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Examine attitudes towards tradition & modernity in Tokyo Story (1953) and Millennium Actress (2001)

By Kate Pechey

Edited by Sonika Birdi and Symran Annika Saggar




Ozu Yasujirō’s Tokyo Story (1953) and Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress (2001) investigate an impending modernity and the nostalgia for tradition present in both their historical contexts. Examining attitudes towards tradition and modernity in these films gives us a vital insight into Japanese attitudes at two monumental points in Japanese history. Tokyo Story was released a year after the end of the American occupation of Japan with the aftereffects of the war still gripping the nation. The loss of the war was devastating for Japanese national identity and films were a key part of rebuilding the nation. Tokyo Story became a part of this history. Millennium Actress was released nearly a decade after the burst of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, and six years after two national disasters in 1995 – the Sarin Gas attack and the Great Hanshin Earthquake. Once again, the turn of the millennium was an important point in forming national identity: no longer was Japan the huge economic powerhouse it once was – it was instead in the middle of a crippling recession, coming to terms with traumatic national disasters. How does Millennium Actress recognise its importance in identity formation and the history of film being an essential aspect of the creation of the post-war Japanese national identity?


Engagement with tradition and modernity from both directors becomes obvious in their

presentation of the themes of gender and nostalgia. These concepts are prevalent in scenes such as Noriko’s conversation with Shukichi towards the end of Tokyo Story, as well as Ozu’s

stylistic choices in framing and mise-en-scene. Ozu engages with the inevitability of the

passing of time and his complex relationship with tradition and modernity come to light within his portrayal of this. [1] Kon’s interaction with tradition and modernity through nostalgia and women can be seen in Chiyoko’s character. Relationships between the two films are also vital to understanding Kon’s commentary on national traditions and attitudes towards modernity. Chiyoko mirrors aspects of Tokyo Story’s Hara Setsuko’s real life, making Chiyoko more than just a stand-alone character, but an engagement with film history. Using Jennifer Coates’ work on women in post-war Japanese film is central to understanding the importance of the female star to Japanese national identity and how post-war Japan was able to experience catharsis through them. [2] Susan Napier’s work on gazes in Millennium Actress is also crucial to understanding Kon’s attitudes to film history. Both films demonstrate complex feelings towards tradition and modernity, harbouring doubts and fears while also both presenting a measured optimism through their use of women and nostalgia.


Women in film take on a unique role in forming national identity and creating optimism for the future. The character of Noriko allows an insight into a nation that is caught between mourning loss and being forcefully modernised. According to Jennifer Coates, film was used as a way for Japan to process the trauma of losing the war. [3] The performer’s body becomes an allegory of “a defeated nation that must reconstruct [...] a national image of identity”. [4] Filmmakers were having to extrapolate a national identity by combining tradition and Japan’s new international position into a cohesive identity. [5] The female performing body and women on screen were a fundamental part of presenting a positive image of a newly democratic Japan. [6] Female stars became kishu (standard bearers) for a new Japanese democratic ideology, used to shift focus away from the humiliation of defeat onto a motivation to reconstruct Japan. [7] Employing the gendai-geki (contemporary drama) genre, Ozu plays out family dramas to produce a cathartic feeling of engaging with the trauma of both the loss of the war and the occupation through the lens of family dynamics. [8] Noriko becomes central to reimagining national trauma, taking on the role of the modern woman who is not left unscathed by war but is able to cohesively engage with tradition while creating a sense of reassurance for the future. As a working, widowed woman, Noriko is distinctly contemporary. The American occupying forces pushed for women to become more incorporated into the workplace as a part of their efforts to modernise occupied Japan and naturally the trauma of the war for Noriko is most obvious in the loss of her husband. [9]

She plays out the role of the dutiful daughter to a family who she does not owe anything to

after becoming a widow. This is demonstrated when she invites Tomi and Shukichi to stay with her when she has relatively little to give. Despite Ozu resigning himself to some loss of

tradition, hope comes in the form of Noriko. [10] Noriko acts as a unifier between an older

generation who feel ultimately lost in the newly rebuilt nation and a younger generation who

have perhaps lost a large aspect of their heritage in the cultural limbo of post-war Japan. This

bridging between tradition and modernity creates a feeling of reassurance – conveying the fact that Ozu holds a quiet optimism for the future laid out before Japan.


Kon Satoshi forces his audience to engage with what being a woman meant, both on and off

screen, in post-war Japan. He critically engages with the popularity of celebrity personalities that became popular in Japan after the war – as seen with actresses such as Hara Setsuko. The audience sees the cult fanbase that forms around Chiyoko through countless promotional posters, Kon demonstrating the fan/star dynamic that was a focal part of the formation of national identity in post-war Japan. Tachibana Genya looks to Chiyoko as an idol; Ortabasi proposes that Genya is an otaku. [11] Otaku being a “rabid fan” obsessed with usually female idols and objectifying them in their obsession. [12] Otaku became central to cultural panics in Japan after the otaku killer, Miyazaki Tutsumo, murdered four young girls in the late 1980s. The relationship between Genya and Chiyoko does not fit into the otaku/idol relationship given the context of post-war stardom. There was what Jennifer Coates describes as “affective alliances” between stars and fans to create reassurance during a time of cultural unrest. [13] Genya views Chiyoko as a part of his national identity as she would have been central to the cinema he grew up on. The otaku relationship puts a sinister, possessive power on the fan, whereas this relationship is controlled by Chiyoko as she is driving the narrative. Susan Napier describes the relationship between idol and audience as “creative, enriching, and ultimately empowering to both”. [14] Kon problematises the idea that national identity was something pushed onto actresses to perform. He instead highlights the fact that they themselves were able to create meaning for those engaging with them as Chiyoko does with Genya. This could be Kon reframing the power dynamics in a context where national identity was being thrown into question once again, looking to tradition of engagement with film to calm national anxieties about modernity and future generations. Between Ozu and Kon we see a shift in engagement with women; both view them as pivotal to creating meaning and optimism for the future, but Kon gives light to the power that women could take from this.


Both Ozu and Kon employ melancholic and thoughtful nostalgia to carry symbolism of lost

past and depict the anxiety of rebuilding a nation from the ruins of war. Nostalgia in Ozu can

be seen clearly through his cinematography. Particularly employing the Japanese idea of mono no aware in his stylistic choices to give time to think on the impermanence of life and the cyclical nature of time. Pillow shots, for example, are breaks away from the narrative to almost still-life sequences, that Ozu uses to invoke ma – a transitory time to reflect and process what the audience has just witnessed. [15] When Shukichi and Tomi go to the seaside, the audience encounters a variety of pillow shots to provide them time to contemplate what has been left unsaid thus far – how they must feel alienated from their children. Ozu romanticises the ordinary through his cinematography, creating a mournful feeling that people are letting their lives pass by them by not honouring the small, everyday actions that someone takes. [16] This creates a feeling that mono no aware is not just applicable to cherry blossoms but forces us to apply this sentiment to how fleeting our own lives are. A moment that is particularly striking for this is when Shukichi and Tomi become homeless. This is the only time that Ozu tracks the characters by moving the camera in the film, breaking from the tatami mat shots he frequently uses to frame the film and creating a feeling of being untethered. The contrast between the tight, restrictive tatami mat shots and the sudden movement of the camera signifies an important turning point in the film. The structure of the indoor shots, which are so sympathetic to the traditional Japanese interiors he captures is contrasted greatly with the chaos of Tokyo in the shots of the city. [17] Tomi and Shukichi are coming to terms with the modernising world around them but feeling wholly out of place within it – Tomi stating if one of them got lost in Tokyo they would never find each other again. This Tokyo is completely new and modern to them – rebuilt quickly in the fallout of the war, so fast, perhaps, that it left a generation behind. Ozu mourns with them, overwhelmed at the new world they must find a place in. Casting choices also create a sense of nostalgia. Hara Setsuko was often type cast into similar roles to Noriko: she was popular because she represented post-war ideals of individuality while also emulating the traditional dutiful daughter – she became a “hybrid of democratic aspiration and

pre-war Japanese convention”. [18] In addition to this, Hara was a prominent figure in cinema from the pre-war period – creating that feeling of continuation once again but also directly playing to the audience’s pre-existing relationship with the actress. [19] Both the casting choices of Ozu and his cinematography engaging with traditional Japanese conventions illuminate Ozu’s complex views on modernity and tradition.


For Kon, Ozu became incorporated into this nostalgia and Ozu’s work is Japanese tradition,

thus Kon engages him in such a way to bring about longing for the past. The iconic symbolism of the cherry blossom is a key aspect of mono no aware and Kon deploys this at key points, working with mono no aware in a similar way to Ozu. For example, the sequence of Chiyoko travelling quickly through from war to cycling in a forest of cherry blossom. The style of the cherry blossom change through each historical period, becoming incrementally less stylistic. Mono no aware comes in the knowledge that each time we see these blossoms, they are going to have fallen – Kon is illustrating that despite the sadness of losing the blossom annually, they are ultimately always going to be there, despite changing each time. It acts as reassuring nostalgia that the cherry blossoms are not unchanged by time, but they are still there. This heavily works into Kon’s exploration of nationalism and the idea that aspects of Japanese national identity have been preserved despite undergoing change. However, not only does Kon engage with Ozu to bring about a positive sense of nostalgia, but he also uses Ozu’s conventions to reframe what should become a tradition in Japanese culture. Most noticeably Kon uses this at the sequence of the policeman atoning for killing the painter Chiyoko has been chasing since they met. Utilising violations of the 180-degree cinematic rule while the policeman apologises to Chiyoko calls on a very obvious Japanese tradition – a direct homage to Ozu. [20] Incorporating this national tradition into something that Japan has been at best ignoring and at worst systematically denying from history creates a very pivotal point of once again bridging the gap between tradition and modernity. Kon is incorporating modernity into tradition - accountability, atonement and justice becomes a part of that history. Doing this at a time of cultural crisis heavily denotes that Kon is pushing for this as a new aspect of tradition in the same way films would have set standards in the post-war period.


Understanding the subversion of traditional cinematic gazes as well as commentary on

filmmaking as an artform can help an audience understand Kon’s opinions on tradition and

modernity. Throughout, Kon is calling on traditions and conventions from films that are

culturally hugely significant to Japan and adopting techniques from each. However, Kon is

centring his entire narrative around an actress. He becomes very critical of directors and their importance in the process of filmmaking. This is very clearly seen in Chiyoko’s relationship with Otaki – the director, who describes directing as putting paint on a canvas and Chiyoko as a colour he liked. With Otaki, Kon is demonstrating a version of filmmaking that reduces women down to objects under the male gaze – becoming spectacles to be consumed. [21] Otaki comes to represent an unfortunate tradition in filmmaking, namely the mistreatment of actresses by directors. As a direct challenge to this, Chiyoko is in complete control of the narrative throughout the film – it is not an Otaki film, it is Chiyoko’s. Chiyoko can look back on her life and, through her own female gaze, assess what it was all for – it is firmly not to be a paint on a misogynistic director’s canvas. Elderly Chiyoko is able to reminisce, seeing the spectacle that was created but also see beyond that and see herself and her own meanings she created. Her own reflective gaze into her memories is liberating for her: she can establish that everything was for the thrill of the chase. [22] Not only is the nostalgic look into the past from a female gaze, but the entire film is also centred around the feminine gaze and the “sheer pleasure of looking” for women. [23] When talking on what the female gaze is, it is still a heavily contested concept amongst feminists. Emerging as a reaction to Laura Mulvey’s male gaze, it is generally considered to be an empathetic, emotional, and feminine. [24] It is often viewed as problematic as it plays into gender binaries and stereotypes but in the context of early millennia films, it would have been a radical move to try and feature the feminine gaze. Once again, this clearly is Kon pushing for a reframing and recontextualising of traditions centring women and actresses’ experiences and in his critiques of directors, arguably is recognising his own limitations as a male director in expressing those female experiences.


What is there in Ozu’s work that inspires Kon to call on him in Millennium Actress, especially when Kon is trying to uplift actresses and the female gaze? The answer to this lies in the conversation between Shukichi and Noriko at the end of Tokyo Story. In this conversation, Noriko breaks from giri (her duty/social obligation) to ninjō (her true feelings), after exclusively acting out of giri throughout the film. This could be seen as a condemnation of the breakdown of the ie system in Japan, but arguably this is Ozu demonstrating change of national identity in the modern world and reassuring his audience through Noriko. Noriko is the perfect daughter and her breaking giri arguably shows that there needs to be changes in tradition to account for modernity. She explains how isolated she is because of the duty she feels to not move on from her late husband and is clearly suffering because of this decision. Shukichi urging her to move on and remarry is him accepting the push to modernity. As the patriarch of the entire family, he would traditionally carry the most power in the ie system, so for him to encourage Noriko to move on is almost permission for the nation as a whole to move forwards from the trauma of the war as much as possible. Russell describes the passing of Tomi and this conversation to be “clearing a path” for Noriko and her future, in a similar way that destruction within Japan allowed for modernisation. [25] This is a part of the film’s creation of meaning – optimism and an

acceptance that with time passing comes change. In an interview, Ozu described himself as a

gardener, cultivating “shrubs” so they move and grow how he wants them to – centring himself as the creator of meaning. [26] It is key to note that perhaps Kon is not calling on Ozu just for his technical, stylistic choices but also for the fact that he framed and put Hara Setsuko on screen. Kon is calling on all this tradition because it is the tradition associated with Hara Setsuko and reframing her as a central aspect of the creation of meaning in this context.


Both directors are empathetic to nostalgia and anxieties about modernity. Both films engage

with nostalgia and the fears of moving forward into modernity while also expressing optimism – Noriko’s expression of ninjō being the epitome of this in Tokyo Story. Ozu balances a tentative optimism for modernity by using Noriko expressing ninjō and Shukichi urging her to remarry could be seen as an example of generational cohesion and a more modern relationship to ease anxieties. Millennium Actress becomes a natural continuation of Ozu’s Tokyo Story and both films can be used in conjunction to assess how tradition and modernity are balanced in Japan at crisis points. What becomes unique and ultimately resoundingly modern with Millennium Actress is Kon’s favouring of the female gaze while simultaneously critiquing both his own and other director’s male gaze. Kon applies a self-reflective, critical gaze onto directing and his own male gaze, acknowledging his own limitations regarding portraying women’s experiences and their gazes. This opens space for change in the future. Kon uplifts the story of women in post-war Japan who worked to create a cohesive national identity and pays homage to them through Chiyoko. The film industry, being so wrought with misogyny and reductive male gazes, is restructured by Kon to acknowledge the work of actresses and women in post-war Japan, acknowledging their own power and agency over meaning in these post-war films. With this restructuring and acknowledgement, Chiyoko is able to create meaning once again – paying tribute to women who were creating meaning in so many post-war films.


Notes


[1] Catherine Russell, Classical Japanese Cinema Revisited (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), p. 20.


[2] Jennifer Coates, Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016), p. 36.


[3] Coates, Making Icons, p. 34.


[4] Coates, Making Icons, p. 35.


[5] Coates, Making Icons, p. 35.


[6] Coates, Making Icons, p. 35.


[7] Coates, Making Icons, p. 36.


[8] Coates, Making Icons, p. 41.


[9] Coates, Making Icons, p. 36.


[10] Russell, Classical Japanese Cinema Revisited, p. 41.


[11] Malek Ortabasi, ‘National History as Otaku Fantasy: Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress’, in Mark W. MacWilliams (eds.), Japanese Visual Culture (Oxon: Routledge, 2008), p. 284.


[12] Ortabasi, National History as Otaku Fantasy, p. 277.


[13] Coates, Making Icons, p. 43-4.


[14] Susan Napier, ‘“Excuse Me, Who Are You?”: Performance, the Gaze, and the Female Works of Kon Satoshi’, in S. T. Brown (eds.), Cinema Anime, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 36.


[15] Noël Burch, To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema (Chatham: W & J Mackay Limited, 1979), p. 161.


[16] Mono No Aware as Mise-en-scene, The Cine-Files, <https://www.thecine-files.com/current-issue-2/articles/mono-no-aware-as-mise-en-scene/> [Accessed 15 April 2021].


[17] Russell, Classical Japanese Cinema Revisited, p. 45.


[18] Coates, Making Icons, p. 54.


[19] Coates, Making Icons, p. 41.


[20] Burch, To the Distant Observer, pp. 159-160.


[21] Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (eds.), Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings (New York: Oxford UP (1999), p. 837.


[22] Napier, Excuse Me, Who Are You?, p. 39.


[23] Napier, Excuse Me, Who Are You?, p. 35.


[24] How Do We Define the Female Gaze in 2018?, Vulture <https://www.vulture.com/2018/08/how-do-we-define-the-female-gaze-in-2018.html > [Accessed 15 April 2021].


[25] Russell, Classical Japanese Cinema Revisited, p. 47.


[26] Russell, Classical Japanese Cinema Revisited, p. 45.


Bibliography


Filmography


Kon, Satoshi (2001), Millennium Actress


Ozu, Yasujirō (1953), Tokyo Story


Secondary Sources


Burch, Noël. To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema.

Chatham: W & J Mackay Limited, 1979


Coates, Jennifer. Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-

1964. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016


How Do We Define the Female Gaze in 2018?, Vulture

[Accessed 15 April 2021]


Mono No Aware as Mise-en-scene, The Cine-Files, <https://www.thecine-files.com/current-

issue-2/articles/mono-no-aware-as-mise-en-scene/>[Accessed 15 April 2021]


Mulvey, Laura. ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen.

eds. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford UP, 1999


Napier, Susan. ‘“Excuse Me, Who Are You?”: Performance, the Gaze, and the Female Works

of Kon Satoshi’, in S.T. Brown. eds. Cinema Anime. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006


Russell, C. Classical Japanese Cinema Revisited. London: Continuum International

Publishing Group, 2011

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