Viewing Mizoguchi Kenji’s Remake Film: Reconsidering <i>The Woman of the Rumor</i>

Mori Toshie

doi:10.18917/eizogaku.108.0_206

<p>This essay examines Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Woman of the Rumor (1954, Daiei) that has yet to be fully examined, as a remake of Jenny (Marcel Carné, 1936). The film moves a nightclub in Paris to a brothel house, Izutsuya in Shimabara, Kyoto, and inherits the basic plot, including a love triangle over a mother, a daughter, and a man. In Jenny, the couple leaves the mother unaware that they are in a love triangle. In contrast, Mizoguchi’s film provokes harsh conflicts among the three and concludes with solidarity between the mother and daughter as victims of the exploitation by men. A detailed examination of the remake process reveals that Kawaguchi Matsutaro’s adaptation novel as a naive “maternal drama” brings difficulty into the production process. Although the completed film brings in Mizoguchi’s eternal theme of female exploitation, reviews criticized that the reconciliation between the mother as the owner of the brothel house and her daughter undermined the accusation against the exploitation. However, inheriting Carné’s ensemble style, the film has achieved to encompass the whole exploitative structure that transcends time inside of Izutsuya. The film exemplifies the creativity of a remake that induces new expressions within the original work’s restrictions.</p>

Viewing Mizoguchi Kenji’s Remake Film: Reconsidering <i>The Woman of the Rumor</i>

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