Kurosawa's is not Japanese enough

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A foreign, far east artist is not [insert homecountry] enough or too influenced with western culture, a sort of criticism when there dispute or attempt to diminished work of the aforementioned artist inferior.

Honestly, I don't get it.

While I believe I found this pattern still in particular, not in general - the other I noted was renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami also suffered the same kind of criticism; the other related one was discussed on Borges's essay about writers and tradition as national identity - I think this attitude as kind of oxymoron, defeatist, but sometimes if not more often, become such intellectual perpetuity on the camouflage.

As when I try to track it back to its root:

Since Japanese films appeared on our screens after the war, an aesthetic dispute has ranged the admirers of Kurosawa (Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, The Idiot) against those of Mizoguchi. A dispute made even more furious by the fact that both directors have been frequent prizewinners at festivals. Our thanks are due to Jean-José Richer for having cut authoritatively across the debate: "This double distinction awarded in strict equality (to The Seven Samurai and Sansho Dayu [Sansho the Bailiff], Venice [Film Festival] 1954) is unwarranted… There can be no doubt that any comparison between Mizoguchi and Kurosawa turns irrefutably to the advantage of the former. Alone among the Japanese film-makers known to us, he goes beyond the seductive but minor stage of exoticism to a deeper level where one need no longer worry about false prestige" (Jean-luc Godard; Cahiers du Cinéma 40)

Godard's fellow New Wave critic-filmmaker, Jacques Rivette, writes: "You can compare only what is comparable and that which aims high enough. Mizoguchi, alone, imposes a feeling of a unique world and language, is answerable only to himself... He seems to be the only Japanese director who is completely Japanese and yet is also the only one that achieves a true universality, that of an individual."

According to these French commentators, Mizoguchi seemed, of the two artists, the more authentically Japanese. But at least one film scholar has questioned the validity of this dichotomy between "Japanese" Mizoguchi and "Western" Kurosawa: "There were even suggestions by the influential [French film critic] André Bazin that Mizoguchi represented a more authentic Japaneseness, while Kurosawa was quite obviously influenced by the west, as was Mizoguchi [emphasis added]."

source


Now I don't want to imply that an artist (a great one) impenetrable with criticism. I get it if those intelectual tried to, simply stated as one artist's work is not profound enough compare to others, whether that's debatable or not, I believe in respect it's a different case. I also note that it went according to each perception of other cultures' authenticity, but yeah, Kurosawa's is more western and Mizoguchi's that is more Japanese in the nature of their works. I have nothing but agreement.

However one dares to say here, that there should be little to no correlation that an artist should be judged for not sticking deeply with his narrative tradition, the culture, by rejecting to experiment with the said foreign influences. It doesn't straightly make sense.

Influence is influence, styles, approach, make the richness of creativity. I believe it doesn't instantly put the works less universal than others, just because it perceives less authentic for one culture. It takes another aspect. We shouldn't perceive and boxed artists to such kinds of limitations when we try to appreciate their expression.

"For that reason, I repeat that we should not be alarmed and that we should feel that our patrimony is the universe; we should essay all themes, and we cannot limit ourselves to purely Argentine subjects in order to be Argentine; for either being Argentine is an inescapable act of fate - and in that case, we shall be so in all events - or being Argentine is mere affectations, a mask.
I believe that if we surrender ourselves to that voluntary dream which is artistic creation, we shall be good or tolerable writer"
- Jorge Luis Borges on The Argentine Writer and Tradition
__________________
"Фильм призван вызвать духовную волну, а не взращивать идолопоклонников."



The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible
I find the idea that culture is a closed thing, with only one trait quite idiotic to be honest.
Kurosawa is Japanese, period. He may have not made films about "regular" people as Mizoguchi or Ozu did, but he focused in other aspects of the culture. If anything, he influenced the West more than it influenced him.



A foreign, far east artist is not [insert homecountry] enough or too influenced with western culture, a sort of criticism when there dispute or attempt to diminished work of the aforementioned artist inferior.

Honestly, I don't get it.
Nor should you. It is criticism based on diminishing the works of other, (dare I say, "more successful"), artists by implying that either:

1) Western influence, (in the most collective sense), has been a bad thing.

or

2) People who take from any such influence from any other nation or culture are therefore "diluting" their "Mother-tongue" and should be either shamed for it or not given the same respect as those who are stay in their more "native" grounds.

Both premises I find preposterous, (and just a tad "tinge" of "master-race-ist" overtones to the argument).

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I'll just stick to terms of "cinematically speaking" rather than political or much else, but when has cinema not been a melting pot of ideas?

Western Influence (cinematically) being a bad thing?

From cinema's earliest conception most of the language and innovation found in cinema were discovered between the Americas and Europe between the 1880's and 1920'-30's. Many of these nations and artist "borrowed" and took influence from other artists as in those early days people were experimenting with "form" to try and figure out what made cinematic narrative "work" and what made cinematic narrative "confusing." Much of the world owes a great debt to these early Western artists for going through painstaking failures and successes while they navigated this new frontier called "Cinema." As much as revisionists and others might not like to admit, cinema started out as a "Western" invention and much of the "form" and "language" we know of it today were built by these men and women.

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Even Ozu and Mizoguchi owe a huge debt to their "narrative clarities" due to "Western Influence." While they may have an aesthetic which some may tout as "more Japanese" than say someone like Kurosawa... can someone please draw that line and tell me why it matters?

Many American artists borrowed from Japanese, French, Italian, etc. especially in the 60's and 70's. Did American's lose what made them "American?"

The Passion of Joan of Arc, (a French Film), was made by a Danish director who took influence from French Impressionism, German Expressionism, and Soviet Montage... no let's throw that film out the door too because it's not "French" enough.

Even the French New Wave took their influence from American cinema that was shown after the Second World War.

Film Noir was an amalgamation of German Expressionism and French Poetic Realism... but the fears of Feminism and the Cold War made these films distinctively "American."

Need we go on?

Should I talk about how Martin Scorsese is "less" of an American director because he takes influence from world cinema? Does he produce lesser work as a result?

... Or Tarantino...

... Or even Godard himself...

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Point is, you don't "have" to get this argument because it's non-sense. Kurosawa is a Japanese director who has made wonderful Japanese contributions to the World of cinema. Feel free to enjoy him now.
__________________
Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage



Tramuzgan's Avatar
Di je Karlo?
I find the idea that culture is a closed thing, with only one trait quite idiotic to be honest.
Kurosawa is Japanese, period. He may have not made films about "regular" people as Mizoguchi or Ozu did, but he focused in other aspects of the culture. If anything, he influenced the West more than it influenced him.
A culture should nurture its uniqueness, but there's nothing wrong with an artist taking inspiration from foreigners. It helps keep the medium fresh. The reason Kurosawa influenced the west is because his films were more than just a mishmash of influences: he brought a lot of his own spice to the table. It's no different to Sergio Leone and Terry Gillam building on top of their japanese and czech influences. If they weren't capable of doing that, they wouldn't be considered great directors.



Walled gardens are not sustainable. Anybody who gets out in the world by being exposed to other cultures will be changed. That's a good thing.



I think that saying someone isn't [nationality] enough as a criticism is not cool.

I do think it's interesting to learn about how a director might be using cultural tropes that I'm not familiar with, like if a film is a twist on a folktale that I simply don't know because I'm not familiar enough with that culture.

I also think that it's neat to learn how a director might be fusing something that is more "authentically" part of their culture with an influence from a different culture.

I think that part of the conflict comes from the idea that if a director is using elements from other cultures that they are somehow "selling out". And there might be some grain of truth to the fact that a film that uses more "universal" cinematic language might be more successful because it would translate more easily into other markets. (For example, Kurosawa's High and Low is an excellent thriller/police procedural/drama and you don't need to know anything about Japan or Japanese culture to understand what happens in it).

I find it frustrating that in the excerpt the writer uses the phrase "completely Japanese" and yet does not define what is meant by this. I mean, just by using a medium (film) that was not created in Japan, aren't you already using an external means of expression?



matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
A foreign, far east artist is not [insert homecountry] enough or too influenced with western culture, a sort of criticism when there dispute or attempt to diminished work of the aforementioned artist inferior.

Honestly, I don't get it.

While I believe I found this pattern still in particular, not in general - the other I noted was renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami also suffered the same kind of criticism; the other related one was discussed on Borges's essay about writers and tradition as national identity - I think this attitude as kind of oxymoron, defeatist, but sometimes if not more often, become such intellectual perpetuity on the camouflage.

As when I try to track it back to its root:

Since Japanese films appeared on our screens after the war, an aesthetic dispute has ranged the admirers of Kurosawa (Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, The Idiot) against those of Mizoguchi. A dispute made even more furious by the fact that both directors have been frequent prizewinners at festivals. Our thanks are due to Jean-José Richer for having cut authoritatively across the debate: "This double distinction awarded in strict equality (to The Seven Samurai and Sansho Dayu [Sansho the Bailiff], Venice [Film Festival] 1954) is unwarranted… There can be no doubt that any comparison between Mizoguchi and Kurosawa turns irrefutably to the advantage of the former. Alone among the Japanese film-makers known to us, he goes beyond the seductive but minor stage of exoticism to a deeper level where one need no longer worry about false prestige" (Jean-luc Godard; Cahiers du Cinéma 40)

Godard's fellow New Wave critic-filmmaker, Jacques Rivette, writes: "You can compare only what is comparable and that which aims high enough. Mizoguchi, alone, imposes a feeling of a unique world and language, is answerable only to himself... He seems to be the only Japanese director who is completely Japanese and yet is also the only one that achieves a true universality, that of an individual."

According to these French commentators, Mizoguchi seemed, of the two artists, the more authentically Japanese. But at least one film scholar has questioned the validity of this dichotomy between "Japanese" Mizoguchi and "Western" Kurosawa: "There were even suggestions by the influential [French film critic] André Bazin that Mizoguchi represented a more authentic Japaneseness, while Kurosawa was quite obviously influenced by the west, as was Mizoguchi [emphasis added]."

source


Now I don't want to imply that an artist (a great one) impenetrable with criticism. I get it if those intelectual tried to, simply stated as one artist's work is not profound enough compare to others, whether that's debatable or not, I believe in respect it's a different case. I also note that it went according to each perception of other cultures' authenticity, but yeah, Kurosawa's is more western and Mizoguchi's that is more Japanese in the nature of their works. I have nothing but agreement.

However one dares to say here, that there should be little to no correlation that an artist should be judged for not sticking deeply with his narrative tradition, the culture, by rejecting to experiment with the said foreign influences. It doesn't straightly make sense.

Influence is influence, styles, approach, make the richness of creativity. I believe it doesn't instantly put the works less universal than others, just because it perceives less authentic for one culture. It takes another aspect. We shouldn't perceive and boxed artists to such kinds of limitations when we try to appreciate their expression.

"For that reason, I repeat that we should not be alarmed and that we should feel that our patrimony is the universe; we should essay all themes, and we cannot limit ourselves to purely Argentine subjects in order to be Argentine; for either being Argentine is an inescapable act of fate - and in that case, we shall be so in all events - or being Argentine is mere affectations, a mask.
I believe that if we surrender ourselves to that voluntary dream which is artistic creation, we shall be good or tolerable writer"
- Jorge Luis Borges on The Argentine Writer and Tradition
Interesting thread... I just saw a Kurosawa interview (with Dick Cavett, early 80s, I think) and I didn't know he was more popular in the US than Japan.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I'm actually surprised if Kurosawa is getting this criticism because I watch his movies like say Seven Samurai, Kagemusha, Ran, etc, and those movies seem very Japanese culture, unless I am wrong?



The trick is not minding
I'm actually surprised if Kurosawa is getting this criticism because I watch his movies like say Seven Samurai, Kagemusha, Ran, etc, and those movies seem very Japanese culture, unless I am wrong?
It’s an old criticism.