Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's “Nikukai” and the Ontology of the Cinema: The Aquarium, Mermaid, Fantasies, and the Fascination of the Mutual Gazing.

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  • 谷崎潤一郎「肉塊」と映画の存在論
  • 谷崎潤一郎「肉塊」と映画の存在論 : 水族館-人魚幻想、〈見交わし〉の惑溺
  • タニザキジュンイチロウ 「 ニクカイ 」 ト エイガ ノ ソンザイロン : スイゾクカン-ニンギョ ゲンソウ 、 〈 ミカワシ 〉 ノ ワクデキ
  • ――水族館-人魚幻想、〈見交わし〉の惑溺――

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Abstract

<p>This essay focuses on the overlapping, in Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's “Nikukai (A Lump of Flesh)”, of the film “Mermaid” the director Onoda Kichinosuke produces and the actions of Kichinosuke and the actress Grandren. The aquarium in the work is similar to a movie theater in that it immerses the audience in the view it presents while keeping the viewer away from the objects viewed. Just as the prince and the mermaid in “Mermaid” overcome the barrier and get united with each other, Kichinosuke, enamored of Grandren, also goes over the barrier, confuses cinema and reality, and eventually creates blue films. The novel expresses not only the visual aesthetic sensations of the cinema but also the tactile sensations of the film through the figure of the mermaid. The aquarium functions as a metaphor of the work, since it presents visions similar to those of the cinema and the physical presence of the body of the mermaid swimming in it. “Mermaid” controls the directions the plot of “Nikukai” takes, and thereby merges the desire for the visual cinematic beauty with the desire for the mermaid in the character of Kichinosuke. The novel proposes the ontology of the cinema that registers the active process in which the visual temptation of “looking” consummates itself in the joy of “the lump of flesh” that stimulates tactile sensations and the sense of smell.</p>

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