Mizoguchi ∩ Bresson

An adaptation of two tales from an eighteenth-century collection of ghost narratives, Ugetsu (1953) tells the story of two commoners (a potter and his helper) and their wives, who have lived in a rural area until, in the middle of the war, they decided to try their chances selling ceramics in the city. Unfortunately, the man’s dream of triumph only brings havoc on themselves, and after some adventures - an affair with a ghost woman and a samurai’s fight - each man has to return to the poor life and still stick in that countryside tiny hovel.

We can immediately compare this acclaimed Japanese masterpiece, Ugetsu, with Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest, as both films were made in the beginning of the 1950's (a period called post-war cinema), and both have this thematic and visual connection with otherworld (God and ghosts); besides, in terms of cinematographic choices, the two filmmakers are very close. Bresson and Mizoguchi are portraying common people, particularly how harrowing the ordinary life can be or how stifling someone's life can be when one - for any reason, money, war, work, faith, rules, love, etc - is a prisoner of one's own situation. It is timely here to remember Mizoguchi's notes about the Ugetsu filming process: “The feeling of wartime must be apparent in the attitude of every character. The violence of war unleashed by those in power on a pretext of the national good must overwhelm the common people with suffering—moral and physical. Yet the commoners, even under these conditions, must continue to live and eat. This theme is what I especially want to emphasize here. How should I do it?”

Bresson and Mizoguchi share some formal strategies to create that melancholic picture effect; both keep camera distance in the scene, use the long duration takes, and have the supreme ability of turning the scene into a geometric design or into a sort of impressionist painting. Finally, along the same lines, they create through the visual experience a sensory experience. An exemplary sequence of Ugetsu is the lake one, about which Phillip Lopate wrote: “The celebrated Lake Biwa episode, where the two couples come upon a phantom boat in the mists, is surely one of the most lyrical anywhere in cinema. Edited to create a stunningly uncanny mood, it also prepares us for the supernatural elements that follow. The dying sailor on the boat is not a ghost, though the travelers at first take him for one; he warns them, particularly the women, to beware of attacking pirates, another ominous foreshadowing. It is the movie’s supreme balancing act to be able to move seamlessly between the realistic and the otherworldly. Mizoguchi achieves this feat by varying the direction between a sober, almost documentary, long-distance view of mayhem and several carefully choreographed set pieces, such as the phantom ship”.

(about last film tip)