THE POLITICS OF CLASS AND CONSUMPTION:
Notice who the heroes are in these films. The samurai.
Zushio. These are heroes for an
aspirational middle class that has a high regard for itself. The common people are seen as lower. Jenny from the block has little to do with
Jenny in the block. The ideology of
middle class is the ideology of advancement, and aspiration to nobility, which
being critical of selfishness, greed, hunger for power, etc. Thus, the American people can hate
politicians and government, but somehow identify with billionaires and investment
firms.
There is also a need to valorize the family. The family in Sansho the film is reduced to
its essence. The father is dead; most
fathers are absent. The sister is dead;
typically she marries and leaves the family.
What remains is the core: the mother and son. This is the foundation of the new Japan
(based on nuclear families rather than extended
ones).
The mother’s “job” is to suffer for the son. The son’s job is to feel guilty towards the
mother for her suffering. This
psychological bond (mother complex) is the psychological foundation of the new
Japan.
This is what the (unquestioning) audience wants—needs—to
see. Men are always sons. Women are always mothers. Even though she’s younger than Zushio, Anju
acts like a mother towards him. Even
though she had to die young (mothers have to suffer, and she suffers
supremely), she was still able to realize her duty as a mother of sorts.
This film also decrees that sentimental attachment to
the mother (the social ideology)
surpasses the more abstract devotion to the father. Words will never win out over emotions. The father is in the realm of the
abstract. The mother is in the realm of the concrete.
It is the killing off of the father, as well as the
daughter, that makes this film
modern. We see it starting in Ogai’s
story, but it reaches its apex in the film.
FEMALE/MALE
even with the jobs, women are associated with water
(yin), and men with land (yang). Women
are associated with emotion, and men with logic and language. Women have a connection with the spiritual
(Anju hears the voice).
water is associated with the concept of mujo. It is fluid, ever changing. It’s the principle of existence. Zushio returns to a primordial kind of world,
a watery world of feeling and emotion.
It’s almost as if he is returning to the womb (which may help explain
the intensity of the embraces, etc.).
I am upset that I am just looking at this blog post now. While many of the other posts interested me, I was fascinated by the idea of mujo, that is talked about at the end of the post. I had no idea what this was. I researched a bit online and found out that it is also known as impermanence. This makes sense because you compare mujo to water, something that is always moving, changing, and never permanent or still. I learned that anika (impermanence) is one of the three marks of existence in Buddhism; the other two being dukka (unsatisfactoriness) and anatta (non-self). Buddhists believe that if one understands all three of these doctrines, than one can stop suffering. Further, with my research I found that there is a Japanese film called Mujo, or This Transient Life. While this film is not on our syllabus, with all of the enjoyment I am getting from watching the Japanese films in class, I am going to try and find a copy of this film so I can watch it on my own. I read the synopsis online and found that it was made in 1970, yet it was still shot in black and white. The first film in color in Japan was shot in 1951. I found this interesting that the director chose to not shoot the film in color. This post really interested me. It sparked a few interests of mine that I did not have before reading the blog.
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