Kaiki Eiga and the Dawn of Japanese Horror Cinema
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Nightmares from the Past: Kaiki eiga and the Dawn of Japanese Horror Cinema A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Michael E. Crandol IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Christine L. Marran, Adviser August 2015 © Michael E. Crandol, 2015 Acknowledgements The initial seeds of this project were planted over a decade ago, when fellow movie buff Jared Hendrix asked me if I had ever heard of a film called Jigoku and a director named Nakagawa Nobuo (I had not). My thanks must first go to Jared and our little international film club for making me aware of Nakagawa’s kaiki world. Classic Japanese horror cinema might have remained nothing more than a private hobby had not Rachel DiNitto at the College of William and Mary recommended graduate school – specifically the program at the University of Minnesota, where she had a colleague teaching Japanese film, Christine Marran. I am forever indebted to both of them for guiding my steps and cheering me on during every stage of my academic studies. Thanks especially to Christine for fully embracing my decision to become “the horror guy” and never doubting I could do something interesting with my love of B-grade monster movies. The research required to do this project justice was carried out via a generous fellowship from the Japan Foundation. Special thanks to Fujimura Syuji, who was always available to help with matters pertaining to research as well as the day-to-day particulars of living in Japan. Fujiki Hideaki provided invaluable assistance and insight during my time as a research student at Nagoya University, and has continued to be an enthusiastic supporter of my work. Various film archives around Japan graciously allowed me to screen rare surviving prints of prewar kaiki eiga . Thanks to the National Film Center in Tokyo, Matsuda Films, and the Kobe Film Planet Archive for showing me these lost gems of Japanese horror movie history. Warmest thanks to the members of Shutoki, particularly Miyata Haruo, Shimomura Takeshi, Suzuki Kensuke and Nakagawa Shinkichi, who shared anecdotes and memories of Nakagawa Nobuo and his approach to filmmaking. Thanks also to Kurosawa Kiyoshi and Takahashi Hiroshi for taking the time out of their busy schedules to discuss films that were not their own. All of the field work mentioned above would have been impossible to undertake were it not for the efforts of the Japanese language teachers at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama. My most heartfelt thanks go to Ohashi Makiko, who went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure I could read what I needed to read to succeed. i Back at Minnesota, special thanks must be given to Alice Lovejoy for being on board with this project at every stage of its development. Despite her unfamiliarity with Japanese horror movies, her advice has never been anything short of insightful and enthusiastic. Likewise, Jason McGrath has been a stalwart supporter, both in his capacity as a committee member and as the director of the graduate program in Asian Literatures, Cultures, and Media, ensuring that my work was up to standard and – along with Joe Allen – that I could afford to feed myself in the meantime. To all my cohorts in the graduate program, especially Jessica Chan, Devon Cahill, Farah Frayeh Yazawa, Saena Dozier, and Sravanthi Kollu, I am forever grateful for your camaraderie. Most eternal thanks to Paul Rouzer, my Gandalf, who’s been there every step of the way making sure I got to the next stage of the journey intact. Without his friendship and wisdom, I quite simply would have been lost before I ever truly began. If Paul is Gandalf, then Samwise can only be my wife, Sayuri, who actually did climb an active volcano with me, but more importantly provided the love, support, and encouragement to go on, even when things seemed hopeless. Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam. ii Dedication For my parents, Donald and Jan Crandol. This is your work as much as it is mine. iii Abstract While the global popularity of Japanese horror movies of the past twenty years such as Ring (Ringu , 1998) and Ju-on: The Grudge (Ju-on , 2002) has made these films the subject of much academic attention, the previous nine decades of popular Japanese horror cinema remain an understudied area of film history. Known as kaiki eiga or “strange films,” domestic horror movies based on classic Edo period (1603-1868) ghost stories, as well as imported pictures like Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), were a mainstay of commercial genre cinema in Japan from the silent era through the 1960s, and wielded an influence on the so-called “J-horror” pictures that achieved worldwide success at the turn of the millennium. This dissertation examines the history of kaiki as a category of popular film, the similarities and differences between kaiki and the English-language concept of “horror film,” and the large body of kaiki cinema produced in Japan during the prewar and postwar era that has, until now, remained virtually unknown to Western scholarship. I trace the development of the kaiki aesthetic and the discourse of kaiki eiga in Japan and its relationship to American and European horror cinema as well as native traditions of the fantastic and grotesque. Attention is given to the role of actress Suzuki Sumiko, the nation’s first horror movie star, in establishing the visual portrayal of kaiki monsters onscreen, and the work of the Shint ōhō studio and director Nakagawa Nobuo, who brought the domestic kaiki film to the pinnacle of its critical respect and anticipated much of the style of the later J-horror pictures. The dissertation concludes with a brief look at the ways in which the kaiki genre influenced the J-horror movement, and the ways contemporary filmmakers like Kurosawa Kiyoshi retain kaiki elements like the vengeful iv spirit in the creation of the unique aesthetic known as J-horror. v Table of Contents Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………i Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………vii Glossary of Japanese Terms…………………………………………………………….…x Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: Naming the Classic Japanese Horror Movie – A Brief History of Kaiki as Film Genre………………………………...……………………………………20 Chapter 2: The Heart of Darkness – Toward a Theory of Kaiki Cinema …………….…46 Chapter 3: Ghost Cat versus Samurai – Prewar Kaiki Cinema …………………….……88 Chapter 4: The Dead Sleep Unwell – Wartime and Occupation Censorship, and the Postwar Return of Kaiki ......................................................................................155 Chapter 5: Uncanny Invasions and Osore Incarnate – Shint ōhō Studios and Nakagawa Nobuo......................................................................................................…...190 Chapter 6: Back from the Dead – The Kaiki Legacy of J-horror……………………….258 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...283 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………....287 vi List of Figures Figure 1: Advertising for Makino’s 1927 Alias Yotsuya kaidan (Iroha gana Yotsuya kaidan ) almost apologetically insists the film is “no mere obake eiga ,” while ten years later Shink ō proudly advertises its own version as one of their “unique kaiki eiga .”…...28 Figure 2: Advertising for the 1938 Shink ō bakeneko picture Ghost Cat of the 53 Way Stations ( Kaiby ō goj ūsan tsugi ) even more unabashedly calls the film one of the studio’s “boastworthy” ( jiman ) bakeneko eiga ..................................................................29 Figure 3: The Phantom of the Opera, along with Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and other Universal Studios horror movie monsters get re-branded as “science fiction creatures” in the 1950s…………..……………………………………...33 Figure 4: Japanese advertisements for Psycho (1960) , Eyes Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage , 1960), and House on Haunted Hill (1959), all featuring similar depictions of female characters screaming in terror…………………………………………………38 Figure 5: Low-lying fog accentuates “spooky forest” sets in The Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (Kaiby ō Otama ga ike , 1960), The Wolf Man (1941), and The Vampire Lovers (1970)…………………………………………………………………………………….51 Figure 6: Matte paintings and miniatures evoke Othered spaces – castles atop foreboding hills in The Ghost Cat of Okazaki (Kaiby ō Okazaki s ōdō, 1954) and Frankenstein (1931)…………..………………………………………………………….52 Figure 7: Poster for The Ghost Cat of Yonaki Swamp (Kaiby ō Yonaki numa, 1958) promising the film is “delightfully scary” ( kowai ga tsukai! ).……………….………….55 Figure 8: Mary Philbin unmasks The Phantom of the Opera (1925)…………………....66 Figure 9: Oiwa’s ghost appears to her sister Osode beautiful as she was in life, while simultaneously manifesting as the hideous onry ō behind Naosuke. When Naosuke screams in fear, Osode looks but cannot see the source of his terror ( Tōkaid ō Yotsuya kaidan , 1959)…………………………………………………………………………….68 Figure 10: Okiku’s double-exposure ghost in a frame from the unidentified production of The Dish Mansion legend, pre-1923…………………………………………………..97 Figure 11: A samurai confronts a rather cuddly looking bakeneko in a still from an unidentified film……………………………………………………...…………………103 Figure 12: Vamp ( vampaiy ā) actress Izumi Kiyoko in a medium close-up shot from Kaidan: Fox and Tanuki (Kaidan kitsune to tanuki , 1929)…………………………….110 vii Figure 13: Beauty and Danger combined in the person of vamp actress Suzuki Sumiko. Promotional image from Makino Studio’s