An Analysis of Masaki Kobayashi’s Film, Kwaidan (1964)

Please watch this 3 hours version of Kobayashi’s film for your writing assignment https://archive(dot)org/details/YouCut20190601150630617
This writing assignment asks you to write a short paper analyzing Masaki Kobayashi’s film, Kwaidan (1964), by answering ONE of the five prompt questions below. You must write a three-page (maximum four-page) essay answering ONE of the prompt questions. Your essay should be neatly typed and double-spaced (with one-inch margins and in 12-point font; be sure to number your pages). More important, please structure your essay around a thesis statement, and organize your visual analysis and discussion of two specific scenes from the film into a cohesive argument. Please be sure to include film stills of the scenes that you have chosen to analyze in the body of your text.
Note: Please be sure to choose specific scenes (two or three maximum) from the film that enable you to substantiate your argument. A scene in film contains moving images, sound, music, dialogue, written words, set design, costume design, and more.
This writing assignment is not a research paper, but an exercise in close looking at this specific film. It thus requires no research beyond the assigned readings relevant to this particular film. Please be sure to cite the assigned articles, lectures, and in-class discussion of the film in proper footnotes in Chicago Manual of Style. There are many different styles of footnotes. Please use the Chicago Manual of Style for footnotes and endnotes: you can find instruction and examples at the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL): https://owl(dot)purdue(dot)edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/books.htm
Please note also that we do not accept Web sites as sources (i.e., do not use Google or Wikipedia for this assignment).
Note: Please DO NOT fill your pages with a summary of the plot of the film. Keep in mind that you are asked to provide your own analysis, not write a synopsis. Rest assured that we have seen this film many times, so just mention the plot when it is relevant to your argument. You will get an automatic “F” on your paper if you hand in a paper that is simply a summary of the story narrated in the film. More important, please do not submit a report of the film.
Prompt Questions:
Note: The questions below are intended to provoke your thought process and to help you frameyour writing assignment with a focused argument.
1. It has been suggested that the four stories narrated in Masaki Kobayashi’s film, Kwaidan (1964), correspond to the four seasons. How are these four seasons made manifest in the film? What are visual markers or clues that suggest to viewers the season of each tale? It might also be possible that hidden in these four tales are the five senses. What are the five senses? How are these five senses respectively made manifest in the four tales narrated in Kobayashi’s film? Which story embodies each one (or two) of the five senses? In other words, do you see a particular sense (or senses) that features prominently in any tale in the film? Do you think there is a sixth sense in the film? Does a sixth sense enable us to detect the supernatural in the film?
Note: Please be sure to provide visual evidence to back up your argument.
2. Discuss the visual elements that help to thread the four different stories together in Kobayashi’s film. Is there a particular and dominant color that helps to provide continuity to the visual composition and syntax in the film? Does a specific color help to link the four different stories in the film from the beginning to the end? Why do you think this particular color reoccurs throughout the film? What is the meaning of the specific color? Where do you think Masaki Kobayashi draw his inspiration for this use of primary color to provide formal continuity in the four different stories in the film?
Note: Please be sure to provide film stills to demonstrate and to back up your argument.
3. Sandals (slippers /shoes) featured prominently in the tales of “The Woman of the Snow” and the “Hoichi the Earless One” narrated in Kobayashsi’s film, Kwaidan. In what ways do these footprints represent visibility, disappearance, and erasure? Why do you think sandals and footprints feature so prominently in this film? What do they mean within the context of the narratives, visual composition, and syntax of the film?
Note: This is an opportunity for you to indulge in the pleasure of close looking at the moving images, sound, music, costume, set design, and special effects in the film by focusing on one of these two tales. Please be sure to include analysis of two scenes from the film to substantiate your argument.
4. Please choose one tale in the film (out of four stories) and answer the following prompt questions that correspond respectively to your chosen story.
A. “The Black Hair”
There are two main female characters in this tale; one is rich, and the other is poor. One weaves silk, and the other buys silk. They both compete for the same man. Discuss why this ambitious husband returns to his poverty-stricken wife. What is the relationship between his love for her hair and the silk that she weaves? Moreover, what does he miss most about his first wife? How did he die? What do you think is the moral of the story?
Note: Please be sure to provide visual analysis of two scenes from the film.
B. “The Woman of the Snow”
1. Discuss the significant role of the mother in this tale. What is the relationship between Minokuchi, the woodcutter and his own mother? Is there a symbol (or symbols) in the film that suggests this particular story is about the nurturing role of the mother? The “Snow Woman Spirit” spares Minokuchi, the woodcutter’s life twice. Why does she show him mercy? What gender roles does the woodcutter play after her departure?
2. There seems to be a privileging of sight/vision/seeing in this tale. How does the film convey the significant role of vision and seeing within the narrative? What happened to Minokuchi, the wooden cutter when he abuses his privilege to an apparition by breaking his promise?
Note: Please be sure to analyze two scenes from the film and provide visual evidence in your paper to the two questions related to the story of “The Woman of the Snow.”
C. “Hoichi The Earless”
Hoichi, the blind bard, was lured away by the ghosts of the Heike clan to sing the tales of their glory and sad endings. Why do you think the ghost chose to rip Hoichi’s ears off and not any other parts of his body? What are the functions of ears, and how do they signify persuasion? Moreover, why do you think that even after the ghost has violently ripped his ears off, Hoichi still sings of the glory and tragedy of the Heike clan? What rituals in the narrative suggest that this particular story is about rebirth and paradise according to Pure Land Buddhism in Japan?
Note: To answer this question, please be sure to include a brief cultural and religious context for Pure Land Buddhism and the Western Paradise (see Prof. Boreth Ly’s lecture on “Heaven, Hells, Purgatory and Paradise”).
D. “In a Cup of Tea”
What do you think this particular story is about? Is it about a man’s paranoia and his hallucinations? What does it mean for him to drink and swallow another man’s soul? Why do you think the writer’s head and body is found in the water jar at the end of the film? Does the apparition of the author’s head and body as it is reflected in the water implies that we, the viewers, will quench and are quenching our thirst for knowledge and pleasure by consuming the author’s soul? Moreover, are we, the viewers, responsible for killing the author of the story by drinking—literally consuming—his soul?
Note: Please be sure to include analysis of specific scenes to back up your argument