- This video is brought to you by Petal.
(bright music)
Hey, Wisecrack.
Michael here to talk about everyone's favorite bounty hunter
turned world's greatest step dad, The Mandalorian.
Now, despite making one of the year's best shows,
its creators break a fundamental rule
of visual storytelling,
show your characters' freaking faces.
But is this rule bending what makes The Mandalorian
so engaging in the first place?
Let's find out in this wisecrack edition
on Star Wars and Masked Emotions.
Spoilers ahead for all things Star Wars and the MCU.
And before we get into it, I want to give a shout out
to this video sponsor Petal.
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Now, back to the show.
Now, a word on why human faces are so important
to our experience of visual storytelling.
Well, most early cinema typically presented the audience
a view of the world akin to a theatrical stage.
Some early filmmakers immediately understood
that what distinguished film from theater,
was its ability to mess with time, space and perspective.
Enter the close-up.
Famously employed by early filmmaker, D.W. Griffith.
Close-ups were incredibly effective in silent film,
which didn't have dialogue, just soundtracks full
of jaunty piano and some onscreen descriptions
to help establish exactly why a character was angry
that day.
(lively instrumental music)
- Facial expressions filled the emotional gap,
epitomized by the performances in the 1928 film,
The Passion of Joan of Arc.
And this train kept rolling
into the era of talkies, with close ups of actors faces
becoming increasingly prevalent in the thirties and forties.
Just think about some of the iconic scenes from classics
like Citizen Kane and Casablanca, where the camera lingers
on an expressive face rather than resorting to dialogue.
Film theorist Bela Balazs describes these shots
as "the very instant in which the general is transformed
into the particular."
And this isn't just a remnant of classic cinema.
Recent decades have witnessed and increased reliance
on closeups in both film and TV.
At the most pivotal moment of the entirety
of the MCU's decade long run,
we are close on Robert Downey Jr's face
right before the snap heard around the galaxy.
While he says very little, his expression conveys
years of struggle and growth, all leading
to a moment where this character was able
to sacrifice his life for those he loves.
It's also why, if I may indulge in a tangent,
Nicolas cage had to fight director Robert Bierman
to wear sunglasses in the Wise Cracks Hall of Fame worthy,
Vampire's Kiss.
Bierman complained the glasses would shut out the audience,
a fair concern when you're famous actor's face
is your best cinematic asset.
- I'm calling the police.
- The police?
Alva, I'm here to call a truce man, look.
- As usual, Cage prevailed gloriously.
All that to say, seeing the faces of actors matters a lot
in terms of how we experience cinema.
Philosophers like Amy Coplan have even noted
that we are able to catch the emotions of a film character
through contagion.
And in catching these emotions,
we're sort of fusing our own emotions
with those of the character.
Which makes it all the more impressive and honestly
kind of confusing, that a show like the Mandalorian
is able to convey so much emotion, when its protagonist
is wearing a mask for all but about 90 seconds
in the first two seasons.
We feel like we know when Mando is angry, or scared,
or sad, or happy, without ever gazing upon Pedro Pascal's
gorgeous face.
And even though we technically see the face
of the shows co-lead Grogu,
who I still refer to as Baby Yoda, sue me,
his face moves about as much as the friend
that thought the edible gummies were normal gummies
and spends the entire runtime
of Super Troopers convinced they're trapped
in their body with no way out.
Oh, and Baby Yoda can't talk.
So between two lead characters,
we have one with a visible face,
and one who communicates in a discernible language.
Now the whole man in the iron mask thing, isn't new
to the larger Star Wars universe.
In the first film, A New Hope, two of the first characters
we meet are C-3PO and R2-D2, neither of whom
have the ability to bat their lashes
or do the duck face thing that dominated the early days
of selfie culture.
But in both cases, we are immediately emotionally connected
with these characters.
We see 3-PO conveying a genuine anxiety.
- They'll be destroyed for sure.
This is madness.
- [Michael] And R2-D2 embodying a reckless
and adventurous spirit.
- There'll be no escape for the princess this time.
- But for a character like Darth Vader,
the mask is the point.
The hidden face makes him more mysterious, inaccessible
and daunting, like Nicolas Cage's iconic character,
Peter Loew in Vampire's Kiss.
(indistinct yelling)
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
So how is Star Wars consistently able
to break a fundamental principle of compelling filmmaking
and still create an emotional connection with its audience?
We might be able to see how if we get back
to the roots of Star Wars by considering
one of George Lucas' essential influences, Akira Kurosawa,
a Japanese director who earned international acclaim
in the mid 20th century for films like Ikiru,
Seven Samurai, and his Macbeth adaptation Throne of Blood.
His film Hidden Fortress was a direct inspiration
for the original Star Wars film.
And George Lucas actually helped Kurosawa
get his films financed in the latter part of his career.
And while that might be no secret to Star Wars fans,
what is even more interesting is one
of Kurosawa's influences, a form of theater that was really
into covering the faces of its lead actors.
Noh is a style of traditional Japanese dance-based theater
in which some actors wear traditional masks
and the non-mask wearing actors give extremely
subtle and restrained performances.
It's all very un-broadway.
Since the mask wearing actors
have stagnant facial expressions,
they are unable to communicate their moral leanings
or emotional States in a traditional fashion.
This place has more emphasis
on the subtleties of their physical movements,
and leads the audience to find universal themes
and emotions in the actors minimalist performances.
It's a real, less is more scenario.
(Japanese music)
- Noh's influence on Kurosawa is especially evident
in Throne of Blood, which would go on
to influence Lucas's work on the prequels.
Specifically, where the director used aspects
of Noh theater to make complex emotions visible in new ways,
rather than relying on the expressive performances
commonly seen in film.
He does this through employing
the Japanese aesthetic category of Yugen,
which describes an often theatrically inspired emotion
that transcends singular movements or scenes.
The use of mask and minimal facial expressions
in unmasked actors help create this aesthetic,
as their more minimal and control movements
inspire the imagination of the audience,
making them active parts of the performance.
Yugen isn't something that the actors do,
rather it describes what the audience feels
while watching the performance.
We can see this in Throne of Blood
in a scene where Washizu has a breaking bad moment
when he kills an assassin to cover up his own deeds
and is immediately hit with the weight of his decision.
Which of course isn't too far off from the Star Wars scene
in which Anakin helps Palpatine kill Mace Windu,
and seals his fate as one of the bad guys.
In both cases, the audience feels the enormity
of what's just happened and knows it won't end well.
Obviously Kurosawa uses Noh categories
like Yugen to elicit a response from an audience watching
on a screen.
But for Noh itself, the aim was
to create these types of responses in a theatrical setting.
The principles of Noh can help us better understand
why we find Mando's growing love and commitment
to Grogu so compelling.
Without ever seeing his face,
we see him go from indifferent to the child
as he drops him off to be experimented on
by some very unchill looking dudes, to curious
about what the hell Baby Yoda actually is,
to being disappointed in him
for eating a frog woman's and fertilized eggs,
to expressing a deep love and care for him.
While not masked, Baby Yoda also conveys emotion
through minimal facial activity and bodily movements.
The artist also known as Grogu, might just
be one of the best examples of Noh in Star Wars.
Because as a speechless puppet, he relies
on muted gestures to express any and all emotions.
Much like potential dad, or grandpa, or uncle,
or cousin, Yoda.
We can see the inspiration for these characters
in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood,
and in particular, the spirit in the forest.
And it's likely not a coincidence
that the Spider's Web Forest in the film looks a whole lot
like Yoda's adopted home planet of Dagobah.
Take the scene where Baby Yoda uses his powers
to save his new daddy from death by Mudhorn.
While the tiny green puppet does little more
than scrunch its face up a little bit,
a tremendous amount of care is communicated.
This is one of the first times we realize
that the little guy loves Mando
and doesn't wanna watch him get murdered.
And throughout the series, we see Baby Yoda gaze at Mando
in a way that shows us the deep bond forming between them.
- Okay, here we go.
- There are countless examples of emotions
that are quite literally masked
in the original Star Wars trilogy.
Take the pivotal moment where our guy Darth has to choose
between serving his master, Palpatine,
or saving the life of his son, Luke.
It's an intense scene and you can really feel
the conflict in Darth's dark mechanical heart,
even though he's masked the entire time.
And this gets at another important aspect of Noh theater.
Since the masks are stagnant, unlike the kinds seen
in the 90s Jim Carrey classic, The Mask,
the actors don't move a lot.
In moving less, these actors are able to say more.
When the audience is caught up in quiet and stillness,
little movements can have a big impact.
A related Noh concept is Hana,
which describes "the sensations that an actor awakes
in a spectator" in which "an actor's art
blooms like a flower."
And while blooming flowers and genocidal Sith Lords
might not have a lot in common,
it's incredible that after three films
of being a space fascist, we're able to feel empathy
for Darth's emotional growth.
This makes Vader's actions all the more powerful
when he throws his master
into the reactor of the Death Star, which you know,
would obviously kill someone,
and make it impossible for him to come back
six films later in a pivotal role that retroactively
makes the previous two films more or less meaningless.
But I digress.
You can compare the mature, masked Vader
in the original trilogy to the brooding, over-emotive Anakin
in the prequel trilogy.
Somehow the former performance feels
more emotionally intense and expressive,
even though he's in a robot suit,
while the latter performance, full of both verbal
and physical expressiveness, feels far less impactful.
This all might help us understand why The Mandalorian
is so damn compelling.
While, hypothetically, the most recent Star Wars trilogy
made us consider a global moratorium on the production
of any Star Wars related content,
Mando and Grogu's adventures through the Outer Rim
have restored our faith in Star Wars.
One might say that they've offered us a new hope.
(crowd jeering)
And this is why the influence of Noh is so crucial.
By creating limits on facial and bodily movements,
it places a heightened emphasis on subtle forms
of expression, and imbues small things with big meanings.
We can think of Noh as adding a sort of special flavor
to film, which is why Yugen, an aspect of Noh,
can be thought of as the umami of emotion.
When used well, it can pull an extra layer of feeling
from the audience, and have you spending weeks wondering
if Mando is ever going to see Grogu again,
and praying that he doesn't end up at Luke's Jedi Academy
when Ben becomes Kylo Ren.
Noh theater helps us get why the show is so good.
It succeeds not because of how much it shows
but because of how little.
And rather than making the show feel hollow and cold,
these restraints and use of metal masks,
makes little things so much more powerful.
Now, some of this might be complicated
by the fact that Mando eventually does take his helmet off
in the final moments of season two,
leading us to wonder if they'll spend parts of season three
showing his face in the Outer Rim's various dive bars.
But even if he does lose the mask, we would bet
that the influence of Noh will remain palpable,
whether in the minimal movements and dialogue
of key characters, or by his growing gang
of new Mandalorian friends.
But what do you think Wisecrack?
Can a Japanese theater tradition help us better appreciate
the performance of masked characters
in the Star Wars cinematic universe?
Or would everyone be better off
if these guys drop the helmets
and use their eyes to express some emotion?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
Thanks to our patrons for all your support.
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and ring that bell like you're calling some Jedis
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And as always, thanks for watching.
Later.
(upbeat music)