A few more thoughts; not long back i saw a trailer for The New World, with a brief glimpse of s cene that immediately struck me as reminiscent of Anju going into the water in Sansho the Bailiff. Then i remembered Terrence Malick is a great fan of the film, in fact has directed a stage version- no doubt a homage, then.

One thing i'd hoped a bit more of from Le Fanu's book was on Japanese art, woodblock prints etc, visual connections with Mizo's work, cos i'm interested in trying to spot similarities. Harunobu (1725-70) has some fine diagonal compositions, Mizo a master of extremely (+ more) complex diagonals- incredible how his camera can smoothly lead from one beautiful deep arrangement to another (eg The Loyal 47 Ronin, among others). And the question of vanishing point v relaxed wandering eye of oriental art can be related to Western editing/close-ups v longer takes, more distant shots perhaps. Anyway, i love the delicacy of Hiroshige (19th century) prints, eg his series 100 famous views of Edo. Some striking foreground elements/framing devices in his work at times, i think may be worth linking to Mizo, eg 30's films like Sisters of the Gion covered by Bordwell in his book. Both are subtle masters. Might Hokusai's generally more dynamic, imposing compositions relate better to say Kurosawa's style? Or just shallow, fanciful thinking on my part? I'd like some expert input on this subject.