Shinozaki, etc.

[Joseph Murphy]

Well, here I get back from Japan and find I've caused all this trouble.

>>The larger point is that, as much as I like Okaeri, it's another 
>>story about a sick wife, who begins with a modicum of financial and 
>>personal independence,is reduced to helplessness by mental illness 
>>and ends judged before doctors and collapsed into her husbands 
>>arms, who cradles her in his arms and tells her to shush.  Who's 
>>wish-fulfillment that might represent, I don't know. I think 
>>clinically it is a not at all careless representation of the onset 
>>of schizophrenia, but it stacks up with a number of motifs of 
>>longstanding in melodramatic fiction and film, cf. Laura Mulvey.
>
>This is a "larger point"? "Larger" than the deep-in-the-stacks 
>triumvirate of names you felt compelled to drop in your retort? You 
>needn't seem so defensive, Professor; with Laura Mulvey as your 
>triumphal Zorro-flourish, your Phd. clearly precedes you.
>
>cs

Dear Chuck,
You obviously have a deep familiarity with Shinozaki, Kitano, etc., 
which I think everyone would like to hear more about.  I have no 
investment in Shinozaki, I'm just trying to express a dissatisfaction 
I felt on a second viewing of "Okaeri," and your comments have the 
feel of sniping at details, but not really getting at the point.  The 
point is, despite the movie being extremely interesting 
stylistically, that the pattern of a female character being 
investigated and judged, and reduced to helplessness in the end is a 
stereotype in film.  Laura Mulvey isn't really a Zorro flourish here, 
it actually fits because she identified the schema. Name-dropping is 
when you claim a personal acquaintance with a famous figure, not when 
you cite the classical source of an argument.
I usually try to leave space open in my posts for other viewpoints, 
so I left open at the end whether that schema is really appropriate 
in this case:

>  the film is made with great care, leisurely paced, with a lot of
>play with closeups, focus/out of focus, and there is enough ambiguity in
>the end to give pause as to who is tending to whom.  There is an
>enormous amount of space given to think about the reasons for the
>woman's delusions, no answer emerges.

Do you want to address the point?  You could tell us what you think 
of the film.  Or, if you care to, you might reproduce what you wrote 
in the brochure for his latest film, if there are no copyright 
issues.  Otherwise with all this "professor, professor" stuff we're 
in the Bill O'Reilly school of argumention, and there's not much more 
to say.
yours,
J. Murphy