90 Kwaidan

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HerrSchreck
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#51 Post by HerrSchreck » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:41 pm

I mean let's also acknowledge the elephant standing here in the room: The Seven Samurai. LQ do you see this ripsnorting, rollicking, burping, farting livid masterpiece the same way? Nothing could be more devoid of formalism, I'd say, as even the "arty" shots are completely thrown away and never lingered over.

I agree with Tom here, by the way: I find Kwaidan far more 'formal' than Tokyo Story. I love love love Kwaidan, but it is indeed very much a stagebound piece with an extreme stylistic self-consciousness that seems to at times override human aspects of the film. I truly believe that Kubrick took a page from this film..

I think what's getting you LQ is the feeling of being locked out by an alien style you're not familiar with, which is different than formalism. You have a similar experience others do when coming to Ozu for the first time, but once you 'integrate' with it, and become used to it, this discomfort disappears. Like walking thru a neighborhood that you're unfamiliar with: just because you got lost, doesn't mean there's something unforgiving or mazelike about the zoning & planning & design of the nabe.. it just means you're a stranger in a strange land.

Nobody-- nobody-- was more human and warm than Ozu. His style is very delicate and beautiful. The rewards for acclimatizing are tremendous.

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Mr Sausage
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#52 Post by Mr Sausage » Sat Oct 18, 2008 1:07 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Nothing could be more devoid of formalism, I'd say,
On the other hand, here's a three-and-a-half hour movie that spends exactly an hour on each of its three precise acts, and leaves fifteen minutes for the intro and fifteen for the conclusion. The most formal of unformal movies?

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HerrSchreck
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#53 Post by HerrSchreck » Sat Oct 18, 2008 1:14 pm

Kickass narrative composition, to be sure.

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LQ
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#54 Post by LQ » Sat Oct 18, 2008 8:24 pm

Tommaso wrote:I'm just a little surprised that you don't find it 'stagey', because I do (though I don't find that distracting from the experience). But apart from the banal fact that this was shot indeed entirely on a vast studio stage, I can't think of many Japanese films that are more carefully and also somewhat theatrically constructed.

Well of course you're absolutely right. But to me it was staged without feeling overtly staged, which is how I regarded the films I'd seen prior to it. But basically, I'm just ignorant when it comes to Japanese cinema. What few films I'd seen, I saw when I was younger and I was not as receptive as I feel now...it could really be that I just needed Kwaidan to soften me up ;)
and yes, it is an alien universe to me ( although I don't think my "formal" comment was totally without base) but now that I've seen the tiniest glimpse of what this world has to offer, I look forward to many rewarding experiences to come.

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Matango
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#55 Post by Matango » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:57 pm

And since editing structure often defines, or highlights, (in)formality in film, you might also try more "modern" films like Vengeance is Mine or Hana-bi for demonstrations of innovative expression. Reading your posts, I think that you might find these films more immediately appealing than those mentioned above.

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Tommaso
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#56 Post by Tommaso » Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:33 pm

On Schreck's suggestion, let's continue this discussion from the "Forthcoming and Random Speculation" Thread here. Perhaps others might chime in, too. I'm first quoting Schreck's last post in full:

HerrSchreck wrote:
Tommaso wrote:
HerrSchreck wrote:And I'm dying-- DYING-- to see what CC makes of the color scheme with an update of Kwaidan. I'm still not sure which is "right" and which is "wong" (MoC v CC). Visually, one of the most important films of the past 50 yrs, and one of the most glorious modern tributes to the silent era (and Murnau in general).
Interesting, I would have never made the Murnau association, but you may have a point there (I assume you're talking about the fields in the second and also partially the third episode, for instance?). But I still think that most of the visuals' inspiration comes from Japanese painting scrolls, and well, as Michael K quite unintentionally convinced me in the Mizo Eclipse thread, there seems to be a strong "Ugetsu" influence here as well. In any case, completely mindblowing. Up there in my top four list of 'paintings in motion-films' (for want of a better term), together only with the Red Shoes Ballet, "Hoffmann" and "Prospero's Books".

Personally I find the MoC colours MUCH more convincing, quite apart from the full-length version.
Well I'd say you're correct in the painterly influence.. the same way you'd be correct to note the influences of Romantic art in Murnau (not to mention Dutch chiaroscuro)-- which is kind of the point. As for the stylistic content of the images in Kwaidan, of course they are eastern-- I don't mean he's making a film inspired on the pictorial end by the German painters.

I'm talking about adapting a heavily painterly sensibility, and then deploying the means of the cinema in a fashion that hugely tributes the silent era, and Murnau in particular. The heavy, slow style, the creeping, climbing, drifting camera, the lighting.. I see lots of the German silent cinema here- not only Murnau but Lang and Pabst.

Of course, again, Kobayashi is Japanese, and the content is Japan-centric. But just as German romance paintings, as well as Japanese watercolors, were two dimensional static images, Murnau and Kobayashi created moving images. It's the way they both went about the "moving" part of the images that I mean, so to speak.

Why do you find the colors on the longer-cut digibeta "more convincing"?-- I'm very curious because I've not really heard this addressed much.

Perhaps we should move this over to the CC Kwaidan thread, since we're speculating on it's rerelease.

Well, thanks for the explantion, Schreck, but if I understand you correctly, your main point is that Kobayashi's film basically adapts "a heavily painterly sensibility", and I of course agree, but I don't see why you particularly named Murnau in your original post, because I think like you that this painterly quality goes for a lot of silent (German) cinema. But from there it continues through all sorts of totally different filmmaking. I think of a striking early example as Feyder's "Kermesse Heroique", but also of modern films like most of Jarman or Greenaway, or Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" and "Ran", and "Dreams" of course (itself most heavily influenced by "Kwaidan"). There are surely much more examples, and you might argue that all these directors were actually influenced by silent cinema.

"The heavy slow style" etc. is not something I would particularly associate with German silents as well. In "Kwaidan" I always thought of it as an expression of the slow unrolling of these Japanese picture rolls whose exact name escapes me at the moment. Or of a 'slow' quality in 'classical' Japanese art(s) in general. Did you ever hear an allegro in traditional Japanese music or even in Takemitsu? This 'slow' quality is what I cherish a lot in older Japanese cinema in general (even though I sometimes think Ozu overdoes it). Even Kurosawa has it often to an unexpected degree.

As to the colours on the MoC: I like the more subdued tones, which however never lose any vibrancy. The CC colours, by contrast, look like a box of those 'Smarties' chocolate pills by comparison. Or to put it differently: the MoC looks more like a colourful classical painting, whereas the CC looks like Pop Art. And this was a rather early CC, at a time when Criterion famously often got their colours wrong, and according to some opinions, they still do when it comes to Japanese films. I think of the "Ran" debate, for example, where I for one find the CC colours better. But with "Kwaidan", the difference to me looks like that between the CC "Good Morning" and the Japanese disc according to Gary's caps of that film (which I haven't got on disc myself, though). So as far as "Kwaidan" is concerned, I never had any doubt that the MoC must be more correct.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#57 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:11 pm

Do you see any western cinematic influence at all in Kwaidan Tom? You're mentioning pertinent issues of Eastern content & art direction of course-- but what if any Western influences in terms of technique, camera movement and mise en scene do you see in Kwaidan? Could be just me, but I see it almost as a form of Japanese Expressionism, the way the art direction and stagey mise en scene come into play-- like a Japanese stab at Caligari-esque sets (walking around in literal paintings), with the camera and pacing handled in the style of the German silent era (actually more FA Wagner than Freund).

As for the colors, it's the issue of grey pale "subnaturalism" (moc) vs that candycolored "smarties" (CC) that I'm not sure about. It's the artificiality of the sets that's got me-- and on a simple level the beta used by AV Channel & Eureka looks positively drained of color and lacks the period gloss.

I mean, look at this CC cap. Look at the colors and the trees, look at the painted wall in the background. Now look at this MoC cap, look at th green of the leaves and the painted wall in the background.. the blue of the sky vs the white of the clouds. It looks positively drab as a bloo-drained corpse. All the caps are like that. Look at the CC caps of the held child, the vibrant blue of the background the color differential between all the elements in the image, and the chiaroscuro of the shadow patterns. Now look at the MoC cap of same, the greyish green of everything including the flesh tones (look at the flesh tones of the woman in particular-- she is GREEN-OCHREish), and the lack of color on the back wall.

I don't know about this one. I never felt I could come to a conclusion about it.

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Sloper
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#58 Post by Sloper » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:14 pm

Speaking as a novice, who had only seen a VHS of the film before owning the MoC disc, and still wavering about buying the Criterion…

The MoC image does look very clean and real and ‘convincing’, as Tommaso says, and at first sight I tend to think the frame grabs from that edition look better than the Criterion. It was on the strength of these that I opted for the MoC. But the process of watching the film for the first time, despite the pleasure of seeing the extra footage, was slightly underwhelming. It reminded me of the ‘outtakes’ you sometimes see, where everything kind of looks right, but a little washed out, as though there was some final process the footage had to go through before making it into the film.

This seemed particularly apparent in the scene where Hoichi is first taken to the ghostly court, where those incredible overpowering blues that seem to wash (or unfold) over you as the camera dollies in just looked a whole lot more real, and less spectral, than they had on previous viewings. It looked like a film set – much more like Caligari, in fact – and not quite like the film I knew and loved.

But I had only seen the Tartan video before, it may have been the mood I was in, and I keep meaning to revisit it… Just my two cents.

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Tommaso
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#59 Post by Tommaso » Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:07 am

I'm sure there are Western influences as well in "Kwaidan". The subjective moving camera right at the beginning of the film comes to mind immediately, entering and searching the old house like Freund's camera does with the hotel corridors in "Der letzte Mann", though to a much more disconcerting effect. But then, there are 40 years between these two films, and that sort of camerawork probably wasn't that unusual anymore at the time even in Japan. But I see a far stronger western influence in a film like Oshima's "Violence at noon" for instance, made the same year; and considering what was going on at the same in Japanese cinema in general, Kobayashi's film looks not particularly avantgarde at all, rather on the contrary: extremely 'classical', though its images appear to be strikingly 'new', at least for a Western viewer.
As to the mise en scene in general, I don't know whether there is a particular Western influence from film, unless you indeed count the completely surreal-expressionist painterly sets of "Caligari", but these have a rather different effect on the viewer. In "Kwaidan" I can't see any sort of the 'distortion' that the "Caligari" sets create. But there may be an influence from elaborate opera stage settings. That's why I mentally always put "Kwaidan" together with films like "Tales of Hoffmann", as mentioned before.

I looked at the Beaver caps (all of them) again, and I still think that the MoC looks 'right'. The 'drained' quality you mention I see in the caps from the Australian disc, but not in the MoC (even though Gary says that they look similar, I find there's a huge difference there). Look at the very last cap at the Beaver: the warrior's face in the R4 looks bloodless, it looks 'natural' in the MoC, and very blueish in the CC. There's a blue tinge all over the CC, look at the watermelon shot for instance. The wooden table looks blue in the CC, but looks like wood in the MoC. As for the two caps you specifically highlighted: to me there's much more 'elegance' in the general colour composition in the cap of the woman with child in the MoC; the CC blue there looks impressive, but also like a 'cheap' effect by comparison. You have a point with the scene at the pond and the colours of leaves etc. This is the only instance where I'd perhaps also prefer the more intense CC colours, but they have a strong appearance of being contrast-boosted in comparison to the smooth look of the MoC.
I don't know: if you like the CC look, go for it. I saw the film first on the CC disc, too, and remember having been pretty much blown away by the way it looked. But I was equally blown away, though perhaps in a quieter or less 'sensationalist' manner later when the MoC came out. Perhaps I just prefer classical over expressionist when it comes to this film.

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zeroism
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#60 Post by zeroism » Sat Jan 17, 2009 4:46 am

Anyone care to speculate further on the Amazon 'Blu-ray' listing?

I made a quick visit to the Japanese side of the internets, and therein I found no hint of a Kwaidan Blu-ray release, not even a forthcoming one. So according to what peerpee said, a Criterion release shouldn't be possible any time soon...? I would die for a Blu-ray of this, especially from a nice new CC transfer.

addition: Out of curiosity, I checked for a Japanese BD release of In the Realm of the Senses (out or forthcoming), and can find no trace of one for that either. Based on what peerpee said, wouldn't it be impossible for CC to be releasing this? What's going on here? I'm certainly not questioning the knowledge of peerpee or MichaelB, but this doesn't make sense. Maybe it's not the case with all Japanese companies? Or, I could be off in the wrong direction since I guess it's possible that In the Realm was licensed from the French side...? Maybe I'm in over my head here.

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kaujot
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#61 Post by kaujot » Sat Jan 17, 2009 5:48 am

I believe Realm is banned in Japan?

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#62 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:17 am

It's not banned entirely -- there's a Japanese DVD -- but it can't be released uncensored. In any event, the Oshimas were essentially French productions (from a business/financial perspective, anyway) and both the Nouveaux (UK) and Fox Lorber DVDs list Argos Films as the copyright holder. Criterion have worked with them on several prior occasions, so it's a safe bet Argos is the licensor.

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manicsounds
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#63 Post by manicsounds » Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:31 am

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:It's not banned entirely -- there's a Japanese DVD -- but it can't be released uncensored. .
I thought the last DVD released, which is out of print, was released uncensored. But I didn't see it so can't confirm

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#64 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:57 am

It was released "uncut," in that they didn't actually delete any footage, but there was still digital blurring.

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Sanjuro
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#65 Post by Sanjuro » Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:34 pm

The Japanese Realm of the Senses DVD is quite amusing actually. In the last scene at the 'moment of climax', the mosaiccing switches off (since it's no longer 'real' presumably). Quite a shock when you're not expecting it and have gotten used to blurry genitals.

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colinr0380
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#66 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Mar 27, 2009 2:42 pm


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agnamaracs
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#67 Post by agnamaracs » Mon May 11, 2009 5:49 am

So KWAIDAN is one of the titles available for the Blu-Ray vote (and arguably the most visually striking of the lot). Does this mean Criterion might finally release the longer cut?

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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#68 Post by ryan11 » Mon May 11, 2009 6:49 am

agnamaracs wrote:So KWAIDAN is one of the titles available for the Blu-Ray vote (and arguably the most visually striking of the lot). Does this mean Criterion might finally release the longer cut?
They will be compelled to. I just watched the wonderful MOC edition. A gorgeous print. I imagine MOC would be considering Kwaidan for the Blu-ray treatment, subject to rights. I imagine it was a very good seller, especially compared the inferior, and incomplete Criterion edition.

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Awesome Welles
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#69 Post by Awesome Welles » Mon May 11, 2009 7:38 am

Has it been released on Blu in Japan? It needs to be released there before it can be anywhere else.

Yes I imagine MoC would release the blu as it sold well and I can't wait for that to happen!

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#70 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Mon May 11, 2009 10:23 am

FSimeoni wrote:Has it been released on Blu in Japan? It needs to be released there before it can be anywhere else.
This doesn't seem to be the case anymore, at least not with Toho -- Classic Media are releasing Godzilla in September, although I suppose it's possible Toho have an unannounced release of their own coming before then.

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mfunk9786
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#71 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jul 09, 2009 11:15 am

.

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tavernier
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#72 Post by tavernier » Thu Jul 09, 2009 11:47 am

mfunk9786 wrote:.
Agreed.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#73 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Jul 09, 2009 7:43 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:.
Don't you think you're being a bit hasty making this assumption? I think it's neccessary to at the very least keep an eye on one's self and try-- at least make the attempt-- to editorialize and view one's self from the ceiling and try to separate fact from personal opinion.

At first I sort of got the feeling you were being deliberately provocative with this, but in the end I think you're just being careless and not thinking this whole thing thru clearly.

".", for christs sakes????

Let's try and be a little more sensitive to other's feelings, here, shall we?

kekid
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#74 Post by kekid » Tue May 11, 2010 7:33 pm

Kwaidan and Picnic at Hanging Rock lost out in popularity contest, but we believed that Criterion would release these two Blu Ray's not too long after Howards End Blu Ray came out. We have not heard anything about them in some time. Does anyone know what is going on?

ezmbmh
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Re: 90 Kwaidan

#75 Post by ezmbmh » Tue May 11, 2010 7:40 pm

I have to differ, Schreck. This was the finest post I've yet seen, unmatched in vigor, pith, concision. Who could possibly argue?

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