Halving the Bones - Porter Core '09

Darlene McCoy
Marco
Porter 80A
29 October 2009
Cinéma vérité
Vibrantly colored, helium-filled balloons and the joyous cracks of a $2 noisemaker engulf a dining room in the aura of “Happy Birthday!” as a little brother’s face is smashed mercilessly into a double chocolate cake. That same little brother’s mother whips out a disposable camera and exclaims, “Say cheese!” Later, the mother will develop her film, and paste the freshly recorded event into a family album. Will a single photo capture the essence of the occasion? Will it capture the smells, the sounds, the guests’ thoughts, and their laughter? Will it capture the little brother’s hidden agony and embarrassment amidst his smiles? How should she, and how should we, as a humanity, go about recording our families’ histories? Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury asks the same question of her viewers in the opening of her documentary: Halving the Bones. Coincidentally, Halving the Bones is Ozeki’s answer to her own question. In this film, she leads her viewers on a complex journey through her family’s past. She presents her grandmother’s “written autobiography” of her immigration to America, and then tells the tale of her mother, the cancer. Though this film seems to be a simple documentary of a Japanese immigrant and her offspring, Halving the Bones is entrenched with archival footage and ideas that simply do not match up. Even so, Halving the Bones is still a documentary – it just presents facts through fictional evidence, uses devices so blatantly that the viewer can see the device used and its effect, and thoroughly challenges the impression of reality. Halving the Bones is a reflexive documentary.
The general approach to making a documentary is to convey a message by enlightening viewers on a certain affair. In Halving the Bones, the surface affair in need of enlightenment is Ruth Lounsbury’s family’s history, but through the layers of her film, viewers can unveil the core affairs at hand. This is a film about the intertwinement of race and family. The surface layer begins with the tale of Ozeki’s grandmother: a Japanese girl of 18, Matsuye Ozeki, is sent to Hawaii to marry an American man she knows only by a picture. She is legally bound by a contract to wed this man, and cannot return home for any reason. She was a part of a group of girls, known as Picture Brides, who had no full method in determining if the man on the other side of the ocean even somewhat resembled the photograph the brides-to-be were given. Ozeki presents her first challenge to the impression of reality through the use of historical context. How could these girls trust a photograph enough to travel halfway across the world and marry? How could their fathers send them off like mere cattle? Photographs are not always what they seem to be. Reality is not always real. Some men of Hawaii sent false photographs of themselves to Japan, and when the girls discovered their new partner’s deceit, they could do nothing but try to make the best of their depressing situations. In time, Matsuye becomes acquainted with her photograph husband enough for her to “develop cancer of the stomach.” She then determines that a trip to a doctor’s office in Japan is necessary to cure her of her horrendous tumor. After her visit to the doctor’s office a startling revelation is revealed to Matsuye: the cancer she had developed was merely Masako Ozeki Lounsbury. After a few years’ stay in Japan, Matsuye returns to Hawaii, where she raises her first born. Why would Matsuye spend a few years in Japan when she has a life in Hawaii? Is it possible that Matsuye does not approve of her life in the US and played an innocent fool to return to her homeland and loved ones for a brief period of time? Ruth Ozeki presents us with a second challenge to reality: even a physical being might not be what it seems. A cancer of the stomach just might be the phenomenon known as pregnancy. Matsuye’s child, Masako, graduates from high school but afterwards, she “couldn’t find a job like the American girls.” America was in the midst of World War Two at the time, so why could Masako not find a job? Masako Ozeki was a Japanese girl, and Americans in Hawaii did not approve of those of the yellow peril. Japanese people were not worthy of trust, therefore they were not worthy enough to work for Americans. Due to her unsuccessful endeavors in America, Masako returns to Japan to expand on her education. She ventures back and forth between the two countries and ultimately receives a P.h.D. from Yale University. At last, Masako reaps her reward for all of her arduous work. Yet she forgoes her accomplishments to create a family with her husband. Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury is born. Why would anybody forsake years of grueling work? In traditional Japanese culture, the husband provides security to a family while the wife devotes herself to creating an overall atmosphere of peace and tranquility at home. Masako Ozeki is either an authentic traditional Japanese woman, or a woman who does not care for a P.h.D. Ruth Ozeki comes of age in a world that used to belittle anyone or anything that was Japanese. Why would she mention that Americans used to not approve of her and her culture in her narrative? Because of the past American stereotype of hating Japanese, as a child Ruth believed that to be an American she must think of Japanese products as “cheap and unwanted” and conceal her sense of pride. Through this mindset, Ruth Ozeki tears a rift in her family - she becomes disconnected with her mother due to her innate shame of casting off her heritage and the two women lead separate lives. That is, until Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury is confronted with the reality of her grandmother’s bones; a single connection between mother and daughter. Ozeki’s approach to this film is that of a filmmaker creating a reflexive documentary – there is a hidden message in between the lines of narrative, and she uses challenges to reality and her fiction to proclaim that message to all those who wish to examine it.
Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury employs the essence of documentary style, but challenges the foundation of the documentary genre by just manipulating the other modes of documentary’s methods. Throughout the film, there are scenes that are frequently desaturated, tinted, or edited in some sort of manner. The other modes of documentary do not contain images edited for color or tint; they are only being edited for the sake of picture quality or clarification. Premeditated camera shots align this film. In the other modes of documentary, all camera shots are taken as long drawn out processes so that the viewer can observe the action upfront and watch as it unfolds. The only perspective given is that of a single camera’s. Ozeki shoots footage of her mother preparing a turkey from outside her home to give a complete perspective of the activity. She shoots footage of herself arriving at her mother’s home from across the street. Her camera angles are blatantly shown to be premeditated. Ozeki uses excerpts of archival film as evidence to the facts she narrates. In the other modes of documentary, all of the footage is genuine - none of it is taken from anywhere but the filmmaker’s work. She takes her challenge a step further by employing actors to play some of the roles of her family members. There are no actors in any of the other modes of documentary, but they can be present in a reflexive documentary. All of the technicalities Ozeki uses are astonishingly obvious, and so are their effects. They are all in the style of a reflexive documentary. Multiple times in the film, Ozeki states, “I just made this up.” She undermines the foundation of her film – facts. She questions the documentary genre as a whole by making her viewers question her credibility as a narrator. Her narrative voice is split into three: an American voice, an American voice with a Japanese accent, and a Japanese voice. She undermines herself by using these multiple voices. It is unclear as to why there is a different voice narrating different sections of the film. The split voice only brings up more questions: If Ozeki cannot be trusted telling her own family’s story, how can trust between viewers and documentaries be established? Can reality be trusted? Even though Halving the Bones questions its own genre, and shakes its own foundation, factual information is delivered through the use of film, voice, camera angles, editing, and portrayed characters. It is a documentary.
The technique of assembly in this film is surprisingly more relatable to that of the more classic modes of documentary. Ruth conducts interviews with her mother much as any other director constructing a different mode of documentary would. She sets up her equipment, and starts an interview. Ruth leads her mother, Masako, into commenting on certain items that belonged to her mother, Matsuye. The only difference between Ruth’s interview and another mode of documentary’s interview is that Ruth’s interview pertains to her personally, and she takes part in the discussion as herself. She steps away from the camera to play her role. The filmmaker becomes part of the film in a reflexive documentary, whereas in the other modes of documentary, filmmakers generally have no personal connection to the action or dialogue. They are simply there to record happenings of the world. Candid scenes are not found in the alternative modes of documentary. They are found in Halving the Bones, but there is an authenticity in their falsehood. Masako Ozeki is a very well versed woman, but she acts as if she is a mere simple old lady on camera. She becomes excited by the beautiful coloring of the container that holds her mother’s bones and makes a sort of squealing noise in her amusement. Through her fake demeanor; she reveals that she is a reserved woman who does not take well to having her privacy invaded. Ruth’s narration is another element of her film that relates better to that of the contrasting modes of documentary than the other reflexive elements. Even though her voice is split into three, it is still there as a guide through the film. It serves its purpose in Halving the Bones as it would in a different mode of documentary. At its center, a reflexive documentary is a documentary.
The fact that Halving the Bones is an extremely abstract and complicated film affects the narrative. The viewers of such a film as this are much too lost or confused to look through the multiple layers. They are simply trying to piece together the main plot of the film. The messages that Ozeki wants to convey are not presented as profoundly as they could have been, but because of the extreme abstraction, another point is made: it is a formidable task to prepare a family album.
Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury has tried her best to preserve her family’s memories and history. She has attempted to preserve life with the best medium she could think of – film. She has created an elaborate mess of adventures, blended them together, and asked her viewers to unscramble them. She even goes as far as to layer in her feelings about how America has treated Japanese people. She layers in hidden relationships between her and her family members. She exposes her mother for who she is. She serves a double chocolate cake for the mind, and after the brain has processed every single morsel, a greater level of satisfaction is reached. Even if the cake is only chocolate on the surface and in all reality contains a vanilla center – even if the cake is a lie – at its very core of existence, it is still a cake. Even if she has constructed a documentary out of false information and a documentary that challenges reality and its own genre, there is a greater understanding of Ruth Ozeki Lounsbury. This is the point of documentary film, and this is why Halving the Bones is a documentary.