- American Fiction
3/18/24 (Mon)
A satiric look at the black experience in the US via the world of fiction. Continue reading
Noh: Soshi Arai (草子洗い)
- NOH: 草子洗い (Soshi Arai)
3/17/24 (Sun), Tokyo
While this work is traditionally attributed to Noh’s founder Zeami, the light narrative style and large cast make it feel like a much later piece. It centers on the famed poet Ono Komachi, but here she is young and vibrant as opposed to the withered old woman longing for her youth in the other of Noh’s seven Komachi works. The piece impossibly brings together some of the Six Great Poets from different eras, making the fantasy element clear.
West End: Left-Handed Diversity
The vast majority of the UK population, as elsewhere, is right-handed. All else being equal, i.e., no difference in acting ability between left-handers and others, we would assume that left-handed performers on the West End will make up a minority of actors in most cases unless the shows specifically require the talents of such performers (Waiting for Lefty, maybe?).
Thus, when left-handers emerge on stage way above their population levels (around 3% for this subset vs. 31.7% of all West End musical actors (2019)), theatergoers can be forgiven for thinking that the selection process is skewed. As talent is presumably evenly dispersed among the population, these groups are clearly being chosen above the remaining 97% of actors for other reasons. Any idea what that could be?
A Look Back: Spirited Away (stage version)
I see where the stage adaptation of the popular anime film Spirited Away that played in Tokyo a few years back has transferred with the original cast to London, performing in Japanese (with English surtitles). I noted at the time that the Tokyo production seemed a “trial run” for a future production in the more profitable theater worlds of London or New York given the foreign talent involved, starting with director John Caird (whose wife is Japanese). The show appears to have received a rapturous welcome in London by both critics and audiences despite the language barrier and will be playing for an unusually long stay of four months. With London’s recent wonderful English-language staging of that other Japanese anime classic, My Neighbor Totoro (soon headed for the West End), the stage may be set, so to speak, for a flood of other anime adaptations, which have already taken Tokyo by storm in musical, Kabuki and other versions. Here is my take from the Tokyo run.
Forever a Woman (乳房よ永遠なれ)
- 乳房よ永遠なれ (Forever a Woman)
3/3/24 (Sun)
This 1955 work is Tanaka Kinuyo’s third directorial effort but the first that she started from scratch. (The first two were based on scripts by Kinoshita and Ozu and staffed partly by their assistants.) The film was formerly known in English rather startlingly as The Eternal Breasts, which is closer to the Japanese but makes it sound like a very different kind of film; the Japanese title would probably be rendered better as, “Breasts, Be Forever With Me”. The change in the English in this case was probably for the better. The real-life Fumiko was only famous for four months from publication of her efforts to her early death, but she is considered one of Japan’s three seminal female poets of the 20th century. She passed away only a year before the film. Continue reading
Love Letter (恋文)
- 恋文 (Love Letter)
3/2/24 (Sat)
This 1953 work marked actress Tanaka Kinuyo’s debut as director, using a script by Kinoshita Keisuke. This is the first fictional film by a female director in Japan.
Lifeboat
- Lifeboat
2/28/24 (Wed)
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 film is a preposterous story very well done. An American ship and German U-Boat have sunk one another in the Atlantic Ocean. Eight American and British passengers manage variously to reach a lifeboat. They then rescue a man from the waters to find that he is not only German but, to make things worse, might even be the captain of the very ship that sank them. They debate whether to allow him to board, but the humanitarian side wins out on the belief that he is just an individual trying to stay alive as they are. Because of his piloting skill, he ends up with control of the vessel. It is only after some time that they realize that he isn’t steering them toward Bermuda as promised – but where exactly is he heading?
Au Hasard Balthazar
- Au Hasard Balthazar
2/6/24 (Tues)
Having seen (and not quite comprehended) Pickpocket a few days earlier, I figured it was time to get more acquainted with Bresson. This 1966 film, roughly “Balthazar at Random” (I wonder why they kept the French title), is widely considered not only his masterpiece but one of the greatest films ever made. That immediately made me skeptical.
The movie follows the life of a French village as paralleled in the life of a donkey. It starts with the birth of the donkey, where he is baptized by village children with the name Balthazar, and ends with his quiet death in a field of lambs. In between, he is passed randomly from owner to owner, mistreated or at best ignored by all of them. The various people in the film have their issues as well, but they are humans able to act on their desires and react to events. In contrast, the donkey does not speak or think or have any of the human qualities typical for these films; it is a donkey throughout, and we can only guess at its feelings from the situation and its occasional braying. It is necessarily acted upon rather than acting, a passive player in its own life. Bresson finally found his perfect performer with no emotions or hints as to what he/she is feeling.
Pickpocket
- Pickpocket
2/4/24 (Sun)
I picked this 1959 film as a Bresson primer because it’s reportedly fairly straightforward for him and is just 90 minutes. The English word “pickpocket” turns out for some reason to be the original French title.
Michel, an ordinary man with no steady job, has taken to pickpocketing as a way of filling his days. He gradually comes to enjoy the thrill of the game and turns down opportunities for legitimate work, ultimately joining with a team of thieves who work in tandem under the guidance of an expert crook. He holds the firm belief that a certain class of superior man should not be bound by the same laws as the common flock (I know the type). He sends money to his sick mother but refuses to see her despite his insistence that he loves her “more than myself” (though that may actually be true given how he despises himself).
It’s Always Fair Weather
- It’s Always Fair Weather
2/23/24 (Fri)
The 1955 film is a follow-up of sorts to On the Town, co-directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. The earlier show featured three sailors going off to war, whereas this opens with three soldiers returning to their lives after the war’s end. Comden and Green had conceived this, as with the earlier show, as a Broadway musical, but were convinced to write it directly for the screen instead.
The Bandwagon
- The Bandwagon
2/22/24 (Thurs)
Vincente Minnelli’s 1953 film is often cited by critics as one of the great film musicals, but I have to wonder if I was watching the same movie that they were. Continue reading
Okiku and the World (せかいのおきく)
- せかいのおきく (Okiku and the World)
2/25/24 (Sun)
When you hear a movie is about two guys peddling sh*t, you’d normally assume they were selling trivial products. But the guys in this movie are in fact dealing in excrement – and we learn that their job was an essential function in Edo society. Who knew?
The time is the mid 19th century at the tail end of the Edo Era, when the entire system of government is about to be overthrown – but the characters here don’t know that. Yasuke is a purveyor of manure, buying the product from homes (after digging it out of the outhouse pits) and selling it to farmers. The latter need the waste as fertilizer to grow food, which is eaten and processed through people’s bodies as new waste product in a virtuous cycle for the likes of Yasuke. The gathering and reprocessing of waste served a critical role in Edo in keeping the villages clean; while Yasuke was dirt poor and at the absolute bottom of the social rung, he was actually more important in the scheme of things then the higher-ranking samurai, who received money from the state for doing very little.
sekenbanashi 