カテゴリ
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ショートトランスクリプション
00:00:00WILL CAROLL ウィルカロール オーター 鈴木せijun in postwar japanese cinema
00:00:07Welcome to the audio commentary for Suzuki's Tattooed Life
00:00:11Originally released on November 13th through November 22nd 1965
00:00:17as part of a double feature with another Nikatsu movie called To Rogues There Are No Borders
00:00:23I've never seen the film that this played alongside
00:00:26My notes say that it was a Nikatsu western starring Kobayashi Akira
00:00:30directed by Nakahira Kou, famously the director of Crazed Fruit
00:00:35and it was about 99 minutes long
00:00:38Tattooed Life is a Ninkyo film
00:00:41which is a genre that wasn't associated with Nikatsu so much as with Toei Studio
00:00:46But Nikatsu started making them around 1963
00:00:50once they saw that Toei's Ninkyo films were competing with their own brand of Nikatsu action movie
00:00:56If you think of Nikatsu action movies in the late 1950s
00:01:01the main characters are usually rebellious youths
00:01:04or they're gangsters modeled after archetypes from American and French crime movies rather than Yakuza
00:01:11The Ninkyo genre is really the origin of many people's idea of what a Yakuza movie is
00:01:17It's where the romantic idea of the Yakuza as a kind of pre-modern society with a very strict moral code comes from
00:01:26The word Ninkyo refers to that moral code that all Yakuza are supposed to live by
00:01:32Many Ninkyo films are set in the first three decades of the 20th century
00:01:37So this is Showa 1 1926
00:01:41In the first shot we see a parasol with a Yakuza clan name on it
00:01:45And Suzuki immediately juxtaposes that with another clan name on a lantern
00:01:50Followed by a cutback to the first clan name moving in the opposite direction
00:01:55We haven't even seen anyone's face yet
00:01:57But this is enough for the audience to know what's about to happen
00:02:00Also notice how careful Suzuki is to withhold the protagonist's face throughout this sequence
00:02:07By having him face away from the camera
00:02:09By blocking it with the parasol
00:02:11And then by the long shot framing from behind him when he finally attacks the rival Yakuza boss
00:02:17Which allows Suzuki to save a dramatic reveal to the very end of the sequence
00:02:22When he directly juxtaposes the star Takahashi Hideki's face
00:02:27With the wolf tattoo that has his character's name Tetsu on it
00:02:33For all Suzuki's reputation as an outlandish stylist
00:02:37He's consistently very good at economic storytelling through editing
00:02:41At least when he wants to be
00:02:43He really likes creating visual conflict through aggressive juxtaposition of compositions
00:02:49Directions of movement or imagery
00:02:52And he can be very crafty about what he shows or doesn't show
00:02:56Through editing and framing
00:02:58Sometimes he'll use that power to clarify or intensify action
00:03:02Other times he'll use that power in a deliberately misleading way
00:03:06He also frequently uses direct cuts between scenes
00:03:10And will excise the ending of one scene and the beginning of the next
00:03:14So he cuts directly from the guy standing in the doorway
00:03:19Directly to Tetsu getting into the rickshaw
00:03:22Directly to Tetsu's rickshaw journey already underway
00:03:26Suzuki made three Ninkyo films at Nikatsu
00:03:30Kanto Wanderer in 1963
00:03:32The Flowers and the Angry Waves in 1964
00:03:36And Tattooed Life in 1965
00:03:39Generally these movies have been overlooked in his latter-day reception outside of Asia
00:03:44By comparison to things like Youth of the Beast
00:03:48Gate of Flesh, Tokyo Drifter, or Branded to Kill
00:03:52But one interesting thing I found while researching him
00:03:55Is that a lot of the college cine club members
00:03:57Who became Suzuki fans around this time
00:04:00Were actually very interested in these Ninkyo films specifically
00:04:04So you start seeing reader reviews in journals like Eiga Hyoron
00:04:09About Suzuki around this time
00:04:12And actually the three movies that I think came up the most in those articles that I found
00:04:18Were Kanto Wanderer
00:04:20The Flowers and the Angry Waves
00:04:22And Gate of Flesh
00:04:24I should say that these were written before either Tokyo Drifter or Branded to Kill had come out
00:04:29But one reason these people were interested in these movies
00:04:32Is that Suzuki was taking a generic form that had already become somewhat stale and repetitive by this point
00:04:39And he was taking it in unexpected directions through things like jarring editing
00:04:44Or action that unfolds in an unpredictable and sometimes slightly ridiculous way
00:04:50Like running over the assassin with the rickshaw
00:04:53Another thing to note here is how tightly the narrative information has been controlled in these opening scenes
00:04:59We saw the assassination introducing Tetsu in the first scene
00:05:04In the second scene he was mysteriously in an art studio offering to pay for some guy named Kenji
00:05:11To go to art school
00:05:12And now finally in this scene we learn who Kenji is
00:05:16This information isn't presented all at once in an easy to follow fashion
00:05:21To an extent you have to be paying attention and connecting the dots
00:05:25But this allows for a more dramatic revelation
00:05:28The character is identified as Kenji
00:05:31The artist and the protagonist's younger brother
00:05:34Only after he's killed a Yakuza
00:05:36And Suzuki also has Kenji carrying his portraits around in the scene
00:05:41Which allows him to throw them away dramatically
00:05:43When he says that he's giving up art
00:05:45Suzuki frequently tries to give some kind of visual punctuation to dramatic moments like this
00:05:51Even if sometimes they can be so on the nose that they become absurd
00:05:56We also just had another terrific economic cut
00:05:59From the portraits on the ground just after Kenji ran away
00:06:02To now the brothers talking it out on this boat
00:06:05How did they get here?
00:06:07We have no idea
00:06:09But this is also a big juxtaposition in pacing from one scene to the next
00:06:14The previous scene was an action scene with lots of quick cuts and movements
00:06:19And it's juxtaposed directly with a conversation scene
00:06:24That's shown in a single 57 second long take with hardly any movement at all
00:06:30Suzuki is not usually thought of as a long take director
00:06:34But if you pay attention you'll notice that there are quite a few shots
00:06:38That can run the length of an entire scene with little or no movement either by the camera
00:06:43And really not much movement from the figures within the frame either
00:06:47And very often these are juxtaposed with much more quickly cut sequences
00:06:52So there's an abrupt shift in pacing from scene to scene
00:06:56You'll see him push this tendency much further in his post-Nikatsu work
00:07:00Especially the Taisho trilogy
00:07:04Now they're talking about Manchuria
00:07:06Which is something that you do periodically see mentioned in Ninkyo films
00:07:11As you may know Japan's imperial project was well underway by the time these films were set
00:07:18And it was common for either outcasts or people who were down on their luck
00:07:23To try to move to one of the colonies where they could move from being outcasts
00:07:28To being first-class citizens by virtue of being Japanese citizens in the colonies
00:07:34In Ninkyo films specifically you periodically see Yakuza deciding that their way of life can't continue in modern Japan
00:07:43So they go to Manchuria with the hope that the older way of life may still be possible there
00:07:49It's a bit like constantly pushing further into the frontier in American westerns
00:07:54It never works out though
00:07:56Either the Yakuza don't make it to Manchuria
00:07:59Or they do and they still find themselves running into conflict with some developer or industrialist there
00:08:06As I mentioned, many Ninkyo films are set in the first three decades of the 20th century like this one is
00:08:14Japan underwent a major modernization project in the late 19th century
00:08:19So these films tend to be set about a half century after that
00:08:23When the modernization project has already taken place and is somewhat irreversible
00:08:29But when there are still remnants of the earlier society very much alive
00:08:33Not least the Yakuza themselves
00:08:36Very often the villains of these movies will be some kind of an industrial capitalist or developer
00:08:42So a figure who's getting rich from Japan's modernization
00:08:47And who's exploiting either workers or ordinary villagers
00:08:51And is just as willing to use violence as the Yakuza are
00:08:54But who is not bound by their moral codes
00:08:57Sometimes the villain will ally himself with Yakuza
00:09:01Who have abandoned their moral code when they join him
00:09:04Either Yakuza from a rival clan
00:09:07Or sometimes Yakuza from the same clan who betray the protagonist in the process
00:09:16It's kind of jarring to suddenly focus on the detective's red shoes like that
00:09:21But this is a detail that will prove to be important
00:09:24Suzuki often identifies individual characters through a recognizable piece of clothing
00:09:30And in color films it's usually recognizable because of its unusual color
00:09:35So think of Tetsu's powder blue jacket in Tokyo Drifter
00:09:39Or the colored dresses that each character has in Gate of Flesh
00:09:43This is obviously a less central character
00:09:46But every time he appears he's going to be identified by those red shoes
00:09:50There's a mythology that has emerged for Suzuki about how he was a filmmaker
00:09:55Whose films made no money and made no sense
00:09:58To quote the image that always circulates whenever his name is mentioned online
00:10:03But I actually think that undersells some of his skills as a filmmaker
00:10:08He made 40 films in 12 years for Nikatsu
00:10:12Some of them are quite experimental
00:10:15But if you try looking back on all of them
00:10:18Hoping that they will eschew standard narrative logic and continuity rules
00:10:23To the extent that Branded to Kill does
00:10:25You'll really miss out on how skilled he could be as a commercial genre filmmaker when he wanted to
00:10:32And the fact that his experimentation in some Nikatsu films
00:10:36Is often more understated than he's given credit for
00:10:40There's also a common conception that Suzuki was always at odds with the studio at Nikatsu
00:10:46When he was working there
00:10:47Which doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny either
00:10:50He was certainly never considered one of their top tier directors
00:10:54But he did get a number of lengthier projects with higher production values
00:10:59In between 1958 and 1964 or so alongside his lower budget projects
00:11:05In particular he made five films with Kobayashi Akira
00:11:10Who was Nikatsu's second biggest male star at the time behind Ishihara Yuchiro
00:11:15It's not a coincidence that some of the first Suzuki films that began getting the attention of cine club members
00:11:22Were his two Ninkyo films with Kobayashi
00:11:25Kanto Wanderer and The Flowers and the Angry Waves
00:11:28Since both of those ran longer and more people saw them
00:11:32And they were also double featured alongside Imamura Shohei's The Insect Woman and Intentions of Murder
00:11:39According to a number of Suzuki's collaborators
00:11:43One of the big turning points for his relationship with Nikatsu
00:11:47Was the movie Our Blood Will Not Forgive
00:11:49At the end of 1964
00:11:52Which the studio president allegedly hated
00:11:55So after that film he never worked with Kobayashi Akira again
00:11:59Which is why you have Takahashi Hideki
00:12:02A somewhat lower ranking star at Nikatsu
00:12:06As the lead role in this film instead
00:12:09That's also about the time that the studio starts limiting the number of films Suzuki could make in color
00:12:16The location shooting for this movie was done mainly in a court town called Kashima
00:12:22In Ibaraki Prefecture on the Pacific coast of Japan not too far from Tokyo
00:12:28The title card was deliberately vague
00:12:31And I think the dialogue suggests that they're somewhere on the west coast of Japan
00:12:36Which would make sense for a ship traveling to Manchuria
00:12:40But since Nikatsu's post-war studio was based in Tokyo
00:12:44They tended to do location shooting somewhat closer by
00:12:48Especially if it wasn't for a very high budget film like this one
00:12:52This interior space and the street right outside of it are all a sound stage though
00:12:58You may notice that this film has a bit less play with abstract space and color
00:13:04Than some of Suzuki's other work from this period
00:13:07At least until about the last 15 minutes of the film or so
00:13:11And that tends to be true of his Ninkyo films
00:13:15And other films that feature a lot of location shooting
00:13:19Because it limits his ability to manipulate space and color
00:13:23When he's not working with very modern spaces on a sound stage
00:13:27Tattooed Life is one of only two films Suzuki made in color between 1965 and 1968
00:13:34Out of a total of seven films
00:13:37If you compare that to the early 1960s
00:13:40Between 1960 and 1964
00:13:43He made 14 films in color out of a total of 20 films
00:13:48Quite a few of his later films were planned to be in color
00:13:52But the studio intervened at a certain point and decided the films would be in black and white instead
00:13:58Supposedly this was true of Carmen from Kawachi, Fighting Elegy, and Branded to Kill
00:14:05Actually part of Carmen from Kawachi was shot in color
00:14:09Nikatsu even released a color teaser of the film at one point
00:14:14But unfortunately it doesn't really show what the color design of any of the nightclubs or modernist apartments in the film would have looked like
00:14:22It's mostly footage from early in the film before she leaves Kawachi
00:14:27So the color in the trailer looks more naturalistic like it does in much of this film
00:14:33Even though you don't see the colored lighting tricks that Suzuki was famous for in this movie until the very end
00:14:40He is still using some of the techniques that he uses elsewhere
00:14:44Like the detective's red shoes that I pointed out earlier
00:14:48The color design in these Ninkyo movies is in some ways
00:14:52Predictive of some techniques he would use in the Taisho trilogy films
00:14:56Which have a more subdued and naturalistic color design overall
00:15:01But also feature some very startling bursts of abstract color in them
00:15:06Here's something you see Suzuki do with staging periodically
00:15:10He'll activate parts of the frame that you wouldn't expect him to
00:15:13By sticking people in unusual spatial arrangements
00:15:17So you have the brothers talking at surface level
00:15:20And suddenly there's a character who had been hidden on the roof
00:15:24Who starts talking to them
00:15:26You might not have noticed him at first because it's an unusual place to be taking a nap
00:15:31And also because his costume is a similar enough color to the roof
00:15:35That he kind of blends in if you aren't looking closely enough
00:15:40But even if this guy is a drifter like them
00:15:43Why would he be sleeping on the roof of all places?
00:15:47It doesn't matter if it means that Suzuki can make better use of the x, y, and z axes in staging
00:15:53Here's an unusual transition in this film
00:15:56It's a wipe rather than a direct cut
00:15:59But instead of skipping into the meat of a scene that's already underway
00:16:03Which is what we've usually seen in this movie
00:16:06Suzuki has skipped over the entirety of a scene
00:16:09Where Soke loses all his money in gambling
00:16:12Which we only learn through dialogue once they're leaving
00:16:15And we also hear from Tetsu that he was swindled with loaded dice
00:16:20This sounds like it could potentially be a pretty interesting scene
00:16:24So it's a bit confusing why Suzuki would just skip over it
00:16:28And explain what happened through dialogue
00:16:31But in truth there are a lot of gambling scenes in Ninkyo movies
00:16:35Including ones that involve loaded dice
00:16:37So it's not really necessary to show the scene when the typical audience for this movie
00:16:43Would have been people who had probably seen dozens of Ninkyo movies with scenes like that already
00:16:49Better just to skip ahead
00:16:51And then we have the red shoes again
00:16:54Here's another example of a conflict in the direction of motion through editing
00:16:59Which is contrasted with the static long shot of Kenji
00:17:03Through an eyeline match
00:17:04There's then a cut to a close-up of a woman walking across the screen
00:17:08Which then gets repeated
00:17:10This sequence has quite a few technical violations of continuity editing rule
00:17:15Which all serve to juxtapose different types of movement
00:17:19As well as movement with stasis
00:17:21At the same time though
00:17:23There's enough clarity to get the main point across
00:17:25That Kenji has taken notice of this woman
00:17:29Here's a nice bait and switch
00:17:31It looks like there's an eyeline match
00:17:33To suggest Kenji has recognized the guy who ripped them off
00:17:37But when the camera pans and he walks past
00:17:39You see that it wasn't this guy he was looking at after all
00:17:42Suzuki loves doing this kind of thing
00:17:45Selectively editing to set up one expectation
00:17:48And then pulling out the rug from under the audience at the end of a sequence
00:17:52This is more subtle than some examples
00:17:55But you see it all over the place in his movies
00:17:57But this bait and switch is also a way of reinforcing Kenji's infatuation with this woman
00:18:03By showing he's so fixated on her that he doesn't even notice the guy he's been looking for
00:18:13This is incredible
00:18:15I could not think of a more counterintuitive way to frame this shot if I tried
00:18:20The bottom of the truck is taking up a significant portion of the screen
00:18:24And blocking the main character's heads
00:18:26And their backs are facing the camera anyway
00:18:29And then if that weren't enough
00:18:31These giant wood logs are being thrown from the side
00:18:34To block even more of our view of the people having a conversation
00:18:38And the shot is 30 seconds long before we get a cut to a character's face that we've never seen before
00:18:45If nothing else it certainly emphasizes this character's importance
00:18:50Given that we get a much closer view of him than any of the other new people in this scene
00:18:55And also the fact that he has one arm which Tetsu confirms in a point of view shot sequence
00:19:10Now Kenji is sketching at the waterfall
00:19:13At this moment it seems like a return to normalcy for him
00:19:17He's back to his art again
00:19:19But this looks a bit fatalistic in retrospect
00:19:22Given what happens the next time he's sketching at a waterfall
00:19:25And what significance those sketches take on later
00:19:32If you've seen Suzuki's The Incorrigible or Born Under Crossed Stars
00:19:37You may recognize this actress Izumi Masako
00:19:41She's the love interest in both of those films
00:19:44In all three of her roles for Suzuki
00:19:47She plays a very earnest young woman
00:19:49Particularly in Born Under Crossed Stars
00:19:52Where her character is the foil for the more mischievous young woman
00:19:57Played by Nogawa Yumiko
00:19:59She wasn't a big star at Nikatsu
00:20:02But she did have a few lead roles
00:20:04Where she actually tended to play juvenile delinquent characters
00:20:08Who get reformed over the course of the film
00:20:11Such as the title character of the movie Bad Girl
00:20:15From 1963 or a similar role in I'll Never Cry from 1966
00:20:21She also appears as the love interest in a number of Nikatsu's other Ninkyo films by other filmmakers
00:20:28Frequently opposite Takahashi Hideki in those films
00:20:32I mentioned at the start of this commentary
00:20:51That this movie had an initial run of 10 days
00:20:54November 13th to November 22nd 1965
00:20:58And that it played as part of a double feature
00:21:01Nikatsu's movies were all being released as double features at this time
00:21:05And Nikatsu had to provide movie theaters with an average of two new feature films per week
00:21:11In order to keep them under contract
00:21:13Which meant that they were putting out about a hundred and four features per year
00:21:18So a ten day run for a Nikatsu film at this time
00:21:22Wasn't short by any means
00:21:24As the average run had to be one week
00:21:27The longest initial run for any of Suzuki's Nikatsu films was 18 days for Gate of Flesh
00:21:34The shortest was 4 for Everything Goes Wrong and Highteen Yakuza
00:21:40The fact that some of Suzuki's movies had very short runs of only 4 or 5 days
00:21:46Doesn't necessarily mean that they were considered failures
00:21:50Nikatsu needed movies like that to fill out their release schedule
00:21:54So that they could keep some of their bigger movies in theaters longer
00:21:59Most of his films ran for about a week though
00:22:03Some of Suzuki's films ran as double features with some pretty famous films
00:22:08Satan's Town screened with Crazed Fruit in 1956
00:22:13Kanto Wanderer screened with Imamura's The Insect Woman in 1963
00:22:17Story of a Prostitute screened with Imamura's Intentions of Murder in 1965
00:22:24And there's also a weird case where Suzuki's Fighting Elegy
00:22:28Played in a double feature with the sequel to Suzuki's Tokyo Drifter in 1966
00:22:34Though that sequel was made by a different director
00:22:37The way theaters worked at the time was that people could pay one ticket price
00:22:42And stay at the theater for as long as they wanted to
00:22:46So they could just watch one of the two movies
00:22:49They could watch all of one and part of the other
00:22:52Or they could even stay at the theater all day and just watch both movies over and over
00:22:57This actually makes it nearly impossible to determine how much an individual film grossed at the time
00:23:04Because there's not a reliable way to know which audience members came for which movie
00:23:14I do like the logic at work here
00:23:17That the best way to endear yourself when you're new to a group of people
00:23:21Is to beat up the leader
00:23:28I think it's quite telling that one of the villains of this movie
00:23:32Is introduced with a shot of a ledger like this
00:23:36In many Ninkyo films, the Yakuza, or at least the good Yakuza
00:23:41End up siding with people who are being exploited by figures of modernity
00:23:46The villains are some combination of developers, industrialists, or management bureaucrats
00:23:52All figures of modernity
00:23:54And the bad Yakuza are the ones who ally themselves with those figures
00:23:59While the good Yakuza takes sides with people like laborers and townspeople
00:24:04But very often the villains will end up tricking the laborers or townspeople
00:24:09By using the Yakuza's history against them
00:24:12In that sense, this film does follow a template very closely
00:24:16And since both of the screenwriters
00:24:20Naoi Kinya and Hattori Kei
00:24:22Were quite prolific in the genre
00:24:24It shouldn't be too surprising
00:24:27If anything, the boss comes across somewhat better in this movie
00:24:31And it's more his mid-level manager
00:24:34Who's one of the main villains
00:24:36I started studying Suzuki when I was in college
00:24:56Writing a research paper on him in spring 2009
00:25:00And that was the first time I saw this movie
00:25:03It's kind of amazing in the 15 years since then
00:25:07How much more material has become widely available
00:25:10Far more Suzuki movies are available now on home video
00:25:14Both with English subtitles or even Japanese Blu-ray releases
00:25:19But also other Nikatsu films from this time period
00:25:23And other Ninkyo films
00:25:25I remember reading about Nikatsu action in Mark Schilling's book at the time
00:25:30But this was before even the Nikatsu Noir box set from Criterion Collection had been released
00:25:36So it was difficult to see more than a handful of Suzuki's films
00:25:40And even more difficult to find any non-Suzuki Nikatsu action films
00:25:45I'm happy to say that the situation has improved dramatically since then
00:25:50Additionally, if you look at the Cine Club writings on Suzuki from the 1960s
00:25:56There's another filmmaker you always see mentioned alongside him
00:26:00Who is Kato Tai
00:26:02Even a few years ago when I was writing my book on Suzuki
00:26:06The only people who had ever heard of Kato Tai outside Japan
00:26:10Were research specialists on Japanese cinema
00:26:13None of his films were available with subtitles on home video
00:26:17And I never even heard about any of his films getting shown at retrospectives outside Japan
00:26:23Thankfully Radiance has been releasing a whole slew of them recently
00:26:28So if you're a Suzuki fan and haven't yet looked at Kato Tai's films
00:26:33I cannot recommend them highly enough
00:26:36He's also someone who worked extensively in the Ninkyo genre
00:26:40If you want to see more of those
00:26:42But if you look at, for example, any of the lists of the 10 best Japanese films of 1966
00:26:49By any of the college Cine Clubs
00:26:52They'll usually have about 2-3 Suzuki films on them
00:26:562-3 Kato films
00:26:58And maybe one Nakajima Sadao film
00:27:01Among a handful of other things
00:27:03As I imagine many of you listening may know
00:27:06Suzuki was fired by Nikatsu in 1968
00:27:09And there was a protest movement that was formed initially by these Cine Clubs
00:27:14Joined by others from the film industry as well as various left-wing activists
00:27:20Because Nikatsu had not only fired Suzuki
00:27:23But also refused to allow any of them to show his films
00:27:27In the early to mid-1960s
00:27:29Theatrical attendance in Japan was declining
00:27:33But these Cine Clubs started to emerge around the same time
00:27:36As a place where independent filmmakers could show their work
00:27:40They would often show a lot of international cinema
00:27:43And they would also show films by studio filmmakers
00:27:46Whose work they found interesting
00:27:48Like Suzuki or Kato
00:27:50The studios were not thrilled about the idea of an alternate exhibition practice
00:27:55Rising and threatening their control over exhibition in the country
00:27:59Which they had maintained through vertical integration
00:28:02But they were in enough of a crisis
00:28:05Because of declining theatrical attendance
00:28:07That they would often lend their films to these Cine Clubs anyway
00:28:11Allegedly one reason that Suzuki ended up in the crosshairs of Nikatsu president Hori Kyusaku
00:28:17Was because he was seen as making films for the Cine Club audience
00:28:22Rather than for a broader mainstream audience
00:28:25So the infamous statement that Hori made after firing Suzuki
00:28:30That Suzuki's films were supposedly incomprehensible
00:28:33He actually goes on to say that
00:28:36They were only comprehensible to a single faction of people
00:28:39In reference to these Cine Clubs
00:28:42This scene transition from the waterfall to the bathtub
00:28:48Is handled with another direct cut
00:28:50Like many scenes in the film
00:28:52But it's a near match-on action for the boss's wife
00:28:55She's scrubbing Kenji's back with the towel in the shot at the waterfall
00:28:59Then scrubbing her own in the next
00:29:02Even as there's a significant jump in both space and time
00:29:06And it's almost lyrical in the way that this carries over the emotion of the interaction
00:29:11From the previous scene into this one
00:29:14This is the kind of thing that I think goes too often ignored in Suzuki's work
00:29:20It's interesting though
00:29:21A lot of the transitions between scenes in this film
00:29:24Are handled through direct cuts that carry over things like actions or spatial arrangements
00:29:31From one scene to the next
00:29:33But within scenes that are ostensibly continuous
00:29:37Suzuki plays much more fast and loose with continuity rules
00:29:41Either by refusing to clarify the spatial relationship between shots in an individual scene
00:29:47Or even by cuts that very overtly disrupt continuity
00:29:52This is the counterpart to the match cut at the beginning of the scene
00:29:57Instead of bridging over a jump in space and time with a continuation of an action
00:30:02Here Suzuki violently disrupts continuity
00:30:06Even though he's not moving between space and time
00:30:09As there's a cut from the owner's wife
00:30:12Isolated in the frame
00:30:14Backing up from a dolly movement directed towards her
00:30:17To suddenly a shot of her husband in the same frame with her together
00:30:23Almost as if he magically appeared there without walking in
00:30:27If the match cut was a gentle way of carrying over emotion from one scene to the next
00:30:33This is a violent disruption
00:30:35Like he's invading her space
00:30:37It goes to show that when Suzuki violates the rules of continuity editing within a scene like this
00:30:44It's usually for a very specific purpose
00:30:51This is one of those cases where I have to wonder why this scene is happening where it is
00:30:56Why are these characters wandering around here late at night?
00:31:00Why are they talking from such a distance?
00:31:02Suzuki is linking this scene to the one before it by beginning with a man in the center of the frame at night
00:31:09It's also linking it to the scene after it with a waterfall
00:31:13But another is just that this love triangle plot where the villain is interested in the same woman who's in love with the hero
00:31:21Is enough of a cliche that Suzuki is trying to get through the scene as quickly as possible
00:31:27And also make it at least spatially interesting
00:31:31And here we have our red shoes again
00:31:41The actor playing Seiko is Noro Kesuke who was probably in about 20 or so Suzuki movies mainly at Nikatsu
00:32:00Usually he would play some kind of comic side man
00:32:04Either a friend of the protagonist or a goofy school bully or henchman for the main villain
00:32:10He's also in Suzuki's A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
00:32:14Which is one of his last roles
00:32:16And there's a terrific image of him in a pink suit
00:32:19Holding a bouquet while trapped in a green netting and frozen in place
00:32:23Which is one of the first images that I think of when I think of Suzuki
00:32:28This is the turning point for sketch paper in the film
00:32:35Earlier it was just Kenji's private artistic expression
00:32:39But from now on whenever you see people carrying sketch paper it becomes a sign of danger for the brothers
00:32:45It's either Kenji's sketches of the boss's wife or it's the police sketches identifying Tetsu
00:32:51I like that Kenji is holding his carving tool like a weapon here as if he's going to threaten any of these people with it
00:33:04I think it's a nice touch
00:33:06This is another setup that's quite intelligently staged
00:33:20Notice how there's only a very short pan to the right in this shot
00:33:25And Suzuki shifts the center of interest from left to right with the pan
00:33:30Initially it's on the left with Seiko confronting Kenji about the images
00:33:35Then as the pan starts
00:33:37It shifts to this guy posing like Kenji's images in the center
00:33:41And he becomes the hinge on which the pan turns
00:33:45So that when the center of interest finally shifts all the way to the right
00:33:49Suddenly we notice that Tetsu has been standing there for a while
00:33:53But it comes as a bit of a surprise
00:33:56This is another scene with just a single camera setup
00:34:04There's a bit of movement when Tetsu enters at the beginning
00:34:07But after he starts talking to Kenji it settles and doesn't move
00:34:11The shot's about 45 seconds long
00:34:14Which isn't record-breaking but it is lengthy
00:34:17And there are a decent number of shots in the film that run between 30 seconds and a minute at the longer end
00:34:24Partly just because there aren't many scenes in the movie that are longer than that
00:34:28But you'll notice that Suzuki is using these for many of the scenes with the brothers talking to one another
00:34:34So the actors are constantly interacting with each other directly
00:34:38Even in scenes that are more heavily cut when they're together
00:34:42He's keeping both of them in the shot together much of the time
00:34:46I'm struggling to think of another filmmaker from Japan or anywhere else
00:34:54Who shows people getting off a train quite like this here
00:34:58Omae-san
00:35:03Omae-san
00:35:08Another short scene with a single camera setup here
00:35:10When we're finally getting introduced to the bad Yakuza clan
00:35:14That's going to interfere with construction
00:35:17Notice though how the swindler is kind of hidden near the beginning of the shot
00:35:22Lying down behind the table on the left
00:35:25So you might not notice him there until he gets up
00:35:40This is a dramatic example of Suzuki cutting into a scene that's already underway
00:35:45We start with Mirori walking away from Ezaki in his office
00:35:50And then he attacks her and assaults her from behind
00:35:54We don't see any of the conversation that led up to this moment
00:35:57And it really makes it all the more startling for viewers
00:36:00Just to cut to it as it's happening
00:36:03It's a clever use of space too
00:36:05He blocks the door so she jumps out a window instead
00:36:10In addition to all the continuity issues we've been talking about
00:36:13You'll very often see people moving through space in unexpected ways like this in Suzuki movies
00:36:19Things that you wouldn't have thought were passageways become used as passageways
00:36:26Suzuki also often doesn't use establishing shots at the start of scenes either
00:36:31So sometimes you don't know who or what might be off screen
00:36:35Or where you're going to cut to like in this case here
00:36:39But it ends in an eyeline match between Tetsu and Ezaki whose meaning is unmistakable
00:36:47A construction site is maybe a bit unconventional for a date
00:36:58But it's a good way of showing that Midori doesn't see the construction workers as being beneath her
00:37:04And it also allows for some interesting visual arrangements between the characters
00:37:09That's particularly true here in this 35 second long two shot
00:37:19Where how high Midori is in the frame changes with each emotional shift
00:37:24At the start of the conversation she's just sitting on this wood table or whatever it is
00:37:29Then she kneels and gets a bit higher when she starts asking more intimate questions of Tetsu
00:37:34Like do you like me?And then she stands up all the way once she's frustrated with him
00:37:40Maybe not a very natural way to have a conversation with someone
00:37:44But I think it registers
00:37:49Here's another nice abrupt cut between scenes
00:37:53Presumably there are other ways to leave this place
00:37:56But it does enhance the sense of frustration she has as she walks off in a huff through the water
00:38:02While having to hold her kimono up
00:38:13I think this may be the longest take in the movie
00:38:16Running about 91 seconds long
00:38:18With the only camera movement being some very slight reframing
00:38:23But even though the camera doesn't move very much
00:38:26And the swindler remains one of the central figures throughout the duration of the shot
00:38:32Notice how much the center of visual interest shifts over the course of the scene
00:38:37From mid-ground center to front left when Oyuki intervenes
00:38:42To back center when the foreman gets involved
00:38:46And if you look closely
00:38:48All of these other characters are present in the shot
00:38:52Before they enter into conversation with the swindler
00:38:55Probably going unnoticed by most viewers until they start speaking
00:39:00And there are also all of these goofy side characters
00:39:03Wandering through space at the same time
00:39:06As there tend to be in Suzuki's crowd shots
00:39:09I know I've been talking a lot about this kind of thing
00:39:12And maybe it's not too innovative
00:39:15I do see other filmmakers working with somewhat longish takes
00:39:18And shifting the visual center of interest
00:39:22In depth and laterally across the screen
00:39:24Like this in a lot of scope films from the 1950s
00:39:28With filmmakers like
00:39:30Nicholas Ray or Anthony Mann for example
00:39:34But so much discussion of Suzuki has been
00:39:37So focused on his more outlandish stylistic choices
00:39:42People very often overlook his more subtle virtues as a filmmaker
00:39:49Now we get a totally different view of the same space
00:39:52Framed so that the swindler's face is perfectly visible front and center
00:39:57Within one of these smaller window panes
00:40:00This older man with one arm that we saw in the first scene
00:40:04Where the brothers came to the construction site is also visible
00:40:08And everyone else's face is either looking away from the camera
00:40:12Partially blocked or at least further away than they are
00:40:17There are also these three guys in the background blocking the doorway
00:40:22And making it harder to see who's entering when Tetsu finally comes in
00:40:26So it's much more abrupt and violent
00:40:29Suddenly he's just there front and center
00:40:32Then as the fighting starts Suzuki moves from this long take pacing
00:40:37To a much quicker editing pattern
00:40:44But then as soon as that starts we're back to a minute long shot
00:40:48Taking up a whole scene mainly just with these two characters in conversation
00:40:52And limited movement apart from Oyuki moving in and out of the frame in the background
00:40:58This is where we get the reminiscence of the meaning of Yakuza
00:41:02And how that meaning is getting lost in the modern era
00:41:06Really getting to the heart of this genre
00:41:09The real Yakuza the old man here are already a dying breed
00:41:14And they're being replaced by the younger bad Yakuza
00:41:18The ones trying to steal the building contract who are building up the workers
00:41:22Tetsu is an anachronism as a younger Yakuza who still believes in the old ways
00:41:28This theme originates in the ninkyo genre
00:41:32But you also start seeing this romanticization of the Yakuza in other Nikatsu films
00:41:38With contemporary settings around this time
00:41:41So in other Suzuki movies like Our Blood Will Not Forgive or Tokyo Drifter
00:41:46You have the very chic nightclubs, the hip soundtracks, and the trendy outfits
00:41:51That are all very 1960s Japan
00:41:55But they also have many of the same themes about how the romanticized old ways of the Yakuza
00:42:01Are being corrupted by modernity
00:42:07I've heard lots of people describe the staging in Suzuki's fight scenes as theatrical
00:42:13Maybe because you can see the trajectory of Tetsu's movement here is totally lateral like a proscenium stage
00:42:20But there's so much going on with framing and camera movement and editing in these scenes
00:42:25That I really think that description is more limiting than helpful
00:42:31For all the talk of how sensitive Kenji is
00:42:33He does seem to be pulling his weight at the construction site
00:42:37I like how his face is hidden behind the cart just as we hear a policeman is here
00:42:42And then he slowly rises back up and shows his face again for the reaction to that
00:42:51Great way to start a scene
00:42:53Just show the reaction shot of a character's face that we've never seen before
00:42:58Without even showing what he's reacting to until afterwards
00:43:02That's actually another thing that you'll see Suzuki doing a lot
00:43:06It's also a bit of a misdirect here since it puts the focus initially on the fight last night
00:43:12And the visible evidence on the foreman's face
00:43:15Which is initially why the foreman thinks the police are there
00:43:19He's a stand-up guy though
00:43:21He's not going to expose Tetsu and Kenji to the police
00:43:25But there is still the question of what he'll do when he finds out who they are
00:43:30Really dragging out his return into the construction site up to where Tetsu and Kenji are too
00:43:45At least by comparison to the way Suzuki has usually been cutting between scenes in this film
00:43:51With the approach shot to them, you can really see them wondering whether they've been exposed or not too
00:43:57Hahahaha
00:44:11Now we have the reappearance of the red shoes and Ezaki takes notice of them
00:44:16Which will be significant later
00:44:18We also get the introduction of the sketch of Tetsu
00:44:21The second kind of sketch that threatens to expose the brothers
00:44:26Immediately followed by someone approaching Tetsu from behind
00:44:30With their identity concealed for a bit
00:44:32Before revealing that it's not the police or Ezaki
00:44:36It's just Midori who will embarrass Tetsu but not arrest him
00:44:41A slight bait and switch perhaps
00:44:44There are some very nice unpredictable shifts in this scene where it's hard to know what Midori is about to do
00:44:59And I think it's a testament to Izumi that she pulls off the emotional shifts so convincingly
00:45:18Her action of washing Tetsu keeps switching back and forth between being aggressive and vengeful on the one hand
00:45:26And gentle and loving on the other
00:45:29So when she picks up his leg
00:45:31You can't tell if she's about to wash his feet or knock him over
00:45:35And of course the answer to that question is
00:45:38Both
00:45:39This is another good example of an unlikely visual relationship between characters
00:46:00That Suzuki likes to find excuses for
00:46:04I don't know if this is a common way to massage someone's feet
00:46:08But it is a way to make the romantic leads of the film form a 90 degree angle with one another
00:46:15While in conversation
00:46:17Which is not something that you see very often
00:46:28Another great cut
00:46:29Almost like Ezaki can see Midori and Tetsu at the river together
00:46:33So this one may be the second longest shot of the film
00:46:38It runs about 67 seconds
00:46:40And it has quite a bit more reframing than usual
00:46:43Starting out as a medium closeup on Izaki at his desk
00:46:48Before pulling back quite a ways
00:46:50And staging in depth once the boss enters
00:46:53You might have missed though that at the beginning of the shot
00:46:56You could see Seiko through the window behind Izaki's desk briefly
00:47:00So there's already a play with deep space staging even before you may realize it
00:47:05Even when the boss is in the shot
00:47:07The interaction takes place mainly within the office
00:47:10So you might not be expecting any important visual information to show up through the windows in the background
00:47:17But then Seiko pops up again before entering and begging Izaki for money
00:47:22The shot ends with Izaki isolated again
00:47:26But then there's a very abrupt cut to a closer shot of him from the same angle
00:47:31And it cuts away before Izaki can tell Seiko what he's asking him to do
00:47:36Even though I think it's obvious enough at this point
00:47:38That it's going to have something to do with getting Tetsu out of the picture
00:47:42There's a play with incandescent light sources in this scene
00:48:04Starting with this candle that Kenji picks up to scan across Masayo's face in a very intimate way
00:48:12And you can also see the shadows in the background shifting a bit with the flickering of the candle
00:48:18And Kenji's movement of it
00:48:20But the light is very broad and soft and somewhat flattering
00:48:25They have to extinguish the candle when they hear someone outside
00:48:29Which is what introduces the second incandescent light source
00:48:33This torch
00:48:35Being carried by someone who is initially too far away to see
00:48:40Eventually this second incandescent light source will come into the room as well
00:48:45And it'll begin scanning across it just as Kenji had scanned across Masayo's face
00:48:51But now the light is a threat rather than a source of intimacy
00:48:56There's also a significant visual contrast between the softer and broader lighting that the candle had provided
00:49:03Versus the much harsher and more focused light of this torch
00:49:07It's an interesting repetition and variation of the candle from earlier in the scene
00:49:13One of the more unexpected things I came across in my research on Suzuki
00:49:30Was a 1973 English language review of this movie in Variety by Gene Moskowitz
00:49:37It's the earliest English language review of a Suzuki movie that I was able to find
00:49:43There was apparently an English dub release of Gate of Flesh in the US in the 1960s
00:49:49But I never found any reviews for it from the time
00:49:53In any case, apparently Moskowitz had seen this film in Tokyo in 1973
00:49:59I would guess without subtitles because it seems like he maybe didn't fully understand the plot
00:50:06But he does end the review by saying that
00:50:09Quote
00:50:10The right handling of this one may open the way for others to play off abroad
00:50:15Perhaps not as kitschy as the kungfus that have broken through
00:50:19But having a robust dramatic and romantic air
00:50:22That also might get those wanting nostalgia or just good gangster action proceedings
00:50:28In a more exotic way
00:50:31Unquote
00:50:32Interestingly, he doesn't say very much about the film's formal play
00:50:36Apart from calling the ending electric, rightly stylized, and featuring superb sword fighting
00:50:43I do think it's interesting to see critical writings of Suzuki's work written by
00:50:48People who have no preconceived notions of who he is as a filmmaker
00:50:53At this point, most of what you would read about this film
00:50:57Refers to the ending and almost nothing else
00:51:01And I do think that this movie has a robust dramatic and romantic air
00:51:06That people are more likely to overlook at this point
00:51:14Now we finally get the revelation of who it was
00:51:17The red shoes appear again
00:51:30In this case, if you look at this in retrospect though
00:51:34It's not as clear who they belong to
00:51:36This kind of staging with a key figure facing directly away from the camera
00:51:43Is something you start seeing Suzuki do more often around this time
00:51:47And he takes it even further in some of his later films
00:51:50There's also a nice cresting development here
00:51:53Starting with the action of throwing the figure into the flame in anger
00:51:57Which is accompanied by Masayo's shouting
00:52:00Then there's a camera movement to the gunshot
00:52:02Both visible and audible
00:52:04And then a direct cut to an explosion at the construction site
00:52:08Each action gets more violent and louder than the last
00:52:11It almost feels like one grows out of the other
00:52:15To the point that the explosion ends up feeling like a lyrical expression of the boss's anger
00:52:20But of course it isn't
00:52:21It's a literal explosion
00:52:23It's an interesting emotional pivot from one plot point to another
00:52:28Kind of an interesting bit of business here
00:52:31With Oyuki repositioning the mirror and laughing to herself about something
00:52:37Clearly Tetsu is not focused on her though
00:52:45Though this isn't one of the long take scenes
00:52:48It is quite a contrast in pacing
00:52:51With the more rapidly edited
00:52:53And very fast moving sequences before and after it
00:52:58Just to have these two characters
00:53:00Sort of sitting here
00:53:01One of them looking out the window
00:53:03And hardly saying a word
00:53:05It's quite rare in these films
00:53:24For the boss to stand up for the protagonist the way that he does here
00:53:28More often they're portrayed the way that Ezaki is
00:53:32In that they're happy to hand the protagonist over
00:53:35Either to the authorities or Yakuza assassins
00:53:38Because the protagonist always has a sense of righteousness
00:53:43Standing up for the little people that proves to be too much of an inconvenience
00:53:47For business or development
00:53:49The fact that Kenji has been going after the boss's wife
00:53:53Makes it all the more remarkable that he ultimately stands up for them here
00:53:58In contrast to a lot of the scenes with crowds we've seen so far
00:54:15This is not done with a single long take
00:54:19In a sense it's broken down perhaps more conventionally into shots
00:54:25There's some amount of blocking and moving people through different parts of the space
00:54:31Particularly Midori as she leads out Masayo and comes back in
00:54:37But a lot of the scene is built out of very confrontational shot reverse shot patterns
00:54:44In a way that's less true in many of the other conversation scenes with large groups of people in this movie
00:54:51In particular there's a lot of cuts directly between shots isolating Ezaki, Tetsu, and Midori
00:55:00Isolating them from everyone around them
00:55:03But also refusing to balance them in composition
00:55:07Putting them in direct opposition to one another in individual shots
00:55:12It wouldn't necessarily be that remarkable if not for the fact that so many scenes in the film don't do that
00:55:19There are still some good examples of deep space staging in the scene though
00:55:25Like this, reuniting Midori and Tetsu after a confrontation
00:55:29And then isolating Ezaki from everyone else
00:55:41Midori and Tetsu staying in place while everyone else chases Ezaki out is a nice touch too
00:55:47I like the idea that Tetsu is recognizable in this picture
00:56:01And also the idea that Midori and Tetsu have been almost frozen in place posing the entire time that this has been unfolding
00:56:10Nice placement of Soke in the middle there
00:56:26Which you might not notice until everyone else walks away
00:56:29And he's the only one left behind
00:56:31Since he's the only one who understands what's going on exactly here
00:56:35This is also a nice stylistic head fake
00:56:39With the camera movement through the crowd hinting that someone or something dramatic will be at the end of it
00:56:45But then it just cuts directly to a totally different composition of Ezaki confronting Tetsu with Midori next to him
00:56:53Then there's a pivot through the close up on Tetsu's face to a new scene sometime in the future
00:56:59And we're back to another long take
00:57:01This one lasting slightly more than a minute
00:57:04With just the two characters in this confined space
00:57:07And only some slight camera reframing
00:57:10So it turns out the boss didn't burn Kenji's figure after all
00:57:34Not only did he trick us in the earlier scene
00:57:37But if you consider that there hasn't been any cutting in this scene
00:57:41It's kind of remarkable that he's had this with him for the entire shot
00:57:46And has still been able to hide it from us until this exact moment
00:57:50I always like when there's a character already standing in an adjacent space
00:58:04As someone walks out of a room from a previous scene
00:58:07And you have to wonder how long they've been standing there
00:58:10And how much they've been listening
00:58:12I love that brother
00:58:14But you have no meaning
00:58:16And now
00:58:19You can be happy
00:58:21Until now there really hasn't been any explanation of why Masayo responds to Kenji's infatuation the way that she does
00:58:29And why she seems so distant from her husband
00:58:32Even though we certainly have seen some indications of that with the bathing scene earlier
00:58:38It's not actually clear that he's listening to her now
00:58:42Even as she monologues about it
00:58:44Even though Tetsu clearly is
00:58:55This shot has another very nice misdirect here
00:58:59It starts out following Mirori's movement
00:59:02And apparently continues to do so as she leaves to give Tetsu his food
00:59:08But at some point as it's panning left to follow her
00:59:12It breaks with her movement
00:59:14And instead tilts down to show the red shoes that have been waiting at the side
00:59:20And it's not clear how long this person has been standing there
00:59:24Or how much they've been following what's happening either
00:59:27There's a nice contrast in the figures here
00:59:31With Mirori running to the foreground, background, all over the frame
00:59:36To make preparations for Tetsu's escape while he just sits in place
00:59:40With no intention of going anywhere
00:59:42It also makes it more dramatic when he suddenly turns
00:59:46And there's a cut to a new shot where he reveals his tattoo
00:59:50As you may know Yakuza frequently have full body tattoos
00:59:54Indicating that what clan they're a part of and what their nickname is
00:59:59Hence the name Tattooed Life for a film about living as a Yakuza
01:00:04This is why Tetsu has been so reluctant to undress
01:00:09And why Mirori acts the way that she does when she sees it
01:00:13And this is the first time we finally see the main villain of the film actually
01:00:21The head of the Kanbei clan
01:00:25We can also see the yellow and blue fusuma on the sides of the frame
01:00:30Which are going to play a big role in the final action scene soon
01:00:36And then here we get the scene where all of the villains
01:00:39Major and minor of the film finally convene at the same place
01:00:43We have the assassins from Tetsu's old Yakuza clan
01:00:47We have the head of the Kanbei clan
01:00:50We have the swindler
01:00:51And we have Ezaki all meeting together at the Kanbei clan headquarters
01:00:56And Suzuki is very undramatic about revealing the fact that all of these people are connected
01:01:02It's not clear how long Ezaki has been working with Kanbei
01:01:06The swindler we at least saw talking with Kanbei's men a few scenes earlier
01:01:12But still the scene starts with those three already meeting as the assassins approach
01:01:17It doesn't have a dramatic revelation to show that they're connected to each other
01:01:22And then we see the red shoes again only for it to be revealed that there are apparently two people
01:01:38Wearing these red shoes
01:01:41And if you think back quite a while at this point
01:01:44You might remember that there's a moment when Ezaki notices the detective wearing the red shoes
01:01:51So I think the suggestion is that he is almost disguising himself that way
01:01:57This water passage has gotten a lot of different uses over the course of this movie
01:02:09Beyond its use for the construction site
01:02:12It was part of the fight scene
01:02:14Midori decided to storm off through it for some reason after Tetsu rebuffed her
01:02:19Now Seiko is using it as a hiding place
01:02:22And next they will crucify Seiko and stick him under the waterfall
01:02:26At the end of it
01:02:28Just to make him confess that he and Ezaki were responsible for the explosion
01:02:33It just keeps returning in unexpected ways
01:02:36Kind of an abrupt and anticlimactic ending for the villain who has gotten the most screen time up to this point
01:03:03As we start moving towards the climax
01:03:07You'll notice that one of the ways the pacing starts picking up again
01:03:11Is that we'll see more elliptical editing within scenes again
01:03:15So the Kanbei men are entering
01:03:17There's a direct cut from them walking in
01:03:20To the boss sitting down across from them directly
01:03:23Part of it is also that these plot developments about the villains trying to bully their way into a building contract
01:03:30Is quite standard for the genre at this point
01:03:34So audiences for these movies would be quite familiar with them
01:03:37That just means Suzuki can deal with these scenes very quickly
01:03:41And move on to the relationships that he's more interested in
01:03:45These scenes do give you enough to remind you that the confrontation is coming
01:03:49But they don't need to do much beyond that
01:03:52The reunion scene between the brothers gets a much lengthier treatment by comparison
01:04:05Since their relationship is much more the heart of this movie
01:04:09I think this relationship is an interesting contrast with Suzuki's Our Blood Will Not Forgive
01:04:16Which also has a relationship between brothers at the center of it
01:04:20With Takahashi as the younger brother
01:04:23And Kobayashi Akira as the older brother in that one
01:04:27In Our Blood Will Not Forgive
01:04:30The elder brother is also a stoic Yakuza who's betrayed by his boss
01:04:35But the younger brother played by Takahashi is a very goofy Sun Tribe character for most of the film
01:04:42It does have a bit of a tonal shift at the end as things start to get more serious
01:04:47But it's unlike here where Suzuki treats the relationship between the brothers more seriously throughout the film
01:05:05That said, there is still a bit of playfulness in the scene
01:05:09Especially with the use of space and the boss's two unexpected entries in the scene
01:05:16When you're focused on the window because Tetsu's trying to break it down
01:05:20The boss walks through the door
01:05:23When you've stopped paying attention to the window because the door is open
01:05:27The boss drops in again by the window to drop off the gun
01:05:31It's part of Suzuki's playful approach to space
01:05:34That you would have characters suddenly enter or exit in directions that you wouldn't be thinking of
01:05:47One tricky thing about writing on Suzuki's career as a whole
01:05:50Is that he has such an extensive and varied filmography
01:05:54That it can be quite difficult to pin him down stylistically
01:05:58Even just looking at his career at Nikatsu
01:06:02He made 40 films and there's much more variation in genre and subject matter within that career
01:06:09That I think is frequently acknowledged
01:06:11But there's also not any single stylistic device or set of stylistic devices
01:06:17That you see him use consistently in all of his films
01:06:21There are some that recur
01:06:23Things like the transition to abstract color and lighting in the climax of some of his action movies
01:06:30Such as this one, Kanto Wanderer, and Tokyo Drifter
01:06:35But there are also lots of Suzuki movies where he doesn't do that at the climax
01:06:41You could point to Gate of Flesh in Tokyo Drifter
01:06:44And say that Suzuki favors very bright color palettes and solid fields of color rather than patterns
01:06:51But his approach to color in the flowers and the angry waves or the Taisho trilogy films is quite different
01:07:00To say nothing of all the movies that he made in black and white
01:07:04You could say he's a director who relies heavily on editing to create startling juxtapositions
01:07:11And there are plenty of examples of that even just here in this film
01:07:16But there are also lots of places where he uses very long takes as we've been seeing
01:07:22I think in general it's both the synthesis of a lot of these seemingly opposite stylistic tendencies in his work
01:07:31And a kind of formal playfulness
01:07:34Whatever you expect him to do, he's gonna do the opposite of that
01:07:38Is really what defines Suzuki as a filmmaker
01:07:42This shot has a nice development
01:07:50It starts with the street looking as normal
01:07:53With the three women in the front and the other villagers in the background going about their business
01:07:59But as those figures get smaller suddenly the Kanbei men enter and take over the whole space
01:08:06Maybe a suggestion that playtime's over and they're about to start playing rough
01:08:11With the editing in this scene you start to see the return of some of the deliberate violations of the rules of continuity editing
01:08:28Like we saw in some scenes near the beginning of the film again
01:08:32In particular Suzuki is very comfortable violating the so called 180 degree rule in successive shots of a character moving
01:08:42Precisely because he wants to create a visual clash of opposite movements
01:08:48And also he just wants to cut between the most striking visual arrangements of the characters that he can
01:08:55It does make the geography of the scene a bit more confusing
01:09:00Especially as they're surrounded by boats on all sides
01:09:03But we can still see that there's an assassin tracking them
01:09:06And we can still see that Tetsu seems to realize that
01:09:10Even within this sequence though there's still a lengthier shot of the two brothers that runs just over a minute long
01:09:32It accompanies something of an emotional shift for the scene
01:09:37Earlier they were clashing
01:09:39But this is the moment when Tetsu agrees to let Kenji follow his heart
01:09:43So even though it ends with the two of them separating
01:09:46It is an emotional reconciliation between the two brothers
01:09:51But the shift also makes the very end of the sequence
01:09:55Which is going to go back to the quick cutting
01:09:58And even deliberately omit some important information
01:10:02All the more striking by comparison
01:10:12And then the scene ends with two quick cuts
01:10:15Showing the assassin that's been following
01:10:17And then blood in the water
01:10:19But we don't see who stabbed who
01:10:22Which makes for a nice transition to the scene of Midori talking about praying for Tetsu
01:10:27We also have to pray that he wasn't the one who got stabbed
01:10:31This is a very unassuming entrance for the man who's going to kidnap Masayo
01:10:54Also a nice inversion of what Midori claimed that she had been praying for
01:11:11Followed by a cut to now a totally new spatial relationship between Masayo and this man
01:11:17Compared to the previous shot with the two of them
01:11:20This scene is development of the scene near the beginning of the film
01:11:25Where Kenji gets on board the train following the boss's wife
01:11:29And he walks right past the swindler
01:11:31Apparently without noticing him
01:11:33Here Kenji makes the same mistake again
01:11:36He's getting on the train to go back to the boss's wife
01:11:39And again he doesn't notice the swindler is right there
01:11:42But if the first time was at least a bit comic
01:11:45Here the consequences are much more serious
01:11:48Since the swindler can identify him first
01:11:51And is able to kidnap him
01:11:53Then this lengthy moment of Tetsu
01:11:58Just standing and looking out at the sea
01:12:01And the waves crashing
01:12:02Is a bit of breathing room
01:12:04As it's the last protracted stretch of relative stylistic normalcy
01:12:10In the film before the climax starts getting going
01:12:15And we also have him unexpectedly crossing paths with Midori's train
01:12:20Though it doesn't look like either of them realizes it as it's happening
01:12:25It may not be obvious yet but I would say that this is already the film's stylistic turning point
01:12:36You have the wife walking laterally across the screen
01:12:40And this lateral motion is something you'll see getting emphasized with Tetsu a bit later
01:12:45The colors aren't yet too abstract
01:12:48But there's already a big shift in how lighting works
01:12:51From the relatively realistic lighting scheme earlier in the film
01:12:56To now an overt spotlighting of relevant details
01:13:00Without any internally realistic justification for why the light is lighting what it is
01:13:06And not what it isn't
01:13:08And large portions of the background just start to disappear into black
01:13:13I've always thought that Japanese architecture is one of the great secret weapons of Japanese cinema
01:13:20It's difficult for me to think of an architectural style that better lends itself to inventive uses of space
01:13:27Than having these thin sliding doors that also function as walls
01:13:32So you never know when one of the walls might open and reveal someone behind it
01:13:37Or in an action movie when someone's just gonna break it right down
01:13:42But it also allows planes of depth to be successively opened or closed off from the frame
01:13:51And Suzuki is going to make use of all of these possibilities in this final sequence
01:13:57And you're right, you're right, you're right
01:13:59And you're right, you're right
01:14:00And you're right
01:14:01And you're right
01:14:02And you're right
01:14:03And you're right
01:14:04And you're right
01:14:05And you're right
01:14:06And you're right
01:14:07Now, with Kenji's murder we get the introduction of the color manipulation that we'll be seeing a lot over the course of this sequence
01:14:14Introduced with another lateral motion
01:14:17As red covers this horizontal pathway from left to right
01:14:21And then the red carries over in the atmosphere through this thunder cloud to the window that Tetsu is looking out of
01:14:29Obviously Tetsu doesn't know what's happened yet
01:14:32But the very strong connection with the previous scene through this artificial red color
01:14:38Gives this an even stronger sense of fatalism than it might have otherwise
01:14:44These fields of solid color in the background like the red here are something you see Suzuki use in a number of films
01:14:57Maybe the most famous use is in Gate of Flesh where each woman has a solid color dress
01:15:03And then there's a very artificial background in the color of her dress during each of the internal monologues
01:15:11There are also some examples of these where they're used to punctuate violent moments
01:15:17Where the solid color shifts over the course of a scene
01:15:21Like in Kanto Wanderer and Tokyo Drifter
01:15:24As well as here
01:15:26The most extreme example of Suzuki using these fields of solid color
01:15:32Is actually a television movie he did in the late 1970s called The Fang in the Hole
01:15:37Where many of the scenes have very minimalistic sets
01:15:41And there's all of this solid green negative space in the background
01:15:46Almost making it look like the film was shot for green screen
01:15:50And they just never added in the post-production effects
01:15:53I do think that this is one reason people have tended to single out the ending of this film as very Suzuki-an
01:16:01While ignoring the rest of it
01:16:03But I also think that part of the reason the stylized color and lighting of this climax are so powerful
01:16:09Is that they do clash with the more subdued uses earlier in the film
01:16:20The other thing that you're going to see particularly near the end of this sequence
01:16:24Is a much less naturalistic approach to choreography
01:16:28Than we've seen in some of the crowd scenes in the movie so far
01:16:33If you think back to some of the longer takes that I've been talking about over the course of the film
01:16:38That have very large crowds
01:16:41Often important characters would be sort of hiding in plain sight
01:16:46Likely unnoticed by most viewers
01:16:48Until either they move into the center of interest
01:16:52Or the center of interest moves towards them
01:16:55But there's at least a kind of natural motion
01:16:58Of figures within the crowd
01:17:01There are a few crowd shots near the end of this scene
01:17:05That are much more unnaturally staged by comparison
01:17:08Where Tetsu has almost the entire right side of the screen to himself
01:17:13With Kenji's body next to him in the foreground
01:17:16In dialogue with this foreman who's both perfectly centered
01:17:21And whose face is standing up above everyone else's
01:17:25And all the other indistinct people standing behind him
01:17:29Not as well lit
01:17:31As much as I'm reluctant to use the word theatrical
01:17:35To describe Suzuki's style
01:17:37I do think that those shots specifically look like they were designed for a proscenium stage
01:17:44And this is accompanied by the more artificial lighting
01:17:48First the red lighting in the background
01:17:50Then with a flash of lightning as Tetsu moves into action
01:17:54Which suddenly makes the red disappear
01:17:57And at that point it's only a spotlight on Tetsu
01:18:01At the same time
01:18:03I do think there are ways that this final sequence is a development
01:18:07Or even culmination of some other stylistic tendencies
01:18:11That we've seen at work over the course of this film
01:18:14First of all this is the first time that we've seen rain in this movie
01:18:18Since the very beginning
01:18:20And the rain is also accompanied by the straw hats and parasols
01:18:25Which were also seen very prominently in the opening sequence of the film
01:18:30But have not been seen since then
01:18:33If you remember actually the first time we saw Tetsu was behind a parasol
01:18:37And this is the first time we're seeing him with one since then
01:18:42But all this emphasis on horizontal motion
01:18:45And specifically the cutting between clashing horizontal motions
01:18:49Is something that we've also seen in a variety of places over the course of the film
01:18:55Not just in the opening but in places like the successive shots of the train moving in opposite directions
01:19:03And these movements are a culmination of that
01:19:08As all of the surroundings just disappear into black
01:19:12So it's only the thin horizontal plane of the figure's trajectory in this sequence
01:19:17That's still visible
01:19:22This is the ink that you would use to stamp a seal
01:19:26Which is used for contracts rather than signatures in Japan
01:19:30The extreme close-up of it is a nice way to abstract it and emphasize the color though
01:19:36So it almost looks violent at first
01:19:39And here's where we start to see Suzuki really playing with these shoji screens and fusuma
01:19:46So shoji screens are the translucent ones
01:19:49Which allow for this play with shadows that we see him doing through them
01:19:54Of course if you think about it
01:19:56Lightning wouldn't actually create these shadows
01:19:59Because you would need backlighting from within the building
01:20:03To make them visible like this
01:20:05But it is a very nice effect
01:20:07And goes along well with some of the other elements of artifice
01:20:11In the color and lighting in the sequence here
01:20:14Then once Tetsu enters the structure
01:20:18There's a very abrupt shift from the horizontal motion
01:20:22That we've seen emphasized over the course of the sequence up until now
01:20:27Into axial motion
01:20:29As Tetsu starts opening successive planes in depth
01:20:33With each set of these fusuma
01:20:35The fusuma being the opaque screens
01:20:38But as the action starts getting going
01:20:41He's no longer just opening them normally
01:20:44They start to get broken down by either swords or bodies flying into them
01:20:51Now we're back to horizontal motion here
01:20:55But look how quickly the space moves from very broad even flat lighting
01:21:01Just to total darkness with absolutely no in between
01:21:05And then these just two red flashes for the gunshots
01:21:08While they're in this black space before Tetsu returns
01:21:12To the broadly lit space
01:21:19So earlier in the scene we had horizontal motion
01:21:23Followed by axial motion
01:21:25Followed by horizontal motion again
01:21:28Now we're getting a bird's eye view of the action
01:21:31Which is going to be followed by a view from underneath
01:21:35Like a worm's eye view or something of the action
01:21:38Suzuki just really likes juxtaposing opposites like this
01:21:51In addition to the shift in perspectives
01:21:53There's also a significant shift in the color here
01:21:56Up until now we've had lots of shots where Tetsu is surrounded by totally black space
01:22:03Now he and the Kanbei boss are surrounded by a total white space
01:22:11And now with the shift in perspective here
01:22:14It almost looks like they must be in a totally different room
01:22:18Than the one we just saw them in with the view from the underground
01:22:21And even though there's a bit more to this set
01:22:25With the two staircases
01:22:27The surroundings still do look quite abstract
01:22:30Just sort of forming rectangles of these solid color fields on all sides
01:22:36Then there's a massive jump cut from the opening of the door
01:22:40And suddenly as if by magic
01:22:42Both of them are outside now sizing each other off in the rain
01:22:46But with all that set up
01:22:48It's actually over quite quickly
01:22:50Just a quick slash and stab of the boss by Tetsu
01:22:54The boss is able to make a superficial slashing motion
01:22:58That doesn't do any real damage
01:23:00But it does cut Tetsu's tattoo down the middle
01:23:05Perhaps this is a bit heavy handed in terms of symbolism
01:23:09But this is the action that will allow Tetsu to finally leave his tattooed life behind
01:23:15So his tattoo is cut in half in the process
01:23:18As he kind of staggers off after completing the final battle
01:23:24We actually get a new perspective on his motion
01:23:27There's still a lateral tracking camera movement that's following him
01:23:31But his trajectory in this moment is from a diagonal angle
01:23:36In this scene up until now we've always had either straight horizontal or straight axial motions of Tetsu and the characters that he's facing off against
01:23:46This is the first time in the sequence that we're getting this diagonal perspective on it
01:23:53And this is going to end up waves
01:24:05And its long avoidance
01:24:08They antibiotics
01:24:10And Im finding a random feeling however
01:24:11And there's still a depth of 얼� stink
01:24:13不過 the nur traits of the lines
01:24:14because the flares ALMUS
01:24:22この絵の絵の絵面があります。
01:24:25の絵の絵の絵の絵があり、
01:24:30彼の絵の絵の絵があるに、
01:24:33のマサヨにも、
01:24:36また、海の海に寄りが、
01:24:40一人想されたののを探して、
01:24:46ミドリは、
01:24:48her 懸命を迎えたのに影響を希望しているかもしれません。
01:24:53それに対して未来の可能性がどの話かもしれませんが、
01:24:57私たちは本たちは、 Takahashiを単位したのかたてと考えています。
01:25:00彼の続いて19の方にとって、
01:25:05この日本話は、
01:25:07このように多くの話を問われますか?
01:25:09それについては、
01:25:11また、
01:25:13動画ではありませんが、
01:25:14自一人自身のカラクターは実際に同じで、
01:25:18人がいるらなすしを目指す彼らの2人は自分に集落しているわけではない、
01:25:24この巨大から1つやからの1ヶ月への経験通りにお伝えします。
01:25:28単人もすべての花ふだというのは、
01:25:31彼らは彼らのように、貴方の彼らの彼らの彼らの彼らの彼らの彼らの彼らの彼らの彼らです。
01:25:37彼らは彼らの彼らもая裂があっちすることで、
01:25:42ご視聴ありがとうございました
01:26:12and maybe helped give some appreciation for Suzuki's filmmaking craft
01:26:16beyond the more overt stylization that everyone always focuses on
01:26:22to the exclusion of everything else
01:26:24thank you to Radiance as well for inviting me to do this
01:26:28and it would be great to see more Suzuki films get this treatment