Taki no shiraito (1933) Movie Script

Kenji Mizoguch Revealed

Director Kenji Mizoguchi is a key figure

who can't be overlooked in the word's film history,

He was a wel esteemed director

who produced such works as

Ugetsu Monogatari (Ugetsu) and

Sansho-dayu (Sansho the Bailiff)

in the 1 950s, which is considered to be

the golden era of Japanese cinema.

However, these are two of

his last few works in his later years,

He started his career

as a director in the 1 920s.

Drector Kenji Mzoguchi

He started his career

as a director in the 1 920s.

Drector Kenji Mzoguchi

Taki no Shiraito (The Water Magcian)

you just saw was created in 1 933,

around which time Kenji Mizoguchi established

an essential position in Japanese cinema,

Also to be noted is that this is a silent flm,

The film was created during the tail end of

the Japanese silent flm period,

while the general trend in filmmaking

around the world

had drastically shifted to creating talke films.

It is most unfortunate that

many Japanese masterpiece flms

have been ost over time

as Japanese sient films were

far from being properly stored.

Fortunatey, however,

although not in ts complete form,

Taki no Shiraito stil remains with us today.

It is said to be Mizoguchi's representatve work

during the sient film period,

We are very lucky.

We can see in this film Taki no Shiraito that

his style had already been

establshed in the early 1 930s,

Taki no Shiraito

The story which the film Taki no Shiraito

was based on was

Taki no Shiraito

extremey famous and widely known at the time,

Taki no Shiraito

It was written by Kyoka lzum who was

a very popuar writer then,

Taki no Shiraito

It was one of his major works,

Kyoka lzumi wrote

a number of wel-plotted novels which are

stil read today, but is also known for

his extraordnary talent with scripts for plays

considered to be of the Shimpa style,

You may be wondering about this

Shimpa style,

Shimpa-style plays featured

contemporary dramas,

but where its method of expressions

and acting styles were

strongly influenced by kabuki performance,

Kabuki is a traditional performng art,

so t was referred to as Kyuha,

or the old schoo style,

Contemporary dramas weren't

performed in kabuki,

The old performng stye that had been

establshed and remained made it rather

difficult for modern practices

and lives to be featured,

That is why Shimpa, the new school style,

had been established

as a new form, new style of performing art,

However, compared to modern day plays,

even the Shimpa-style plays included

poses and movements typical of kabuki,

They included many scenes where

the actors beautifuly posed.

They made breathtaking poses

as if they were a part of

beautiful, eye-grabbing paintngs.

That was the style.

This was the influence of kabuki,

Only a few theatrical troupes stil practice

this Shimpa style

as it is considered old-fashioned today,

However, t was

the stye that represented the Japanese

performing arts durng the Meij perod,

There is a common theme in

most of the Shimpa-stye pays.

Taki no Shiraito s such a typical example,

Taki no Shiraito

The woman, the main character,

Taki no Shiraito

suffers beyond imagination for her man,

Taki no Shiraito

And for that man,

Taki no Shiraito

she devotes her ife and energy to him,

Taki no Shiraito

The man on the other hand.,,

Taki no Shiraito

succeeds in life,

but is eft with a deep sense of guit,

Taki no Shiraito

This is the basc plotine of

the Shimpa-style plays,

Taki no Shiraito

At the same time, this was indeed

Taki no Shiraito

a reality durng the Meij perod,

when moderniation began in Japan,

As Japanese society started to modernize

under the infuence of the West,

its driving force was the idea that

anyone who studied hard and

graduated from a good school wil be

employed and lead a successful life.

The truth was that it only appied to men,

So if there was a samurai famiy that had

gone out of power,

they'd want the son to go to

a good school and succeed

so that their family may once agan rise

in the socal ladder,

This was the desire of the ruined ruling cass

in the old Japan,

In order to achieve this, the whole family,

especaly the women,

had to work hard,

Back in the old days, there weren't

that many choices of work for women,

Other than working in factories,

it was common for women to become a geisha,

Women working for their families and

feeding them with her pay as a gesha

was so typical back then.

Putting the men in the famiy through school

depended on her pay as well.

In fact, Kenji Mizoguchi himself led such a ife.

He came from a family that lost its fortune,

After graduating from primary school,

he never had a rea job

but went from one job to another,

He then joned the film industry

when he was about 20,

Until then, he spent his adolescence

with the support of his older sister

who had become a geisha,

The film is based on his rea life's story,

Taki no Shiraito

A wonderfu woman sacrifices

everythng she has for her love

Taki no Shiraito

to allow him to study and

Taki no Shiraito

for him to succeed in life,

Taki no Shiraito

She gives up everything,

Taki no Shiraito

She offers him money and

an opportunity for his education,

Taki no Shiraito

but in the process gets invoved in a crime

and s brought to court,

Taki no Shiraito

The prosecutor of her trial turns out to be

Taki no Shiraito

the young man who she had

provided school tution,

Taki no Shiraito

It is a common storyine in melodramas,

Considered rather old-fashioned nowadays,

but they happened during the Meji period,

The story may be a little exaggerated

with extraordinary coincidences,

but it isn't a far-fetched storyline that was

specifically written for a melodrama,

It was a common scenario in real Iife back then.

The story's hghight is what knd and

what degree of sense of guilt the man feels

when he meets the woman again,

I believe this aspect was depcted based on

Kenji Mizoguchi's own experience,

The film finely ilustrates such sentiments.

Takako lrie

The woman here is a water artist named

Taki no Shirato,

Takako lrie

When I was a child, water arts were

still performed a lot across Japan,

Takako lrie

Also to be noted is

Takako lrie

Takako lrie, the actress who played

the role of ths water artist Taki no Shiraito,

Takako lrie

Whie she actualy was this film's producer,

Takako lrie

she was the most popular fim star at the time,

She came from a nobe family,

It is true that she gained her fame

partialy because

she was a girl from a noble famiy

who became a film actress,

But she was also known as the top beauty

in Japanese cinema in her days,

She had this gracefulness

whch troubes the peope

when watching her striving so hard,

That is the kind of woman

men want to give up all for and

do everything in ther power for her,

But in the film, the man is

far from devoting himself to the woman,

Instead he ends up in a position where

he makes her sacrfice herself for him,

Ths depicts the typical relatonship

between men and women widely accepted

during the Meiji period where men succeeded

by using women as steppingstones,

In this film, however, Mzoguchi

keenly poses the queston of whether

such practice shoud be accepted,

In the film, there is a man

who the woman financially supports,

Young Kinya,

Tokhiko Okada

This role was played by the film star

Taki no shiraito (1933) - full transcript