SOURCE: "Atmosphere and Thematic Conflict in Mizoguchi's "Ugetsu,"' in Cinema East: A Critical Study of Major Japanese Films, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983, pp. 103-22.

[In the following essay, McDonald analyzes Mizoguchi's use of varying points of view in Ugetsu to capture the conflicting emotions brought on by civil war.]

It has been said mat the strength of Japanese film lies in its creation of mood or atmosphere by presenting characters in their setting. Kenji Mizoguchi's major films exemplify this feature of Japanese cinema. Early examples in Mizoguchi's films include the final, nocturnal scene of the bridge from Osaka Elegy [Naniwa Ereji, 1936], the frequent takes of the small alley from Sisters of the Gion [Gion no Shimai, 1936], and the moon-viewing festival scene from Miss Oyu [Oyusama, 1951]. Ugetsu [Ugetsu Monogatari, 1953], the 1953 Venice Festival Silver Lion Prize winner, is, however, the best example of his assiduous evocation of mood. In this film Mizoguchi knows exactly how to put atmosphere to work at both thematic and stylistic levels.

The central theme of Ugetsu evolves around the question: "How should one come to terms with life in the midst of civil war?" This is clearly indicated in Mizoguchi's letter to Yoshikata Yoda, the screenwriter of Ugetsu:

Whether war originated in the ruler's personal motive or public concern, how violence disguised as war oppresses and torments the populace both physically and spiritually! However, they have to keep living in direct confrontation with this violence. I want to emphasize this as the main theme of the film. …

This theme is of highly realistic, political concern, and it entails two conflicting ways of confronting the war. Through the creation of mood, Mizoguchi makes sure that we see the thematic conflict at different levels of perception. He invests the harsh reality of war with mood. Through his control of the camera, mood incites or invites us to absorb ourselves right in it and feel it. Especially when mood reflects the inner reality of the individual character, it helps us to feel his predicament as our own felt experience. In other words, mood provides variation in our rhetorical stance. In Ugetsu we must basically remain detached observers of the opposing choices of action in adapting to the civil war, because our perspective on the individual character's action is much wider man his own. However, mood leads us to vacillate between detachment and empathy.

Furthermore, the film treats a dual reality grounded in the supernatural and the natural; the supernatural represented by the world of ghosts, and die natural most tangibly represented by a world at war. The epigraph on the screen at the onset of the film illustrates mis: "Strange incidents and supernatural existence in Tales of Moon-light and Rain (Ugetsu Monogatari) evoke in a contemporary man's mind various fantasies. This film was made in order to visualize those fantasies."

The fusion of die supernatural aura or atmosphere witii realistic setting becomes increasingly dominant in the second part of the film, which focuses on Genjuro's infatuation with the ghost, Princess Wakasa. Here, a highly stylized lyricism, provided by the supernatural mood, contrasts with the crude realism of war. Visions of integration again make us see the individual character's conflict in a more enriching way, because we oscillate between indulgence in illusion and reflection upon social reality.

Significantly, mood largely contributes to the aesthetic presentation of the thematic conflict that becomes more evident in the middle of the film. Scenes such as the boat sequence and the lawn sequence could well stand alone as proof of Mizoguchi's superb mastery of formal pattern. There Mizoguchi employs to the fullest what is considered to be the core of his style: the one-scene, one-shot method (the long take), the long shot, the dissolve, and low-key photography.

The film's action examines two ways of confronting the civil war. The first, represented by Genjuro, Tobei, and to a certain extent Ohama, Tobei's wife, is the way of opportunistic greed. It ensures geographic mobility. The second, represented by Miyagi, Genjuro's wife, is the way of optimistic endurance. It involves commitment to her community and orientation toward the future.

The first way would seem impossible, given the rigid socioeconomic structure of feudal Japan where geographic mobility was not allowed the common people, but the turmoil of the sixteenth-century civil war that shook the foundations of feudalism itself provided enough dislocation to permit it. The first part of the film concentrates on the clash of these dichotomous values and the resultant dissolution of the family. The second part shows Genjuro's obsession with illusion and the restoration of the family.

The film opens with the epigraph, which establishes both the historical and geographic settings of the film, elements that are indispensable to the thematic conflict. The time is the end of the sixteenth-century, a time when feudal lords constantly vied with one another for military supremacy. The location is the north shore of Lake Biwa in Orni Province. It is very close to the capital (Kyoto) and is thus subject to the ravages of civil war at any time.

At this early stage, we already witness Mizoguchi's intricate camera work, moving slowly from the general to the particular. First, the camera captures an entire small community at the foot of the mountain. Then, it slowly travels across the field past a stand of trees, pans 360 degrees, and finally stops, displaying a potter and his wife in front of their small house. They are loading pottery onto a wagon. Suddenly, sharp reports of rifles in the distance disturb the serene atmosphere of the village. Throughout the film rifles and guns reverberate on the sound track; they constantly remind us of the fact of war as a tangible reality which the characters confront, a phenomenon distinctly opposed to the supernatural reality which they must also experience.

In the next scene, Mizoguchi lets the individual characters verbalize their choice of action in adapting to the war. Two potters—Genjuro and his brother, Tobei—insist on taking a wagonful of pottery to the nearest town, risking the danger of the battles raging near the village. Tobei claims that he should become a samurai since he "is fed up with poverty." Both men are ambitious enough to captalize upon the war. They are, in fact, obsessed with money.

Next, the camera follows Genjuro and Tobei pushing the wagon along a mountain path until a dissolve quickly returns us to the village they had just left. The chief of the village, radiating serenity and wisdom, comments that both Genjuro and Tobei should know that money obtained through profiteering cannot last. Significantly, he subtly forewarns the audience of the ill fortune that will befall the brothers.

Tobei and Genjuro return from the town with great profits from their trade. It is here that Mizoguchi dramatically expresses the dichotomy of the two options, aided by atmosphere. A long take captures the happy mood of Genjuro, Miyagi and his son. They gather around the hearth, enjoying the things which Genjuro has brought back. The family is placed together in the center of the screen. The cozy, peaceful mood largely depends upon the stable camera and the visual image of the smoke from the cooking fire. Genjuro shows Miyagi a new kimono, saying: "I wanted to buy you a kimono all these years, and at last my dream came true." His wife gratefully answers: "I rejoice in this dress but only because it expresses your love." Mizoguchi lulls us into this peaceful mood; we begin to share in this obvious contentment. Since what we see in front of us is an extension of our ordinary world—the universal, empathy is our spontaneous reaction.

However, this moment of solidarity and contentment is suddenly broken both thematically and visually when Genjuro starts showing off his purchases. Our empathetic mood vanishes as he brags about his new wealth: "Dried fish, oil, flour and rice cakes—all bought with money. With money there is no suffering. Without money hope flies." He goes to a corner of the kitchen, leaving his wife. She silently checks the cooking pot hung over the hearth.

This visual separation marks the beginning of the dissolution of the family: it not only signifies a division between the two options (represented by husband and wife respectively) but also foreshadows the husband's choice of geographic mobility. Now Mizoguchi wants us to take the inside view of Miyagi and give her values the benefit on a sympathetic hearing. He does this by focusing the camera on her. The husband, now out of focus in the corner of the kitchen, indicates his intention to capitalize on the war: "War has brought us profit and a business boom." Miyagi protests: "Next time it won't do."

The subsequent scene shows a greater tension between the two options. The marriage of Genjuro and Miyagi is to be endangered. They are now making pottery, and the irritable husband asks his wife to turn the potter's wheel faster. The little boy's cry for his mother's milk is ignored. We are now alert viewers who, with detachment, contemplate and reflect on the clash of the two value systems. Irony contributes to this rhetorical stance: the light, rhythmic music, which is in complete harmony with the rotating wheel, is in contrast with the visual dissolution of the family. Miyagi sighs, saying: "All I want is that we work together, praying to be happy together—the three of us."

In Tobei's family, Mizoguchi presents choices of action in another light. Tobei's strong inclination toward social mobility is parallel to Genjuro's obsession with financial gain. Tobei's ambition is to become a samurai, which, he thinks, will liberate him from the drudgery of the life of a farmer. When he goes to the town, Tobei realizes that the financial power to buy a sword and a suit of armor can secure his ascent to samuraihood in the war. Tobei, who is too poor to realize his ambition, goes home and faces his wife, who has been waiting in Genjuro's house, worrying about him.

When Mizoguchi shifts the geographic focus of the film from the interior of Genjuro's house to the exterior, he increases our sense of the contrast between these four persons' motives, again aided by mood. Genjuro, Miyagi, Tobei, and Ohama are now busy with pottery making. The bright fire from the kiln diffuses the darkness of the night surrounding the four. This meeting of light and dark intensifies the quiet nocturnal atmosphere, which could be disturbed at any time by the arrival of soldiers. Genjuro and Tobei's allusions to money became more frequent. Profiteering has been firmly established as chief among their ambitions. Mizoguchi proceeds to expose us to a more realistic view of the historical milieu. First, through Miyagi's speech, he expresses disapproval of Genjuro and Tobei's new ambition: "Is this a man's way? Up to now he [Genjuro] has been steady. War has changed men." On the contrary, Ohama defends both men's motives, saying: "They have thrown everything into this kiln, body and soul." Then, the war itself arrives with the roar of the Shibata army approaching the village.

The villagers' fears of the ransacking army are rendered through the appropriate mood created by the combined effect of low-key photography, and many long and medium shots. Only the entrances of die houses are illuminated. All else—the rest of the houses and the street—is dim. Against this backdrop, Mizoguchi presents a series of long shots of the villagers, who scatter. Here Mizoguchi does not cut to a close-up of a single villager, because he wants to emphasize collective, not individual, fear. Furthermore, the oppressive mood articulates the villagers' relationship with their environment, and again we are drawn right into this dark texture to feel their suffering as something immediate to our experience. The villagers show their fear for their property, since the rapacity of soldiers is notorious. When one of the farmers is caught in a small storage shed by two soldiers, they drag him out to put him to work, ignoring his wife's desperate pleas. The light comes through the entrance of the shed while the rest of it is again captured in darkness. The gloomy atmosphere thus persistently encourages us to experience the villagers' fear as our own felt reality.

Significantly, throughout this sequence, Mizoguchi introduces a close-up only once and that extremely effectively. While the villagers flee toward the mountain, Miyagi rushes into the house to get her boy out of bed and holds him in her arms. Suddenly, Mizoguchi presents a close-up of her face. He thus calls our attention to her genuine love for her family, which remains intact throughout the calamity of war.

Mizoguchi keeps portraying the collective misery that war has brought to the villagers all the way through this sequence. One of the most vivid, general depictions of suffering occur toward the end of this sequence. This time Mizoguchi's camera slowly dollies along a group of villagers making their way up the mountain. First, the camera, in a long-shot take, moves with the villagers pushing a wagon up the slope. Next, in a medium shot it travels with the group crossing the mountain path and then once more it follows them reaching die summit.

After Genjuro discovers that the pottery they fired during the attack of the Shibata army is undamaged, Genjuro, Miyagi, their son, Tobei and Ohama start with it across the lake in a small boat. It is here that we are introduced to a prime example of Mizoguchi's supernatural mood, so highly acclaimed by so many critics. The mood is created by four cinematic devices: the almost static camera; low-key photography; a combination of long and medium shots; and acoustic effects. Furthermore, Mizoguchi lets the natural and the supernatural interact so that we are shifted back and forth between two levels of reality.

The scene starts with a long shot of their boat emerging from die mist and approaching the camera. This in itself engenders a supernatural mood, which is also enhanced by Ohama's monotonous singing and by vibrant drum-beats in the background. The drum is intermittently interrupted by the sounds of distant rifles and guns, which echo the tangible reality of war as experienced by the passengers. The boat, turning ninety degrees, shows its side to us. At this point, Mizoguchi introduces the one-scene, one-shot method, fixing a static camera on the four sitting in the boat. As the supernatural atmosphere wanes gradually, me film takes on a realistic dimension born visually and aurally. The men in the boat, drinking sake, again begin to speak of money. Genjuro says: "We'll be rich." Tobei responds: "I'll buy a set of armour after we sell the pottery." On me other hand, Miyagi nibbles food in silence, her face revealing sad resignation. We are again reminded of the options in conflict.

Then, all of a sudden, the one-scene, one-shot method is dropped and the realistic texture recedes. The supernatural atmosphere reasserts itself as a point-of-view shot from the passengers' perspective reveals a strange boat approaching from the distance. The mist still hovers over the lake. Although the frame Mizoguchi uses is an open one, the effect of this dark texture is that of close framing. It steeps our senses in a kind of supernatural ambiance, and we actively experience the passengers' sense of approaching danger. The drumbeats grow louder and louder, as Ohama's singing diminishes. A long shot of the two boats almost stern to stern quickly gives way to a medium shot of both. The party of five thinks that the mysterious boat is haunted by a ghost. However, the supernatural yields to the natural again, when a man in the boat explains to them that he has been attacked by pirates. The boatman adds that the pirates will take everything, especially women. Then the camera swiftly cuts to the two women's faces in anxiety, reinforcing the image of women as war's greatest victims. The boatman is now dying. A medium shot of all concerned gathering in consternation around him, aided by the repeated sinister drumbeats, expresses their horrified apprehension of the dangers that lie ahead on their journey. Now the super-natural has completely gone; all they feel is the immediacy of war.

Throughout the film Mizoguchi uses his favorite cinematic punctuations: the dissolve and the fade. Both techniques not only show the passing of time but make a transition between two contrasting scenes much smoother, by virtue of the soft texture they create. For example, a dissolve of the boat turning back to the shore concludes the scene described above, and prepares us for what follows.

The scene cuts to the passengers back on shore. Genjuro, Tobei, and Ohama are ready to venture the journey on the lake once more while Miyagi is advised to stay behind with her little boy.

This scene reflects the central problem of the film in three ways. First, just as in the earlier take of husband and wife busy with the pottery, it signifies the division between the two options: opportunism and resignation. While those who stay in the boat gamble on mobility, Miyagi adheres to a more traditional value of geographic fixty. Second, crosscutting, a convenient method for rendering individual relationships, elucidates the mutual caring of husband and wife, which will be at stake in the latter part of the film. The camera first focuses on the husband, who says: "In ten days, I'll come back. … " Then, it shifts to the wife, who replies: "God will protect you." The camera next sweeps back to the husband and the other passengers in the boat, and then captures all parties involved on board and ashore. Finally, through very subtle camera work, Mizoguchi projects his own view of the conflicting options: his sympathies lie with the value system represented by Miyagi. After the boat glides off the screen, Mizoguchi does not intercut between the passengers and Miyagi. Instead, he lets the camera slowly dolly along with her as she walks along the shore with her boy on her back to see die party off. When she stops, the camera stops, too, and in the subsequent long shot we see her still standing among the tall grass watching the boat in the distance. Mizoguchi has moved his camera as if he were compassionately watching this poor woman's plight. He has employed no closeup for directly transmitting her emotions to the audience. Rather, he has let us watch her plight with him from the perspective of omnipotent, empathetic observers. Furthermore, the complete absence of the traveling boat from die screen conveys the sense of die irreconcilable chasm between the two options. A fade follows die long shot of Miyagi, investing it with an elegiac mood that is appropriate to her sorrow.

The second half of the film reveals Mizoguchi's pervasive evocation of mood for the dramatization of the thematic conflict. One of the focal points is the way Mizoguchi presents Ohama as a helpless prey of the war. We come to learn tiiat die way of opportunism, as taken by her, is worse than fruitless. While she is looking for her husband, who has disappeared to buy a set of armor, she becomes the target of die roaming samurai's lust. Their assault on her takes place in front of the sacred goddess of mercy in a devastated temple. While the feet of the ruthless samurai, standing about in dirty shoes, dominate the enure screen, the statue is set far off in a corner of the hall.

This take, buttressed by low-key photography, symbolizes the moral impotence among die populace in the face of gross social disorder. As before, Mizoguchi projects his sympathy for woman's plight—this time, Ohama's—with subtle camera movement. As Ohama bursts into tears, surrounded by die lecherous samurai, the camera swiftly cuts back to die outside of the temple as if die director could not bear to see her raped. In turn, he presents a close-up of Ohama's straw sandals left on the road. Mizoguchi seems to be asking us to imagine what is happening inside the temple. From diis point on, the film dignifies Ohama's sufferings widi a sensitive and sympadietic portrayal of them. When Ohama comes out after the samurai leave her, the Noh chorus vocalizes her sorrow and indignation. Just as in Miyagi's case, the camera follows straightforwardly, taking its cues from her motions. In the next shot, we see a fine example of Mizoguchi's employment of mood. A low-angle long shot shows Ohama standing in die door of the temple; she is looking up at the sky absentmindedly with her back to us. Her disheveled figure fits in with the desolate surrounding: the ruined temple and the gloomy sky with a waning moon. This fusion creates the despondent mood, and externalizes Ohama's emotional quandary as articulated by the Noh chorus. Even though a close-up of her face is absent, this typical Mizoguchi mood helps draw us into her mind. Moreover, this entire filmic composition, especially die low-angle shot, makes it appear as though Mizoguchi were looking up at Ohama, admiring her for her courage to struggle dirough her life; it looks as if he, the conscious eye of the camera, were saying: "Ohama, you fought against these ruthless men desperately, and though you finally had to succumb to them, I praise you for your moral courage and sympathize widi your predicament."

A similar technique was used by Mizoguchi in an equally sophisticated way in The Life of Oharu [Saikaiu Ichidai Onna, 1952], the film that preceded Ugetsu (1953). It occurs when Oharu and her family are ordered to leave the capital. The camera is first immobile as they travel along the bank of a river. Then, when the party is just about to disappear from the screen, Mizoguchi's camera quickly dollies across the screen and then looks up at the party from underneath the bridge at this side of the bank. The effect is one of exquisite pity taken on the unhappy travelers.

After the rape sequence in Ugetsu, Mizoguchi lets us see how Ohama, who initially encouraged the opportunism of both Tobei and Genjuro, begins to relinquish her sense of morality. In the brothel scene, from trie perspective of Tobei, her husband, who happens to be a customer, we see Ohama haggling with her own customer for her proper share of money. The subsequent reunion of husband and wife takes the audience to the exterior. It is in this scene that we realize Ohama's genuine caring for her husband, the intrinsic quality of her femininity, unchanged despite her moral degradation. Above the sounds of the entertainment from inside the brothel, Ohama's crying becomes resonant: "How many times I thought of dying! But I thought I must see you first." Husband and wife then fall together to the ground, embracing each other. Mizoguchi's soft fade terminates this take, evoking the pathos of a husband and wife who have suffered such a painful and complex ordeal.

This final scene convinces us of Tobei's realization that his social ascendancy has been achieved at his wife's expense. But it becomes all the more convincing only when we consider the subtle way in which Mizoguchi has repeatedly stressed the futility of Tobei's social climbing. Tobei has taken advantage of the war, and through good timing, he has taken the head of an enemy general and been accorded a horse and attendants. He assumes that the measure of his success proves the value of the way of opportunism.

Along with this social advancement the filmic composition shifts. In earlier parts of the film, the camera repeatedly pans down on Tobei groveling, the butt of samurai's ridicule and the thief of a spear. In contrast, later in the film a low-angle shot is pervasively used for Tobei as he absurdly and proudly mounts a horse, accompanied by his retainers. This radical shift in camera work ironically brings to the surface the suspicion that his climbing up the social ladder is not to be seen as "success" at all but the mere illusion created by his vanity. The suspicion is further reinforced by his bragging in the brothel. Here, he gets his comeuppance, discovering that his own wife, because of the fortune of war, is a fallen woman.

In the latter part of the film, Miyagi's way of resignation turns out to be equally futile. After presenting her husband's infatuation with Princess Wakasa at a super-natural level, Mizoguchi quickly cuts to Miyagi at home. He presents Miyagi's confrontation with death at a realistic level. Her village is attacked by a number of hungry samurai and Miyagi flees from her house. Here again we see Mizoguchi's subtle camera movement registering the woman's emotional dilemma. The camera dollies along with her running along the mountain path with her boy on her back. It stops when she starts struggling with the samurai, begging them for the little boy's sake, not to take her scraps of food. Miyagi is stabbed. When she starts struggling forward, with her son still on her back, the camera slowly moves with her. Then it again stops with her when she finally staggers on to die while behind her in the field two samurai are fighting each other for the food. Again through this camera movement Mizoguchi suggests his sympathy for her crisis. Again, no close-ups are employed, nor is any mood conveyed that corresponds to Miyag's feelings. A long shot pre-dominates, emphasizing the environmental forces that overwhelm her.

As previously stated, the latter half of Ugetsu is mainly centered on Genjuro, whose way of opportunism takes a radical turn in the middle of the film. He moves from commonplace greed to the passion of love. Accordingly, the filmic texture shifts from the matter of social realism to a supernatural lyric mood corresponding to this thematic conflict. At this turning point we see Genjuro torn between family obligation and individual freedom. However, his conjugal affection for Miyagi gradually replaces his purely sexual attraction to Princess Wakasa. Then his discovery that Wakasa is a ghost prompts him to return to his wife.

Genjuro's first encounter with Wakasa takes place in the busy market of the town. He is surprised at her mysterious beauty; her face is made up to resemble a half-smiling Noh mask evoking a sense of the supernatural. A medium close-up of his face looking up at hers articulates his admiration for her beauty and foreshadows his gradual infatuation with her. However, at this stage, Genjuro's love for Miyagi is still unchallenged. He comes to a kimono shop and looks at the wares displayed there. One white kimono, which he wants to buy for his wife, is presented in close-up, demonstrating his yearning for her. The subsequent shots portray Genjuro's fantasy, in which Miyagi comes through the door of the shop and tries the kimono on. Japanese harp music on the sound track intensifies this happy mood in which Genjuro indulges himself.

However, the following scene shows Genjuro's love for his wife being put to the test. When he comes out from the shop, Wakasa's attendant calls Genjuro and tells him that both Wakasa and his wife will guide him to their mansion to which he is supposed to deliver pottery. The supernatural aura, which is to be more fully explored later, is already here: the princess's face again resembles the female Noh mask, and her stride is of an unearthly lightness like that of a ghost in a Noh play. Mizoguchi employs an unusually long dolly shot to show the three going down the street and through the field and garden of Wakasa's mansion. This method keeps us in suspense, preparing us for the coming glimpse into the supernatural.

When they arrive at the mansion, Mizoguchi begins to reinforce our sense of the supernatural through the combined effects of long and medium shots, low-key photography, and textural contrast. After Genjuro is guided down the long corridor and shown to a back room, there is a slow crosscutting between his room and other rooms along the corridor. First, darkness prevails, and then yields to a soft illumination as Wakasa's servants light and set candles in the other rooms. Now the cinematic action is all set for Wakasa's seduction of Genjuro. She again comes in like a Noh actor appearing on the stage, with her face made up like a female Noh mask. Genjuro sits between her and her aged attendant. Sinister chimes—perhaps of a bell for Buddhist prayers—are heard intermittently. The attendant, attired in a black kimono, sits closest to the camera, showing her back to the audience. In contrast, Wakasa clad in a white kimono, is placed farthest from the camera, facing it. The imposing stature of the old attendant, like that of the alluring Wakasa, is used to block Genjuro, as if to predict his subsequent entrapment by these women.

As Wakasa takes a drink of sake from a small wine cup, we hear the chime, and when Genjuro drinks from the same cup, we hear it again. By this time we are convinced that the chime occurs at each stage of Genjuro's moral quandary. We also know that drinking sake from the same sake cup symbolizes the marriage bond, and indeed, the attendant later suggests that Genjuro marry Wakasa. After this suggestion, the princess stands up and tries to corner Genjuro, who, in turn, rises to flee. The following long shot, enhanced by the acoustic effects of the chime, a flute, and a koto, presents the chase. It evokes a sinister claustrophia, finalizing Genjuro's entrapment in Wakasa's snare. The long shot turns into a medium shot, when Genjuro is finally captured by Wakasa and collapses to the floor with her. By presenting this final shot slightly askew, Mizoguchi suggests his silent condemnation of the lovers' illicit relationship. By this time, Mizoguchi's persistent evocation of a sense of encirclement and oppression has made us aware of some element of doom in their love.

In the following scene, the acoustic effects are fully realized in order to accent the supernatural aspect of this vignette. Wakasa sings in tune with the samisen: "The best of silk of choicest hue / May change and fade away, / As would my life, beloved one …" Her singing gradually merges with what appears to be a priest's low-toned prayer from a Noh play, accompanied by the sounds of a wooden drum being beaten for prayers. The camera quickly dollies from the center of the room to the corner and stops on a suit of black armor, the source of the mysterious incantation. We then learn from the princess's attendant that the voice is the spirit of Wakasa's father still haunting the mansion and that he is pleased with her betrothal. Thus, the merging songs of Wakasa and the spirit conjure up an image of death in connection with this love affair.

The subsequent sequence that presents the lovers' bathing and their repose on the lawn thematically demonstrates the culmination of Genjuro's passion. Mizoguchi's cinematic rubric of the mood, enhanced by his elaborate camera movement and pictorial filmic composition, helps him to aestheticize this mood. Genjuro is soaking himself in the spring while Wakasa is still ashore. Holding her hands, he says: "I have never had such a wonderful experience in my life." The camera then follows Wakasa, who momentarily leaves Genjuro. She steps into the woods, takes off her clothes, and comes back to him. Now they share the bath, and just when they are about to embrace, Mizoguchi's camera becomes, as Joan Mellen also points out, very disturbing. It quickly moves away from them along a diagonal and ends with a dissolve, as if to say that the director himself is averting his eyes from this spectacle and moral disarray. This sweeping pan is in strong contrast with the earlier slow dolly, which implied Mizoguchi's sympathy for both Ohama and Miyagi.

After the dissolve the camera dollies across the bushes of a garden with raked white sand and then moves up to show a long shot of Genjuro and Wakasa on the lawn. The garden looks like the stone garden of Ryoanji or that of Daitokuji Temple. If Mizoguchi's intention is to let this uninhabited landscape serve as a stasis, its effect is that of a sudden illumination, a kind of shock. The garden presented for only a second is charged with significant meaning: it stands by itself, transcending all petty human affairs.

Now we see Genjuro and Wakasa having a picnic on a blanket spread on the lawn. It is flooded by warm spring sunlight. A long shot persists. Genjuro starts to chase her, and the couple, clad in very light silk kimonos, look like two fluttering butterflies, the symbol of spring. This take is cited by many critics as one of the most memorable examples of Mizoguchi's atmospheric rendition. However, it soon becomes tinged again with an ominous undertone when Genjuro catches Wakasa. The camera approaches them and the next moment we see a medium shot of him kissing her and saying: "I don't care if you are a demon. I will not let you go." On the sound track, the chime sounds again, marking for us another stage of Genjuro's moral crisis, which is further reinforced by the combination of the discordant harp music and the intermittent chime. The final shot in this scene presents Wakasa kissing Genjuro who is lying on the lawn. A soft fade that terminates the scene again speaks for Mizoguchi, expressing his grief for those who are lost in unbridled passion.

In order to keep the two lines of argument distinct, and yet in balance, Mizoguchi frequently crosscuts between scenes depicting Genjuro's encounters with the blandishments of the supernatural, and the more down-to-earth trials and tribulations of the other three characters. The prime example of this crosscutting is the contrast between the love scenes of the bathing and the picnic in which Genjuro is shown discarding social conventions, and the hazards of war and scenes like that depicting Miyagi's death.

After Miyagi's death, we are shifted back to the super-natural reality of Genjuro's final confrontation with Wakasa. A priest has discovered that Genjuro is haunted by evil spirits. Following the priest's advice, Genjuro has his back painted with a prayer inscription to exorcize the spirits. He goes back to the mansion to face Wakasa and her attendant. In the following scenes, the supernatural aura is evoked through a combination of low-key photography, versatile camera work, gestures of individual characters, and, to a significant extent, acoustic effects.

Wakasa tells Genjuro that he must not go out, that they should move away to live together happily. While enticing him, Wakasa first corners him from the left and then from the right. Genjuro confesses that he is married. Very low discordant music evokes the tension between the two. Genjuro is accused by both the princess and her attendant of breaking a vow of love. He cries: "Please forgive me!" While the discordant music continues, a high-angle shot focuses on Genjuro cornered by the two sinister-looking women, all of them in low exposure. The overall effect of these combined techniques expresses the still persistent snare, in which Genjuro has been trapped by these women. The culmination of his attempt to free himself from them occurs when the back of Genjuro, who is lying on the floor, is shown in close-up with the two women reproachfully looking down at the sutra painted on his back. Wakasa's face goes through a metamorphosis. Through shot-by-shot alterations, Mizoguchi gradually reveals her true identity. Genjuro must do battle with the demon who is now revealed to him. He picks up a sword lying on the floor and starts chasing the women. He extinguishes the candles and darkness prevails. Then, the supernatural atmosphere in which Genjuro faints in the end of his battle suddenly transports us back to everyday reality. This abrupt shift in "realities" puts us in a state of shock.

Now we see only the potter Genjuro amidst the ruins of the mansion in the grass. The police inspectors awaken him and leave with the sword, which has turned out to be a sacred relic belonging to a nearby shrine. Genjuro, now alone, starts wandering among the ruins. He recalls Wakasa's song: "The best of silk of choicest hue / May fade away. … ." As Joan Mellen points out, the camera starts following Genjuro diagonally as he walks away from it. This shot is counterpoised with the earlier sweeping away from Genjuro and Wakasa engaged in their love affair. It emphasizes his psychological transformation, his repentance over his moral degradation—repentance of which Mizoguchi registers his approval. The fade, which Mizoguchi has consistently employed thus far to convey the elegiac tone, again concludes this take, stressing the omnipotent director's pity for the pathos of the human condition. Genjuro's face is not facing the camera, but Mizoguchi's camera movement has said enough about the potter's feelings.

The following scene depicts Genjuro's return to his home. Here, the conjugal bond between Genjuro and Miyagi is reasserted through his realization that the way of opportunism was the wrong way. Genjuro begs his wife's forgiveness. Gradually, this scene reassumes the supernatural aura. As Audie Bock points out, the transition from the natural to the supernatural is made in such a way that the audience is again put in the state of shock. When Genjuro comes home, he enters the dark, uninhabited house. He goes out through the back door and when next the camera cuts to the interior, we are surprised to see Miyagi sitting near the brightly burning hearth. A fine example of Mizoguchi's evocation of mood occurs after the husband and the child are put to sleep. The slow camera movement and extremely low-key photography yield a mixture of tenderness and eeriness: the typical Mizoguchi mood. Only a tiny spot of light from Miyagi's candle moves from place to place as she moves around the house, while the rest of the screen is dominated by darkness. We next see Miyag i starting to patch her husband's kimono, her slightly smiling face meeting the darkness. The supernatural atmosphere completely recedes when die villagers visit Genjuro to tell him that his wife was killed during the war.

Mizoguchi cuts back to Tobei and Ohama trudging home. On the bridge near their village Tobei tosses his sword into the river. The implication is clear: his rejection of his social ambition.

We are now prepared for the final scene of the film, which recaptures the exterior of Genjuro's house and the entire community. The camera moves here from the particular to the general, in contrast to its movement in the opening sequence.

The exterior of the potter's house, which used to be barren, is presented first. It is now a farm that Tobei is tilling. The camera then follows the little boy going toward his mother's tomb and stops as he kneels before it. Next, it pans up to, and then sweeps across the field to show us the entire community. The movement of the camera thus provides a movement for reflection on war and how it has complicated the lives of the four persons and indeed the whole village.

We have seen the conflicting "ways" finally brought to resolution and witnessed also a complex theme worked out through the use of mood as a rhetorical device. We have come to accept that in time of civil war both "ways" were equally impossible to realize. The world view that the film reveals is ironic: no matter how an individual character internalizes his motive, he cannot win. His survival is simply dependent upon chance. Miyagi's option, with which Mizoguchi seems to sympathize most, is less rewarding than the option chosen by either of the rest. Although, Tobei, Genjuro, and Ohama have been defeated in their motives, they have survived the war, and their very defeat has shown them the futility of their options. This knowledge itself is their only reward as they must transform it into a guiding principle for the future.

We have also observed in Miyagi and Ohama the proto-type of Mizoguchi's women—those who sacrifice themselves for the needs of men and the family. The super-natural realm in which Genjuro's conjugal relationship is finally consummated indicates the impossibility of genuine love on this earth. Only in defeat do Genjuro and Tobei learn the virtue of female love, which can sustain their own existence.

The sweeping shot of the entire village in the last scene seems to convey a deeper philosophic idea, the concept of mujo (the mutability of all earthly phenomena), which must emerge from the film's final analysis. There are two important elements that suggest this. One is Wakasa's singing, introduced twice in the film. At the wedding Wakasa sings, "The best of silk of choicest hue / Ma y change and fade away,/ As would my life, beloved one, / If thou shouldst prove untrue." Roaming around the rampart of the mansion, Genjuro recalls the same song. Wakasa's song invokes the transitoriness of all human affairs, which underlies much of traditional Japanese art. Different aspects of life—interactive human motives, love and fame—that we have witnessed are ephemeral as symbolized by the rotating wheel. This wheel, the other important image, is also introduced twice, aided by the director's subtle presentation of mood. In the earlier scene, which is permeated by the cozy domestic atmosphere, both Genjuro and Miyagi start spinning the wheel in tune with some rather light music. In the latter scene, which yields the serene, peaceful mood after the turmoil of the civil war, Genjuro alone rotates the wheel, while his deceased wife's voice, heard on the sound track, encourages him to make good pottery. Time, symbolized by the rotating wheel, transcends all these human affairs, whether or not they seem individually or publicly significant. In a large span of time they comprise only one in-significant spot.

At the very end of the film we see the hitherto uninhabited landscape of the field with a few farmers tilling the soil. The complete harmony of these farmers with their environment/surroundings thus evokes a sense of regeneration. The tension of the war and the possibility of coming peace in the future are thus presented as a cyclic pattern in the passage of time.