Where to place the camera; what kind of lens to use; shot composition (master, close-up, telephoto), etc. Editorial decisions are why all serious filmmakers are auteurs. The hundreds (or thousands) of individuals who work for the director make indispensable individual contributions to the final product, but it is the director who makes all the final decisions (hopefully).
This excellent article details them all, but for today's purposes, I'll put them into four categories:
- The straight cut. The most common form of punctuation. The last frame of one scene is replaced with frame one from a new scene. The viewer shouldn't even notice it.
- The dissolve. The shot changes gradually, letting the first image on the screen bleed slowly into the next.
- The Fade to Black (FTB).
- The wipe. A vertical or horizontal "bar" pushes the first image off the screen (left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom; or bottom-to-top).
- Kurosawa was fond of the wipe. He watched a lot of American serials (1930s) as a kid and discovered it there.
- Seven Samurai, for example, contains 1,467 punctuation marks. 1,399 are straight cuts; 15 FTBs; 45 wipes; and eight dissolves. That means that only about 3% are wipes -- but you will notice them!
- Ozu -- perhaps one of the least editorial auteurs -- disdains any effect other than the straight cut. Many of these cuts, however, might qualify as jump cuts -- startling the viewer into unfamiliar territory. He also rarely moves the camera from its very low position at tatami eye-level, and almost never uses anything other than a 50mm lens.
- Ozu's true originality stems from his story elision. A girl is getting married and Ozu concentrates on the aspect of the story involving the preparations; the emotional state of the characters -- but we never see the actual wedding ceremony.
- Mizoguchi loved the dissolve, giving his films have a dreamy quality.
97 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
in Japanese
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2005
A great film does so many things at once. It captures your attention from Shot One. You notice that the compositions are beautiful. Composition forwards meaning. Soon you’re hooked by the great acting, the sets, the long takes, and the sheer beauty of the stream of black and white images.
On the Criterion Channel.
For the hardcores:
Complete list of the fades and dissolves in Ugetsu
Mizoguchi uses 16 dissolves and 15 FTBs in Ugetsu. The longest scene in the film is 9:25; most are somewhere between three and five minutes. Occasionally, he separates a scene of mere seconds (Dissolve 3). Here is a list of all the transitional devices Mizoguchi uses in this film, including the length of each shot before the transition ...
- 0:00:42 FTB 1 after Daiei logo [0:11]
- 0:00:53 Dissolve 1 after title card [1:29]
- 0:02:22 FTB 2 after director’s credit. A few title cards crediting the original stories [0:20]
- 0:02:42 Dissolve 2. The opening scene: Genjurô and Tōbei are leaving their wives to sell Genjurô’s pottery [2:10]
- 0:04:52 Dissolve 3. Pushing the cart on a path. (Note all the extras in the mid- and background, populating the frame beautifully [0:17]
- 0:05:09 FTB 3. Genjurô returns home with money. Tōbei is trying to become a samurai [2:50]
- 0:07:59 Dissolve 4. Back to Genjurô’s story. Tōbei returns home [2:46]
- 0:10:45 FTB 4. Genjurô making pottery. (Look at how Mizoguchi shows us Genjurô’s all-consuming greed, as he yells at his hungry son, Genichi [Ichisaburo Sawamura, his sole IMDb credit!], while Miyagi turns the wheel ... a series of cuts, slowly leading up to a CU of Miyagi. [2:07]
- 0:12:52 Dissolve 5. The men are sleeping. The women are stoking the kiln. Shibata’s army is nearby, and the villagers are scattering. [4:42]
- 0:17:34 Dissolve 6. The two families are camped out in the woods. Genjurô, against advice, returns home to tend to his kiln. Miyagi, Tōbei, and Ohama follow and they discover that the pots are all perfectly baked. They quickly load the pottery. [5:12]
- 0:22:46 Dissolve 7 to possibly one of the most beautiful shots of the film! A composition of such intensity, urgency ... they are loading the pottery onto a boat on Lake Biwa (studio set) with reeds in the left background, and a misty white void on the right. [0:26]
- 0:23:12 FTB 5. Kurosawa worshipped Mizoguchi. So his fascination with the image of a horse emerging from a mist (see: Throne of Blood [1957]), seems copied from what Mizoguchi does here, with the boat floating out of the white mist. After their encounter with the man who was attacked by pirates, the men decide to return to shore to drop off the women and Genichi. [4:52]
- 0:28:04 Dissolve 8. Beautiful shot of Miyagi and Genichi on the shore, mid-background and centered, with the boat in the foreground, Genjurô far left, Tōbei far right, and Ohama (she decided to stay with her husband) in the center. Mizoguchi lingers on alternating CUs of the mother and child on the shore, with the other three in the boat. [1:32]
- 0:29:36 FTB 6. Nice high shot of a busy marketplace. The entire frame is jam-packed with detail. Lady Wakasa and her lady-in-waiting, Ukon (Kikue Môri) are admiring Genjurô’s pottery, which they buy and instruct him to deliver it all to Kutsuki Manor. In the meantime, Tōbei has run off to buy armor and spear, so he can become a samurai. Ohama searches for him. [3:43]
- 0:33:19 Dissolve 9. Ohama, alone, still searching. She is raped by soldiers. Alone, she screams at her missing husband. [3:12]
- 0:36:31 FTB 7. Genjurô wants to buy an expensive kimono. Suddenly, the score turns Western: harp, celesta and strings. As if to confirm the fantasy, suddenly Miyagi appears, fawning over the kimonos. Genjurô awakens from the fantasy, only to hear the voice of Ukon. He turns, and the camera faces her and Lady Wakasa.
- “We thought you might need a guide to find the way.”
- Mizoguchi spends a moment on Genjurô’s confused face before cutting to a CU of Lady Wasaka — Kyô is radiant [2:41]
- 0:39:12 Dissolve 10. A long scene. Genjurô enters Kutsuki Manor. Wasaka seduces him. Her father speaks from the grave (Mizoguchi brings down the light level). He awakes and is pronounced a husband. [15:23]
- 0:54:35 Is this a cut or a dissolve? It’s very subtle, in any case, and merely serves to bridge the previous scene to this one. The camera approaches slowly, almost stealthily. Genjurô is bathing, his back to the camera. Wasaka faces us:
- “You seem to distrust me. You think I’m an enchantress, don’t you?” (she washes his back) ... the camera pulls closer ... “but you’re mine now. (he pulls her closer) ... from now on you must devote your entire life to me.” Wasaka begins to undress, moving out of frame, right. Cut to Genjurô. The camera remains on his ecstatic face, even as we hear the plop of Wasaka entering the tub, laughing, as Genjurô moves out of frame, right. As if to give the lovers some privacy, the camera slowly pans to the left, over rocks and pebbles. [1:28]
- 0:55:58 Dissolve 11. The two shots merge beautifully, as we gradually recognize the new shot as being carefully raked, like a Japanese garden.
- The camera pans and stops on a museum-worthy painting on film. Mid-foreground, Wakasa and Genjurô are having a picnic on a blanket on the grass — she is singing — while Mizoguchi completes the picture with a pair of barren trees on the right (the larger looking like it’s threatening the smaller), the lake beyond that and the mountains even more distant. The couple make love. [1:20]
- 0:57:18 FTB 8. Miyagi and Genichi are hiding from hungry soldiers. An old woman gives them food and helps them escape. [1:47]
- 0:59:05 FTB 9. But they are attacked on the road, and Miyagi is stabbed with a spear. [1:43]
- 1:00:48 FTB 10. Tōbei is following two samurai. As he hides, he watches as the younger samurai ritually beheads the older one, a general. Tōbei kills the samurai, and steals the head. [1:43]
- 1:02:45 Dissolve 12. Tōbei presents the severed head to the warlord and receives his reward. He is finally a samurai. [0:57]
- 1:03:42 FTB 11. Followed by his newly-appointed vassals, Tōbei sits atop his horse, looking quite satisfied. Prostitutes call out to the men, and they ask Tōbei to stop. At first, he refuses, saying he wants to return home to show Ohama his success. But they persuade him and they stop at the brothel. The men are all having fun. Suddenly, a ruckus ensues when a customer tries to leave without paying. The prostitute is Ohama. Tōbei stares in disbelief.
- This is where Mizoguchi shows his feminism. While, Tōbei stares, Ohama pours her heart out. Certainly, he has made it big — but because of him, she is trapped at the very bottom of society. [6:17]
- 1:09:59 FTB 12. Overhead shot of some stores. Genjurô is buying something, but when he mentions Kutsuki Manor, the shop owner becomes panicked and tells him to take everything and leave. He meets a monk who tells him he has death written on his face. When he hears the name Lady Wakasa, he insists on exorcising her ghost from Genjurô before he departs. [3:18]
- 1:13:17 Dissolve 13. Lady Wakasa discovers that Sanskrit characters are written on Genjurô’s back, and flips out. (btw, check out a similar story in Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan [1965]).
- An important scene: while Genjurô writhes in agony on the floor, Ukon describes their true situation. As she speaks, the camera moves around — from a CU of the tortured Wakasa to Genjurô’s back — and the emotional weight of her words are felt through the images. Genjurô grabs a sword and, swinging it wildly, escapes the Manor. A CU on Genjurô’s face pulls back and reveals a group of men who accuse him of stealing the sword in his possession. When he’s told that Kutsuki Manor was burned down and the clan wiped out, it is still a few moments until Genjurô sees the charred wood for himself. [9:25]
- 1:22:42 FTB 13. Genjurô is going home.
- Mizoguchi created something so simple, yet so beautiful, to set up this final scene of the ghost story: Genjurô walks through his home, seemingly completely deserted. He then exits a door. The camera stays inside as it pans across the room — tracking an unseen Genjurô — until he again arrives at the front door. This time, he walks in to see Miyagi tending the cooking pot. Their reunion is ecstatic. He holds his son, Genichi, puts him back to bed, then falls asleep himself besides his young son. [5:25]
- 1:28:07 Dissolve 14. Morning. Miyagi is awake; Genjurô and Genichi still asleep. There is a diffused, soft light permeating the frame. / cut / outside the house it is sunny ... the village chief wakes up Genjurô and has to tell him that Miyagi was actually killed during the war.
- Genjurô’s reaction is so profound that Mizoguchi films him with his head turned away from the camera. No facial reaction is needed here. [4:28]
- 1:32:35 FTB 14. Tōbei throws his samurai gear into the river. A soothing, long pan shot covers their weary conversation along the path. [0:43]
- 1:33:18 FTB 15. Genjurô praying at Miyagi’s grave. Her ghostly voice comes to him to tell him that his “delusion has come to an end.” The camera pulls back to reveal Genichi, playing nearby. [1:00]
- 1:34:18 Dissolve 15. Genjurô is throwing a pot, and Miyagi’s voice — less ghostly now, more comforting and intimate — speaks to him as she “watches” him work:
- “What a beautiful shape! Helping you spin the wheel is my greatest pleasure. How I long to see it when it’s baked! The firewood is cut and ready. The rampaging soldiers are gone. So make your wonderful pottery in peace” (here, a CU of the wheel). [0:41]
- 1:34:59 Dissolve 16. Genjurô is feeding the kiln. Genichi is nearby / cut / Tōbei and Ohama are working in the garden. She brings Genichi some food, which he offers to his mother’s grave. The final crane shot rises high above the farmers — hard at work — especially the women.
Great analysis.
Posted by: Jill Newnham | August 04, 2023 at 12:05 PM