Rhythm of theater NO and Japanese cinema

I think that few people has thought about the importance of rhythm in film art.
Western tradition of drama, starting from the time of Aristotle, has been developed mainly around such concepts as "story", "character" , "catalysis" and so on.

The structure of drama in this tradition was based on the development of "story", which is played by actors, imitating fictional, historical or legendary people. They are called "characters"and have their own personalities and backgrounds.
In the "story"in Western drama the climax must be led by the conflict (even if not so clear and distinctive) between them or the growing contradiction of the main character's situation among other characters.

On the other hand, in Japanese most ancient form of drama, theater NO, "story"and "character" are not exclusive constructing elements. As Zeami wrote, "Story"in theater NO must be divided into 3 parts according to the principle "Jo-Ha-Kyu".  This principle is utterly different from famous division of Aristotle; "Beginning, Middle and End".

The parts "Jo","Ha" and "Kyu" must have, according to Zeami, predetermined duration( in the play and its performance ) and each of them must have different tempo.
By Zeami's formula it is called "Jo-Ha-Kyu Go-Dan"(dan means "step").
It is a rhythmic principle, combined with rather fixed contents for each parts of the drama.
The structure of the drama looks very simple from Western view to the theater, but very complex from musicological or semantic point of view.

From semantic point of view, theater NO is a realization of true "informational polyphony"(the word used by R.Barthes for theater in general). From musicological point of view, it has a very complex set of canons for rhythmic structure and by them it embodies, in my opinion, "poly-rhythmic"structure.
Theses two aspects of theater NO will obtain much more complexity in the case of "Fukushiki Mugen No"(doubled dream play for theater NO). The genre most eloquently represents the aesthetic completion of this unique stage art.In addition, in this genre will be very interesting from narratological point of view.

Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" was made on Zeami's tought "Jo-Ha-Kyu Go-Dan"  and its story is similar to those of  "Fukushiki Mugen No". Almost all of the fascinating effects of this film's dramaturgy came from that principle.
Kurosawa's next masterpiece "Ran" also owes a lot to dramaturgy of theater NO.
In each case, contrast and change of tempo, rhythmic structure is combined with growing instability of giegesis and gradual erasing of subjective-objective border in the way that Kurosawa interpreted the aesthetics of theater NO.

If turning our eyes to other classics of Japanese cinema, we will find "poly rhythmic"parts in some films of Kenji Mizoguch, too.

About this theme I have written 2 academic works in Japanese, 2 in Russian, 1 critical work for special edition for the journal Kinema junpo. They have not lost their value, but
I've never tried to translate them into English, as I have little time so far and I'm so "bad English" writer.

Paradox of Cultural policy

After the mid 2000s, something strange is happening in cultural policy in Japan.
Starting from late 1990s, Japanese government has kept supporting audio visual cultural industry with a hope of exporting "Cool Japan"cultural products. At first they gathered scholars, famous Manga-artists and some other people to make a general concept of "Media Geijutsu"(Media arts). This concept was the starting point with which, in their opinion, Japanese popular culture(with its related industries) could grow into the global-scale  source of income of the country.
It's natural that they thought the concept doesn't need any historical and academic accuracy in its definition. The concept included; Video-art, computer games, ANIME, MANGA, installation, and among  the others, cinema(practically ignored now)

To some extent their initial intention  was realized. But only in the limited fields.
The reality of cultural industry is not defined by abstract concepts, "promotion" and  "marketing" by advertising companies and donations by the government.
One graduate school intended to bring up "producers" has recently gone bankrupt and ended its very short life because of the absence of the demand(its foundation was approved by the government in the mid 2000s).  Specialists of "marketing", "financial engineering" , "accounting",  producers of TV and films could do nothing to improve the financial situation of the school. Now it's clear that it was dead-born child from the start.
Why did it happen?
First, any movement of culture and art can't be controlled, be predicted by mere  economic theory or collected works of interdisciplinary researches. In addition, the starting point, the concept  "Media arts" had not gone through the check of experienced historian and theorist of cinema, popular culture and others academic fields. The dominance of economics has misled the cultural policy of Japan for these 10-15 years.  
As financial "derivatives" that caused world economic crisis in these years, economic-centered cultural policy and its "derivatives", like the concept of "Media  arts" will lead the human races to the soulless dead-end.

Economic globalization and deformation of languages

Recently I received an E-mail from one reader of my book in English(translation).
The person accused me for translating my own book from Japanese into English because I have made mistakes in grammar and diction of English. And the person advised me not to translate any other books by
myself, saying that I need an editor who knows English(Who? Is there any volunteer?).

But  I rather wonder why other readers have never complained with my bad English if it is really so bad.

The book criticized  is "Tarkovsky and His Time"(revised Edition, paperback) .
There had been many books on Andrei Tarkovsky in English. But I think there is no other book concentrating on his own life, trying to be as objective as possible, with the natural sense of respect to him as a physical human having noble ideal.
In addition,  the information I have explored from the Russian books and Russian websites must have certain value for English native speakers who can't read Russian and have never been in Russia.

Every national culture is bound to its language and the land where it was born and brought up.
More than 20 years ago I bought a book written in English but published in Moscow. Its translators were, apparently, Russians. The book is titled "About Tarkovsky". And it was sold in Tokyo, namely they exported the book for foreigners.
I think, there must be mistakes of  English in that book, but its value for young researches and fans of great master's works is not there.The "information" contained in that book( originally written by those who knew Tarkovsky in his lifetime, of course, in Russian) is undeniably true.  

I would rather say that today's horrible situation of economic globalization and apparent decline of culture-art value system formed from 18th to 19th centuries, are inevitable outcome of Western modern civilization. Namely it is self-destructing in its cultural aspect.
And the  deformation of the dominating language actively used  there in business and  popular culture, academies and politics, is also inevitable.
Who has enough time to care about the elegance of the words in translation if one or two countries are dominating in the large part of cultural industry of his or her homeland? Publication of  a decent book in Japan, especially a book on so-called arthouse cinema, now brings the publisher only Deficit.

Our situation will become better if Hollywood and MacDonalds stop exporting their "culture" to the countries whose languages and cultures the leading global companies know only superficially.

In short, we don't want to see another Mr.Beans, another "G.I Joes" and destructing "derivatives"(totally worthless papers which our mega-bank and leading insurance companies had bought from USA ).  Main effort of our generation for these 2 decades has been made for struggling against consumerism of the masses who smack their lips over degradaded popular culture made in USA.
   

"Lithuania.The Twilight of the Gods"(subtitled) was release from CreateSpace

Now available on CreateSpace stroe https://www.createspace.com/360246
This disk contains also another short documentary about Moon Far Away, "Ritual of White Night".
This DVD will be soon released on Amazon.usa and Amazon Video on demand, too.

A Genius artist needs Genius critic, it's a tragedy

Fyodor Dostoevsky needed Mikhail Bakhtin for the full understanding by the readers of his creative genius. But, he as an artist couldn't live long enough to see Bakhtin's work about his creation.

The same thing can be said about Akira Kurosawa and Sergei Paradzhanov.

The best critical works and academic study about Kurosawa's "life-work"("Ran") and its great "rehearsal"film("Kagemusha")  were written by me, but he died not knowing about them.

Because I was in Moscow in the late 90s and Kurosawa was already a "Maestro", with  whom a young researcher like me couldn't easily have a close relationship. In addition, I was mainly in Moscow that time....

These works must be more widely known, I think.
Because those who could have written about the aesthetic principle of these works, for example,  a critic Nagaharu Yodogawa has been dead for more than 10 years and the situation of Japanese film culture has become worse for these 10-15 years. No one can write, or precisely analyze the structure and dramaturgy of "Kagemusha" and "Ran".
In fact, during late 90-s and in the 2000s, my academic work written in Russian "The Form of Time and the Image of Time: About two films of Akira Kurosawa", published in the Russian academic journal "Kinovedcheskie zapiski"has been a hit among Russian cinephils.

The best critical work about Sergei Paradzhanov's life and films is, in my opinion, Levon Gregoryan's "Paradzhanov"published in 2011, 21 years after the death.

How these film directors had struggled for a long time to achieve the rare cinematographic beauty, very few people know. And many lovers of "art house" films only can "consume" the beauty of their works....

 I think it's  a tragedy of our time.

Look Inside My new books

Amazon (CreateSpace)'s  self-publishing and advertising system is amazing.

You can partly see the contents of my new books using "Search Inside the book". 

"Tarkovsky and His Time"(Paperback, Revised English Edition)
Permalinks(Amazon.usa & UK ):  http://amzn.com/1481293788
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1481293788

Also "Re-Minder"(English translation)
http://amzn.com/1481811142
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1481811142

And for those who can read in Japanese
"Taosareta Demon"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1481826603
http://amzn.com/1481826603

My New Books

Now on Amazon and on Createspace store my 2 English paperback books were released.

Paperback (Revised)Edition,"Tarkovsky and His Time" now available.

Paperback edition of "Re-Minder"

Another new release is in Japanese, full-length novel about Russian painter Mikhail Vrubel and people around him.

Also available on Amazon and CreateSpace store.
 "Taosareta Demon" original Japanese Edition