![Image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMzBmZjQxZTQtMDZiNC00YjYxLTg0ODUtYzg1MzU0M2VjZDFkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg)
It’s been a four-year long wait, but Ari Aster has finally made his return. The director’s third film “Beau is Afraid” journeyed into theaters April 14, bringing surrealist comedy to audiences through the auteur’s famously punishing perspective. The film, which is as loved as it is disliked by critics and audiences, stars Joaquin Phoenix as the title character: a repressed man making a grueling odyssey back home to see his mother.
The film’s title and premise comes from Aster’s 2011 short film “Beau.” One of several shorts he made as a student at the American Film Institute Conservatory — the most infamous being the viral incest drama, “The Strange Thing About the Johnsons” — the original “Beau” was a much smaller production than the director’s latest, focusing on the title character (played by the late Billy Mayo) as he’s locked in his apartment following the disappearance of his keys.
The film’s title and premise comes from Aster’s 2011 short film “Beau.” One of several shorts he made as a student at the American Film Institute Conservatory — the most infamous being the viral incest drama, “The Strange Thing About the Johnsons” — the original “Beau” was a much smaller production than the director’s latest, focusing on the title character (played by the late Billy Mayo) as he’s locked in his apartment following the disappearance of his keys.
- 4/28/2023
- by Alison Foreman, Christian Zilko and Wilson Chapman
- Indiewire
![Image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOWVmZjE1YzYtZDViZS00YmQ4LWI2MzAtZWM5YzkzOWMyNTVmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UY140_CR76,0,140,140_.jpg)
![Image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOWVmZjE1YzYtZDViZS00YmQ4LWI2MzAtZWM5YzkzOWMyNTVmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UY140_CR76,0,140,140_.jpg)
The world of Japanese cinema is one of the most acclaimed and beloved. This video examines many of the classics, the most essential films ever made in Japan or by Japanese filmmakers. Why is the appreciation of Japanese cinema so enduring? "Narrator Luiza Liz Bond emphasized the 'heightened aesthetic sensibility' of Japanese filmmakers, on display in 'the tender observation of Ozu's Tokyo Story, the poetic rhapsody of Kurosawa's Dreams, the harrowing feminine gaze of Videophobia." The video essay is split into different chapters covering different styles of films: Bushidō, Wabi-Sabi, Mono No Aware, Yūgen, Guro, and Hen. Many all-timer films are featured including The Sword of Doom, Seven Samurai, Hausu, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Tampopo, Love Exposure, Sansho the Bailiff, Tokyo Sonata + many more. Discover films below. // Continue Reading ›...
- 3/31/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
![Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho (1960)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNGJkNmE4MjMtNGIzNC00NTVjLWJkNDItZTE5NTI2YmZiZDg5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTEyMjM2NDc2._V1_QL75_UY207_CR12,0,140,207_.jpg)
![Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho (1960)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNGJkNmE4MjMtNGIzNC00NTVjLWJkNDItZTE5NTI2YmZiZDg5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTEyMjM2NDc2._V1_QL75_UY207_CR12,0,140,207_.jpg)
While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
- 3/5/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
![Image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYmJlM2I4ZjUtY2NlOC00NzZmLWI1YTgtMWI0NGJjNzA5ZDE2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UY281_CR36,0,500,281_.jpg)
After her directorial debut “Love Letter” in 1953, Kinuyo Tanaka had received some international recognition, with the feature being a contestant at Cannes Film Festival in 1954. It also marked the end of her working relationship with director Kenji Mizoguchi, with whom she had collaborated on “Oharu” and “Sansho the Bailiff”, which cemented her reputation as one of the leading ladies of Japanese cinema. However, while the famous filmmaker was against this next step in her career, the experience of her first directorial effort encouraged her to continue working behind the camera as well. Her next project would be “The Moon Has Risen”, a family drama/ light comedy, which was co-written by Yasujiro Ozu, who originally had planned to direct it himself. While Ozu’s signature themes are still quite obvious, Tanaka proved her growth as a visual storyteller, making her sophomore feature a remarkable development in her career.
“The Moon Has...
“The Moon Has...
- 8/10/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
![Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa, and Kinuyo Tanaka in Sansho the Bailiff (1954)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZGU0YmFmMGEtYjVmZi00N2UxLTkxOWMtMzRjZDFhZDQyYzBhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTIyNzY1NzM@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR2,0,140,207_.jpg)
![Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa, and Kinuyo Tanaka in Sansho the Bailiff (1954)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZGU0YmFmMGEtYjVmZi00N2UxLTkxOWMtMzRjZDFhZDQyYzBhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTIyNzY1NzM@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR2,0,140,207_.jpg)
Shinji Somai’s crying out for a re-release 1993 work “Ohikkoshi” is masterful in its simplicity. An oft-told tale of a pre-teen, Renko, struggling to come to terms with her parents’ separation, Somai creates one of the most realistic and powerful coming-of-age dramas; and one of Japan’s best films on the 90s.
Somai’s development of Renko shows real empathy and brilliant character development, starting off with denial, developing into fear, rage and isolation. Depicting the breakdown of the family unit into individuals, the natural pacing throughout culminates in one of the best – and most heart-breaking – closing passages in modern cinema. In remembering her past, Renko sees her present state and what it means for her future in a powerful scene where young Tomoko Tabata shines, reminiscent of Mizoguchi’s “Sansho the Bailiff”. But not content with the finale alone, Somai uses the end credits to address the change in...
Somai’s development of Renko shows real empathy and brilliant character development, starting off with denial, developing into fear, rage and isolation. Depicting the breakdown of the family unit into individuals, the natural pacing throughout culminates in one of the best – and most heart-breaking – closing passages in modern cinema. In remembering her past, Renko sees her present state and what it means for her future in a powerful scene where young Tomoko Tabata shines, reminiscent of Mizoguchi’s “Sansho the Bailiff”. But not content with the finale alone, Somai uses the end credits to address the change in...
- 5/1/2022
- by Andrew Thayne
- AsianMoviePulse
![Image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNGY0MDE0ZGQtZmZkNi00YzUzLWIxMGUtZGMyZGJhZmEzODY2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UY281_CR120,0,500,281_.jpg)
After a successful career as an actress, starring in such features like “Oharu”. “Ugetsu” and “Sansho the Bailiff”, perhaps Kinuyo Tanaka thought she would receive support from Kenji Mizoguchi, the director whose work she had been a part of for so many years. However, when a recommendation from the Director’s Guild came to hire her as a director, Mizoguchi was against it, marking the end of their collaboration, and the start of a new part in Tanaka’s career, which would begin with her debut “Love Letter” entering the competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1954. Within the context of Japan’s post-war cinema, the story of two lovers who became separated during the war is quite special, telling a story from a perspective which is rarely seen, even nowadays.
“Love Letter” is screening at the 11th Sdaff Spring Showcase
At the beginning of the feature, we meet Reikichi...
“Love Letter” is screening at the 11th Sdaff Spring Showcase
At the beginning of the feature, we meet Reikichi...
- 4/21/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
![Image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMmExM2IyMGEtY2JhYi00ZmQxLTg4NmItYzFkYzBjZDkxYWY4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,24,500,281_.jpg)
Kinuyo Tanaka on the set of The Moon Has Risen (1955) Directed between 1953 and 1962, six newly restored features by Kinuyo Tanaka are the subject of a historic retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Tanaka was already a preeminent actress of international renown when she turned to directing, a decision that made her Japan’s second female filmmaker and the only woman making pictures during the nation’s postwar era. Tanaka’s relationship with major studios ensured that her directorial works would be mainstream productions with high-profile talent and skilled crews. As Irene González-López and Michael Smith state in Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity, the first English-language book on Tanaka: “Only a few others, including the actress Ida Lupino (1918–95) in America and Jacqueline Audry (1908–77) in France, worked in commercial cinema.” The retrospective, however, calls for a reappraisal of her filmmaking career as much more than the sum of these important but gendered accomplishments,...
- 3/18/2022
- MUBI
![Akira Kurosawa circa 1950s](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjE3ODQwNTY2Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTI5ODM1Mw@@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR4,0,140,207_.jpg)
![Akira Kurosawa circa 1950s](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjE3ODQwNTY2Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTI5ODM1Mw@@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR4,0,140,207_.jpg)
Already the sixth entry in the series in three years (and the first of four in 1964), one would wonder if “Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold” would have anything new to offer to the series but right from the credits at the very start, director Kazuo Ikehara has a resounding “hell yes, it does” for you!
On his way back from paying his respects at the grave of a man he regrets killing in a fight from a previous chapter, Zatoichi meets the villagers of the deceased’s village Itakura who are in the midst of a celebration. They are rejoicing the fact that after a long period of hardships, they have finally been able to gather the one thousand ryo to pay their taxes to the local magistrate. However, on the way to the magistrate, the entourage with the chest containing the tax money is pounced upon by three samurais,...
On his way back from paying his respects at the grave of a man he regrets killing in a fight from a previous chapter, Zatoichi meets the villagers of the deceased’s village Itakura who are in the midst of a celebration. They are rejoicing the fact that after a long period of hardships, they have finally been able to gather the one thousand ryo to pay their taxes to the local magistrate. However, on the way to the magistrate, the entourage with the chest containing the tax money is pounced upon by three samurais,...
- 3/27/2020
- by Rhythm Zaveri
- AsianMoviePulse
With Carlos Reygadas‘ admirably bold, intimate new drama Our Time now in theaters and his first three films now streaming on The Criterion Channel (along with a recent extensive conversation), it’s thankfully easier than ever to catch up on the poetic works of the Mexican director. To celebrate, today we’re taking a look at his favorite films of all-time.
As voted on in the latest Sight & Sound poll, the influences of the ten selections can be seen throughout this work, most notably in the spiritual ruminations of Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman, the non-professional acting collaborations of Robert Bresson, as well as the striking patience of Béla Tarr. Speaking to one selection, Aleksandr Sokurov’s Mother and Son, Reygadas has said it would be the one film he’d show an alien if they came to our planet. Surprisingly, however, for those who have seen Silent Light, there is no Ordet.
As voted on in the latest Sight & Sound poll, the influences of the ten selections can be seen throughout this work, most notably in the spiritual ruminations of Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman, the non-professional acting collaborations of Robert Bresson, as well as the striking patience of Béla Tarr. Speaking to one selection, Aleksandr Sokurov’s Mother and Son, Reygadas has said it would be the one film he’d show an alien if they came to our planet. Surprisingly, however, for those who have seen Silent Light, there is no Ordet.
- 6/25/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
A Story From Chikamatsu is one of Japanese master Kenji Mizoguchi's more well-known films, along with Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff, and The Life of Oharu. This 1954 film also goes by The Crucified Lovers here in North America, which refers to an early scene in the film, in which adulterers are tied up on horses and paraded through town in shame on the way to their execution. Yes, they are crucified. Seems a little extreme of a punishment for the crime, but this is ancient Japan and there was a strict code of ethics to uphold, no matter how dubiously one could twist the "facts" or the "law." That means that certain citizens were either above the law or a lot higher up on the ladder when...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 1/8/2019
- Screen Anarchy
In celebration of the 110th anniversary of his birth, Japan Society presents an 11-film retrospective surveying the work of Kazuo Miyagawa (1908-1999), the most influential cinematographer of postwar Japanese cinema. Working intimately with directors like Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Kon Ichikawa on some of their most important films, Miyagawa pushed Japanese cinema to its highest artistic peaks through his lyrical, innovative and technically flawless camerawork. This career-spanning selection displays his great versatility, including major masterpieces and rarely shown titles, screening in 35mm and new digital restorations.
Co-organizer The Museum of Modern Art will host repeat screenings and additional Miyagawa retrospective titles from April 12-29. Preceding the retrospective, new 4K restorations of Mizoguchi’s A Story From Chikamatsu and Sansho the Bailiff, both shot by Miyagawa, will run at Film Forum from April 6-12.
For further information, you can visit the official webpage of Japan Society
“If ever...
Co-organizer The Museum of Modern Art will host repeat screenings and additional Miyagawa retrospective titles from April 12-29. Preceding the retrospective, new 4K restorations of Mizoguchi’s A Story From Chikamatsu and Sansho the Bailiff, both shot by Miyagawa, will run at Film Forum from April 6-12.
For further information, you can visit the official webpage of Japan Society
“If ever...
- 3/7/2018
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
![Andrei Tarkovsky](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTk3NDU2MjQ4OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTAzMzE5MTE@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR6,0,140,207_.jpg)
![Andrei Tarkovsky](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTk3NDU2MjQ4OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTAzMzE5MTE@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR6,0,140,207_.jpg)
Selections from Andrei Tarkovsky, Agnes Varda, Hou Hsiao-hsien.
The Film Society Of Lincoln Centre has announced the line-up for the Revivals section of the New York Film Festival showcasing digitally remastered, restored, and preserved works by celebrated filmmakers.
Two filmmakers from the festival’s Main Slate line-up will also have works in the Revivals section. Agnes Varda, whose Faces Places will screen in this year’s main selection, gets a slot with her feminist musical One Sings, the Other Doesn’t that opened the 15th festival in 1977.
Philippe Garrel’s Lover For A Day will appear in the festival’s Main Slate and he has two films in Revivals: Le Revelateur from 1968 and L’Enfant Secret from 1979.
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Daughter Of The Nile screened at the 26th New York Film Festival 30 years ago and returns in Revivals, alongside Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (NYFF24, pictured) and Adolfas Mekas’ Hallelujah the Hills from the first...
The Film Society Of Lincoln Centre has announced the line-up for the Revivals section of the New York Film Festival showcasing digitally remastered, restored, and preserved works by celebrated filmmakers.
Two filmmakers from the festival’s Main Slate line-up will also have works in the Revivals section. Agnes Varda, whose Faces Places will screen in this year’s main selection, gets a slot with her feminist musical One Sings, the Other Doesn’t that opened the 15th festival in 1977.
Philippe Garrel’s Lover For A Day will appear in the festival’s Main Slate and he has two films in Revivals: Le Revelateur from 1968 and L’Enfant Secret from 1979.
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Daughter Of The Nile screened at the 26th New York Film Festival 30 years ago and returns in Revivals, alongside Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (NYFF24, pictured) and Adolfas Mekas’ Hallelujah the Hills from the first...
- 8/21/2017
- ScreenDaily
It’s a given that their Main Slate — the fresh, the recently buzzed-about, the mysterious, the anticipated — will be the New York Film Festival’s primary point of attraction for both media coverage and ticket sales. But while a rather fine lineup is, to these eyes, deserving of such treatment, the festival’s latest Revivals section — i.e. “important works from renowned filmmakers that have been digitally remastered, restored, and preserved with the assistance of generous partners,” per their press release — is in a whole other class, one titanic name after another granted a representation that these particular works have so long lacked.
The list speaks for itself, even (or especially) if you’re more likely to recognize a director than title. Included therein are films by Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Daughter of the Nile, a personal favorite), Pedro Costa (Casa de Lava; trailer here), Jean-Luc Godard (the rarely seen,...
The list speaks for itself, even (or especially) if you’re more likely to recognize a director than title. Included therein are films by Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Daughter of the Nile, a personal favorite), Pedro Costa (Casa de Lava; trailer here), Jean-Luc Godard (the rarely seen,...
- 8/21/2017
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The history of the Muriel Awards stretches aaaalllll the way back to 2006, which means that this coming season will be a special anniversary, marking 10 years of observing the annual quality and achievement of the year in film. (If you don’t know about the Muriels, you can check up on that history here.) The voting group, of which I am a proud member, having participated since Year One, has also made its personal nod to film history by always having incorporated 10, 25 and 50-year anniversary awards, saluting what is agreed upon by ballot to be the best films from those anniversaries during each annual voting process.
But more recently, in 2013, Muriels founders Paul Clark and Steven Carlson decided to expand the Muriels purview and further acknowledge the great achievements in international film by instituting The Muriels Hall of Fame. Each year a new group of films of varying number would be voted upon and,...
But more recently, in 2013, Muriels founders Paul Clark and Steven Carlson decided to expand the Muriels purview and further acknowledge the great achievements in international film by instituting The Muriels Hall of Fame. Each year a new group of films of varying number would be voted upon and,...
- 8/19/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
![Roberto Rossellini](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTc4MDE0NzEyMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzkzOTk3MTE@._V1_QL75_UX140_CR0,0,140,207_.jpg)
![Roberto Rossellini](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTc4MDE0NzEyMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzkzOTk3MTE@._V1_QL75_UX140_CR0,0,140,207_.jpg)
Any list of the greatest foreign directors currently working today has to include Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The directors first rose to prominence in the mid 1990s with efforts like “The Promise” and “Rosetta,” and they’ve continued to excel in the 21st century with titles such as “The Kid With A Bike” and “Two Days One Night,” which earned Marion Cotillard a Best Actress Oscar nomination.
Read MoreThe Dardenne Brothers’ Next Film Will Be a Terrorism Drama
The directors will be back in U.S. theaters with the release of “The Unknown Girl” on September 8, which is a long time coming considering the film first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. While you continue to wait for their new movie, the brothers have provided their definitive list of 79 movies from the 20th century that you must see. La Cinetek published the list in full and is hosting many...
Read MoreThe Dardenne Brothers’ Next Film Will Be a Terrorism Drama
The directors will be back in U.S. theaters with the release of “The Unknown Girl” on September 8, which is a long time coming considering the film first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. While you continue to wait for their new movie, the brothers have provided their definitive list of 79 movies from the 20th century that you must see. La Cinetek published the list in full and is hosting many...
- 8/7/2017
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
ZamaThe programme for the 2017 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Darren Aronofsky, Lucrecia Martel, Frederick Wiseman, Alexander Payne, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Abdellatif Kechiche, Takeshi Kitano and many more.COMPETITIONmother! (Darren Aronofsky)First Reformed (Paul Schrader)Sweet Country (Warwick Thornton)The Leisure Seeker (Paolo Virzi)Una Famiglia (Sebastiano Riso)Ex Libris - The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)Angels Wear White (Vivian Qu)The Whale (Andrea Pallaoro)Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)Foxtrot (Samuel Maoz)Ammore e malavita (Manetti Brothers)Jusqu'a la garde (Xavier Legrand)The Third Murder (Hirokazu Kore-eda)Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno (Abdellatif Kechiche)Lean on Pete (Andrew Haigh)L'insulte (Ziad Doueiri)La Villa (Robert Guediguian)The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)Suburbicon (George Clooney)Human Flow (Ai Weiwei)Downsizing (Alexander Payne)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesOur Souls at Night (Ritesh Batra)Il Signor Rotpeter (Antonietta de Lillo)Victoria...
- 7/27/2017
- MUBI
Ugetsu
Blu-ray
Criterion
1953 / B&W / 1:33 / Street Date June 6, 2017
Starring: Mitsuko Mito, Masayuki Mori, Kikue Mouri, Sakae Ozawa, Kinuyo Tanaka
Cinematography: Kazuo Miyagawa
Film Editor: Mitsuzô Miyata
Written by Matsutarô Kawaguchi, Yoshikata Yoda
Produced by Masaichi Nagata
Music: Fumio Hayasaka, Tamekichi Mochizuki, Ichirô Saitô
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
In 1941 Orson Welles was busy giving the film industry a hot foot with Citizen Kane, a bullet-train of a movie whose rhythms sprang from the ever accelerating hustle and bustle of contemporary American life. That same year one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers, Kenji Mizoguchi, was taking his sweet time with a four hour samurai epic set 240 years in the past, The 47 Ronin.
The story of a band of loyal soldiers seeking revenge on a corrupt landowner, The 47 Ronin plays out in a precisely measured, ceremonial style, its 241 minutes leading up to the moment when the fierce band of brothers...
Blu-ray
Criterion
1953 / B&W / 1:33 / Street Date June 6, 2017
Starring: Mitsuko Mito, Masayuki Mori, Kikue Mouri, Sakae Ozawa, Kinuyo Tanaka
Cinematography: Kazuo Miyagawa
Film Editor: Mitsuzô Miyata
Written by Matsutarô Kawaguchi, Yoshikata Yoda
Produced by Masaichi Nagata
Music: Fumio Hayasaka, Tamekichi Mochizuki, Ichirô Saitô
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
In 1941 Orson Welles was busy giving the film industry a hot foot with Citizen Kane, a bullet-train of a movie whose rhythms sprang from the ever accelerating hustle and bustle of contemporary American life. That same year one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers, Kenji Mizoguchi, was taking his sweet time with a four hour samurai epic set 240 years in the past, The 47 Ronin.
The story of a band of loyal soldiers seeking revenge on a corrupt landowner, The 47 Ronin plays out in a precisely measured, ceremonial style, its 241 minutes leading up to the moment when the fierce band of brothers...
- 7/1/2017
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Anytime I watch Mizoguchi’s work…really any of it, but especially from this later period of his career – which includes The Crucified Lovers, Sansho the Bailiff, The Life of Oharu, and The Woman in the Rumor – I really am put face to face with how relatively little we gladly settle for in much of the rest of cinema. It’s not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with all those other movies. Many of them I value a good deal more than I do Mizoguchi. But in Mizoguchi, as one often does in Bergman, you’re granted a rare combination of imagination, audacity, and mastery that few films even attempt and very, very, very few manage to pull off. You can too often pick apart some tonal shift, some acting choice, some extraneous scene or shot or just something that doesn’t fit. In Mizoguchi’s best work, everything fits.
- 6/29/2017
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor is joined by Scott Nye to discuss Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women.
About the films:
Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of social consciousness—two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame)—Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are forced by their conditions and culture into compromising positions. With Mizoguchi’s visual daring and eloquence, these films are as...
About the films:
Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of social consciousness—two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame)—Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are forced by their conditions and culture into compromising positions. With Mizoguchi’s visual daring and eloquence, these films are as...
- 11/4/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David is joined by Scott Nye to discuss Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women. (Trevor was unable to join in this discussion, but will be back for Part 2 of this series.)
About the films:
Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of social consciousness—two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame)—Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are forced by their conditions and culture into compromising positions.
About the films:
Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of social consciousness—two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame)—Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are forced by their conditions and culture into compromising positions.
- 10/5/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
![Dekalog (1989)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNDgzZDVmZjYtYmNhNi00YTE0LWJmNDAtODZiNWIwMjJhZDhhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjAwNDUxODI@._V1_QL75_UX140_CR0,1,140,207_.jpg)
![Dekalog (1989)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNDgzZDVmZjYtYmNhNi00YTE0LWJmNDAtODZiNWIwMjJhZDhhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjAwNDUxODI@._V1_QL75_UX140_CR0,1,140,207_.jpg)
September tends to be the time of year that movie studios start busting out the big guns, and 2016 finds the Criterion Collection following suit, as the boutique home video label will be releasing one of the most significant cinematic landmarks on which they’ve yet to put their stamp.
Krzysztof Kieślowski’s mammoth “Dekalog” makes the company’s September lineup something of a bumper crop in and of itself, but — lucky for us — it’ll be accompanied by an essential Kenji Mizoguchi classic, two ample doses of Jacqueline Susann-inspired campiness, some old school Coen brothers and much more. Check out the full release slate below, listed in rough order of our excitement for each title.
1.) “Dekalog” (dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1988), Spine #837
This would be at the very top of the list regardless of what else Criterion is releasing in September. One of the greatest achievements in all of film (though...
Krzysztof Kieślowski’s mammoth “Dekalog” makes the company’s September lineup something of a bumper crop in and of itself, but — lucky for us — it’ll be accompanied by an essential Kenji Mizoguchi classic, two ample doses of Jacqueline Susann-inspired campiness, some old school Coen brothers and much more. Check out the full release slate below, listed in rough order of our excitement for each title.
1.) “Dekalog” (dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1988), Spine #837
This would be at the very top of the list regardless of what else Criterion is releasing in September. One of the greatest achievements in all of film (though...
- 6/16/2016
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
A favourite of film buffs, this Japanese classic about a Kabuki actor finding his muse is elegant, rich and ultimately heartbreaking
New Yorkers looking to duck into a theater over Christmastime without having their Force awakened have an option whose speed couldn’t be more different from Jj Abrams’ hyperspace velocity. Director Kenji Mizoguchi is best known to wider audiences for his 1950s films Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff, but one can see glimpses of his signature style of long takes, dolly shots and an emphasis on strong women characters in his earlier, pre-war work.
Among the most celebrated is 1939’s The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums which, despite being a favourite of film buffs, is making its first official theatrical bow with a two-week engagement at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. With a stately pace and classicist intentions, this drama about an actor finding his muse is a...
New Yorkers looking to duck into a theater over Christmastime without having their Force awakened have an option whose speed couldn’t be more different from Jj Abrams’ hyperspace velocity. Director Kenji Mizoguchi is best known to wider audiences for his 1950s films Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff, but one can see glimpses of his signature style of long takes, dolly shots and an emphasis on strong women characters in his earlier, pre-war work.
Among the most celebrated is 1939’s The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums which, despite being a favourite of film buffs, is making its first official theatrical bow with a two-week engagement at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. With a stately pace and classicist intentions, this drama about an actor finding his muse is a...
- 12/24/2015
- by Jordan Hoffman
- The Guardian - Film News
The Barnes & Noble sale may have ended a couple of weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still buy some Criterion Collection releases for 50% off. Best Buy is currently having a 50% off sale on a number of Criterion releases, and Amazon has begun to match their prices.
Thanks to everyone for supporting our site by buying through our affiliate links.
A note on Amazon deals, for those curious: sometimes third party sellers will suddenly appear as the main purchasing option on a product page, even though Amazon will sell it directly from themselves for the sale price that we have listed. If the sale price doesn’t show up, click on the “new” options, and look for Amazon’s listing.
I’ll keep this list updated throughout the week, as new deals are found, and others expire. If you find something that’s wrong, a broken link or price difference,...
Thanks to everyone for supporting our site by buying through our affiliate links.
A note on Amazon deals, for those curious: sometimes third party sellers will suddenly appear as the main purchasing option on a product page, even though Amazon will sell it directly from themselves for the sale price that we have listed. If the sale price doesn’t show up, click on the “new” options, and look for Amazon’s listing.
I’ll keep this list updated throughout the week, as new deals are found, and others expire. If you find something that’s wrong, a broken link or price difference,...
- 12/17/2015
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Museum of Moving Image will host the massive 30 films retrospective of Mizoguchi Kenji, one of the Big Three of Japanese cinema (along with Kurosawa Akira and and Ozu Yasujiro). Simply titled Mizoguchi, the retro will feature every surviving film of the Japanese master in celluloid, 35mm and rare 16mm prints.Known for his exquisite mise-en-scene and portraying enduring human experience in many of his films, Mizoguchi was hailed by many film scholars, critics and cinephiles as one of the greatest filmmakers ever lived.On the opening weekend of the retrospective, Saturday, May 3, film scholar David Bordwell will introduce a screening of Sansho the Bailiff, with a special presentation titled "Mizoguchi: Secrets of the Exquisite Image."Known for the exquisite beauty of his films and hailed as...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 4/22/2014
- Screen Anarchy
So, last week I watched the Keanu Reeves abomination that was 47 Ronin and this week I took it upon myself to watch the 1941 original, The 47 Ronin, available on Hulu Plus and it's rather astonishing the differences between the two. Of course, the original doesn't have magic, monsters or the Reeves character and those are the immediate differences, but what's even more fascinating is to compare the way the two films approach the story and what is considered important. The first difference is in the approach to the story. Even though the '41 film runs 223, versus the 118 minutes that make up the 2013 remake, it wastes no time getting started. A little on screen text and immediately we see Lord Asano attack the court official Kira Yoshinaka. Due to the injection of Reeves' character into the remake it takes forever to get to this moment and by that time it's already...
- 4/13/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
The Film Society of Lincoln Center have unveiled their incredible lineup for the forthcoming "Art of the Real" series, which includes work from Corneliu Porumboiu, Robert Greene, Thom Andersen, James Benning, and more:
"The thin and often blurry line between fact and fiction will be prodded in the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s revamped Art of the Real, a two-week series (April 11-26) dedicated to an expansive definition of nonfiction filmmaking."
For The New York Times, Dave Kehr remembers Alain Resnais:
"Mr. Resnais had a full head of white hair that the French newspaper Le Monde said he had sported for so long that one could forget he was ever young. He exhibited a youthful energy well into his 80s and was working on drafts of his next project from his hospital bed when he died, the producer Jean-Louis Livi said.
Despite the serious nature of his films,...
"The thin and often blurry line between fact and fiction will be prodded in the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s revamped Art of the Real, a two-week series (April 11-26) dedicated to an expansive definition of nonfiction filmmaking."
For The New York Times, Dave Kehr remembers Alain Resnais:
"Mr. Resnais had a full head of white hair that the French newspaper Le Monde said he had sported for so long that one could forget he was ever young. He exhibited a youthful energy well into his 80s and was working on drafts of his next project from his hospital bed when he died, the producer Jean-Louis Livi said.
Despite the serious nature of his films,...
- 3/5/2014
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
When I expressed excitement over the fact that Robert Altman’s stunning “Nashville” was being released in a Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition a few months back, a colleague asked me why I loved the film and I had trouble verbalizing my feelings about Altman’s sprawling, brilliant tapestry of characters. Watching the excellent new documentary about the making-of the film on the Criterion release makes it clear that I’m not alone.
Rating: 5.0/5.0
As the interview participants try to sum up why “Nashville” is so remarkable, they throw out a dozen or so different themes that the movies captures from the similarities between entertainment & politics to honor to pride to artistic integrity to what writer Joan Tewkesbury says is the film’s focus on how we will all eventually “be called on our shit.” Clearly, “Nashville” is not an easy movie to summarize. It is a landmark, revolutionary film in terms of structure,...
Rating: 5.0/5.0
As the interview participants try to sum up why “Nashville” is so remarkable, they throw out a dozen or so different themes that the movies captures from the similarities between entertainment & politics to honor to pride to artistic integrity to what writer Joan Tewkesbury says is the film’s focus on how we will all eventually “be called on our shit.” Clearly, “Nashville” is not an easy movie to summarize. It is a landmark, revolutionary film in terms of structure,...
- 12/29/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
After remastering Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff earlier this year for Blu-ray, Criterion unleashes another of the auteur’s trio of early 50’s Venice prize winners with 1952’s The Life of Oharu, a classic tragedy exemplifying the director’s favorite theme, the plight of woman in a world cruelly controlled by men. While Sansho has enjoyed a considerable reputation in the annals of cinema, Mizoguchi openly criticized the studio interference that hobbled his original intentions, instead he often citing this earlier title as his greatest achievement. Considering it was made without sufficient funding and filmed in a warehouse instead of sound stage that necessitated filming be halted frequently due to passing trains, it’s fascinating to see the auteur, infamous for his meticulous, uninterrupted takes, succeed so gloriously in form and content here.
Opening on a dark, rainy night, we meet the aged Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka), a prostitute commiserating with...
Opening on a dark, rainy night, we meet the aged Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka), a prostitute commiserating with...
- 7/9/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Amazon is having a massive sale on Criterion Collection titles, virtually all of them listed at 50% off and I have included more than 115 of the available titles directly below along with a selection of ten I consider must owns. Titles beyond my top ten include Amarcord, Christopher Nolan's Following, David Fincher's The Game, Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory and The Killing, Roman Polansk's Rosemary's Baby, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited and plenty of Terrence Malick. All the links lead directly to the Amazon website, so click on through with confidence. Small Note: By buying through the links below you help support RopeofSilicon.com as I get a small commission for the sales made through using these links. Thanks for reading and I appreciate your support. Top Ten Must Owns 8 1/2 (dir. Federico Fellini) 12 Angry Men (dir. Sidney Lumet) The 400 Blows (dir.
- 6/6/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Amazon is having a massive sale on Criterion Collection titles, virtually all of them listed at 50% off and I have included more than 115 of the available titles directly below along with a selection of ten I consider must owns. Titles beyond my top ten include Amarcord, Christopher Nolan's Following, David Fincher's The Game, Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory and The Killing, Roman Polansk's Rosemary's Baby, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited and plenty of Terrence Malick. All the links lead directly to the Amazon website, so click on through with confidence. Small Note: By buying through the links below you help support RopeofSilicon.com as I get a small commission for the sales made through using these links. Thanks for reading and I appreciate your support. Top Ten Must Owns 8 1/2 (dir. Federico Fellini) 12 Angry Men (dir. Sidney Lumet) The 400 Blows (dir.
- 6/6/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 9, 2013
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Kinuyo Tanaka falls from grace in Kenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu.
The 1952 drama The Life of Oharu is directed by Japan’s legendary Kenji Mizoguchi (Sansho the Bailiff).
The film is an epic portrait of an inexorable fall from grace, starring the great Kinuyo Tanaka (The Ballad of Narayama) as an imperial lady-in-waiting who gradually descends to street prostitution.
A peerless chronicler of the soul who specialized in supremely emotional, visually exquisite films about the circumstances of women in Japanese society throughout its history, Mizoguchi had already been directing movies for decades when he madeThe Life of Oharu. The movie proved to be the one that gained its director international attention, garnering him the Internatinoal Award at the 1952 Venice Film Festival and ushering in a new golden period for him.
Presented in Japanese with English subtitles, the Criterion...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Kinuyo Tanaka falls from grace in Kenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu.
The 1952 drama The Life of Oharu is directed by Japan’s legendary Kenji Mizoguchi (Sansho the Bailiff).
The film is an epic portrait of an inexorable fall from grace, starring the great Kinuyo Tanaka (The Ballad of Narayama) as an imperial lady-in-waiting who gradually descends to street prostitution.
A peerless chronicler of the soul who specialized in supremely emotional, visually exquisite films about the circumstances of women in Japanese society throughout its history, Mizoguchi had already been directing movies for decades when he madeThe Life of Oharu. The movie proved to be the one that gained its director international attention, garnering him the Internatinoal Award at the 1952 Venice Film Festival and ushering in a new golden period for him.
Presented in Japanese with English subtitles, the Criterion...
- 4/25/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
I've mentioned before how several years ago I created a list using Roger Ebert's Great Movies, Oscar Best Picture winners, IMDb's Top 250, etc. and began going through them doing my best to see as many of the films on these lists that I had not seen as I possibly could to up my film I.Q. Well, someone has gone through the exhaustive effort to take all of the films Roger Ebert wrote about in his three "Great Movies" books, all of which are compiled on his website and added them to a Letterbxd list and I've added that list below. I'm not positive every movie on his list is here, but by my count there are 363 different titles listed (more if you count the trilogies, the Up docs and Decalogue) and of those 363, I have personally seen 229 and have added an * next to those I've seen. Clearly I have some work to do,...
- 4/10/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
I've mentioned before how several years ago I created a list using Roger Ebert's Great Movies, Oscar Best Picture winners, IMDb's Top 250, etc. and began going through them doing my best to see as many of the films on these lists that I had not seen as I possibly could to up my film I.Q. Well, someone has gone through the exhaustive effort to take all of the films Roger Ebert wrote about in his three "Great Movies" books, all of which are compiled on his website and added them to a Letterbxd list and I've added that list below. I'm not positive every movie on his list is here, but by my count there are 362 different titles listed (more if you count the trilogies and Decalogue) and of those 362, I have personally seen 229 and have added an * next to those I've seen. Clearly I have some work to do,...
- 4/10/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Chicago – The Criterion Collection attempts to shine a brighter light on a Japanese director once considered a national treasure but too ignored by history in favor of internationally recognized names like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu — Kenji Mizoguchi, with his accomplished and remarkable “Sansho the Bailiff,” recently upgraded from Criterion DVD to Criterion Blu-ray.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
“Sansho the Bailiff” is a brutal, dark, historical epic with a human tone in the way it reflects the impact of the power of evil on the will of the good. “Sansho” is a story of unspeakable horror and the survival of the human spirit but that might make it sound more sentimental than it is. The film is darker than most of Mizoguchi’s contemporaries, which could be one of the reasons it hasn’t had the same international acclaim over the decades since its release. It’s not an easy film to experience.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
“Sansho the Bailiff” is a brutal, dark, historical epic with a human tone in the way it reflects the impact of the power of evil on the will of the good. “Sansho” is a story of unspeakable horror and the survival of the human spirit but that might make it sound more sentimental than it is. The film is darker than most of Mizoguchi’s contemporaries, which could be one of the reasons it hasn’t had the same international acclaim over the decades since its release. It’s not an easy film to experience.
- 3/18/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
It's fitting (though probably coincidental) that Criterion release its Blu-Ray edition of Sansho The Bailiff in the season of Tarantino's Django Unchained; both are concerned intimately with the institution of slavery and the revenge enacted because of it. But where Django is animated by rage, Sansho is far more somber, more plainspoken, and far less convinced that any sort of resolution is possible. It's probably impossible for an observer to say which film 'gets' slavery better, but it goes almost without saying that Sansho makes you feel it more, making clear the human cost of slavery as no other film ever has. Where the study of history itself falls short in sharing the spiritual and moral burden of those in bondage, Sansho The Bailiff does not.
Read more...
Read more...
- 3/7/2013
- by Anders Nelson
- JustPressPlay.net
Just a couple of days after the Oscars, you'd think there might be a handful of nominees trying to capitalize on the extra exposure, but it's actually a pretty slow week with the exception of P.T. Anderson's The Master (which is definitely a buy). Oscar-nominated documentary How to Survive a Plague also hits stores this week along with Leos Carax's divisive art house classic Holy Motors. Other less prestigious releases include The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (which hits stores on Saturday), feminist thriller Girls Against Boys and Chasing Mavericks starring Gerard Butler. The Coen Brothers' The Hudsucker Proxy also debuts on Blu-ray through the Warner Archive Collection, while Criterion offers up new editions of Chronicle of a Summer and Sansho the Bailiff. Will you be picking up anything this week? Check out the full list of new releases after the jump. Amazon.com Widgets
For More Daily Movie Goodness,...
For More Daily Movie Goodness,...
- 2/26/2013
- by Sean
- FilmJunk
While less known than his equally revered contemporaries Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu, the filmography of Kenji Mizoguchi may arguably be the more successfully varied. Criterion remasters his 1954 title, Sansho the Bailiff for Blu-ray this month, one of the auteur’s most celebrated works, and one that ends his three year succession of winning the top prize at the Venice Film Festival (he also won for The Life of Oharu in 1952 and Ugetsu in 1953). This was his eighty-first feature film, and he would make only five more features due to his death in 1956. While this is considered one of his top works, Mizoguchi apparently didn’t think the same, citing studio interference in not being able to make the film he had set out to create. Despite its powerfully resonant emotional content, there does seem to be an odd struggle at work in regards to the focus of the film,...
- 2/26/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Holy Motors I don't know how many of the people that included Leos Carax's Holy Motors on their year end top ten were doing it to seem hip or actually, truly loved it, but I remain unconvinced that anyone can separate this movie from any other nutty, "what the hell?" movie that hits cinema screens each year. That isn't to say it's a bad film, in fact it was one of the more entertaining when it came to post-screening conversation in Cannes last year, but best of the year? Eh, I guess that depends on how you qualify such a status. I determine my year end best by those movies I want, and have a desire, to watch again. Holy Motors doesn't fit in that category, but I suggest all of you at least give it a watch to see what you get out of it. You can read...
- 2/26/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Moviefone's New Release Pick of the Week "The Master" What's It About? All of the pre-release coverage for "The Master" focused on the film's thinly veiled profile of L. Ron Hubbard and the establishment of Scientology, but that's not really what the movie's about. Mainly, it's the story of a broken man (Joaquin Phoenix) who has been abandoned by society and is susceptible to manipulation. See It Because: Philip Seymour Hoffman is terrific as the mysterious Lancaster Dodd; Amy Adams surprises as his loyal, determined wife; and Phoenix's portrayal of the drunken, violent, disturbed Freddie Quell is one of the most hypnotic performances of all time. New on DVD & Blu-ray "Chasing Mavericks" What's It About? Gerard Butler doesn't quite shine in this "inspirational" surfing drama that seems all too familiar. See It Because: Skip it. "Freaky Deaky" What's It About? It's a Christian Slater movie... Hang on kimosabe! Christian Slater...
- 2/26/2013
- by Eric Larnick
- Moviefone
This month the Criterion Collection has an eclectic mix heading to Blu-ray and DVD, reminding us once again just how fun their mission to preserve the best and most important works of classic and contemporary cinema can be. In one corner you have the Japanese classics The Ballad of Narayama, by Director Shôhei Imamura, and Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff. In another you have the lauded, and 8 Academy Award-winning On the Waterfront by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando and Karl Malden. And finally, in the third corner we turn to France for two films separated by 50 years: Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch's Chronicle of a Summer, and 2011's The Kid with a Bike, a powerful drama by Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, with one of the best performances by a child actor in recent memory.
For details on all of these releases, keep reading.
Read more...
For details on all of these releases, keep reading.
Read more...
- 2/14/2013
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
Our daily countdown of the 300 Greatest Films Ever Made continues with part 11 out of 30. These are numbers 200-191.
200) Some Like It Hot (1959) Billy Wilder USA
199) Spartacus (1960) Stanley Kubrick USA
198) Princess Mononoke (1997) Hayao Miyazaki Japan Animated
197) Judgement At Nuremberg (1961) Stanley Kramer USA
196) Sansho The Bailiff (1954) Kenji Mizoguchi Japan
195) Fitzcarraldo (1982) Werner Herzog USA
194) Tootsie (1982) Stanley Pollack USA
193) Ghostbusters (1984) Ivan Reitman USA
192) The Planet Of The Apes (1968) Frank Schaffner USA *
191) The Producers (1968) Mel Brooks USA
film cultureClassicslist300...
200) Some Like It Hot (1959) Billy Wilder USA
199) Spartacus (1960) Stanley Kubrick USA
198) Princess Mononoke (1997) Hayao Miyazaki Japan Animated
197) Judgement At Nuremberg (1961) Stanley Kramer USA
196) Sansho The Bailiff (1954) Kenji Mizoguchi Japan
195) Fitzcarraldo (1982) Werner Herzog USA
194) Tootsie (1982) Stanley Pollack USA
193) Ghostbusters (1984) Ivan Reitman USA
192) The Planet Of The Apes (1968) Frank Schaffner USA *
191) The Producers (1968) Mel Brooks USA
film cultureClassicslist300...
- 1/12/2013
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (Rob Young)
- Cinelinx
Blu-ray Release Date: Feb. 26, 2013
Price: Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
The 1954 Japanese film Sansho The Bailiff is a classic drama based on a Japanese folk tale crafted by one of the country’s great directors, Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu).
When an idealistic governor Masao Shimiz disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife (Kinoyu Tanaka) and children (Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa) left to fend for themselves and eventually separated by vicious slave traders. One of them, the villainous Sansho (Eitarô Shindô), is the brutal owner of a slave camp.
Under Mizoguchi’s direction, Sansho is regarded as one of world cinema’s greatest pieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil.
Criterion previously released a DVD edition of Sansho in 2007, which contained only a booklet as a bonus. The new Blu-ray offers the following bonus features:
· Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack...
Price: Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
The 1954 Japanese film Sansho The Bailiff is a classic drama based on a Japanese folk tale crafted by one of the country’s great directors, Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu).
When an idealistic governor Masao Shimiz disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife (Kinoyu Tanaka) and children (Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa) left to fend for themselves and eventually separated by vicious slave traders. One of them, the villainous Sansho (Eitarô Shindô), is the brutal owner of a slave camp.
Under Mizoguchi’s direction, Sansho is regarded as one of world cinema’s greatest pieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil.
Criterion previously released a DVD edition of Sansho in 2007, which contained only a booklet as a bonus. The new Blu-ray offers the following bonus features:
· Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack...
- 12/27/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Somebody recently asked me why I do what I do…
Four years of Sound On Sight, and I’ve got to say, it’s tiring. There were many times I just wanted to call it quits. Just ask my film editor Simon Howell, how many times I called him late at night cursing up and down. Sound On Sight has never come easy, and faced often with seemingly impossible roadblocks. We’ve been hacked three times, our site crashed due to unforeseen circumstances, and we’ve lost a few friends along the way. Here we are, four years later, with a complete makeover – a new design, a fleet of podcasts, a dedicated crew of TV reviewers, an assembly of columnists and a few Ofcs members contributing reviews. But why do I do what I do?
Sometimes I wonder why any blogger, critic or podcaster dedicates so much time voicing their opinion.
Four years of Sound On Sight, and I’ve got to say, it’s tiring. There were many times I just wanted to call it quits. Just ask my film editor Simon Howell, how many times I called him late at night cursing up and down. Sound On Sight has never come easy, and faced often with seemingly impossible roadblocks. We’ve been hacked three times, our site crashed due to unforeseen circumstances, and we’ve lost a few friends along the way. Here we are, four years later, with a complete makeover – a new design, a fleet of podcasts, a dedicated crew of TV reviewers, an assembly of columnists and a few Ofcs members contributing reviews. But why do I do what I do?
Sometimes I wonder why any blogger, critic or podcaster dedicates so much time voicing their opinion.
- 11/20/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
As some of you may know, my personal blog, Criterion Reflections, serves as my on-going journal (over 2 1/2 years now) of watching all the Criterion Collection films in their order of chronological release, beginning with 1921′s Nanook of the North. This past week marked a milestone of sorts as I finally worked my way through the 1950s and just posted my first review from 1060, of Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face. Next in my queue is a late-career masterwork by Mikio Naruse that was for several years the only title from his long career available legally available on DVD in the USA, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs. Criterion remedied that situation earlier this year with the release of Eclipse Series 26: Silent Naruse, compiling the director’s five extant silent films in one handy box.
In recent weeks, they’ve done us all a service by importing a few...
In recent weeks, they’ve done us all a service by importing a few...
- 8/1/2011
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Last month, in the course of reviewing Hiroshi Shimizu’s The Masseurs and a Woman, I impulsively committed myself to review “next week” another 1930s Japanese film by Kenji Mizoguchi, in order to complete the sampler I’d started with recent articles on Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse from that same era. Of course, I followed up on that commitment seven days later with an article on The Rise of Catherine the Great, from the Alexander Korda’s Private Lives Eclipse set. And then last week I postponed my Journey through the Eclipse Series altogether, opting instead to write a column on Ten Criterion Films for Mothers Day.
So I didn’t really know which “next week” I was referring to, until now, when it’s finally time to make good on my promise. I guess it’s only fitting, after offering my thoughts on one of the most powerful...
So I didn’t really know which “next week” I was referring to, until now, when it’s finally time to make good on my promise. I guess it’s only fitting, after offering my thoughts on one of the most powerful...
- 5/19/2011
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
It’s that time of the week when you want to sit back, relax a bit and throw on something new and exciting. Well, you’ve come to the right place. It’s the second week in this Hulu Plus excursion, and I’ve had a blast with it. A lot of Daily Show, Colbert Report and Kitchen Nightmares intake in the last week. I can’t help but love my politically minded comedy and angry chef shows. But I digress.
This last week there was a ton of new content from Criterion put onto Hulu Plus. A wonderful array of films and a ton of supplemental material from certain films, which I will yet again break down for all of you, and the links will be within, so you don’t even have to search for them. We here at the Criterion Cast aim to please.
When the first...
This last week there was a ton of new content from Criterion put onto Hulu Plus. A wonderful array of films and a ton of supplemental material from certain films, which I will yet again break down for all of you, and the links will be within, so you don’t even have to search for them. We here at the Criterion Cast aim to please.
When the first...
- 5/8/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
Starting today, and for most of April, Film Forum in New York will be honoring five of Japan’s greatest actresses in a portmanteau retrospective entitled 5 Japanese Divas. The divas in question are Setsuko Hara, Kinuyo Tanaka, Isuzu Yamada, Machiko Kyo and Hideko Takamine who, collectively, starred in some of the greatest Japanese films of the 1950s golden age (there are more masterpieces per square foot in this retrospective than in any other theater in town). Takamine died last December at the age of 86 (and was featured on Movie Poster of the Week earlier this year), but, remarkably, three of these goddesses—Kyo, Hara and Yamada—are still with us, aged 87, 90 and 94 respectively.
I love the Japanese posters of the 1950s with their crowded montages of faces (I can never be sure if they are photographs or hyper-realist illustrations) in which the actors are paramount, more because I love the...
I love the Japanese posters of the 1950s with their crowded montages of faces (I can never be sure if they are photographs or hyper-realist illustrations) in which the actors are paramount, more because I love the...
- 4/1/2011
- MUBI
Continuing its commitment to contemporary Japanese fare, Viz Cinema has been busy throughout the month of October with the San Francisco premiere of John H. Lee's Sayonara Itsuka: Goodbye, Someday (2010); encore screenings of Junichi Suzuki's documentary 442--Live with Honor, Die with Dignity (2010); the U.S. premiere of Takeshi Koike's anime Redline; while likewise hosting the San Francisco Film Society's Taiwan Film Days.
But Viz Cinema has granted equal time to honor classic Japanese cinema, most recently with four Yasujirō Ozu films profiling the performances of Setsuko Hara--Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1954), Late Autumn (1960) and Tokyo Twilight (1957)--and currently with four films by Kenji Mizoguchi: Women of the Night (1948), Miss Oyu (1951), Life of Oharu (1952), and Sansho the Bailiff (1952) (running through early November).
But Viz Cinema has granted equal time to honor classic Japanese cinema, most recently with four Yasujirō Ozu films profiling the performances of Setsuko Hara--Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1954), Late Autumn (1960) and Tokyo Twilight (1957)--and currently with four films by Kenji Mizoguchi: Women of the Night (1948), Miss Oyu (1951), Life of Oharu (1952), and Sansho the Bailiff (1952) (running through early November).
- 10/30/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Continuing its commitment to contemporary Japanese fare, Viz Cinema has been busy throughout the month of October with the San Francisco premiere of John H. Lee's Sayonara Itsuka: Goodbye, Someday (2010); encore screenings of Junichi Suzuki's documentary 442--Live with Honor, Die with Dignity (2010); the U.S. premiere of Takeshi Koike's anime Redline; while likewise hosting the San Francisco Film Society's Taiwan Film Days.
But Viz Cinema has granted equal time to honor classic Japanese cinema, most recently with four Yasujirō Ozu films profiling the performances of Setsuko Hara--Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1954), Late Autumn (1960) and Tokyo Twilight (1957)--and currently with four films by Kenji Mizoguchi: Women of the Night (1948), Miss Oyu (1951), Life of Oharu (1952), and Sansho the Bailiff (1952) (running through early November).
But Viz Cinema has granted equal time to honor classic Japanese cinema, most recently with four Yasujirō Ozu films profiling the performances of Setsuko Hara--Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1954), Late Autumn (1960) and Tokyo Twilight (1957)--and currently with four films by Kenji Mizoguchi: Women of the Night (1948), Miss Oyu (1951), Life of Oharu (1952), and Sansho the Bailiff (1952) (running through early November).
- 10/30/2010
- Screen Anarchy
• Introduction to The Great Movies III
You'd be surprised how many people have told me they're working their way through my books of Great Movies one film at a time. That's not to say the books are definitive; I loathe "best of" lists, which are not the best of anything except what someone came up with that day. I look at a list of the "100 greatest horror films," or musicals, or whatever, and I want to ask the maker, "but how do you know?" There are great films in my books, and films that are not so great, but there's no film here I didn't respond strongly to. That's the reassurance I can offer.
I believe good movies are a civilizing force. They allow us to empathize with those whose lives are different than our own. I like to say they open windows in our box of space and time.
You'd be surprised how many people have told me they're working their way through my books of Great Movies one film at a time. That's not to say the books are definitive; I loathe "best of" lists, which are not the best of anything except what someone came up with that day. I look at a list of the "100 greatest horror films," or musicals, or whatever, and I want to ask the maker, "but how do you know?" There are great films in my books, and films that are not so great, but there's no film here I didn't respond strongly to. That's the reassurance I can offer.
I believe good movies are a civilizing force. They allow us to empathize with those whose lives are different than our own. I like to say they open windows in our box of space and time.
- 10/2/2010
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
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