I really don't remember which scene exactly it was in, but there a part where Asaji's teeth were showing and they were completely black.
Does it suppose to signify something about Asaji? The movie in general makes the character Asaji look like a demon, really creepy.
Yeah I caught that too, good catch. I'm not sure why Kurosawa thought of having the character Asaji have black teeth. I think Kurosawa did this to depict how evil Asaji is.
In my film and literature class, we talked about the evil spirit and Asaji. One thing that was mentioned is how demonic the character Asaji looks like. I agree with you on that, especially the makeup of the eyebrows Kurosawa did, it's amazing and shows what a brilliant director he was during his time, still one of my favorites of all time.
What I understood is that the black teeth and eybrows etc. was just the style at the time.
shareIndeed. The blackening of teeth when in court dress was the fashion at the time. The face would also be whitened with white lead, and the teeth would appear yellow with contrast. Showing these would be considered quite vulgar, so they blackened them.
It doesn't say anything about the character per se.
yes, blackened teeth were the norm in feudal japananese court society
shareI don't think so. In Japanese folklore, women are characterized as "demons." There are several types of demons. Clearly, there is something deeper. Asaji is one of them. Observe her behavior.
shareNo, there really isn't. I've seen my share of period films where completely innocent women had the exact same look. You're just reading too much into it.
It was something that women did back then, they blackened their teeth and whitened their faces. It was the style, nothing more.
A.B. Mitford explains teeth blackening in his book Tales of Old Japan published in 1871. I'll post the entire section about it here for anyone interested.
NOTE.—The author of the "Sho-rei Hikki" makes no allusion to the custom of shaving the eyebrows and blackening the teeth of married women, in token of fidelity to their lords. In the upper classes, young ladies usually blacken their teeth before leaving their father's house to enter that of their husbands, and complete the ceremony by shaving their eyebrows immediately after the wedding, or, at any rate, not later than upon the occasion of their first pregnancy.
The origin of the fashion is lost in antiquity. As a proof that it existed before the eleventh century, A.D., a curious book called "Teijô Zakki," or the Miscellaneous Writings of Teijô, cites the diary of Murasaki Shikibu, the daughter of one Tamésoki, a retainer of the house of Echizen, a lady of the court and famous poetess, the authoress of a book called "Genji-mono-gatari," and other works. In her diary it is written that on the last night of the fifth year of the period Kankô (A.D. 1008), in order that she might appear to advantage on New Year's Day, she retired to the privacy of her own apartment, and repaired the deficiencies of her personal appearance by re-blackening her teeth, and otherwise adorning herself. Allusion is also made to the custom in the "Yeiga-mono-gatari," an ancient book by the same authoress.
The Emperor and nobles of his court are also in the habit of blackening their teeth; but the custom is gradually dying out in their case. It is said to have originated with one Hanazono *beep* who held the high rank of Sa-Daijin, or "minister of the left," at the commencement of the twelfth century, in the reign of [pg 295] the Emperor Toba. Being a, man of refined and sensual tastes, this minister plucked out his eyebrows, shaved his beard, blackened his teeth, powdered his face white, and rouged his lips in order to render himself as like a woman as possible. In the middle of the twelfth century, the nobles of the court, who went to the wars, all blackened their teeth; and from this time forth the practice became a fashion of the court. The followers of the chiefs of the Hôjô dynasty also blackened their teeth, as an emblem of their fidelity; and this was called the Odawara fashion, after the castle town of the family. Thus a custom, which had its origin in a love of sensuality and pleasure, became mistaken for the sign of a good and faithful spirit.
The fashion of blackening the teeth entails no little trouble upon its followers, for the colour must be renewed every day, or at least every other day. Strange and repelling as the custom appears at first, the eye soon learns to look without aversion upon a well-blacked and polished set of teeth; but when the colour begins to wear away, and turns to a dullish grey, streaked with black, the mouth certainly becomes most hideous. Although no one who reads this is likely to put a recipe for blackening the teeth to a practical test, I append one furnished to me by a fashionable chemist and druggist in Yedo:—
"Take three pints of water, and, having warmed it, add half a teacupful of wine. Put into this mixture a quantity of red-hot iron; allow it to stand for five or six days, when there will be a scum on the top of the mixture, which should then be poured into a small teacup and placed near a fire. When it is warm, powdered gallnuts and iron filings should be added to it, and the whole should be warmed again. The liquid is then painted on to the teeth by means of a soft feather brush, with more powdered gallnuts and iron, and, after several applications, the desired colour will be obtained."
The process is said to be a preservative of the teeth, and I have known men who were habitual sufferers from toothache to prefer the martyrdom of ugliness to that of pain, and apply the black colouring when the paroxysms were severe. One man told me that he experienced immediate relief by the application, and that so long as he blackened his teeth he was quite free from pain.
All women in Asia and in Polynesia dyed their teeth stark black, it was a sign of beauty back then and a way to strengthen teeth. The only ones who didn't dye their teeth were the Chinese and Koreans I think.
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