Abstract
Mizoguchi Kenji's 1933 film The Water Magician/Taki no Shiraito is regarded as a typical shinpa higeki or “new school tragedy.” This chapter examines in detail the trajectory of textual formation and transformation of “Taki no shiraito,” from Kyoka's 1894 original novel “Noble Blood, Heroic Blood,” via its theatrical adaptation, White Threads , to the cinematic adaptation by Mizoguchi, The Water Magician , by focusing on the representation of the heroine, Shiraito. Koyo's revisions make this eccentric female character more accessible, thereby transforming her into a shinpa heroine with whom the reader can more readily sympathize, as if Koyo already anticipates the text's adaptation into theatrical performance. Kitamura's performance of Shiraito with a lyrical realism was clearly a point of departure from more conventionalized and formulaic onnagata performance forms of kabuki traditions. The film thereby contains contradictory discourses about modernity and shinpa depiction of women's bodies.
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