UGETSU will be shown at Japan Society NY on Friday, April 6th

Japan Society NY

presents

Ugetsu © 1953 Kadokawa

Ugetsu / Ugetsu Monogatari

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi

With Machiko Kyo, Mitsuko Mito, Kinuyo Tanaka, Masayuki Mori

Japan, 1953, 94 minutes

DCP, b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles

When: Friday, April 6th at 7:00 PM

Where: Japan Society NY

333 East 47th Street, NYC

Map

Tickets: $13/$10 seniors & students / $5 Japan Society members

This new 4K restoration of Kenji Mizoguchi's towering masterpiece offers viewers an opportunity to appreciate the nuance of cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa's exquisite images. A haunting and elegant fable about the illusory nature of desire set during the civils wars of Japan's 16th century, Ugetsu seamlessly weaves reality and fantasy together with painterly images that unfurl like scenes from an emaki scroll. Among the film's many breathtaking moments, the waterfront picnic between a potter and the ghost of a noblewoman is reportedly the only scene Miyagawa shot for Mizoguchi (out of eight total films) for which the famously stone-faced director complimented him.

NY theatrical premiere of Mizoguchi's THE STORY OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM on Dec. 25th

Kakuko Mori as Otoku and Shotaro Hanayagi as Kikunosuke Onoe

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum

Directed By Kenji Mizoguchi

Japan, 1939, 145 minutes

Japanese with English subtitles
B&W, 1.37:1, DCP
New digital restoration

Widely regarded as director Kenji Mizoguchi’s first masterpiece, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum will make its New York theatrical premiere in a two-week exclusive engagement beginning Friday, December 25, 2015 in a new restoration at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

The film is Mizoguchi’s hauntingly beautiful adaptation of a popular novel by Shofu Muramatsu. Shotaro Hanayagi stars as Kikunosuke Onoe, a young actor and the adopted son of a Kabuki star in late-19th-century Tokyo. Failing to meet the standards set by his father, Onoe estranges himself from his family by entering into a relationship with Otoku (Kakuko Mori), his newborn brother’s nurse who makes agonizing self-sacrifices to advance her beloved Onoe’s career.

Mizoguchi thoughtfully conveys a culture’s social limitations and repressive gender roles while maintaining a pitch-perfect balance of tragedy and romance. With its flowing camera movements, delicate long takes, and measured choreography of actors, this masterpiece is marked by splendorous interplay of movement and space, and is a poignant tale of conflict between generations and, most primarily, of female sacrifice.

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival in a new digital restoration made from a 4K film transfer by Shochiku and presented by Janus Films. The Film Society of Lincoln Center is doing a great service in hosting this long-overdue revival of one of Mizoguchi’s defining achievements, never before released in New York.

ACF 2110: THE LIFE OF OHARU at Japan Society this coming Saturday

The Life of Oharu © 1963 Toho Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Life of Oharu

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi

With Kinuyo Tanaka, Hisako Yamane, Toshiro Mifune,

Yuriko Hamada, Jukichi Uno, Ichiro Sugai

Japan 1952, 136 minutes, B&W

When: Saturday, November 16, 2013 @ 6:00 PM

Where: Japan Society

333 East 47th Street, NYC

(Between 1st and 2nd avenues)

Introduction by Joel Neville Anderson, filmmaker/scholar, PhD
student, Visual and Cultural Studies, University of Rochester

Donald Richie introduced Kenji Mizoguchi through a retrospective at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1961. Set in feudal Japan, The Life of Oharu is Mizoguchi's harsh indictment of exploitative men and a system that victimizes women. Tanaka demonstrates extraordinary tour-de-force acting in her role as a woman at various stages of her life who is continuously affected by men around her. A testimony to the supreme craftsmanship of Japanese filmmaking, the film is based on Saikaku Ihara's novel Koshoku Ichidai Onna.

Donald Richie on The Life of Oharu:
"Based on a light and picaresque novel by the 17th-century writer Saikaku, the film takes a more serious view of the decline and fall of the heroine--from court lady to common whore. Yoshikata Yoda's script, Tanaka's performance as Oharu, Hiroshi Mizutani's art direction and Ichiro Saito's score—using Japanese instruments—help make this one of Mizoguchi's most elegantly beautiful films."

Tickets: $12/$9 Japan Society members, seniors and students

Buy tickets online or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. - Fri. 11 am - 6 pm, Weekends 11 am - 5 pm.

If you are interested in purchasing group tickets for the event (10 or more), email f2@japansociety.org for information on their discounted rate. 

This screening of The Life of Oharu is part of Richie's Fantastic Five: A Tribute to Donald Richie (1924-2013), Part 1

For those who don't live in the NYC metro area or who just can't make it to the screening on Saturday, keep in mind that The Criterion Collection offers The Life of Oharu on Blu-ray and DVD. (During November Barnes and Noble is having a 50% off all Criterion releases both in stores and onine at barnesandnoble.com.) I have the Blu-ray and it's magnificent, with the ample, excellent bonus features one expects from Criterion.

ACF 2056: New series at Japan Society NY to focus on five directors championed by Donald Richie

Richie's Fantastic Five:
Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Koreeda

When: October 18, 2013 - February 19, 2014
Where: Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, NYC
(between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Part One of  a new Monthly Film Series Highlights

Five Seminal Directors Introduced and Championed

by Legendary Japanese Cinema Critic Donald Richie

Before his passing in February, Donald Richie (1924-2013) educated and inspired generations to become interested in Japan through the Japanese art and culture he introduced – especially through film. Noted film scholar Kyoko Hirano calls him one of the single most important film and cultural critics. "Many people in the world beyond North America and Western Europe, beyond the film world, first became acquainted with Japanese culture through Richie's wide range of writings," she says.

In Richie's Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda, Japan Society's Film Program honors Richie's legacy, presenting five timeless classics and hard-to-see gems over five months in glorious 35mm presentations. Curated by Hirano, a former Japan Society Film Program Director, the series highlights five seminal Japanese directors, who first became known throughout the world through Richie's work. Co-presented with The Japan Foundation, the series launches with Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (October 18); continuing with Kenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu (November 16); Yasujiro Ozu's Equinox Flower (December 12), screening on Ozu's birthday and the 50^th anniversary of his death; Mitsuo Yanagimachi's Himatsuri (January 24), unavailable on DVD; and Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life (February 19), marking the one-year anniversary of Richie's death.

Hirano notes, "Richie tirelessly promoted the cinematic beauty of such giants as Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi and Mikio Naruse; championed the iconoclastic energy of Japanese New Wave directors Nagisa Oshima, Masahiro Shinoda, Susumu Hani and Shohei Imamura; and celebrated the vibrant styles of new and upcoming directors such as Yoshimitsu Morita, Kazuo Hara, Yanagimachi and Kore-eda. Thanks to Richie, the world knows the greatness of Japanese cinema."

Further information about Richie's Fantastic Five film series and descriptions of each film can be found here.

Tickets to each screening are $12/$9 Japan Society members, seniors and students. Tickets may be purchased in person at Japan Society, by calling the box office at 212-715-1258, or at www.japansociety.org.

The second part of the series, also curated by Hirano, will focus on films that portray various aspects of Japanese society as observed through Richie's eyes, and begins March 2014 as part of the annual spring Globus Film Series.