 42
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actresses. Also, for the script, a colloquial style of dialogue would be written out for the
actors whereas before no dialogue had been prepared at all 39
A very influential work, The Production and Photography of Moving Picture
Drama was reprinted at least ten times between 1917 and 1924.40 in this work, Kaeriyama
helped to define film as an independent medium by introducing and defining the now
common term for film, “ eiga. ” Through creating a distinction between the elegant term
‘eiga,’ which can mean “descriptive pictures,” “projected pictures,” or “attractive pictures,”
and katsuddgeki, “moving picture drama” or Katsudoshashirt, “moving pictures,”
Kaeriyama put critical distance between what had existed in the domestic industry and what
he hoped would eventually emerge as an independent art form. The term ‘eiga’ caught on
quickly and soon replaced the latter terms, which have since come to denote a generic or
artistically inferior grade of film.41 To Kaeriyama, the term ‘eiga’ represented an ideal: it
was a medium that deserved merit in its own right as opposed to
katsuddgeki/Katsudoshashin, which was clearly theatrical in origin and thus a lesser form
of art.
Beyond purely aesthetic considerations inherent in the move toward pure film,
reformers also had tangible reasons for wanting to improve the domestic product. They
recognized that as long as films made in Japan lacked the sophistication of foreign films,
the Japanese industry would be unable to compete at home or abroad. If the nascent
Japanese film industry continued to be passed up by advances made in the West, the future
of film would be exclusively western. And although the revenue to be gained in foreign
39ibid, p. 24
40ibid, p. 45
41 Anderson and Richie, p. 36
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markets was a powerful incentive, Hollywood’s ignorant and highly racist portrayals of
Japanese people and customs created a desire among these Japanese filmmakers to present
their culture honestly.42 Tanizaki, who touches on this in “The Present and Future of
Motion Pictures,” as well as other writers of the day believed that the animosity felt by the
West for Japan was a result of ignorance which could be eradicated by a truthful portrayal
of Japan and Japanese people in film. These intellectuals, while admiring the West in
many ways, were also very proud of their own culture and wanted to use film to educate
western audiences. One early film critic of the day, Mori Iwao, saw the possibilities of
applying Western film techniques to Japanese culture:
If you examine the nature of Japanese culture, there is much in our history
and our legends that would make a splendid subject for movies, and from
our unique religion, literature, and national consciousness to the topography,
climate, geography, plants, and animals, from the graceful mountains and
rivers to the magnificent coasts, from the steamy islands where poisonous
snakes dwell to the icebergs where the penguins cry, and even in the change
of seasons, from the blooming of the cherry blossoms to the withering and
falling of the leaves, [Japan] overflows with an infinite wealth of treasures.42
In Mori’s own words, filmmakers were to “rely on the vast universal appeal of film to
build a foundation of goodwill between Japan and the United States.”44 And Shochiku,
42During the 1910’s, several films were produced in Hollywood which portrayed Japanese
as sinister. One such film, Cecil B. De Mille’s The Cheat, is about a Japanese money lender who
literally brands a woman because she refuses to repay his money according to the terms of their
agreement. In it, the Japanese villain played by Sessue Hayakawa has a scene in which he rips the
clothing from his white co-star and bums her shoulder with a branding iron. This scene,
aggravated an already tense anti-Japanese atmosphere, caused the American audiences to shout out
anti-Japanese epithets at the screen in theaters throughout the country. When Japanese heard about
this reaction, Hayakawa was in turn branded a traitor and his reputation among Japanese was
damaged. America’s political campaign against the “yellow peril” was thus made manifest in its
motion pictures. See Bemardi, p. 117-119
43Bemardi, p. 93
44ibid, p. 106
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Taikatsu’s main rival in the early twenties, saw one of its main goals as making films that
would contribute to the “international harmony” by making exportable films that
“truthfully” portrayed Japanese culture.45
Mindless imitation of western films was not the purpose of the Pure Rim
Movement. Like so many Japanese who grew up during the Meiji era, Kaeriyama,
Tanizaki and other pure film advocates had a philosophical approach which called for
learning techniques from the West in order to establish a foundation from which something
truly Japanese might arise. The motto of the Pure Rim Movement was “observe to
learn ”46 This meant that Japanese filmmakers should study foreign films and film
criticism to understand advances being made in the West so that they could develop an
equally sophisticated yet essentially different form of filmmaking for Japan. They were
particularly interested in expanding the gendaigeki, or “contemporary drama film,” by
making it into a genre in which the real lives of real Japanese people in contemporary
society could be presented. This, of course, almost by definition was completely
antithetical to the theatrical genres that dominated the Japanese industry.
Of the theatrical conventions that were seen as limiting to the growth of film and
criticized by Kaeriyama and Tanizaki, the presence of benshi was perhaps most
problematic. Extremely popular, supported by the studios and theaters, and represented by
a strong union, the benshi were in many ways the most conspicuous feature of Japanese
cinema. Such being the case, they had considerable power which they often used to
directly obstruct the exploration of qualities inherent to filmmaking. They were, for
example, known to dictate the maximum number of shots per reel so as to avoid
45ibid, p. 108
46ibid, p. 40
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complications caused by intricate cutting techniques.47 Also, their presence, prominent as
it was, overshadowed that of directors and screenwriters and therefore lessened the
importance of their roles. A film’s success or failure often depended on who was
narrating; a good benshi could make a poor film seem interesting, and a bad benshi could
ruin the effects of a brilliant film. Furthermore, the challenge of telling a story through the
use of a sequence of images, a challenge essential for successful filmmaking, was
nonexistent so long as benshi were present to explain everything. Finally, their ignorance
of culture in general and film in particular caused them to make fundamental errors when
narrating.48 It was not uncommon for benshi to take it upon themselves to divulge entire
plots, add superfluous elaborations, or make up their own version of events. And as could
be expected, anytime a film was produced in which the director had explored the
possibilities of parallel editing, dialogue inter-titles, or an increased number of shots,
benshi “wasted no time in lodging their complaints with studio executives.”49 In one case,
Tanaka Eizo’s film Hakucho no uta (The Song of the Swan) was simplified according to a
benshi’s instructions: Tanaka’s parallel editing was replaced by an elaborate recitation that
had nothing to do with the director’s story.50 It is not surprising then that any attempt to
complicate film by trying to make it into an independent art form by Kaeriyama’s ‘pure
film’ advocates met with strong resistance from the benshi faction.
1917 was a busy year for Kaeriyama. Besides publishing The Production and
Photography of Moving Picture Drama, he entered Tennenshoku Katsudo Shashin Kaisha,
4?ibid, P- 87
48Gerow, p. 72
49Bemardi, p. 87
SOjbid, p. 87
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(Natural Color Moving Picture Company), or “Tenkatsu” for short, where he sought to
apply his ideas on film as an actual writer/director. His pictures introduced an editing style
that incorporated interwoven long-, medium-, and close-shots; realistic acting; and the use
of female actresses.51 Unfortunately, because of Kaeriyama’s lack of artistic sensibilities,
benshi opposition, inadequate distribution, and insufficient support from Tenkatsu, his
efforts were not successfully realized and went largely unnoticed. Kaeriyama’s first two
films, The Glow of Life and The Maid in the Mountains were only released after sitting in a
vault for a year, and even then they were shown only in two relatively obscure theaters.52
Kaeriyama himself was disappointed in his attempts and later apologized for the “dry
scholarly air” of The Glow of Life, which one scholar has described as “an ambitious
attempt to unravel the meaning of life in four reels.”55 The acting, too, was disappointing.
The actors Kaeriyama used were trained in a traditional theatrical style, and when they were
asked to act in a more naturalistic manner, they came off looking stiff and uncomfortable.
Although Kaeriyama had a vision and an academic understanding of what needed to be
done to advance film as an artistic medium in its own right, he failed to apply his ideas and
to produce convincing ‘pure films’ in a market that was still supportive of theatrical
conventions in film.
Taikatsu and Shochiku, both small progressive companies in 1920, sought to
challenge Nikkatsu’s dominance by turning out films that would win popular support away
from the shimpageki. Both companies had articles published in which they proposed to
“import the newest foreign films, improve the domestic product (with an emphasis on
51 Anderson and Richie, p. 36
52ibid, p. 38
53Bemardi, p. 52
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‘action comedy’ for the contemporary genre), and, if all went well, subsequently export
this p ro d u c t.”54 Taikatsu announced that they had hired Kurihara Tomas, a well-known bit
player of Oriental villain roles in Hollywood films, to direct. Kurihara, having learned
about western filmmaking under the tutelage of directors William S. Hart and Thomas H.
Ince— his namesake— brought much needed credibility to this small company. It was also
announced that the popular writer Tanizaki Jun’ichiro would be hired as a “script
consultant.” His official position required that he only come in once a month to discuss
subject matter for scripts. When Taikatsu hired him, they were undoubtedly more
interested in using his name to endorse the studio rather than having him become a
significant member of the production team. However, Tanizaki saw this as an opportunity
to try his hand at screenwriting, an ambition that is expressed in his 1917 article “The
Present and Future of Motion Pictures,” and pursued his new career with a surprising
degree of intensity. By working closely with Kurihara, Tanizaki soon developed a
personal screenwriting style which made a significant contribution to the Japanese
screenplay, and no doubt, pleasantly surprised the studio’s management.”55 Tanizaki and
Kurihara were able to collaborate only for about one year before Taikatsu management was
forced to abandon its commitment to make pure films in favor of the more popular and
cheaper genre of shimpageki. During this period of collaboration, however, Tanizaki and
Kurihara produced a number of important if not always financially or artistically successful
films that would come to represent an important stage of development in the evolution of
Japanese cinema.
Tanizaki began writing his first scenario, Amachua kurabu, or The Amateur Cl ub,
in June 1920. Starring Tanizaki’s sister-in-law, Seiko, who had taken on the professional
54ibid, p. 109
55Bemardi, p. 110
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name of Hayama Michiko, the film was released amid fanfare in November 56
Stylistically, the film was a direct imitation of a Mack Sennett-style slapstick comedy. Set
along a seaside, the plot is about a group of drama enthusiasts who are attempting to put on
a kabuki play until a thief intervenes and chaos ensues. The irony of the title and plot is
hard to miss. Like the group of amateurs in the film attempting to produce a kabuki play,
Kurihara, Tanizaki and their group of amateur actors were attempting to make a ‘pure film.’
That kabuki, parodied and dislocated, is the subject for this decidedly nontheatrical film
suggests that Tanizaki was not only conscious of this ironic premise but was also, in a
sense, making fun of his own efforts. The scenario’s absurd plot can also be seen as
symbolically representing a youthful rejuvenation of an old, tired genre. Considered to be
“Japan’s first comedy,” The Amateur Club was neither a complete success nor a complete
failure. Although it was a total departure from both the prevalent shimpageki and
Kaeriyama’s early attempts at “pure film” in that its subject matter was frivolous and a
naturalist acting style was effectively used, audiences found it to be too American.57 One
reason the comedy failed is because the parodying of “cops” was censored, which resulted
in the thrust of the film’s slapstick humor to be uneven, with more emphasis on the
parodying of kabuki and the girl’s father than was originally intended.5*
However, when one considers Tanizaki’s goals for this project, the film’s
shortcomings are rendered less significant. In the article “Sono yorokobi wo kansha sezaru
o enai” or “I Must Be Grateful for That Happiness” (December, 1920) Tanizaki discusses
what the immediate goals for The Amateur Club had been:
56Ara, p. 398
5 7Anderson and Richie,p. 40
58Chiba, p. 66
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First we tried making an experimental Five reel comedy. In my opinion, a
great number of the films that are ordinarily produced in this country are too
far removed from the actual conditions and customs of present day Japan.
We made this comedy with this concern in mind and, using our daily life as a
guide, we have tried to show the lively and cheerful atmosphere of a crowd
of young men and women as naturally as p o ssib le.5 9
From this it is obvious that Tanizaki approached The Amateur Club more as a
‘practice film’ or exercise than as a genuine attempt to establish an original Japanese film.
It is interesting to note that in ‘The Present and Future of Motion Pictures,” Tanizaki
asserts60 that it is not necessaiy to make literary films right from the start. He states that
the immediate goal of Japanese filmmakers should be learning to shoot according to
“proper methods” and that “whatever is popular is fine.” He writes: “even if the plot is
simple it is precisely the natural and realistic that make it interesting,” and later implies that
if a film is able to “show natural scenery and the manners, customs, and feelings” of a
culture, this will be enough to make it interesting. Unlike Kaeriyama, Tanizaki realized the
importance of learning to crawl before learning to walk.
Judged according to Tanizaki’s standards, The Amateur Club must be seen as an
absolute success. Within the context of Japanese film, it was unique and innovative and
had an uninhibited playful quality. It was thus immediately accessible to even those
filmgoers who felt the piece was too American. One viewer recalls61 that it had a
“lightheartedness that was within reach” and remembers appreciating Hayama Michiko’s
“lively animation” which made him sense a “youthfulness that was without precedence in
Japanese film until then.” For the first time, a ‘pure film’ was made accessible to typical
591JZ, 14:185-186, Bemardi trans.
60TJZ, 20: 19
61 Chiba, p. 67
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Japanese filmgoers, proving that the filmmaking techniques being explored abroad could be
successfully applied in Japanese cinema as well. The film featured little children and dogs
on the screen, the story had a complicated narrative structure involving parallel action, there
were close-up shots, a colloquial style of inter-title was used, and Hayama Michiko
titillated audiences by her appearance in a bathing suit.62 On another level, the film was
farther removed from the stage than any Japanese film that preceded it. Tanizaki’s slapstick
scenario, Kurihara’s Hollywood training, the use of familiar locations, and a cast made up
entirely of amateurs added to the film’s nontheatricality. Also, since there was much
attention paid to this Tanizaki-written and Kurihara-directed film, the positions of writer
and director grew in prominence. Tanizaki and Kurihara even appeared in silhouette during
the opening credits to highlight their presence to an audience that was not previously aware
of such distinctions as director and writer.6^
Kurihara and Tanizaki’s second collaboration, an adaptation of Izumi Kyoka’s
story “Katsushika sunaga” (“The Sands of Katsushika”), was released in December
1920,64 a scant month after the release of The Amateur Club. The Sands of Katsushika, a
short three-reel film is said to have been Tanizaki’s “most impressive collaboration with
Kurihara atTaikatsu.”65 However, because the scenario, script and film have all been lost
and Tanizaki later denied having scripted the film at all66 an in-depth discussion of the film
62ibid, p. 67
63Bemardi, p. 281
S^Ara, p. 398
65 Bemardi, p. 289
66Chiba, p. 89
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is impossible. That the film was well received and Tanizaki credited with its adaptation are
enough however, to suggest that his 1917 statement in ‘ T he Present and Future of Motion
Pictures” concerning his ambition to adapt an Izumi Kyoka work for the screen was
realized.
Tanizaki’s third project, Tsuki no sasavaki, or The Radiance of the Moon, which he
wrote between January and March of 1921 ,67 was his first attempt at writing an actual
screenplay according to methods learned from Kurihara; The Amateur Club and The Sands
of Katsushika had scenarios by Tanizaki, but Kurihara was credited as having put the
scenarios into a proper screenplay f o r m a t . 6 ^ The story is about a beautiful enchantress
who strangles men when she is aroused by the light of the moon. The script is written in
an opulent literary style that adds to its mysterious and romantic (romanteki) quality.69
Moreover, attention paid to descriptions, camera angles, instructions concerning frame
composition, and so on demonstrates that Tanizaki “was writing with both the camera and
the final projected screen image in mind.”70 Unfortunately, however, as beautiful as some
of the sections are, Tanizaki’s preoccupation with narrative passages in the script
obstructed the development of good dialogue, and took away from the overall balance of
the screenplay 71 In any case, the script was never made into a film.
67Ara, p. 398
68Chiba, p. 63
69Ara, p. 398
70Bemardi, p. 178
71 ibid
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Tanizaki’s fourth film project, The Night of the Doll Festival, is written in a manner
that more closely resembles the continuity-style screenplay Kurihara wrote for The Amateur
Club.77 Unfortunately, both the script for The Night of the Poll Festival, which was
published in 1922, and the translation of that script presented in this work are incomplete.
Perhaps, the complete screenplay was lost or Tanizaki and Kurihara shot the end of the film
without the final scenes of the story written out in a screenplay format. A synopsis of the
story as it was described by Tanizaki in an issue of Katsudd kurabu or Film Club is as
follows: Aiko, a little girl who has affectionately cared for the westem-style dolls and
rabbits she keeps, neglects them when the March Girls’ Doll Festival comes around and the
traditional dolls are displayed in her room. That night she dreams that the dolls come alive,
talk with one another, and go off to a beautiful mountain, where they play with one another
and frolic the night away. The next morning, Aiko wakes up and immediately places her
western style dolls on her Doll Festival Tier, and she brings her rabbits into her room.73
Described as “the first Japanese motion picture fairy tale,”7- * The Night of the Doll
Festival represents the most personal effort Tanizaki ever made in film. It starred his six-
year old daughter Ayuko, and Hayama Michiko, his wife, and his wife’s mother all had
significant roles.75 Furthermore, Tanizaki directed much of the film, it was shot in his
own home, and he even operated puppets for the camera.76 The degree of personal
72jbid, p. 180
73Chiba, p. 131
74Ara, p. 398
25ibid, p. 399
76Chiba, p. 134
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involvement in this film suggests that it was a very meaningful project for him. And it
stands out as another example of Tanizaki experimenting with an as yet totally new genre to
Japanese cinema; at this point, he had made Japan’s first slapstick comedy, her first ‘pure
film’ literary adaptation, and her first fairy tale motion picture. And, like The Sands of
Katsushika, Tanizaki was able to realize an ambition; using properties unique to the
medium of film to make a Japanese fairy tale is something which Tanizaki discussed three
years earlier in his essay, ‘The Present and Future of Motion Pictures.” Furthermore,
Tanizaki’s degree of involvement allowed him to experiment with one of his favorite
observations on the medium of film: The Night of the Doll Festival explicitly deals with the
process of going from reality to dream and from dream back to reality. This ability for film
to convey a sense of reality or fantasy, or both intertwined, is a recurring theme in
Tanizaki’s writings on film and his writings that are cinematic in nature, such as ‘ The
Human-faced Carbuncle,” The Radiance of the Moon, and other “dream-like” descriptions
of the film-viewing experience.
Another feature of the film which demands comment is Tanizaki’s treatment of the
West. Although the exact meaning of the story remains somewhat elusive, overt symbols
of a contentious relationship between a sympathetic West and a traditional Japan portrayed
as sinister are impossible to miss. The lack of subtlety or ambiguity in this work sharply
contrasts the author’s later, more ambiguous style of writing, a style that would eventually
come to represent one of the finest qualities of Tanizaki’s literature. It is easy to imagine
that Tanizaki was embarrassed of the kind of writing displayed in The Night of the Doll
Festival and possibly the apish nature of The Amateur Club when, in 1932, he condemned
some of the literary works he had written during his period of interest in the West:
To be honest, I find my works of this period to be the most distasteful of my
writing. I get a little depressed just thinking about how such pieces are
included in no small measure among my works currently available in
anthologies and various other popular editions. This, of course, is not to say
that the influence I received from the West was all bad and no good, Yet,
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though I cannot speak for others, in terms of my own youthful work I
cannot help feeling embarrassed that the Western influence was displayed in
an utterly superficial and unthinking way.77
Another insight into The Night of the Doll Festival is offered by Chiba Nobuo. He
presents evidence to suggest that one reason Tanizaki was so personally involved in this
project had to do with efforts to save his first marriage. The often cited and highly
publicized incident in which he had arranged to “hand over” his wife to another author and
good friend, Sato Haruo, but then reneged on the deal— leaving Sato, himself, and his wife
in an awkward position— had just taken place. According to Chiba, Tanizaki was shaken
by this incident and sought to bring his family back together. To support this claim, Chiba
cites themes of neglect and reconciliation present in The Night of the Poll Festival, as well
as other works of this period, including a drama written in 1922 called Honmoku yawa or
A Night in Honmoku. about a “foreign” husband who feels he must make up for the way
he has treated his Japanese wife.7^
Although Tanizaki was unable to save his first marriage through The Night of the
Doll Festival, the film does appear to have been a success. A Film Club review published
in June 1921, praises the acting and is written in a generally positive tone.79 Tanizaki’s
final film at Taikatsu, another literary adaptation— this time Ueda Akinari’s “Jasei no in,” or
“Lust of the White Serpent”— encountered more adverse criticism than his previous film,
but in many ways it must also be considered his most successful film. It appears to have
reached a wider audience since it was shown to packed theaters every night upon its
77TJZ, 20:401, Ito trans.
78Chiba, p. 134
79ibid, p. 133
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release8* * and as of 1921, it was the longest and most complex pure film ever made.
Tanizaki completed writing the mammoth screenplay for Lust of the White Serpent in April
1921, but the picture-which ended up being ten reels in length, and was filled with period
costumes and elaborate set designs, and included location shooting in Kyoto, Nara,
Hatsuse, and Hakone81-- was not released until September.82 Criticized as being too
slow, the film had only a few more shots than The Amateur Club despite being twice as
long.83 The shots, mostly comprised of long shots and close-ups, were tediously long,
and since there had not been enough research done on the manners and gestures of the time
period, the female looked a little awkward with her modem expressions and acting style.8- *
The acting was considered to be otherwise impeccable,ss and the historical atmosphere and
composition of each scene were praised.86
The Lust of the White Serpent was the most ambitious of the Tanizaki/Kurihara
collaborations, and stands out for a number of reasons. First of all, the script is possibly
the most developed, in terms of its technical instructions and descriptions, of any film
script that preceded it: It is divided into 283 shots and features twenty-five expository titles
SOibid, p. 151
81TJZ, 8:151
82Ara, p. 399
83Bemardi, p. 183
84Chiba, p. 151
85Bemardi, p. 184
86Chiba, p. 151
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and forty-one dialogue titles. It has detailed yet concise set and character descriptions, calls
for a “panoramic view” pan as well as a “double exposure,” and close-ups to introduce
characters.87 Also, as Tanizaki notes in the introduction to the screenplay as it was
published in February 1922, the film represented another “first”:
Although naturally there are many aspects of the film that remain
unsatisfactory, in Japan it is the first attempt to adapt classical literature into
“pure film” drama, and for this reason alone I feel great satisfaction at having
played a part in its completion.88
This genre, unlike that of the American-style slapstick comedy represented by The Amateur
Club, would go on to have a long history in Japanese cinema. In deciding on producing
The Lust of the White Serpent, director Kurihara reasoned that if any Japanese film would
be accepted in the West, it would be one dealing with the classical image of Japan as
opposed to a contemporary drama.89 Ironically, it took more than thirty years before
Kurihara’s hopes were realized in 1953, when Mizoguchi Kenji’s adaptation of Ugetsu
monogatari won the Silver Lion award at the Venice Film Festival and added to the
international prestige of the Japanese cinema which Kurosawa’s Rashomon— another
literary period piece— had firmly established by winning the Venice prize in 1951.
In November 1921, a combination of factors caused Tanizaki to leave Taikatsu and
filmmaking entirely. Perhaps the main reason has to do with a change in policy made by
the studio. In the fall of 1921 when The Lust of the White Serpent was released, the
studio’s main financial backer Asano Soichiro, a prominent industrial entrepreneur, decided
87Bemardi, P - 182
88TJZ, p. 8:151, Bemardi trans.
89Chiba, p. 149
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to cut off funding to the already struggling studio.90 Although the studio denied it at the
time, a rumor said that Asano had made his decision after being displeased with The Lust
of the White Serpent.9i For whatever reason, Taikatsu opted to suspend funding for the
costly “pure film” dramas in favor of producing cheap and lucrative shimpageki.92 With
this decision, Tanizaki, who had just moved his family to Yokohama one month before
(indicating that he had intended to stay at Taikatsu), resigned. Kurihara’s deteriorating
health (he eventually died from tuberculosis) appears to have been another factor in his
premature retirement from the industry 93 At any rate, Taikatsu only lasted a few months
after its change in policy before it was absorbed by Shochiku.
Besides the problems at Taikatsu, Tanizaki may have moved away from filmmaking
for other reasons. As he undoubtedly came to realize, the many limitations inherent in the
collaborative and costly nature of filmmaking make it a frustrating venture: besides a
constraining dependence on talent, resources, and management, films must have popular
appeal. And if any of these impositions are for any reason insurmountable, the filmmakers
themselves are usually held to be solely responsible. The poor state of the domestic
industry, Japanese filmgoers’ lack of sophistication, Taikatsu’s limited resources,
censorship problems, an uninterested western audience, and his own inability to bring his
vision to the screen in a totally satisfactory manner all must have taken a toll on Tanizaki’s
enthusiasm for working in the medium of film. After a year of filmmaking, the solitary and
totally self-dependent nature of writing must have been a welcome return. Indeed, as
90ibid, p. 153
91 ibid, p. 153
92Bemardi, p. 188
93ibid, p. 188
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shown in his 1920 article, ‘I Must be Grateful for That Happiness,’ it would appear that his
film ‘studies’ rejuvenated his love of writing: “I confess that I put my pen to paper with a
happiness that I have not felt recently. I can not help but be grateful for becoming involved
in the moving pictures, which I have loved for a long time.”9* *
Whether Tanizaki intended on a long career in filmmaking is unclear. Some
evidence suggests that he planned to stay in film at least a while longer recall that he had
moved his family to Yokohama a month before leaving Taikatsu, he was slated to direct a
film in October, and his short story “The Human-faced Carbuncle” was scheduled to be
made into a film.95 However, statements by Tanizaki suggest that he considered
filmmaking to be more of an exploration of film aesthetics or a sojourn from writing than
an actual change in career. In “I Must be Grateful for That Happiness,” Tanizaki writes
that since he was in training to be a screenwriter— his teachers being Kurihara Tomas and
the film actors~he would have to learn to conceive of a scenario “not as a story, but as
scenes of a motion picture,” and that, “if I fail in this, my involvement in film will have had
no meaning.”96
No matter how Tanizaki saw his involvement in film, his contributions are
impressive. As a prominent and popular literary figure, his active presence in film
production undoubtedly caused many to take notice of the Pure Rim Movement for the first
time, leading to a wider recognition of the possibilities of film as an independent art form
among the consumers of popular culture in Taisho Japan. Tanizaki’s writings on film and
his involvement in the industry had the tangible result of bringing a degree of cultural
94TJZ, 4:185-6, Bemardi trans.
95Bemardi, p. 293
96TJZ, 4:186
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significance to a domestic product that had hitherto existed for the sake of “nannies” and
“snotty nosed children.” Also, the films themselves all explore new territory in Japanese
cinema: The Amateur Club showed a group of Japanese youths amid familiar Tokyo
settings and engaged in a kind of carefree raucous behavior that had been alien to Japanese
film before its release; The Sands of Katsushika and The Lust of the White Serpent stand
out as the first time Kaeriyama’s revolutionary ideas concerning film were applied to
literary adaptations (the works of both Kyoka Izumi and Ueda Akinari would go on to be
hallmarks of the Japanese literary cinema); and The Night of the Doll Festival, “Japan’s
first fairy tale motion picture,” is an early exploration of the ‘dreamlike’ aesthetic in
Japanese film, an aesthetic that would eventually bring international recognition to the
works of Mizoguchi, Naruse, Kurosawa, Oshima, Imamura, and others, all among
Japan’s most celebrated contemporary filmmakers.
Tanizaki’s Film Aesthetic: From Film to Literature
Tanizaki’s involvement in film is easy to write off as an extension of his admiration
of the West or as yet another example of his tendency to become infatuated with something
intensely only to abandon it in mid-stream. There is certainly a degree of truth in these
assertions, and this is probably how Tanizaki would later have us understand his short
career as a filmmaker. But there is more to his affair with the new medium than meets the
eye. Although it is true that Tanizaki became involved with the production of film for
various practical reasons, such as the need to get away from writing literature, the romance
of working in the film industry, the challenges filmmaking had to offer, and a steady
salary, the most significant factor was quite possibly his fascination with the film aesthetic.
From the mid-1910’s to the mid-20's, the mysterious, haunting and ethereal qualities
Tanizaki discovered in film are discussed in his essays and evoked in his literature and
scripts in no small measure, and with no small degree of literary precision. The
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juxtaposition and intermingling of reality and illusion, or life and image; the “waking
dream” quality of viewing film; and the aesthetics of light, darkness, and shadows are a
few ideas Tanizaki so eloquently discusses in these works. In order to convey the
ambiguous nature and literary quality of Tanizaki’s discussions of film, I present the
author’s writings at length.
To Tanizaki, the film aesthetic was so powerful because, like dreams, film could
capture the contradictory essences of reality and illusion, and have a profound affect on the
viewer’s state of mind. In “The Human-faced Carbuncle,” for example, those who view
the mysterious film by themselves late at night are at first haunted by nightmares, then
become physically ill, and eventually lose their minds. In another part of the story,
Tanizaki elaborates on the “haunted mood” that is created when a film is projected in a
dark, silent room:
when you watch a film late at night all alone in a dark room, without a
sound, you fall into a haunted mood filled with strange foreboding. Now,
this is obviously the case if it’s a calm or mournful picture, but M says that
even with scenes of brilliant dinnerparties and violent fights, the swirling
shadows of all those people make it impossible to think of the images as dead
no matter how you try; on the contrary, as you watch the film you begin to
feel as if you yourself will cease to exist He says the scenes that make you
most ill at ease are close-ups of a broadly grinning face; when these scenes
appear, you feel a chill as your hand turning the projector crank suddenly
comes to a halt. M often says that a smiling face is much more frightening
than an angry one. ‘In spite of this,’ he says, ‘because I’m a technician, it’s
nothing, but when an actor watches a film in which images of himself
appear, and watches it all alone— what a strange experience that must be!
Surely he feels as though the self appearing on film is the one truly alive,
while the self who is watching, lingering in the dark comer, is the image.’97
And in a 1921 article written on the German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,
film is described as a “waking dream” that leaves the viewer affected by the memories of
flickering images even after the film has ended:
97TJZ, 5:302
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In a sense, you can even say that the moving pictures are dreams that are just
a little more vivid than ordinary dreams. People want to dream not only
when they are asleep, but when they are awake too. We go to the moving
picture theaters because we want to see dreams on the screen. We want to
savor dreams even though we are wide awake. Perhaps for that reason I
prefer to go the moving pictures in the afternoon rather than at night. Spring
and summer are better seasons than winter and the fall. In particular, the
early summer from the end of May to June, just when one begins to perspire
a bit, is the best time for stirring up all kinds of illusions. Then even after I
come home and lay my head on the pillow those illusions travel back and
forth in my mind, mingling with my dreams. In the end I can no longer
distinguish between the film and the dream, and for a long time they both
linger in my mind as one beautiful vision. Movies are indeed dreams men
make with machines. Scientific progress and the development of the human
intellect have given us various industrial products, and finally now we can
also make dreams. It is said that wine and music are the greatest
masterpieces made by man, but moving pictures are definitely another.98
In his 1923 novel Nikkai or Flesh, which was based on his experiences at Taikatsu,
Tanizaki takes the dreamlike quality of film a step further, using film as an analogy to
address metaphysical questions of existence and nonexistence, or reality and illusion, in the
universe:
To exaggerate a bit, the entire universe— all the phenomena of the world
around us— is something like a film. Isn’t it possible, then, that even though
everything changes from moment to moment, the past remains wound up
somewhere? Couldn’t it be that we are all nothing but shadows that
disappear quickly and without a trace, while our reality lives on in the film of
the universe? Even the dreams we see and the things we imagine are films of
the past projecting light on our minds, for this reason they cannot be mere
illusions. The things we have seen once, somewhere, whether in a previous
life or at some point in our childhood, project shadows. I have had this idea
for some time, but seeing moving pictures has reinforced it. Films are
dreams that we see reflected on the screen instead of visualized in our minds.
And, in fact, those dreams are the real world.99
That Tanizaki would go so far as to suggest that dreams, or filmic images on a
screen, are the “real world,” or that the past is somewhere “wound up” like a reel of film—
98Bemardi, p. 163
99ibid, p. 164
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and then to suggest that the real world, made up of illusory shadows as it is, is imaginary—
demonstrates the extent to which the film aesthetic occupied the author’s thoughts and
engaged his imagination. The film/TV viewing experience, so much a part of everyday life
in most contemporary societies, was something totally new and magical at the turn of the
century: only those whose lives happened to intersect the arrival of this new medium were
able to fully recognize through first-hand experience that our senses of aesthetics and
perception would be transformed by man’s ability to reproduce on a screen for a large
audience what had previously been confined to the individual imagination. The masks of
Noh theater, which at one time represented something close to reality; today can only be
seen and appreciated as symbolic. Men could play the role of women in kabuki in the past,
whereas now this once common practice can only be seen as a cultural novelty. And, as
Tanizaki illustrates in the above passage, our conceptions and expressions of philosophical
ideas are also profoundly affected by flickering images that are at once illusory, at once
realistic.
Fascinated by the realistic yet mystical— the “waking dream” quality of film—
Tanizaki did his best to convey it in his writing. In a 1920 essay, the author recalls the first
time he met with Kurihara Tomas in Yokohama to discuss the prospect of working at
Taikatsu. In this passage, which is written as if from one of his novels, Tanizaki describes
in realistic terms his observations as he arrives in Yokohama, is jostled about in his car,
gazes out the car window and sees foreigners walking along the western style roads.
Describing the spring day as sunny, normal, and full of life, Tanizaki portrays a realistic
and vital universe to contrast with the exotic, dark and mysterious cinematic world he is
about to enter. Tanizaki finally arrives at the studio, which is located in an area that
reminds him of Shanghai and is filled with the “uniquely sweet odor of film”:
The room that had been so full of sunlight from the clear blue sky suddenly
became pitch dark. The films appeared as a small image projected from one
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wall of this narrow room to the other. I saw two films there. One was of
the cherry blossoms of Sankei Park, and one was about the silk industry,
from the silk being made by the silkworm, to its appearance in a draper’s
shop, made into an exquisite fabric, and ending with its transformation into
the fancy attire of a city woman. Needless to say these were extremely
ordinary pictures, but the inside of that bright room suddenly becoming dark
and, most of all, that very small, brilliantly distinct reflection of a moving
object projected like a glittering jewel on the wall, gradually lured me into a
strange trance. A world that was less than a mere three or four square feet of
light cutting through the darkness, where the silkworm’s figure wriggled
silently— as I watched that I forgot that there was a reality apart from this
small world. Outside this room was the city of Yokohama, the Sakuragi
train station, and the train, and the fact that if I got on the train I could return
to my house in Odawara, the fact that I even had a house in Odawara, all
seemed unreal. After the projection was over, we left the office to go to the
shooting studio at 77 Yamate street. The air outside suddenly restored me to
my senses. Then, as if I couldn’t believe my own eyes, I gazed at what was
around me as if it were all rare and unusual. * 00
Here, Tanizaki transforms his perceptions of the cinematic, or how the film
aesthetic affected him as a viewer, into pure literature. Again, the real world is transformed
into something that is “rare and unusual,” even “unreal,” after having been drawn into the
cinematic world. The words he chooses to describe the scene— “glittering jewel,” “strange
trance,” “light cutting through the darkness”— all serve to construct a literary version of the
cinematic experience. Notably, most cinematic passages written by Tanizaki are filled with
references to light, darkness, and shadows. He focuses on the abrupt change from light to
dark, and significantly, the intermingling of the two as they create the dreamlike film
aesthetic (“significantly” because the aesthetic created by this commingling of light and
darkness that Tanizaki found so fascinating would go on to have a prominent place in his
“traditional” literature.) Before moving on to become one of the caretakers of “Japanese”
aesthetics, Tanizaki explored this aesthetic explicitly in his screenwriting and filmmaking.
Except for The Amateur Club, all of the Taikatsu screenplays have fairly detailed directions
for lighting and deal with the mysterious aesthetics of light, darkness and shadows. The
100ibid,p. 253
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Radiance of the Moon, as unsuitable as it was for a screenplay, is perhaps the most striking
example of his literary exploration of the film aesthetic as it was intended to be applied to an
actual film. Included in the script are evocative descriptions of the woman’s moonlight
transformations, and one scene that calls for moonlight to glisten off her wet kimono is
particularly beautiful.10' In The Night of the Doll Festival, the transition from reality to
dream is signaled through lighting: just after Aiko goes to sleep, the light is dimmed, and
then as the dream sequence begins, the room is gradually brightened again. It goes without
saying that The Lust of the White Serpent appealed to the ‘moonlight and rain’'02 aesthetics
of the original.
Throughout Tanizaki’s period of interest in film, his descriptions of the experience
of viewing film are striking in their eloquence, and it seems that he was writing with a kind
of sensitivity and excitement of a man who has just discovered a new sense. As a
filmmaker, Tanizaki continually strove to exploit the highly aesthetic, dreamlike quality of
film, but ultimately, that aesthetic was most successfully executed in his literary
descriptions of the cinematic experience. Perhaps the author realized that the imagination is
far more potent than anything that can be brought to the screen, and perhaps he recognized
that his gift was the gift to craft words in such a way as to engage the potency of the
imagination. Whatever Tanizaki’s thought processes may have been, it is certain that his
‘studies’ as a screenwriter— when he challenged himself “to conceive of a scenario not as a
story but as scenes from a motion picture”— and his fascination with film and the film
aesthetic, left a mark on his more celebrated literature and even his lauded sense of
traditional aesthetics. In Naomi, which was written in 1924, only a couple of years after
TOTAra, p. 398
102‘ Tales of Moonlight and Rain” is the English title of Ugetsu monogatari, the Ueda
Akinari compilation from which “The Lust of the White Serpent” was taken.
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leaving Taikatsu, Tanizaki describes Joji, who is totally consumed with desire, as he
experiences an hallucination about his seductress wife in explicitly cinematic terms:
My head was a stage wrapped in a curtain of black velvet, and on the stage
stood a single actress, named Naomi. The spotlights poured illumination
onto the stage from every direction and enveloped her swaying, white body
in a powerful halo, setting her off from the pitch-darkness around her. As I
concentrated my gaze, the light that blazed on her skin burned more and
more brightly. At times it drew close enough to singe my eyebrows.
Certain parts of her body were enlarged with the greatest clarity, like close-
ups in a motion picture.1 0 3
Tanizaki describes Joji’s sensations as he gazes at an illusory image enveloped in light and
darkness, quite clearly appealing to an aesthetic sensibility the author first encountered with
film. Later, as Tanizaki grew less interested in the West and came to be known for his
infatuation with Kansai and Kansai’s link to Japan’s traditional past, his depiction of this
same aesthetic underwent certain changes, but remains fundamentally the same. It has been
pointed out that his famous essay “In’ei raisan” or “In Praise of Shadows” (1933), which
has been canonized as representing Japanese aesthetics in their purest form, is informed by
his sense of cinematic aesthetics.104 In linking aesthetics explored in “In Praise of
Shadows”— aesthetics that primarily deal with “a Western preference for separation and a
Japanese appreciation for mixtures”— to aesthetics Tanizaki encountered with film, Gerow
writes:
Tanizaki’s emphasis on the contrast between light and dark is crucial,
because what lies at the center of his version of the cinematic is a radical
undermining of binary oppositions. Tanizaki fixates on neither the dark nor
the light, but rather on the abrupt shift from one to the other that helps create
the impression that the oppositions between reality and dream, reality and
image, have been blurred.10 5
103Tanizaki, Naomi, p. 221
104Gerow, p. 27
105ibid
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Throughout “In Praise of Shadows,” the author discusses Japanese architecture,
toilets, lacquer ware, theatrical sensibilities, food and women in terms of how the
commingling of light and dark, or shadows, create an aesthetic sensibility that is both
ancient and peculiar to Japanese culture. In describing the beauty of shadows created by
Japanese temple architecture, Tanizaki writes:
I blink in uncertainty at this dreamlike luminescence, feeling as though some
misty film were blunting my vision. The light from the pale white paper,
powerless to dispel the heavy darkness of the alcove, is instead repelled by
the darkness, creating a world of confusion where dark and light are
indistinguishable.106
And in describing the looks of a traditional waitress vis a vis the light, he writes:
As we came in the door an elderly waitress with shaven eyebrows and
blackened teeth was kneeling by a candle behind which stood a large screen.
On the far side of the screen, at the edge of the little circle of light, the
darkness seemed to fall from the ceiling, lofty, intense, monolithic, the
fragile light of the candle unable to pierce its thickness, turned back as from a
black wall, i07
The similarities between these passages andTanizaki’s earlier, explicitly film-
oriented writings are unmistakable, but there is a difference: the above passages describe a
mundane, or subtle kind of beauty, while the former descriptions are energized and vivid.
It is obvious that by the time Tanizaki wrote “In Praise of Shadows,” his fascination with
the film aesthetic had become less an active, conscious exploration and more an
unconscious, internalized and passive exercise.
And, since he was well on his way to becoming one of the preeminent conveyors of
classical Japanese aesthetics, it was in his own best interest, as well as in the best interest
of a pristine image of an unadulterated Japanese culture, to establish the roots of his
^T anizaki, “In Praise of Shadows,” p. 21-22
107ibid, p. 34
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aesthetic sensibilities in Japan’s traditional and literary past. For if Tanizaki had credited
the cinema, a western medium, for having had a hand in shaping his sense of aesthetics,
the very recognition of that influence could only have undermined his role as an interpreter
Japanese culture.
By the time Tanizaki wrote Childhood Years: A Memoir in the mid 1950’s, his style
of writing had become synonymous with traditional Japanese culture, and his literary
output directly linked to Japan’s literary past. He had not only written a number of popular
period stories, like The Portrait of Shunkin, but also translated The Tale of Genii into
modem Japanese on three separate occasions, and produced The Makioka Sisters, which is
often described as a direct descendent ofTheTaleof Genii. As one leafs through
Childhood Years, it becomes ironic that this work, which exists primarily for the purpose
of linking Tanizaki to traditional Japan, is rife with “cinematic” descriptions. In one
section, Tanizaki describes chaban theater, a kind of “poor man’s” kabuki with which
Tanizaki was evidently fascinated in his youth:
The whole area, in fact, was enveloped in thick darkness, the only light
coming from the single bulb of the lamppost at the entrance to the Tokyo
Electric power station. In its faint glow, great puffs of steam could be seen
rising whitely from the wide ditch outside the station. But in the surrounding
darkness the small, square stage alone was brightly lit; and from it the
woman’s blood-covered and ravaged face floated up, glaring into the
void.i08
Tanizaki’ description of this childhood memory is clearly informed by the same
aesthetic sensibility described as inherently Japanese in “In Praise of Shadows,” explicitly
cinematic in Naomi, and directly related to the cinema in his recollections of viewing film in
Yokohama. Of course it is possible to argue that this sensibility was present before his
exposure to film, and in fact informed the way Tanizaki perceived the cinematic experience
in the first place. I would have to agree that this is probably the case. But the fact that
108Tanizaki, Childhood Years: A Memoir, p. 96
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Tanizaki became so rapt by what he perceived to be a ‘film aesthetic’ that he became a
filmmaker and even consciously trained himself to describe scenes in a cinematic manner
suggests that film provided an engaging catalyst for the author’s fertile imagination. It has
been suggested that Tanizaki’s involvement with the film industry was an experiment to try
to achieve something that could not be done in literature.109 I suggest that having become
interested for this reason, Tanizaki soon discovered that it was possible to convey a filmic
quality in literature. That Tanizaki’s interest and involvement in film has been often
overlooked, despite the many film-related references and cinematic descriptions in his
literary oeuvre, testifies to the author’s power as a writer, through literature, he was able to
write a certain literary persona into existence, one that was minimally influenced by foreign
culture and the western medium of film and profoundly influenced by traditional Japanese
culture, but like Tanizaki’s greatest work, this authorial persona is fiction.
109Bemardi, p. 191
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47
Katsuddshashin no genzcii to shorai
(The Present and Future of Motion Pictures)
an essay
by
Tanizaki Junichiro
TJZ, vol. 20 pp. 12-21
originally published September 1917
in Shinshdsetsu--1 New Fiction”
Translated by D. Christian Zeller
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48
As I haven’t researched film in particular depth, my knowledge on the subject is
limited to say the least. However, I have become an enthusiastic fan of the medium for a
while now and if ever the chance arises I would like to try my hand at writing a photoplay.1
In preparation for this, I have read a few foreign reference books and I have also been
allowed to look over a studio at Nikkatsu. So, I really am just a dilettante. However, with
regard to my thoughts on the future of film in general, and more specifically, to my
criticisms and dissatisfaction with Japan’s film industry, there are some things I would
very much like to express in this essay.
If put to the question as to whether I think there is hope that the film medium will
develop into a real art form— that is to say, an art form like theater or painting for example— I
would of course have to answer that, yes, there is. Consequently, in the same manner
theater and painting are considered to be eternal art forms, I believe that film will also be
passed down throughout the ages. As things stand now, I love films far more than the
plays of any troupe or theater in Tokyo today. Moreover, I have discovered in some of
them artistry hard to match in kabuki or shinpageki.2 This may sound a little extreme, but I
would go so far as to say that any Western film, no matter how short or terrible it may be,
when compared to present day Japanese drama, is infinitely more interesting.
Even without getting into the question of whether a piece of art is good or bad, the
art form that is most appropriate to the spirit of the age is bound to develop ever-
increasingly. Therefore, it is natural that what goes against the spirit of the age will not
progress. It is for this reason that a noh or kyogen play with the same quality of content as
a kabuki drama will not enjoy the same degree of popularity as the latter. Today is an age
I The term “photoplay” appears in English in the original document.
2Shinpageki, a “new school” movement in theater was characterized by unconventionality
and experimentation
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of democracy, and as such, there is no mistake in saying that there has been a gradual
reduction in the scope of aristocratic hobbies. According to this point, film, which is still
more suited for a common audience than theater, is the art form that best conforms to the
present age, and furthermore, I believe that there is much room to develop and improve this
new medium. It is also possible that if film becomes a high-brow art form in the future, it
may overwhelm theater in the same way popular theater overwhelmed noh.
Even after having given the subject just a small amount of thought, I have come up
with several points where film wins out over theater, probably the most obvious advantage
being that the life of a staged drama is temporary while the life of a film is infinitely long.
(At present film does not last forever, but in the future it will, without doubt, develop to
this degree). The relationship between the stage and film can be compared to that of speech
and writing, or manuscript and printed text. Staged drama reaches a limited audience in a
limited area, where it must eventually become extinct, but a single film can be shown time
and time again, reaching countless audiences. From the perspective of the audience, this
feature of film also has the advantage of allowing the art of actors from all countries to be
appreciated locally, with considerable ease, and at an extremely low price. As for actors,
they are presented with an opportunity to convey their craft to audiences directly,
throughout most of the world, and unlike painting and literature, they need not wait on a
means of indirectly relaying their art through reproduction or translation, rather, they can
express it directly and transmit it perpetually to later generations. Just as great poets,
painters, or sculptors from time immemorial, who, depending on the quality of their art,
live on forever, actors are now also able (again, depending on the quality of their films) to
live on forever. I can’t imagine how this awareness alone will cause actors to refine their
craft in earnest. Compared with other types of artists, the decadence among modern-day
actors in terms of their character and discernment is, without doubt, mainly a result of a
persisting belief that their mission is only a temporary one. If it were made clear that their
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50
art, like the poetry of Goethe or sculptures of Michelangelo, might find eternal recognition
and be revered as classic for up to a millennium, then actors would certainly come to have
appropriate aspirations.
Within the one aspect of film discussed above I believe there are enough factors to
show that the art of film-making will become the art of the future. However, as I count the
other advantages of film, the second being that the choice of subject in film has a very wide
range, I want to mention the fact that no matter what type of scene is called for (whether
realistic or phantasmic), it will appear less false on film than on stage. It goes without
saying that drama has to seem real in order to get the desired effect. Now that mankind has
evolved in such a way that the visual sense is much more acute than before, the feeling that
theater is false is inescapable. In this regard, isn’t film so much more compatible with the
spirit of the age? Noh and kyogen, admired by the people of today as “symbolic”
performance, seemed real to the people of the Ashikaga period. So, just as the more
realistic kabuki theater followed noh and kyogen, isn’t it probable that from here on out,
the world will be overcome by the still more realistic medium of motion pictures?
Somehow, I feel that this will be so.
The fact that film appears real in any kind of setting illustrates how it is more suited
than the stage for both realistic and fantastic dramas. I don’t have to go into the ways in
which film is suited for realism, but with stories impossible to bring to the stage, such as
Dante’s Divine Comedy, Journey to the West, Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories, or Izumi
Kyoka’s “KdyaHijiri” or “ Furyusen" (formerly, these two were staged by shinpa actors
but they did an injustice to the originals), they would definitely make interesting films.
Above all, for such stories as those written by Poe— ‘ The Black Cat,” “William Wilson,”
“The Mask of the Red Death,” and so on, I feel that a filmic take would be all the more
effective.
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As for the third advantage of film over theater, the way in which a scene is captured
on film abounds in freedom and diversity. Such being the case, a major difference between
making a film and staging a play for the writer is that there are no annoying, and
constraining, limitations~I can’t imagine how convenient this must be. Unlike having to
frame a story on the limited area of a stage, with film it becomes possible not only to use
whatever magnificent scenery or large-scale construction desired, but also to reduce
incidents spanning months or years and occurring in distant places to a story lasting just a
few hours. This is yet another way in which film expands the scope of subject matter.
To be able to focus on a single section of a scene and enlarge it, that is, to be able to
point out details— I can’t but wonder at how much this will help bring about changes in
drama that will strengthen its effects. In this sense, the realistic setting of film moves still
closer to painting than does the theatrical scene. On stage it is impossible to compose a
scene in such a way as to make it resemble a painting, but this occurs in film to an
admirable degree. Furthermore, unlike the stage, where the positions of actors and
spectators make distance constant and certain, film actors, sometimes close and sometimes
far away, are fully able to use their actions and facial expressions to demonstrate their skill.
From the perspective of the audience there is no unfairness in that even those who must
stand at the back of the theater are quite able to see the actors’ faces.
Actors are made to appear especially larger on film than they do in reality; it is
possible to project the minute features of someone’s face or body, which do not stand out
on stage, in extreme clarity. It is no longer possible for an actor to use gaudy make-up or
adornments which serve to deceive the audience in theatrical drama by seeming to alter
one’s age, physique, or facial characteristics. A beautiful woman’s part must, by all
means, be played by a beautiful woman; for the role of an elderly person, an elderly actor
must be used. (This is generally how it is done in the West). On the one hand this has the
effect of eliminating tricks of deception, on the other it gives rise to a tendency to appreciate
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52
an actor’s distinctive personality and traits, and as a result, I think that it will have the
benefit of adding complexity and depth to the actor’s craft.
A human being’s looks are such that, no matter how ugly the face may be, upon
attentive gaze, one senses a hidden beauty, a beauty that is mysterious, sublime, and
eternal. For me, this feeling is especially profound when I gaze at a “close-up” of a face in
a movie. I sense an indescribable allure, a fresh intensity, in every part of the human face
and body, features which ordinarily go unnoticed. This is not simply because a movie is a
magnified version of the real thing, it is also due to the fact that unlike the real thing, it has
no sound or color. The lack of color or sound in film, which is typically considered to be a
fault, can rather be looked upon as a merit. Just as painting has no sound and poetry no
shape, by this very fault film brings about a purification, or crystallization,3 essential to art.
Because of just this one point, I for one see the possibility that film will develop into an art
of a higher order than that of the theater. (Something called kinemakara4 does exist, but at
present I don’t like it very much). Therefore, 1 wonder if film doesn’t come yet closer to
the spirit of painting, sculpture, and music than does theater.
For most of the advantages mentioned above I have explained nothing new; these
facts have already been discerned by any number of people. I have restated this matter
mainly because I wish those involved with the making of Japanese films at present to read
what I have written. Apparently, they don’t fully recognize these particular strong points;
and even if they do, I believe they fail to take advantage of them.
With the previously discussed merits of film as my basis, I would like to issue a
few warnings.
3 “crystallization” appears in English in the original manuscript
4 “cinema color”
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53
At the present juncture my first request to the businessmen, directors, and actors
involved with film-making in Japan is to stop this useless practice of copying theater; stop
placing film, which should be free and natural, under the cramped and unnatural
restrictions of the stage.
For example, when they shoot a scene, they keep the theatrical stage in mind. This
is especially the case when they, like Kyuha5 actors, invariably and shallow-mindedly use
the old-fashioned long horizontal stage, line up a mass people on it, and let the story play
out in a single spot over a long period of time. This most definitely kills the medium’s
strong points.
In the West, to portray a drunken atmosphere in a scene where alcohol is being
consumed, the actors drink real alcohol— and I’ve heard that in some cases they really get
drunk. I have also heard of directors who shoot one scene at a time, without informing
their actors of the whole story. For film, which so prizes the natural, there is positively no
need to have actors strike poses kabuki-style, or to include weird tachimawari6 scenes.
What I feel to be especially ludicrous is for film to keep on using male actors in women’s
roles. They still wear the same outfits as on stage, as if the audience could be fooled. It’s
as though they actually believe that by wearing thick facial powder their skin will look
naturally white, or by drawing black wrinkles on their faces they will look elderly.
Old people should play old people and women should play women as a matter of
course. As for hair-styles, I think the natural look is better; wigs should be avoided as
5”old school”
6This term means “a fighting scene.” In Kabuki, a tachimawari would be many people
having an energetic scuffle on stage.
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much as possible and bald heads, grey hair, marumage,7and ichogaeshfi hairdos should be
presented plainly, as they appear in reality. Especially for disheveled hair, since Japan
doesn’t have any good wigs for this, natural hair should be used.
No matter how long the medium of film lasts, it can never surpass theatrical drama
so long as it is just a copy of it. Film has its own universe and its own reason for being,
and as long as Film actors of today are unaware of this fact, it is only right that they be
looked on with contempt by other actors.
Naturally this isn’t just the actors’ fault; it is mostly the fault of businessmen who
insist on making films out of scripts that make no sense without the explanations of a
benshi. 9
I am not demanding such spectacles as colliding locomotives or toppling bridges.
More than anything, I am asking for a return to what is natural. I am calling on Japanese
Filmmakers to make efforts to shoot simply and faithfully the manners, customs, and
feelings of the Japanese. Rather than make films with Onoe Matsunosuke or Tachibana
Sadajiro,1 ° live footage of Aoyama Gento’s popular acrobatics routine, or a volcanic
eruption on Sakurajima would be so much more interesting. With Film, even if the plot is
simple it is precisely the natural and realistic that make it interesting.
7a married woman’s hairdo
8another kind of traditional hairdo
9an orator who would explain the plot of puppet plays, and was used in the silent era of
Japanese cinema.
1 OPopular Film actors of the day. Onoe Matsunosuke is especially known as the only actor
from the nineteen-teens who can be considered to have been a “star in the modem sense of the
word.” But his films, which were by and large costume pictures, did very little to break from the
“benshi illustration technique”(Anderson and Richie, p. 32).
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I am not demanding that refined literary films be made right from the start.
Whatever is popular is fine; I just want to see film recover its inherent nature and shot
according to proper methods. Meikin and GenkotsuJ1 for example, have extremely banal
stories, but because film is able to show natural scenery and the manners, customs, and
feelings of a foreign country in a manner impossible for fiction, even adults become fully
engaged as they watch these pictures. Books like Konjiki yasha and Onore ga tsumi i2 are
not very impressive as novels, but if the culture and natural scenery of Japan were skillfully
injected, and they were thus made into Westem-style films, they would definitely be
interesting.
If, however, Japanese cinema were to progress one step further, and great
producers, great directors, and great actors emerged in Japan, and if films based on our
own classics in fiction and romance were produced— what resplendent, sublime films they
would be! I can’t keep my heart from dancing at the mere thought of it. I think that if a
story such as Heike monogatari13 were produced, for example, and the actual locations of
Kyoto, Ichinotani, and Dannoura were used, and period armor worn, a film no less
magnificent than “Antony and Cleopatra” or “Quo Vadis” could be made. Also, stories like
the Taketorimonogatari^ from the Heian era are first-rate material as fairy tales for the
application of trick photography.
11 Roughly translatable as “Famous Treasure” and “Fist,” these two novels represent
popular pulp writings of the day.
12“The Golden Devil,” a melodrama about a money lender and “I’m to Blame” also fall
into the dubious category of “popular writings,” although they are of a slightly higher grade
13The Tale o f Heike is the epic story of the final battle between the Taira and Minamoto
clans which took place just before the Kamakura shogunate was established (late 12th century).
14This story is about a boy who is found inside a bamboo stalk
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If these sorts of films were made en masse, the importation of foreign films could
be checked, while allowing us conversely to export our own films. The history of East
Asia and the human character of its peoples, expressed through film, would undoubtedly
find appeal among Westerners. In terms of music, literature, and drama, it’s extremely
difficult for Japanese artists to earn recognition in the West, but for film actors there isn’t
the slightest hindrance. Wouldn’t it be a proud occasion for all Japanese if the name of
some actor from Japan carried as much resonance throughout the world as Charles
Chaplin? For those of you who desire fame, please, you must become movie actors!
Finally, I would like to lay out the pros and cons concerning the katsuben.1 5 In
Japan, so long as there is appropriate music to accompany films, I would like to see
katsuben done away with altogether, but for the present I will limit my request to this:
reduce the chances katsuben have to speak as much as possible. I would be satisfied if
katsuben were used only for brief plot explanations and limited to occasions when Western
music cannot be used, or when the cinematic effect would not be diminished.
For Western pictures, it is sufficient just to translate the English intertitles into
Japanese with an accompaniment of Western music playing in the background. I feel that
something like the soft and elegant tone of a piano has a broad range of application and
does not sound too incongruous even when used to accompany a historical drama. As for
the instances when benshi must explain something, whenever possible they should be
limited to the skillful reading of lines as they appear in the movie. At the least, I wish that
such practices as divulging the entire plot and speaking out exchanges of dialogue were
absolutely forbidden.
Generally speaking I don’t care for benshi, but one— Somei Saburo of the Imperial
Theater— impresses me. There are rare occasions when he too spouts nonsense, but his
15 A katsuben is the same as a benshi— a silent movie interpreter
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explanations usually provide a concise gist of the story, the sound of his voice is clear and
powerful, and most importantly, his presence does not hinder the cinematic effect Rather
than having no benshi at all, it might be better if all benshi could take a lesson from him.
He is the only intelligent benshi I can think of in the whole world of Japanese film.
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Jinmenso
(The Human-faced Carbuncle)
a short story
by
Tanizaki Junichiro
TJZ, vol. 5 pp. 281-305
originally published March, 1918
in Shinshdsetsu~uNew Fiction”
Translated by D. Christian Zeller
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59
Utagawa Yurie had started hearing a rumor that a film in which she starred, some
lurid ‘mystery drama’ which had first appeared in the not-so-famous movie houses of
Shinjuku and Shibuya, was of late making its way pell-mell around the outskirts of Tokyo.
At any rate, it must have been one of the films she had made during her time in America,
when she was playing a variety of roles under contract to Globe Production Company in
Los Angeles. According to those who’d seen the film, Globe’s trade-mark “earth” was
shown at the very end with a list of the cast, in which appeared the names of several
Caucasians mixed in with the names of Japanese actors. At five reels in length, “Tenacious
Vengeance,” or “The Boils with a Human Face” as it is translated in English, was reviewed
as “a mystery of the first order,” “a superb piece of work,” “very artistic and filled with a
pervading sense of gloom.”
Of course this wasn’t the first time one of Yurie’s American films had appeared in
Japanese theaters. Even before she returned from abroad, she could occasionally be seen
in five or six pictures imported from Globe. Compared to the actresses of Europe and
America Yurie held her own in every detail: her smooth ample limbs, Western style
coquetry, and beauty, which was flavored with an Eastern lucidity, had from very early on
earned her the notice of film enthusiasts. On film, Yurie’s vitality was something rarely
found among Japanese women; plucky and nimble, she would do even physically
dangerous shots with a smile. In this way, her bewitching charm and agile movements
made her particularly suited to play such roles as vamp, female traitor, or spy. Once, in a
film called “The Samurai’s Daughter” that debuted in Asakusa’s Shikishima Theater, in
which Kikuko, a young Japanese girl, sets foot on the Eurasian continent as a spy
searching for military secrets in some country disguised now as a geisha, now as a
highbrow lady, now as a circus stunt rider, Yurie’s dazzling performance as Kikuko made
film-goers boil over with excitement for some time. Last year she signed on with Nitto
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60
Production Company, receiving an unprecedented salary and returned from her four- or
five-year stay in America, all as a result of the popularity of “The Samurai’s Daughter.”
However, Yurie had absolutely no recollection of having acted in a film called “The
Boils with a Human Face” or whatever. Even after hearing a detailed explanation of the
film’s story and each specific scene from those who said they had seen it, she still was
unable to recall when such a film could have been shot. The story starts out in a warm area
of southern Japan, a bewitching place like a Hiroshige i ukiyoe painting: a Japanese port
town facing the sea, perhaps Nagasaki or some other place, where an oiran? named
Ayamedaifu lives in the pleasure quarter located along the inlet’s thoroughfare. Famous as
the most beautiful woman in the town, the oiran is one evening lured by the music of a
shakuhachi.3 From the third floor of her brothel, which faces the inside of the bay, she
leans on the railing, listening in rapture, her alluring figure like that of Otohimesama4 of the
Sea God’s Dragon Palace. The shakuhachi’s owner is a young beggar, lowborn and
filthy, who has loved the oiran from afar. Bom a man, he thinks, “If I could receive the
compassion of the oiran for just one night, I would leave this world without regret.” With
this secret wish tucked away deep within his heart, the young man laments his wretched lot
in life and hideous looks. In the darkness of twilight, the beggar wanders through the
shadows on the wharf, finding pleasure in his flute and secretly catching glimpses of the
oiran’s face. Besides this pathetic beggar, there have been scores of others whose souls
have been snatched away by her, but in the end, not a single one has been rewarded with
1 Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858)
2An oiran is a high-class prostitute.
3Japanese flute
4The princess in the well-known traditional fable UrashimaTard
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an unsullied passion. The reason for this is that at the end of last spring, she and a sailor
from an American merchant ship anchored in the harbor promised to meet again, and
sunrise and sunset she pines away, unable to forget his face, waiting for his return in
autumn. As she listens to the beggar’s shakuhachi, she looks out on the open sea, looking
for a sail, buried in grief.
This is all conveyed in the preamble of the film. Before long, the American sailor
returns to the harbor. Having had a taste of Ayamedaifu’s love, the Caucasian is
determined to take her home with him at any cost However, as he has no way to raise the
cash to redeem her, he plans to sneak her out of the pleasure quarter and stow her away in
the hold of his ship back to America. In order to execute this plan, the sailor persuades the
flute-blowing beggar to assist him. One night, Ayamedaifu secretly slips from the
brothel’s back door, where the waiting Caucasian packs her into a big trunk set on a cart.
Placing the trunk in the beggar’s care, the Caucasian takes on a look of innocence and
returns to his ship. The beggar pulls the cart to a remote area outside town, to a vacant
house of an old temple where he is able to stave off the rain and dew every night. There,
he places the trunk with the oiran in it beside the altar of the main hall. The plan is that after
several days, in the dead of night, the Caucasian will row a boat up to the edge of the beach
at the foot of the cliff by the temple where he will receive the trunk from the beggar’s own
hands and put it securely on board. The beggar happily agreed to the plan, but in the event
that the affair worked out, he wanted to receive another reward besides cash. Although he
has told no one up until now, he confesses it all to the sailor “For the sake of the oiran I
wouldn’t hesitate to throw away my very life. Rather than stay suffering from unendurable
love, I will lend a hand to you, whom the oiran loves so much, so you can both love each
other. This is the least I can do for the oiran. However, if you could have the slightest
pity for this shabby beggar’s feelings, and only while the oiran is in the temple, even for a
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62
single night, please, let me have my way with her body. It’s the only wish I have for this
life ” So saying, the beggar bows down several times as if to pray, pressing his
forehead to the dirt and tears flowing from his eyes.
“...Since last spring when your ship left harbor, everyday, day after day, it was I
who stood under the oiran’s rail, playing my flute to ease her heart. I know that I am
stepping above my station as a beggar in making such an outrageous request, but if you
grant me this, I will be satisfied in death. And if, by chance, this evil deed is revealed, I
will bear the whole weight of the crime myself and go to any lengths to save you.”
Touched by these words, the Caucasian can not reject the beggar’s request flat-out. She is
his precious lover, but as an oiran she has up until now bared her skin to countless others;
so the sailor comes to think that, as a reward for the beggar’s kindness, she might be able
to afford a night or two of her compassion. However, once told of their discussion, all it
takes is one look at the beggar through a crack in the window lattice to make Ayamedaifu’s
whole body shudder. Because of all the flattery she has received from her patrons, the
arrogant girl has come to behave selfishly and feels that if this grimy ogre-faced boy
touched so much as the very tip of her kimono sleeve, she would experience a pain worse
than death. The woman then conspires with the Caucasian to deceive the beggar by loading
the trank onto the cart.
The Caucasian parts with the beggar and heads back to the ship. After the beggar
pulls the cart into the temple, he becomes filled with a desire to gaze upon the form of the
oiran. Inside the dimly lit main hall, in front of the Buddha image he tries to open the lid of
the trank. But the lid is fastened with a strong padlock and in spite of his efforts, the trunk
will not open. Despondent, the beggar clings to the trunk in which the oiran lies, free for
the taking, begrudging the Caucasian’s treachery and his own suppressed love. “The
Caucasian didn’t do this out of malice for you. In his hurry, he must have forgotten to hand
you the key. If he came here now he would surely keep his promise to you and open up
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this trunk.” So saying, the oiran repeatedly soothes the beggar. After two or three days,
the Caucasian hurries to the temple. After apologizing for the forgotten key many times he
says, “the ship is about to pull up anchor and sail. I have no time to hear your requests
now, so you’ll just have to make do with this” and tosses over some bundles of cash. Of
course, the beggar is not about to accept such treatment gladly. “Because 1 can’t live on in
a world in which I can’t look upon the oiran, I had resolved to drown myself in the sea
after realizing my long cherished desire. But you cruelly deceived me. If the oiran finds me
so repugnant, I will not press my request. Instead, for the sake of a memory, let me adore
her face just once. Let me lay one kiss on the gold embroidery of the oiran’s resplendent
kimono cuff.” The beggar makes this request again and again, but the oiran refuses. “No
matter what, do not open the lid of this trunk. Quickly, drive the beggar away and take me
to the ship!” she shouts from within the trunk, urging the Caucasian.
“I feel pity for you, but I can’t go against what she says. Besides, to my regret, I
didn’t bring the key to the trunk today either,” says the Caucasian, looking embarrassed as
he makes up this excuse.
“That’s fine. If this is the way it must be, I will now throw myself from this cliff
before your eyes. But even in death, I won’t let this matter rest without seeing the oiran!
And when I do, I won’t let things go without giving expression to my resentment!” says
the beggar.
“If you’re going to kill yourself, then go ahead and do it!” she shouts again from
inside the trunk. (In the film, this scene is shot from a vertical cross-section angle of the
trunk’s interior. The woman’s violent expressions are photographed bluntly). “When I am
dead my persistent delusion and my ugly face will eat into your flesh and cling to you for
the rest of your life. When that happens, it won’t matter how much you repent, you will
not attain redemption!” With this, the beggar, who is standing on the cliff in front of the
temple, hurls himself into the sea. Then, the Caucasian, looking relieved at last, quickly
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takes the key from his pocket, opens the trunk, and comforts the oiran as the two delight in
the success of their plot. This is how reel two ends.
What follows on the third reel takes place inside the ship that has left Japan and at
the Caucasian’s home in America. The first scene is of the trunk with the woman in it in the
ship’s hold, thrown in the comer among a mass of various goods. The scene is shot at a
vertical cross-section angle of the trunk’s interior. While the woman subsists on bread and
water which she has stored from the outset, she lies scrunched up inside the narrow trunk,
hugging both bent legs, with her neck bent down so she is face to face with her kneecaps.
Over the course of two or three days, a strange growth begins to swell up on her right
kneecap. As this progresses, four tiny boil heads begin to jut out of the soft, pulpy surface
of the swelling. The strange thing is that the growth doesn’t cause any pain whatsoever,
even as she pokes and prods at the swollen area with her hand. As the days pass, the
growth’s once soft surface hardens, and the four small boil heads become distinct, their
contours showing up clearly perhaps as a result of her having pressed the boils down too
vigorously. Then, the four boils take on distinctive shapes. The two boils on top come to
resemble orbs, the middle one takes on a long thin vertical shape, and the one at the
bottom, horizontal and zigzag-shaped, comes to resemble the nauseating shape of a
slithering caterpillar. It ought to be completely dark inside the trunk, but from a small crack
that has been made for air to pass through, light shines in: her form is set afloat between
dimness and total darkness; especially vivid is the circumference of her right knee where a
vivid circle of light forming a halo from a moon beam oozes, like a single suspended drop
of water. Sometimes when she gazes intently at the afflicted area, she can’t help but think
of the two boils on top as the eyes of a living creature. And then, as she examines the long
vertical boil in the middle, it looks like a nose; the caterpillar-shaped boil on the bottom
looks like lips: she suddenly realizes that the entire surface of the swollen area has taken on
the unmistakable shape of a human face. She thinks, “I wonder if this isn’t some kind of
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delusion,” but there is no mistake. It is a human face, just as she originally thought. What
is even more disturbing is that although composed in simple lines like a child’s doodle, it
bears an uncanny resemblance to the face of the beggar. The instant she realizes this, she is
attacked by an indescribable fear and collapses, drained of energy, face down.
Having lost consciousness, her head hangs down just above her knee. During this
time the tumor grows moment by moment. The previously unsophisticated lines of the
eyes, nose, and mouth gradually assume luster and form, as if suffused with life, until the
face of the beggar becomes a real human head. (Of course, somewhat smaller than the real
thing, this reduced copy, which has been expertly burned into the film, is small enough to
fit on a knee cap). It is the grim, vengeful expression of the flute-blowing youth who
uttered the words of the curse just as he was about to throw himself off the cliff, as if
carved by a master sculptor and filled with desolation and silence.
After this, The Human-faced Carbuncle wreaks all kinds of vengeance on her; this
part is fraught with gruesome episodes. When the ship arrives in America, she keeps the
boils strictly hidden from her lover, and they go to live in a rented house just outside San
Francisco. Wanting to set up house with her, the Caucasian quits his job as a sailor and
goes to work in the office of a company. Finally one night, having grown suspicious of
her recent gloom, the Caucasian discovers by chance her abominable secret; he abandons
her and tries to escape. When she doesn’t let him go they fight violently and then, with her
hands clasped around his neck, she accidently strangles him to death. (The vengeful ghost
has already taken possession of her and given her this strength while she was
unconscious). She stands before the corpse of her lover, lingering as if in a momentary
trance. Then, peering out at the Caucasian’s corpse from a hole in her gown, which is tom
from the scuffle, the carbuncle starts to move its facial muscles, motionless until now, into
a grin that shines through ominously. (The carbuncle now produces a wide range of
expressions: showing joy and sadness, casting angry looks, sticking its tongue out, and
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crying bitter tears as it twists its lips, drooling). This is the first revenge, and her
subsequent destiny is to be constantly persecuted and menaced by the carbuncle. After she
kills her lover, her character suddenly transforms; she becomes a vamp, loose and brazen,
with an added measure of elegance which doubles her already beautiful looks. Haunting
her coquetry, she moves from one man to the next, duping scores of Caucasians, stealing
their money and their lives. Occasionally, she is tormented by phantasms of the crimes she
has committed— tortured by dreams in the dead of night, she resolves to correct her ways,
but invariably the carbuncle gets in the way, ridiculing her timidity and tempting her to
commit ever greater evil deeds— and so, corruption and remorse go on piling up without her
noticing. At times she is a whore, at times a vaudeville performer. (The leading female
role of this drama has a face and physique just right for both Western and Japanese dress,
and they are exploited by the film without compunction). Following her transformed
circumstances, the stage moves from San Francisco to New York, where more than a few
upper-class gentlemen— European aristocrats, diplomats, millionaires— are bewitched by her
and sucked dry of their life blood. She builds a splendid mansion and rides around in
automobiles, leading the kind of luxurious life that she mistakes for that of a noblewoman,
but in times of solitude, she remains tortured by her conscience. Nevertheless, even with
all her suffering, her body takes on an effervescent, voluptuous quality, her complexion
growing ever more radiant.
in the end, she falls in love with a young nobleman of a certain country, things go
well, and they marry. Although she could have found no greater fortune than to spend her
days in tranquility as the young wife of a nobleman, things do not turn out this well at all.
One night when the newlyweds are giving a grand banquet for a large number of guests,
the very carbuncle that she has gone to such lengths to keep hidden from everyone, and her
husband above all, is at long last exposed in the middle of the whole assembly. In spite of
her always putting gauze over her boils, and then covering them up with tight stockings, so
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that in any situation her knee would not be revealed in front of people, that night in the ball
room as she becomes totally absorbed in the mad rapture of dance, bright red blood begins
to soak through her pure white stockings, trickling down, and scattering in droplets all over
the floor. Yet she prances about, still unaware. But when the nobleman, who has always
wondered at the bandage his wife wears around her knee, innocently approaches her to
investigate her wound, the carbuncle gnaws its way through the stocking and sticks out its
long tongue. With blood flowing from its eyes and nose, it shrieks out in boisterous
laughter.
At this point the woman goes completely mad; dashing off to her bedroom, she
thrusts a knife into her chest and falls face up on the bed. Despite her suicide, the
carbuncle seems to live on, laughing still.
This is a synopsis of the drama “The Boils with a Human Face,” in whose very
last scene carbuncle’s expression is said to appear in “close up.”
Generally with this kind of film, a list with the names of the writer, director, and
main actors, along with their roles, appears at the beginning. But in tins film, the names of
the writer and director aren’t recorded anywhere. Only Utagawa Yurie as Ayamedaifu is
introduced, and ostentatiously at that: at the very beginning of the first reel, she appears
wearing the outfits of both the nobleman’s wife and the oiran. As for the Japanese who
played the flute-blowing beggar— an even more important role than Yurie’s— he is totally
neglected despite the fact that she had no recollection of who he was and his background as
an actor.
She heard all of the aforementioned by way of two or three fans. Since it was a
film, which by its very nature captures the living forms of real people, she definitely must
have shot it at one time or another, someplace. But no matter how she tried, she just
couldn’t recall any memories of having acted in such a film. Of course film, in contrast to
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the average play, doesn’t follow a linear progression to develop the drama; scenes are
selected from the scenario according to the needs of the moment, and shooting goes on
without any attention to sequence. In some cases, two or three scenes from completely
different dramas are shot simultaneously at one location; quite often movie actors do not
even know the plot of the story they are shooting. Especially at Globe, where Yurie had
been employed, the director made it a policy never to inform actors of the plot. There was
no need for actors to read the script in advance or study for their part; knowing absolutely
nothing about the nature of one’s role, an actor went for broke following the actions shown
by the director, crying and laughing according to his lead, and working scene by scene.
Generally American companies use this method with the idea of preventing mistaken
interpretation by actors, editing out parts that smack of theatricality, and fostering lively
performances. During the four to five years Yurie worked for Globe she had acted in
countless scenes, but in those days, not even she could imagine what components of what
stories these scenes were being shot for, whether they would be assembled at all, or for
how many different stories. As it was, she had been like a factory worker producing a tiny
part, a cogwheel or spring, that would be attached to some large-scale apparatus. Of
course, she had up until now played the oiran and noblewoman a great many times. And
because her forte was playing the treacherous female and spy, she had countless times
performed in roles that required her to do things like hide in a box, flirt with men and
murder them. Therefore, it was reasonable enough to assume that among these scenes,
though she couldn’t guess which were which, some could have gone on to make up parts
of The Human-faced Carbuncle drama. Besides, the beggar’s face had been burned onto
her knee as boils by the trick photography of a skilled technician, so it might very well be
all the more understandable that she would have no memories of the affair.
Usually, however, when an actor watches one reel of a film completed later or
hears about its plot, most of what happened during the shoot jars the memory, and the facts
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69
fall into place. Still more, if one of her longer films had turned out to be especially
outstanding, there was absolutely no reason why she wouldn’t have seen it or even been
aware of its existence until now. Furthermore, while she was in America she found
nothing so pleasant as to watch a picture in which she had acted; not matter how short or
inconsequential, she wouldn’t have missed a one. Even after she returned to Japan, her
time in Los Angeles remained dear, and, because she was dissatisfied with the films she
was making at her Tokyo production company, she would take time out whenever an old
film from her American era periodically surfaced to go see it Consequently, the fact that
this human-faced carbuncle film had at one time or another been made at Globe and
imported to Japan seemed more mysterious to Yurie than even “The Boils with a Human
Face.”
What seemed mysterious was this: If this film had really been that artistic, that
excellent, why hadn’t it been recognized by the world at large, and why was it going
around to the theaters on the outskirts of town? When was this film imported to Japan?
Where was it released, and by what company? Where had it puttered around before
appearing in the Tokyo suburbs? She tried to find out, visiting actors who worked for the
same company, and even a few office workers, but nobody knew about such a film. While
thinking that she would like to go see it, she always seemed to miss her chance; it was way
out in the suburbs, perpetually moving around; today it would be in Aoyama, tomorrow
Shinagawa, and so on.
As it became impossible to go see it for herself, Yurie’s curiosity about the film
grew ever increasingly. There had been a technician at Globe, a specialist at “burning
images onto film” named Jefferson, who was known for his masterful trick photography
It occurred to her that the post-production of the carbuncle film probably would have
required his skills. Judging from Jefferson’s personality— he was always cheerful and
amusing— she thought that he might have done such an exceedingly brazen piece of
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handiwork with the intention of surprising her. Surprising and subtle trick photography
might also have been applied throughout, even in the sections without the boils— But if such
was the case, there would have been all the more reason for her to have seen the film. And
again, she couldn’t help having profound misgivings about the Japanese actor who had
played the flute-blowing youth. No more than three Japanese male actors had been
employed by Globe at the time. And she was positively sure that of the three, not one of
them had stood with her before a camera with a bay like Nagasaki’s as background, at least
not playing a beggar. This was the question she wanted answered first: who was the
Japanese who had left his ugly face on her beautiful, satin-white knee for all eternity?—
When she let her imagination go, Yurie felt as though somehow she herself was the real
Ayamedaifu, cursed by some mysterious Japanese.
Wasn’t there somebody within the ranks of her Tokyo company, Nitto
Productions, who knew the history of this enigmatic film? With this in mind, she suddenly
thought of Mr. H, an executive who had been at the company since the old days. He
corresponded with foreign companies on deals and translated English film magazines,
plots, and the like, so he would have detailed knowledge about films imported from
America— what year they had been produced, their channels of import, the identity of actors
who appeared in them, and so on. It seemed to her that whatever clues there were could be
gained by making a call on this man. One day, she went up to the second floor of the
office building located by the studio in Nippon and tapped Mr. H lightly on the shoulder.
“...Ah, so you’ve come about that picture? I’m not entirely unfamiliar with it,
but....”
As he began to take questions, his kind eyes blinked away, and he appeared to be in
an extreme state of consternation. Then, looking uneasily around the room, he stood up,
went to the door by which Yurie had just entered and closed it Finally looking somewhat
more relaxed, he gazed on Yurie’s face.
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“...so you yourself don’t have any memories of shooting that picture. That makes
that film even more mysterious and strange. The fact is, I’ve wanted to visit you from a
while back and ask you about all of this, but I was afraid that it would reach other ears,
and, as it concerned something as unpleasant as all of this, I kept putting it off. I’m so glad
there isn’t anyone here today, so we can speak freely, but I have to request that you not
feel, well, too repulsed by what you’ll hear.”
“That’s all right, I want to hear it all the more if it’s a scary story,” said Yurie as she
forced a smile.
“...The fact is, this company owns the film, and we’ve been renting it out to
suburban theaters for a while now. We acquired the film, oh...I’d say about a month
before you returned from America. We didn’t exacdy get it from Globe directly, you see;
some Frenchman from Yokohama came to sell it to us. He told us that he’d gotten hold of
the film, along with a lot of others, in Shanghai. For a long time he’d just been using the
films for his own amusement at home. Judging from the scratched up condition of the
films, it looked as though they’d been thoroughly shown around China and the South Seas
colonial areas before the Frenchman acquired them. Since ‘The Samurai’s Daughter’ had
made you so popular and your contract with the company had just been settled, and despite
the fact that the film was indeed all marked up, it commanded a very high price on the
market; this was because it was unique among your films, something completely different
With all of this in mind, the company ended up paying an unreasonably high price for it.
But, as soon as we bought it, some strange rumors cropped up about that film. When
someone would project it late at night, in a silent room, something strange would happen
so that even quite brave men weren’t able to watch it to the very end. A technician named
M, who was formerly employed at the company, was proieetino it one nioht down in a
basement room of this office building to correct its illumination and found out about it by
chance while checking for scratches. At first, no one believed him, but after that, two or
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three curious fellow workers tried it themselves one after the other and raised an uproar by
saying, “It’s definitely bizarre, that film is haunted.’ This wasn’t the only queer thing.
Feeling threatened by the film, M gradually began to lose his mind and soon afterwards
quit the company. Besides M, the office workers who’d watched the film out of curiosity
met with one strange calamity after another, they began to be plagued with horrible dreams
every night or took ill with some kind of groundless ailment that caused anxiety and
dizziness. Even the current president tested the film himself, but just a half a month later he
contracted a fever, identity unknown, and suffered a horrible ordeal. You know how
superstitious and nervous he is, so probably because he didn’t want to have the film around
the company for so much as another day, as soon as he got well, he called a secret meeting
and put forth two proposals: one, to sell the film to another company as soon as possible,
and two, to break the contract with you because of your connection to the film. But there
was a lot of opposition to the president’s proposals. There were those who argued that we
couldn’t just sit back and watch the company suffer such a huge loss by selling off a piece
of merchandise to another company after having paid so much for it; and there were those
who argued that a film after all wasn’t enough of a reason to break your contract after we’d
gone to so much trouble to settle it and after the big advance we’d paid you; these
arguments went around and around, but in the end a compromise was reached. Because
the film’s peculiarity appeared only late at night when one person was watching, and
therefore hardly anybody would discover it, it was decided that there probably wouldn’t be
a problem if the film were shown only to large audiences in public venues. And so, it was
argued that if the president insisted that having the film in the company was so terrible, he
should rent it to another company for the time being and wait for a buyer willing to pay a
suitable price. At that point, there was absolutely no reason for canceling your contract
Of course, if the world found out about the strange incidents surrounding the film, both
your popularity and the film’s value would suffer, so it was decided to keep the whole
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thing secret, even from as many people within the company as possible— this is what was
decided on. Therefore, what with the remarkable personnel fluctuations of actors and staff
these days, it’s quite possible that almost nobody within the company knows of the secret.
At first, it was the intention of the executives at the secret meeting to rent the film to some
distinguished company someplace and charge a high price, but at the time competition and
trade friction between the companies was especially harsh, so things didn’t work out as
expected. As a result the film was rented out to small theaters around Kyoto, Osaka, and
Nagoya, but because it wasn’t prominently advertised in newspapers, and it didn’t fall into
the hands of a good promoter, the film’s mn ended without its having been reviewed once.
After one tour of Kansai, the film has just recently started to appear in Tokyo theaters in the
outlying areas. ...Now, I have only heard about the film’s strangeness from those who
tested it late at night and I don’t remember seeing anything strange myself. This is odd
because I was one of the ones who watched the film in detail when the company bought it
and previewed it for the police and newspaper reporters. What did strike me as strange at
the time was the Japanese actor who played the beggar. The actors and actresses who
performed in the main roles of this drama, starting with you, were familiar to me by face
and name; the only actor I couldn’t recall seeing even once before was that Japanese.
Now, my knowledge of Japanese actors who worked for Globe at the same time as you is
very good to say the least. If my memory isn’t mistaken, there should have been only be
two other actresses besides you: E and O— and three actors: S, K, and C. Hmm? That’s
correct isn’t it?.... Nevertheless, the Japanese actor who played the beggar wasn’t S,
wasn’t K, and wasn’t C. Other than these three, can you think of anyone else? This is
exactly what I had in mind when I said that I wanted to ask you about something before.”
With this, H punctuated his long speech.
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“I haven’t a clue as to who it might be, if not for the three you mentioned. Isn’t
there any evidence that some actor whom I don’t know could’ve been burned into the film?
...This is definitely what I think happened.”
“I also considered the possibility of image burning. And after hearing about the
master of trick photography, Jefferson, I thought it possible that he had done it. However,
of all the sections in which Jefferson might have used the image burning technique, I am
positive that there are one or two sections that are just too good, even for him. If it had all
been done by image burning, Jefferson must be aware of some marvelous secret method,
the likes of which we couldn’t even begin to imagine. The fact is, with so many
unanswered questions, about six months ago I sent off a letter to Globe with the intention
of settling all doubts. Before long a response came, but no essential information could be
gained from it. What Globe had to say was this: ‘We have never made a film called ‘ The
Boils with a Human Face” at our studio. Now and then, however, we have certainly used
the kinds of scenes that could have appeared in the film and made pictures with more or
less similar story lines. This being so, isn’t it probable that someone has mixed together
pieces of other films, or partial revision and image burning to manufacture a fake? It is
unbelievable that actors under contract to our company could have secretly made the
picture; they are present on the sets everyday so there definitely isn’t time for something
like that. Now then, the Japanese actors who were employed at Globe during the same
time as Miss Yurie are as you have said: S, K, and C— only these three. However, before
Miss Yurie came to work for Globe, there were two or three others, and recently there have
been five or six new Japanese actors. Consequently, it is not out of the question but seems
rather possible that some Japanese she doesn’t know was burned into the film. However,
to what extent and how this very difficult and unprecedented image-burning procedure
could have been done here are questions involving company secrets, and unfortunately we
cannot give you a clear answer. Moreover, if the film in question is indeed a fake, there is
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no reason for our company to disregard it; for the sake of reference, we definitely want
your company to hand it over to us for a suitable price so that we can examine the film for
ourselves.’ ...Basically, this is what the letter had to say, but in the end, the true nature of
the film is still a mystery. Just as Globe’s response states: somebody took scenes from a
film with a similar story line, spliced them together with scenes from other films, and
skillfully added revisions and image burning to produce a single picture; this deduction
seems the most likely, but the guy who did the job would have had to be better than
Jefferson. Even if we suppose that there is somebody out there better than Jefferson, there
isn’t any profit to be made in such a troublesome job. And when you consider how the
late-night strange incidents are tied into it, there must be some fantastic secret hiding at the
bottom of all this. This sounds weird, but when you were in America, say, can you
remember doing anything to earn someone’s hatred? This is what I think: It definitely has
something to do with someone who was in love with you but felt despised or deceived by
you in return. The film is possessed by this man’s resentment.”
“Now wait a second. I don’t remember doing anything so bad as to earn a man's
hatred, but I have no idea what this face made up of boils looks like at all. Isn’t it
supposed to be awfully ugly?”
“Yes, that’s right, a frightfully ugly man. So much so that you can’t tell whether
he’s Japanese or a native of the South Seas; with those menacing black eyes and bloated
round face, his facial features are of a boil itself. He must be around thirty years old; in the
film he looks about ten years older than you. Once you’ve seen his face, you don’t forget
it, so if you knew him, you’d have no reason not to remember. And it’s not just you, no,
the fact is I find it exceedingly strange that we too still have no clue as to who this person is
or where he came from. The reason this is so odd to me is that his portrayal of the flute-
blowing beggar is first rate; as the beggar he plumbs the depths and after becoming the
carbuncle, his baleful, ghastly expressions— well, as an actor he is probably only matched
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by Wegener, the star of ‘The Student of Prague’ and ‘The Golem.’5 That the one and only
Japanese actor who has such striking looks and artistry is unknown, let alone in Japan, but
even in American film magazines, and that his name doesn’t even appear in the film— this is
already strange enough. By now, this man is no human being living in the real world;
rather he’s just a phantom living inside that film. This is the only way I can conceive of it.
Especially when you consider those who experienced the film’s strangeness for
themselves; not one of them think that it was a picture of a human. They say, ‘That man is
a ghost. There is no way such an actor can exist’ and, ‘If it’s not a ghost, there’s no way
such a weird thing could happen’....”
“And what is this ‘weird thing’? That’s what I want to hear. You’ve explained
everything in detail, but I still haven’t heard the real story about this weird thing....”
“Actually, I thought that your nerves couldn’t handle it and so purposely withheld
it, but since I’ve told you this much, I might as well tell you the rest. Later on, I got the
most detailed account of what happened late at night from that technician, M, who went
mad. To put it simply, the film’s strangeness lies in the phantom man’s face. According to
M’s long-time experience, when you watch a film in a place like the Asakusa Park theater—
where there is a lively crowd amid music and the explanations of a narrator-it’s a cheerful,
exhilarating feeling; but when you watch a film late at night all alone in a dark room,
without a sound, you fall into a haunted mood filled with strange foreboding. Now, this is
obviously the case if it’s a calm or mournful picture, but M says that even with scenes of
brilliant dinner parties and violent fights, the swirling shadows of all those people make it
impossible to think of the images as dead no matter how you try; on the contrary, as you
watch the film you begin to feel as if you yourself will cease to exist. He says the scenes
that make you most ill at ease are close-ups of a broadly grinning face; when these scenes
5 T w o famous silent German films by Paul Wegener in 1913,1915, respectively
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appear, you feel a chill as your hand turning the projector crank suddenly comes to a halt.
M often says that a smiling face is much more frightening than an angry one. ‘In spite of
this,’ he says, ‘because I’m a technician, it’s nothing, but when an actor watches a film in
which images of himself appear, and watches it all alone-what a strange experience that
must be! Surely he feels as though the self appearing on film is the one truly alive, while
the self who is watching, lingering in the dark corner, is the image.’ Since this is the case
with regular movies, we can imagine what it must be like watching a film like ‘The Boils
with a Human Face’ in the middle of the night, all alone, in the empty screening room of
this Nippon office building. As I understand it, the moment that flute-blowing beggar’s
form appears in the first reel, you feel as though you have been pierced in the chest,
drenched with water, or seized by unusual visions. The film is quite marked up with
scratches and blurred in places, but this doesn’t get in the way in the slightest, rather it
helps the gloomy effect— isn’t that odd? As it is, with perseverance you can get through
reels one, two, three, and four, but in the final scene of reel five, when the nobleman’s
wife, Ayamedaifu, goes mad and kills herself— most who gaze at the scene that comes next
with quiet concentration are overcome with fear and pass out In that scene, there is a
close-up of half of your leg, from your knee to the tips of your toes; the growth jutting out
from your kneecap shows its most intense expression, and then, as if clearing away
delusion, it warps its lips into a peculiar kind of weeping smile. Then, all of a sudden the
laughing voice, extremely faint, but extremely real, can unmistakably be heard. M thinks
that if any noise whatsoever were coming in from outside, or if your attention were even a
little bit distracted, this voice would be so faint as not to be heard at all; to hear it you really
have to strain your ears. Possibly the voice can be heard even when the film is shown to a
public audience, but it would probably go unnoticed. Anyway, this is what M had to say—
Well, what do you think? You must find this unpleasant to listen to. Oh, I forgot
something— because the film is to be finally turned over to Globe, we took it back from the
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
78
Sugano Taisho Theater a few days ago and right now it’s sitting on a shelf in this very
office. Showing it in the building has been strictly forbidden by the president, but it
wouldn’t be objectionable at all if you were to just look at the film as is. How about if I
give you a look here while I stand by? If you’d only have a look at that beggar’s face
anyway, we might find the first clue to solving this riddle....”
H waited for Yurie’s nod, which came with the gleam of curiosity filling her eyes,
and then, from a stack of five tin-plate canisters sitting on a nearby shelf, he pulled out the
cans containing the first and fifth reels, setting them down on top of his desk. After then
removing one of the lids, he stretched a ribbon of glittering, steel-like film out into a long
strip and held it before a bright window, making it transparent for Yurie.
“Look here, this is the beggar....”
With this, H pointed to a section in the fifth reel in which the growth-face had been
burned onto her knee.
“All right now, as you can see, here are the boils. This is definitely image burning,
even I can tell that Don’t you have any recollection of having seen this man?”
“No, I can’t remember ever having seen such a man.”
The face of this Japanese man was so clearly unknown to her that she answered
without having to think about it.
“But Mr. H, since this has to be image burning, this man must actually exist
somewhere. Surely he can’t be a ghost?”
“Nevertheless, there is one place in the film that couldn’t have been accomplished
through image burning. Here, look at this. It’s the middle part of reel five. The leading
lady is fighting the growth; when she tries to beat the face, the face bites into her wrist— the
base of the right-hand’s thumb is jammed in between the teeth, and the teeth won’t let go.
In pain, you wriggle your five fingers furiously. There’s no way in hell this could have
been done by image burning!”
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79
While saying this, H handed the film over to Yurie, lit a cigarette and started to pace
around the room; as if speaking to himself, he added something.
“When this film becomes the property of Globe, what do you think its fate will be?
I for one think that since they’re no fools, they’re sure to duplicate it and make it a big hit.
Yes, that’s definitely what they’ll do.”
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Hinamatsuri noyoru
(The Night of the Doll Festival)
a film script
by
Tanizaki Junichiro
TJX, vol. 9 pp. 409-426
written in 1921 as Honpo saisho no okageki
(Our Country’s First Fairytale)
originally published September 1924
in Shinengei--“New Variety”
Translated by D. Christian Zeller
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81
Fade in and out (Intertitle)
Aiko was darling Mary’ s “ Momma. ” At night, she always held Mary in her arms when she
put her to bed.
SCENE 1 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Fade in. Close up, Aiko’s face as she sleeps peacefully under her covers, holding the
western doll Mary in her arms. Fade out.
Fade to black (Intertitle)
In the morning, she eats breakfast with Mary.
SCENE 2 INT. LIVING ROOM
Fade in. Medium close up, Aiko and the doll. Aiko faces the table; as she herself eats, she
piles miso soup and rice onto toy dining ware and feeds her doll. (Aiko holds the doll on
her lap or she has her sit on a toy chair or futon.)
SCENE 3 INT. LIVING ROOM
Close up, the doll as Aiko vainly tries to push rice into her mouth. There is rice all around
the doll’s mouth.
SCENE 4 INT. LIVING ROOM
Wide shot of the whole table. On either side of Aiko, her grandmother and the maid,
Mitsu, laugh as they look on.
SCENE 5A VERANDA
Aiko’s mother drops feed from the veranda into the garden.
SCENE 5B EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
Aiko’s mother comes down from the veranda and goes toward the rabbit cage.
SCENE 6 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
Close up, rabbit.
SCENE 7 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
Aiko’s mother takes the rabbit up onto the veranda.
SCENE 8 INT. LIVING ROOM
Four-shot: Aiko, her doll, grandmother, and Mitsu. Aiko finishes eating and wipes the
edge of her doll’s mouth clean.
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82
SCENE 9 INT. VERANDA
The length of the veranda. Aiko’s mother comes up from the garden, which is on the right-
hand side, and sits on the veranda. She holds the rabbit as she looks into the living room
and calls for Aiko. (There is some prepared greens and bean curd refuse in a bowl there
for the rabbit to eat.)
SCENE 10 INT. LIVING ROOM
Close up, Aiko. She looks back at her mother as she is called.
SCENE[S] 11[,12,13,14] INT. VERANDA
Close up, Aiko’s mother as she calls for her (to be shot from living room.) She says,
“Aiko! If you’re finished eating, come and feed the rabbits” as she holds one rabbit by the
ears.
SCENE 15 INT. LIVING ROOM
Called by her mother, Aiko gives the doll to her grandmother and, moving from left to
right, goes out to the veranda.
SCENE 16 INT. VERANDA
Aiko’s mother is still holding the rabbit by its ears. Aiko goes there and grabs another
rabbit by its ears.
SCENE 17 INT. VERANDA
Close up, the two rabbits as they swing, dangling in the air.
SCENE 18 INT. VERANDA
Aiko and her mother laugh as they put the rabbits down on the floor and give them their
feed.
(Intertitle)
Then she feeds her rabbit friends.
SCENE 19 INT. VERANDA
(This scene to be done with SCENE 20)
SCENE 20 INT. VERANDA
Close up, the two rabbits as they eat their greens and bean curd refuse.
SCENE 21 INT. LIVING ROOM
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83
Mitsu is wrapping a bento [Japanese lunch box] in a Jurdshiki [all purpose Japanese bath
towel]. Grandmother looks at the clock. To be inserted: the clock reads twenty minutes
until nine. Grandmother looks at the clock, looks out to the veranda, and says, “Aiko! It’s
time to go to the kindergarten!” Mitsu, who has finished wrapping up the bento, moves
from left to right as she goes out to the veranda.
SCENE 22 INT. VERANDA
Mitsu comes out to the veranda and hands Aiko her bento. Aiko’s mother says, ‘The
rabbits are all finished eating, off you go to kindergarten!” Aiko says, “Off I go!” and
bows to her mother. She goes to die entrance way.
SCENE23 EXT. FRONTDOORWAY
Aiko opens the lattice door and goes off by herself. Fade out.
Fade to black, (intertitle)
The March Girl’ s Doll Festival approaches, so Aiko’ s grandmother and mother do the
preparations.
SCENE 24 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Wide shot of whole room. Many Doll Festival boxes have been taken out. Aiko’s mother
and grandmother are taking dolls and accessories out of the boxes and clearing away dust
with a little broom.
SCENE 25 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Close up, the doll in Aiko’s mother’s hand.
SCENE 26 INT. KITCHEN
Mitsu uses a ladle to parch beans in a pan.
SCENE 27 INT. KITCHEN
Close up, pan. Mitsu stirs the beans around in the pan.
SCENE 28 INT. KITCHEN
Mitsu tests the flavor of a few beans and transfers the rest into lacquered boxes. Fade out.
(Intertitle) Fade in.
At Aiko’ s kindergarten
(This scene is to be overlapped with the next one.)
SCENE 29 EXT. PLAYGROUND
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84
Wide shot, whole playground. A large group of children are playing. Some children are
playing in the sand.
SCENE 30 EXT. PLAYGROUND
Aiko with three or four friends. They are playing tag. Or they are playing with a ball. At
any rate, this shot should be of the children amusing themselves in some enjoyable way.
Fade out.
SCENE 3 1[AND 32] INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Fade in. The tier stand for dolls is already built and Aiko’s grandmother and mother are
decorating it with the dolls and accessories.
Aiko, inside at the kindergarten.
SCENE 33 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
The sliding door opens and Mitsu enters, carrying the covered dish of parched beans.
Aiko’s mother takes the dish and hands Mitsu a vase, saying, ‘ Take the peach blossoms in
the kitchen and arrange them in this.” Mitsu takes the vase and leaves.
SCENE 34 EXT. IN FRONT OF KINDERGARTEN
DOORWAY
Fade in and out. The kindergarten is closed and the children accompany each other as they
walk off. Aiko is among them.
SCENE 35 INT. VERANDA
The two rabbits crouch in an area where the sunlight is good. They bask in the sun with
sleepy eyes. To be shot to express an extremely peaceful feeling.
SCENE 36 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Close up, grandmother. She is placing the parched beans onto the dolls’ offering tray.
SCENE 37 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Close up, Aiko’s mother and Mitsu. They place the vase with the peach blossoms in the
middle [of the room]. Aiko’s mother arranges the flowers which are in full bloom on the
right while Mitsu attends to the flowers on the left.
SCENE 38 EXT. ROAD
Aiko approaches from the BG [background] and turns toward the doorway.
SCENE 40 EXT. IN FRONT OF DOORWAY
Aiko opens the lattice door and goes into the house.
SCENE 41 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
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85
This is continued from SCENE 39. Aiko’s mother hears the lattice door open and as she
says, “Aiko must be back” she smiles at the two others and then sticks her head out toward
the veranda.
SCENE 42 INT. VERANDA
The veranda is to be shot from the garden. Aiko has entered from the right and is sitting in
a crouched position. She takes up a rabbit in her arms. Aiko’s mother sticks her head out
and calls to Aiko from behind the rice paper sliding door.
(Dialogue intertitle)
“ Aiko! Today is your Doll’ s Festival— the dolls are all decorated! ”
SCENE 43 INT. VERANDA
Close up, Aiko. As soon as her mother says this, she discards the rabbit.
SCENE 44 INT. VERANDA
To be shot with same blocking as in SCENE 42. Aiko discards the rabbit and runs up to
her mother. She goes inside.
SCENE 45 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Wide shot of whole room. Aiko enters. Aiko’s mother, Grandmother, and Mitsu are
looking at dolls, which are placed on the doll festival tier stand.
SCENE 46 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Close up, the tier stand with dolls.
SCENE 47 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Aiko, her mother, grandmother, and Mitsu converse as they look at the tier stand.
Grandmother takes the dish with parched beans and says, “Here, eat some of these” as she
puts a few beans in Aiko’s palm. Fade out.
(Intertitle) Fade in and out.
When evening comes, Aiko passes the time enjoyably with her mother and grandmother,
doing various things in front o f the dolls' tier stand.
SCENE 48 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Wide shot of whole room. Aiko sits on her mother’s lap. They sings songs while looking
at a picture book, and grandmother listens with interest as she sips white rice wine.
(Intertitle)
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86
Aiko's song
SCENE 49 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Close up, Aiko and her mother. As they look at the picture book, they sing a song that is
written therein. Picture book song to be inserted here.
SCENE 50 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Close up, Aiko’s grandmother as she continues to drink and smile.
SCENE 51 INT. INSIDE TOY BOX
The Westem-style doll, Mary, lies discarded among other toys. (In the toy box is a toy
car, for example.)
SCENE 52 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
This scene is a continuation from SCENE 49. Aiko and her mother continue to sing.
SCENE 53 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
(NIGHT)
The rabbits, returned to their pens, appear to be cold as they sleep.
(Intertitle)
Because o f the Festival Dolls, Aiko has completely forgotten about Mary and her rabbits.
So she just plays, singing songs and drawing pictures.
SCENE 54 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
This scene is a continuation of SCENE 52. When the songs are Finished, Aiko’s mother
lets her down from her lap. She says, “Aiko, you’re really good at drawing, aren’t you?
Won’t you draw a picture for your mother?” With this, she takes out an ink stone box and
Japanese paper and hands Aiko a brush.
SCENE 55 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Qose up, Aiko as she draws.
SCENE 56 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Qose up, Aiko’s grandmother as she attentively watches Aiko draw.
SCENE 57 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Close up, Aiko, mother, and grandmother. Aiko Finally Finishes the drawing. Her mother
picks it up and looks at it.
(Intertitle)
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
87
Aiko’ s self-portrait
Shot of Aiko’s self-portrait to be inserted here. As Aiko’s mother laughs, she shows the
drawing to grandmother. Grandmother also breaks out in laughter.
SCENE 58 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Shot of the upper section of the dolls’ tier stand. The dolls representing the emperor and
empress, the five-person orchestra [which is placed on the third tier], the gold screen
[which is placed behind the tier stand], and candlesticks— to be shot in a way as to glitter
beautifully in the night light Fade out.
(Intertitle) Fade in and out
That night, Aiko has moved her futon next to the dolls. She sleeps peacefully.
SCENE 59 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Fade in. This is a shot of Aiko’s sleeping figure with the tier stand behind her. The room
has become dark.
SCENE 60 INT. IN FRONT OF CLOSET
Qose up, closet door. (This is also dimly lit) This overlaps with the next scene.
SCENE 61 INT. INSIDE CLOSET
To be overlapped with previous scene. Inside the closet, there is the toy box, where the
Westem-style dolls lie just as they did when they were discarded earlier in the afternoon.
(Intertitle)
Poor Mary. She has been thrown ay/ay by Aiko and sleeps, all alone, in a toy box in the
back o f a dark cupboard....
SCENE 62 INT. INSIDE TOY BOX
Close up, Westem-style doll. Same as SCENE 51.
(Intertitle)
...Then, occasionally, her eyes open— she is weeping.
SCENE62A
The doll sits up gracefully. Its eyes open gradually. Her hand moves naturally and wipes
the comers of her eyes while she weeps.
SCENE 63 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
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88
This scene is the same as SCENE 59. The room, which was previously dark, gradually
begins to lighten as the candles on the dolls’ tier stand burn. (The tone should gradually
change from realistic to dreamlike.)
(Intertitle)
The festival dolls are filled with joy because Aiko has slept next to them. Gradually, as the
night has worn on, many o f the dolls have begun to make merry.
SCENE 64 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Qose up, focus on the dolls representing the emperor and empress, on the ton tier of the
doll’s stand— this will be shown in a circular shape. Slowly, the princess doll turns to face
the lord doll. She bends over and whispers something to him. Then the lord doll faces the
princess doll and answers her.
SCENE 65 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Qose up, second tier. Large circular shape so that parts of first and third tiers can be seen.
All at once, the court ladies of the orchestra slowly turn to the right and stop after a little bit.
Then, they turn to face right and then continue turning until they are facing backwards.
SCENE 66 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Tiers one and two should be seen in this shot. The court ladies have stopped turning and
are facing backwards. The lord and princess, who are on the first tier, start to move again,
this time turning to face the front, where they address the court ladies. The five court ladies
bow.
SCENE 67 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
Wide angle, so the entire dolls’ stand is in the shot. The emperor, empress, and three court
ladies start to climb down from the tier stand.
SCENE 68 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
This scene has the same blocking as SCENE 63. Aiko sleeps peacefully. The lord and
princess go to the base of Aiko’s pillow and sit across from it. The court ladies make a
circumference and surround the two as if attendance.
SCENE 69 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
The other toys begin to move and climb down onto the tatami, close up.
SCENE 70 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
At the base of Aiko’s pillow. (It’s all right if Aiko is not in the shot.) The other toys enter
the scene and take up appropriate positions, as each mingles among the dolls. The lord and
princess sit in the middle of the tray and face one another. (If it’s possible, having the lord
and princess eat parched beans would be a nice touch.)
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
SCENE 71 INT. INSIDE CLOSET
Mary is still sobbing. After a while, she stands up as she continues to ciy.
SCENE 72 INT. IN FRONT OF CLOSET
Mary’s figure appears dimly through the closet door, which will be made translucent for
this scene. After a while, she slips out of the closet and dashes from the room, exiting
stage right.
SCENE 73 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
The rabbit pen. Mary enters from the right, approaches the pen, and peeps in.
SCENE 73A
The two rabbits move from the right side of the box to the left.
SCENE 74 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
Qose up, Mary peeping in at the rabbits through the wire mesh. She crouches down as
she starts to talk to them.
(Dialogue intertitle)
Hello Mr. Rabbit, we must really be boring~we’ ve been completely abandoned!
SCENE 75 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
Close up, the two rabbits speak as they look out from the wire mesh.
(Dialogue intertitle)
“ Hey, is that you, Mary!? We feel the same as you, my lady. We've really been made the
fools, haven't we? ”
SCENE 76 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
Close up, Mary speaks.
(Dialogue intertitle)
“ I was thinking o f going to the girl's room for a look. Won't you rabbits join me? ”
SCENE 77 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
Close up, the rabbits answer.
(Dialogue intertitle)
“Yeah, that's good! That's good! Let's go in there and give it to those festival dolls! "
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
90
SCENE 77A
The rabbits go toward the pen’s opening.
SCENE 78 EXT. GARDEN AT EDGE OF VERANDA
This scene will have the same blocking as SCENE 73. Mary goes up to the opening and
opens it for the rabbits. The two rabbits exit the pen. The three exit to the left.
SCENE 79 INT. AIKO’S ROOM
The upper half of Aiko’s sleeping figure is in the shot with the festival dolls, who are at the
base of her pillow. The group of dolls have made a line and are moving. Some dolls have
climbed up on Aiko’s futon and are lined up in front of her face, others climb up along the
sleeves of her bed clothes.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Bibliography
91
Anderson and Richie. The Japanese Film: Art and Industry. New York: Grove Press
Inc., 1959.
Ara, Masahito. Tanizaki Jun’ichiro kenkyfl. fTanizaki Jun’ichiro Research 1 Tokyo:
Hachimoku Sh6ten, 1972.
Bemardi, Joanne R. The Early Development of the Gendaigeki Screenplay: Kaerivama
Norimasu, Kurihara Tomasu. Tanizaki Jun’ichiro and the Pure Film Movement,
[dissertation] New York: Columbia University, 1992.
Chambers, Anthony H. The Secret Window: Ideal Worlds in Tanizaki’s Fiction.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.
Chiba, Nobuo. Eiga to Tanizaki [Film andTanizakil. Tokyo: Seiabo, 1989.
Gerow, Aaron A. “Celluloid Masks: The Cinematic Image and the Image of Japan.”
Ins. 16(1993), pp. 23-36.
Gessel, Van C. Three Modem Novelists: Soseki, Tanizaki, Kawabata. New York:
Kodansha International Ltd., 1993.
Ito, Ken. Visions of Desire: Tanizaki’s Fictional Worlds. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1991.
Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modem Era. 2 vols.
New York: Henry Holt, 1984.
Richie, Donald. Japanese Cinema: An Introduction. Hong Kong: Oxford University
Press, 1990.
Seidensticker, Edward. ‘Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, 1886-1965.” Monumenta Nipponica:
Studies in Japanese Culture. 21, 3-4 (1966), pp. 249-265.
Tanizaki, Jun’ichiro. Childhood Years: A Memoir, trans. by Paul McCarthy. New
York: Kodansha International, 1988.
Tanizaki, Jun’ichiro. “In Praise of Shadows.” trans. by Paul Harper and Edward G.
Seidensticker. New Haven: Leete’s Island Books, 1977.
Tanizaki, Jun’ichiro. Naomi, trans. by Anthony H. Chambers. New York:
North Point Press, 1990.
Tanizaki, Jun’ichiro. Tanizaki Jun’ichiro Zenshft [The Complete Works of Tanizaki
Jun’ichirol. Tokyo: Chuo Koron Sha, 1966-1970.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Zeller, D. Christian
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Tanizaki and film: An introduction with three early writings in translation
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Master of Arts
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East Asian Languages and Cultures
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University of Southern California
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