Between Chekhov and modernization: dramaturgies of immobility and choral forms in the cinema of Mikio Naruse

This article examines the relationship between Anton Chekhov’s dramaturgy and Mikio Naruse’s cinema through a comparative study of The Girl in the Rumor and Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts (1935), Flowing (1956), and Late Chrysanthemums (1954). Chekhov’s Japanese reception through translation and shingeki supplies the cultural context for this formal comparison with The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters. The Girl in the Rumor, loosely inspired by the former, provides its documented point of departure. The films’ two production moments allow different arrangements of collective life to be compared. Through a close analysis of mise-en-scène, editing, sound, and the spatial organization of bodies, the study examines how Naruse gives dramatic form to the social and material transformations of modern Japan. Immobility describes the persistence of frustrated aspirations amid physical movement, and chorality distributes dramatic attention across connected lives. A distinctive affinity with Chekhov resides in the changing perceptual weight of everyday space. A room or a street can outlast the conflict that made it central, giving historical transformation a duration that continues through familiar gestures.