DOCSLIB.ORG

BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette Avenue), Presents Tokyo Stories: Yasujiro Ozu

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette Avenue), Presents Tokyo Stories: Yasujiro Ozu Brooklyn 30 LafayetteAvenue BAM RoseCinemas Academy BrooklynNY 11217-1486 Pressand Promotions of Telephone:718.636.4100 Molly B. Gross Music Fax:718.636.4179 718.636.4129 x3 [email protected] NewsRelease BAMcinematek Presents Tokyo Stories: Yasujiro Ozu, July 6-August 24 Seventeen film retrospective of director Yasujiro Ozu, including Tokyo Story, widely considered one of the great films of the 20th century, as well as rarely screened pre-War works. Brooklyn, May 24, 2004-From July 6-August 24 BAMcinematek, the repertory film program at BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette Avenue), presents Tokyo Stories: Yasujiro Ozu. Ozu's films are justly celebrated for their humane and precisely drawn stories of family life, as well as their subtle and innovative technical compositions. His films-rooted so specifically in Japanese landscape and custom-have had an extraordinary influence on generations of filmmakers worldwide. "If our century still had any shrines," says director Wim Wenders, "if there were any relics of the cinema, then for me it would have to be the corpus of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu." Tokyo Stories:Yasujiro Ozu presents seventeen of the director's thirty-six extant works. The series begins on July 6 with The Only Son (1936), Ozu's first sound film, which the Village Voice calls "a small masterpiece of haunting grace and economy." It continues on July 9 with Late Spring, the first of Ozu's seasonal films, and one of the director's personal favorites. Called "wry, affectionate, and ironic" by Ozu biographer Donald Richie, What Did the Lady Forget? (1937) is one of Ozu's early satires of the Japanese middle class, and shows July 13. The seasonal films continue July 16 with Early Summer, of which Ozu says, "I was interested in getting much deeper than just the story itself: I wanted to depict the cycles oflife, the transience oflife." Also showing are Equinox Flower (1958) which screens on August 13, and which the New York Times calls "gentle and amused in the way that it acknowledges time's passage, the changing of values, and the adjustments that have to be made between generations," and Late Autumn (1960), showing August 19, which the New Republic calls "exquisite and not to be missed." More highlights of the series include Ozu's other personal favorites, There Was a Father (1942), which shows on July 27, and Tokyo Story (1953), which screens August 8. The more ... BAMRose Cinemas Films of Yasujiro Ozu, 2 New Yorker calls Tokyo Story "one of the manifest miracles of cinema," and it is regularly included on critics' best-oflists, including polls by the Village Voice and Sight and Sound. The series concludes on August 24 with An Autumn Afternoon (1962), the great director's final film. The complete schedule for Tokyo Stories: Yasujiro Ozu follows. BAM Rose Cinemas "offers one of the most civilized movie-going experiences in the city," according to The New York Times. General admission tickets to BAM Rose Cinemas are $10. Tickets are $7 for students 25 and under (with valid I.D. Monday-Thursday, except holidays), seniors, and children under twelve, and $6 for BAM Cinema Club members. Tickets are available at the BAM Rose Cinemas box office, by phone at 718.777.FILM (order by "name of movie" option), or online at www.bam.org. A dinner and movie package on Friday and Saturday nights at BAMcafe is available for only $31 (at the box office only). For more information, call the BAMcinematekhotline at 718.636.4100 or visit www.bam.org. About Yasujiro Ozu The British Film Institute calls Yasujiro Ozu, "one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century in any medium and in any country." Ozu was born in 1903, the son of a distant father who worked as a fertilizer salesman in Tokyo, while he and his brothers attended school in the Japanese countryside. Ozu was a failure as a student, more interested in drinking, fighting, and skipping exams to watch movies than in attending classes. By his early twenties, he had managed to acquire and quickly lose a teaching post in the country. Knowing of his nephew's love of cinema, his uncle introduced him to the manager of Shochiku Studios, Teihiro Tsutsumi. Considered a disreputable industry at the time, Ozu thrived as an assistant cameraman in spite of his father's protests at his new career. But even here, Ozu's mischievous nature was visible, and he rebelled at the suggestion that he could advance beyond his duties carrying and lifting cameras and equipment. "As an assistant I could drink all I wanted and spend my time talking," said Ozu. "As a director, I'd have to stay up all night working on continuity. Still, my friends told me to go ahead and give it a try." Proving his friends correct, Ozu moved from assistant cameraman, to assistant director, to director of his first feature in a year. One of the many works ofOzu's now lost, The Sword of Penitence (1927) was the director's first film and his only period piece. "I formulated my own directing style in my own head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others," said Ozu. "For me there was no such thing as a teacher. I have relied entirely on my own strength." Initially, this meant a gradual development toward spirited satires and class-based dramas in the 1930s, films which were at times akin to the contemporaneous work of French director Jean Vigo in their balancing of slapstick and darkness-and in their beautiful portrayals of childhood. Ozu found humor and dignity in the lives of Depression-era Japanese, and his shomin-geki ("drama about people like you and me") are in many ways precursors to the Italian neorealism of the post-War period. Ozu directed only two films during the Second World War, Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941) and There Was a Father (1942). After six months in a British POW camp following the Japanese surrender, Ozu returned to Tokyo and began making films in a radically changed Japan. Ozu's films following the war are notable for several things. He began to pare down the composition of shots and editing so that they appear as finely measured orchestrations of restraint, with the camera never higher than the level of a person seated on a tatami mat, and with a minimum of camera movement and cross-cutting. He also began to focus even more extensively on the structure of the Japanese family. And the importance of time is emphasized by his long series of seasonal films, which are notable for their attentiveness to environment and subtly played character. Ozu's films from this time rework themes (and often are remakes of his earlier pictures). The director proceeded at his own pace, not making a color film until 1958 (Equinox Flower), just as he had not made a talking film until nine years after the advent of sound. Yasujiro Ozu died on his birthday in 1963. His grave is marked with the Chinese character for mu, which translates as "nothingness." more... 4. Films of Yasujiro Ozu, 3 TokyoStories: Yasuiiro Ozu schedule All the films are in Japanese with English subtitles, and all are directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Tuesday, July 6 at 4:30, 6:45, 9pm The Only Son (Hitori Musuko) (1936), 83 min With Chishu Ryu and Choko Iida A country woman saves for years to send her son to college in Tokyo, but her visit to him in the city brings a great disappointment. Ozu made the transition from silent to sound very late, as this 1936 effort was his first all­ sound film. Surprising then, is his mastery of the fonn, contrasting the simple sounds of the Japanese countryside with the overbearing industrial sounds of Tokyo life, to create one of his most emotional films. Friday, July 9 at 2, 4:30, 6:45, 9pm Late Spring (Banshun) (1949), 108 min With Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara One of Ozu's masterpieces (and one of his own personal favorites), the film centers on a widowed man who is concerned that his daughter is throwing her life away by caring for him. Full of bittersweet performances, the film is a searing character study, with wonderful performances from the two leads. Late Spring also marks Chishu Ryu's first major role for Ozu; he would go on to star in most of Ozu's late-period masterworks. Tuesday, July 13 at 4:30, 6:45, 9pm What Did the Lady Forget? (Shukujo wa Nani o Wasuretaka) (1937), 71 min With Sumiko Kurishima and Tatsuo Saito Borrowing from the social satires ofLubitsch and Renoir, this comedy of manners is an affectionate critique of suburban bourgeois Japanese mores. A well-to-do professor and his wife look after their visiting niece, a "modem girl" from Osaka, who throws their lives into turmoil, and exposes their hypocrisy. Friday, July 16 at 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm Early Summer (Bakushu) (1951), 125 min With Setsuko Kara and Chishu Ryu Setsuko Hara is an unmarried modem girl, but her family is determined to find her a husband. Just when they have found a suitable candidate, she startles them by choosing someone else, and the disintegration of the family begins. Ozu continued his exploration of what he termed ''unfilled space" in the film with Early Spring, a movie that takes his deceptively simple style to new areas, lingering on moments other would ignore. Tuesday, July 20 at 4:30, 6:45, 9pm Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (Toda-keno Kyodai) (1941), 102 min With Hideo Fujino and Shin Saburi Ozu's first film after a four-year inscription in the army, it has been seen both as a propaganda to upholding the patriarchy as well as a critique of filial duty and the upper class.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Human Voice and the Silent Cinema. PUB DATE Apr 75 NOTE 23P.; Paper Presented at the Society Tor Cinema Studies Conference (New York City, April 1975)
    i t i DOCUMENT RESUME ED 105 527 CS 501 036 AUTHOR Berg, Charles M. TITLE The Human Voice and the Silent Cinema. PUB DATE Apr 75 NOTE 23p.; Paper presented at the Society tor Cinema Studies Conference (New York City, April 1975) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.76 HC-$1.58 PLUS POSTAGE DESCRIPTORS *Audiovisual Communication; Communication (Thought Transfer); *Films; *Film Study; Higher Education; *History; *Sound Films; Visual Literacy ABSTRACT This paper traces the history of motion pictures from Thomas Edison's vision in 1887 of an instrument that recorded body movements to the development cf synchronized sound-motion films in the late 1920s. The first synchronized sound film was made and demonstrated by W. K. L. Dickson, an assistant to Edison, in 1889. The popular acceptance of silent films and their contents is traced. through the development of film narrative and the use of music in the early 1900s. The silent era is labeled as a consequence of technological and economic chance and this chance is made to account for the accelerated development of the medium's visual communicative capacities. The thirty year time lapse between the development of film and the -e of live human voices can therefore be regarded as the critical stimuli which pushed the motion picture into becoming an essentially visual medium in which the audial channel is subordinate to and supportive of the visual channel. The time lapse also aided the motion picture to become a medium of artistic potential and significance. (RB) U SOEPARTME NT OF HEALTH. COUCATION I. WELFARE e NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF 4 EOUCATION D, - 1'HA.
    [Show full text]
  • A Sound Selection
    Alexander Horwath A Sound Selection Film Curatorship, Canonization, and a Film Program I am aware that the sort of wordplay represented by the title of this two-part program only works in English. Nevertheless, I would like to hope that even for non-English readers more than one wave of meaning will spill back and forth between the title and the films I have selected. The act of looking at and listening to these works will be the sounding board for what I have in mind. For one thing, the title not only relates to the films I have chosen, but also to the mission I’ve been given as a participant in this year’s Film Mutations festival: to contribute in a more general manner to a discussion about the ethics, aesthetics and politics of (film) curatorship. Considering how rarely curators have to justify or legitimate their choices (compared to other professions such as doctors, judges, politicians – or artists), one might ask by which standards a sound selection should be measured. To list only a few equivalents for the adjective sound : When is a selection of films ever “proper” or “solid” or “healthy” or “substantiated” or, of all things, “curative”? As far as I’m concerned, taking language seriously (including, of course, its playful uses) is the first step towards taking film and film curatorship seriously as well (including their playful uses). I have therefore tried to make a solid, substantiated and curative selection. One of several issues in the (still relatively small) field of film curatorial studies is the question of the combined program – that “feature-length” entity which consists of several “short” films.
    [Show full text]
  • Space and Narrative in the Films of Ozu1 Kristin
    Space and Narrative in the Films of Ozu1 Kristin Thompson David Bordwell Downloaded from The surviving films of Ozu Yasujiro, being only gradually introduced to Western audiences, are already Un'" comfortably assimilated as screen.oxfordjournals.org noble, conservative works. Young j _.ese directors seem to con- sider Ozu's films old-fashioned, while English-language critics' praise their ' beautiful' stories of traditional Japanese family situations. Yet Ozu's films can most productively be read as modernist, inno- vative works. Because no rigorous critical analysis has been per- at Serials Department on May 3, 2011 formed upon Ozu's films (in English), we propose to make a first step by using a method adapted from Russian Formalist poetics. In ' On Literary Evolution ', Tynyanov writes, ' A work is correlated with a particular literary system depending on its deviation, its " difference " as compared with the literary system with which it is confronted ' (L Matejka and K Pomorska, eds: Readings in Russian Poetics, Cambridge, Mass 1971, p 72). In this article we shall situate Ozu's work against a paradigm of ' classical Hollywood cinema'. We have chosen to utilise the paradigm for several reasons: the entity it names coincides intuitively with our familiar sense of what' a film ' is; the paradigm has been explicitly codified by many of its practitioners (eg the host of ' rule-books ' on ' technique'); and the style of the paradigm has, historically, become a pervasive ' ordinary usage ' of the cinema. A background set consisting of this paradigm throws into relief certain stylistic alternatives present in Ozu's films. Though we plan in subsequent 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Sync Sound and Indian Cinema | Upperstall.Com 29/02/12 2:30 PM
    Sync Sound and Indian Cinema | Upperstall.Com 29/02/12 2:30 PM Open Feedback Dialog About : Wallpapers Newsletter Sign Up 8226 films, 13750 profiles, and counting FOLLOW US ON RECENT Sync Sound and Indian Cinema Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya The lead pair of the film, in their real life, went in the The recent success of the film Lagaan has brought the question of Sync Sound to the fore. Sync Sound or Synchronous opposite direction as Sound, as the name suggests, is a highly precise and skilled recording technique in which the artist's original dialogues compared to the pair of the are used and eliminates the tedious process of 'dubbing' over these dialogues at the Post-Production Stage. The very first film this f... Indian talkie Alam Ara (1931) saw the very first use of Sync Feature Jodi Breakers Sound film in India. Since then Indian films were regularly shot I'd be willing to bet Sajid Khan's modest personality and in Sync Sound till the 60's with the silent Mitchell Camera, until cinematic sense on the fact the arrival of the Arri 2C, a noisy but more practical camera that the makers of this 'new particularly for outdoor shoots. The 1960s were the age of age B... Colour, Kashmir, Bouffants, Shammi Kapoor and Sadhana Ekk Deewana Tha and most films were shot outdoors against the scenic beauty As I write this, I learn that there are TWO versions of this of Kashmir and other Hill Stations. It made sense to shoot with film releasing on Friday.
    [Show full text]
  • 10700990.Pdf
    The Dolby era: Sound in Hollywood cinema 1970-1995. SERGI, Gianluca. Available from the Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/20344/ A Sheffield Hallam University thesis This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Please visit http://shura.shu.ac.uk/20344/ and http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html for further details about copyright and re-use permissions. Sheffield Hallam University jj Learning and IT Services j O U x r- U u II I Adsetts Centre City Campus j Sheffield Hallam 1 Sheffield si-iwe Author: ‘3£fsC j> / j Title: ^ D o ltiu £ r a ' o UJTvd 4 c\ ^ £5ori CuCN^YTNCa IQ IO - Degree: p p / D - Year: Q^OO2- Copyright Declaration I recognise that the copyright in this thesis belongs to the author. I undertake not to publish either the whole or any part of it, or make a copy of the whole or any substantial part of it, without the consent of the author. I also undertake not to quote or make use of any information from this thesis without making acknowledgement to the author. Readers consulting this thesis are required to sign their name below to show they recognise the copyright declaration. They are also required to give their permanent address and date.
    [Show full text]
  • Masaki Kobayashi: HARAKIRI (1962, 133M) the Version of This Goldenrod Handout Sent out in Our Monday Mailing, and the One Online, Has Hot Links
    October 8, 2019 (XXXIX: 7) Masaki Kobayashi: HARAKIRI (1962, 133m) The version of this Goldenrod Handout sent out in our Monday mailing, and the one online, has hot links. Spelling and Style—use of italics, quotation marks or nothing at all for titles, e.g.—follows the form of the sources. DIRECTOR Masaki Kobayashi WRITING Shinobu Hashimoto wrote the screenplay from a novel by Yasuhiko Takiguchi. PRODUCER Tatsuo Hosoya MUSIC Tôru Takemitsu CINEMATOGRAPHY Yoshio Miyajima EDITING Hisashi Sagara The film was the winter of the Jury Special Prize and nominated for the Palm d’Or at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. CAST Tatsuya Nakadai...Tsugumo Hanshirō (1979), Tokyo Trial* (Documentary) (1983), and Rentarō Mikuni...Saitō Kageyu Shokutaku no nai ie* (1985). He also wrote the screenplays Akira Ishihama...Chijiiwa Motome for A Broken Drum (1949) and The Yotsuda Phantom Shima Iwashita...Tsugumo Miho (1949). Tetsurō Tamba...Omodaka Hikokuro *Also wrote Ichiro Nakatani...Yazaki Hayato Masao Mishima...Inaba Tango SHINOBU HASHIMOTO (b. April 18, 1918 in Hyogo Kei Satō...Fukushima Masakatsu Prefecture, Japan—d. July 19, 2018 (age 100) in Tokyo, Yoshio Inaba...Chijiiwa Jinai Japan) was a Japanese screenwriter (71 credits). A frequent Yoshiro Aoki...Kawabe Umenosuke collaborator of Akira Kurosawa, he wrote the scripts for such internationally acclaimed films as Rashomon (1950) MASAKI KOBAYASHI (b. February 14, 1916 in and Seven Samurai (1954). These are some of the other Hokkaido, Japan—d. October 4, 1996 (age 80) in Tokyo, films he wrote for: Ikiru (1952),
    [Show full text]
  • “We'll Embrace One Another and Go On, All Right?” Everyday Life in Ozu
    “We’ll embrace one another and go on, all right?” Everyday life in Ozu Yasujirô’s post-war films 1947-1949. University of Turku Faculty of Humanities Cultural History Master’s thesis Topi E. Timonen 17.5.2019 The originality of this thesis has been checked in accordance with the University of Turku quality assurance system using the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service. UNIVERSITY OF TURKU School of History, Culture and Arts Studies Faculty of Humanities TIMONEN, TOPI E.: “We’ll embrace one another and go on, all right?” Everyday life in Ozu Yasujirô’s post-war films 1947-1949. Master’s thesis, 84 pages. Appendix, 2 pages. Cultural history May 2019 Summary The subject of my master’s thesis is the depiction of everyday life in the post-war films of Japanese filmmaker Ozu Yasujirô (1903-1963). My primary sources are his three first post- war films: Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Nagaya shinshiroku, 1947), A Hen in the Wind (Kaze no naka no mendori, 1948) and Late Spring (Banshun, 1949). Ozu’s aim in his filmmaking was to depict the Japanese people, their society and their lives in a realistic fashion. My thesis offers a close reading of these films that focuses on the themes that are central in their everyday depiction. These themes include gender roles, poverty, children, nostalgia for the pre-war years, marital equality and the concept of arranged marriage, parenthood, and cultural juxtaposition between Japanese and American influences. The films were made under American censorship and I reflect upon this context while examining the presentation of the themes.
    [Show full text]
  • Cinefiles Document #37926
    Document Citation Title Yasujiro Ozu: filmmaker for all seasons Author(s) Source Pacific Film Archive Date 2003 Nov 23 Type program note Language English Pagination No. of Pages 10 Subjects Ozu, Yasujiro (1903-1963), Tokyo, Japan Film Subjects Hitori musuko (The only son), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1936 Shukujo wa nani o wasureta ka (What did the lady forget?), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1937 Todake no kyodai (The brothers and sisters of the Toda family), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1941 Chichi ariki (There was a father), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1942 Nagaya shinshiroku (The record of a tenement gentleman), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1947 Ohayo (Good morning), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1959 Tokyo no yado (An inn at Tokyo), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1935 Hogaraka ni ayume (Walk cheerfully), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1930 Tokyo monogatari (Tokyo story), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1953 WARNING: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code) Dekigokoro (Passing fancy), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1933 Shukujo to hige (The lady and the beard), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1931 Wakaki hi (Days of youth), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1929 Sono yo no tsuma (That night's wife), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1930 Kohayagawa-ke no aki (The end of summer), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1961 Rakudai wa shita keredo (I flunked, but...), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1930 Tokyo no gassho (Tokyo chorus), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1931 Banshun (Late spring), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1949 Seishun no yume ima izuko (Where now are the dreams of youth?), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1932 Munekata shimai (The Munekata sisters), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1950 Hijosen no onna (Dragnet girl), Ozu, Yasujiro, 1933 Ochazuke no aji (The flavor of green tea over rice), Ozu,
    [Show full text]
  • KUROSAWA Player.Bfi.Org.Uk
    OVER 100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA Watch now on PART 1: KUROSAWA player.bfi.org.uk Watch now on 1 @BFI #BFIJapan OVER 100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA We have long carried a torch for Japanese film here at the BFI. IN PARTNERSHIP WITH Since the first BFI London Film Festival opened with Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood in 1957, we’ve played a vital role in bringing the cinema of this culturally rich nation to UK audiences through our festivals, seasons, theatrical distribution, books and video publishing. In this major season we spotlight filmmakers who have inspired admiration and With special thanks to: fascination around the world. We begin our story with Akira Kurosawa, and over the coming months we’ll present films from the Golden Age, a focus on Yasujiro Ozu, new wave rebels, the visionary creations of anime, the netherworlds of J-horror, and so much more from archive rarities to contemporary works and cult classics. This landmark season will take place on BFI Player from 11 May onwards, With the kind support of: with new online collections released each month, and we expect to present it Janus Films/The Criterion Collection, Kadokawa Corporation, at BFI Southbank and cinemas nationwide later this year. Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, Kokusai Hoei Co., Ltd, The Japanese Cinema Book, published by BFI & Bloomsbury to coincide Nikkatsu Corporation, Toei Co., Ltd with the season, is out now. Cover artwork: TOKYO STORY ©1953/2011 Shochiku Co., Ltd., OUTRAGE 2010 Courtesy of STUDIOCANAL, AUDITION 1999 © Arrow Films, HARAKIRI ©1962 Shochiku Co., Ltd. Watch now on 2 @BFI #BFIJapan PART 1: KUROSAWA WATCH ON NOW This retrospective collection on BFI Player helps to confirm Kurosawa’s status as one of the small handful of Japanese directors who truly belong to world cinema, writes Alexander Jacoby If Yasujiro Ozu is often called ‘the most Japanese of Japanese directors’, then one could almost identify Akira Kurosawa as the least Japanese of Japanese directors.
    [Show full text]
  • National Gallery of Art Spring 2012 Film Program
    FILM SPRING 2012 National Gallery of Art 9 Art Films and Events 16 Japanese Divas 24 American Originals Now: Ernie Gehr 27 Michael Cacoyannis 31 The Tales of Jan Švankmajer 34 Bill Morrison: Recent Work The Miners’ Hymns p. 34 National Gallery of Art cover: Hanezu p. 9 Films are screened in the Gallery’s East Building Audito- The spring film season brings key restorations, new works, rium, Fourth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Works and special guests in a celebration of the art of the moving are presented in original formats and seating is on a image. Japanese Divas spotlights thirteen feature films, first-come, first-seated basis. Doors open thirty minutes primarily from the 1950s, by auteurs such as Yasujiro Ozu, before each show and programs are subject to change. Kenji Mizoguchi, and Akira Kurosawa, who collaborated For more information, visit www.nga.gov/programs/film, with major acting talents like Setsuko Hara, Machiko Kyo, e-mail [email protected], or call (202) 842-6799. Hideko Takamine, Kinuyo Tanaka, and Isuzu Yamada to develop some of the most revered films of the twentieth century. The spectacular world of Joan Miró is explored through a program of short nonfiction profiles of the artist by his friend, famed Catalan director Pere Portabella. The Gallery welcomes back renowned pianist Dennis James in a program of American silents, as well as conductor Gillian B. Anderson, who leads a performance of original scores developed for shorts by Segundo de Chomón. Other pro- grams present the work of legendary Czech animator Jan Švankmajer, two titles by the late Greek director Michael Cacoyannis, three programs of recent shorts by contem- porary American director Bill Morrison, and a weekend of films and videos by the deeply influential avant-garde filmmaker Ernie Gehr, who will appear in person.
    [Show full text]
  • Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari, Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) Discussion Points 1
    FAC@JGC John Gray Centre Star Room April 2016 Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari, Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) Discussion Points 1. Think about what is at the core (theme) of the story? 2. How does Ozu depict family dynamics in this film – specifically the bond between parents and children? 3. How do you respond to the slow pace of the film? 4. What is your opinion on the portrayal of women in the narrative? 5. What do you think is the effect of presenting: (a) frames in which the camera is right between the two people conversing and films each person directly? (b) so-called tatami shots (the camera is placed as if it were a person kneeling on a tatami mat)? 1 Dr Hanita Ritchie Twitter: @CineFem FAC@JGC John Gray Centre Star Room April 2016 6. How does Ozu present the progression of time in the story? 7. Think about the following translated dialogue between Kyoko, the youngest daughter in the family, and Noriko, the widowed daughter-in-law, after Mrs Hirayama’s death. How would you interpret it in terms of the story as a whole? K: “I think they should have stayed a bit longer.” N: “But they’re busy.” K: “They’re selfish. Demanding things and leaving like this.” N: “They have their own affairs.” K: “You have yours too. They’re selfish. Wanting her clothes right after her death. I felt so sorry for poor mother. Even strangers would have been more considerate.” N: “But look Kyoko. At your age I thought so too. But children do drift away from their parents.
    [Show full text]
  • Film Noir in Postwar Japan Imogen Sara Smith
    FILM NOIR IN POSTWAR JAPAN Imogen Sara Smith uined buildings and neon signs are reflected in the dark, oily surface of a stagnant pond. Noxious bubbles rise to the surface of the water, which holds the drowned corpses of a bicycle, a straw sandal, and a child’s doll. In Akira Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel (1948), this fetid swamp is the center of a disheveled, yakuza-infested Tokyo neighborhood and a symbol of the sickness rotting the soul of postwar Japan. It breeds mosquitos, typhus, and tuberculosis. Around its edges, people mourn their losses, patch their wounds, drown their sorrows, and wrestle with what they have been, what they are, what they want to be. Things looked black for Japan in the aftermath of World War II. Black markets sprang up, as they did in every war-damaged country. Radioactive “black rain” fell after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Black Spring was the title of a 1953 publication that cited Japanese women’s accounts of rape by Occupation forces. In “Early Japanese Noir” (2014), Homer B. Pettey wrote that in Japanese language and culture, “absence, failure, or being wrong is typified by blackness, as it also indicates the Japanese cultural abhorrence for imperfection or defilement, as in dirt, filth, smut, or being charred.” In films about postwar malaise like Drunken Angel, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Women of the Night (1948), and Masaki Kobayashi’s Black River (1957), filth is everywhere: pestilent cesspools, burnt-out rubble, grungy alleys, garbage-strewn lots, sleazy pleasure districts, squalid shacks, and all the human misery and depravity that go along with these settings.
    [Show full text]