PUBLIC MARKS with tags cinema & japon

Seminal Image Friday #5:30 from 3 by Yoshishige Yoshida

Nick Pinkerton in the Voice on Five Japanese Divas, running from tomorrow through April 21

brief teaser from Norwegian Wood.

At the opposite end of the stereotype of docile Japanese women—heroic good mothers, chaste daughters and hardworking faithful wives—actresses Ayako Wakao, Mariko Okada and Meiko Kaji embodied the transgression of limits, breaking rules, flouting norms and generally upsetting everyone.

生命を大切にしたい、生きていたい、人間として当たり前のことを訴えていきたい……。現在、33 歳、二児の母親。これは、彼女の波乱万丈の人生を追った異色のドキュメンタリー。

These are scenes of Canadian Pacific’s liner EMPRESS OF RUSSIA leaving Yokohama, Japan, from Shimizu Hiroshi’s MINATO NO NIHON MUSUME (Japanese Girls at the Harbor) filmed in 1933.

For Japanese cinema in the 1920s and 1930s was one of the triumphs of world cinema. That era produced not only the two directors who are arguably the very greatest but also a host of talents you can’t really call “lesser.” The bench had depth in every position.

Japan experienced an economic boom during World War One (1914 to 1918), and with this emerged new middle class consumers, particularly in the cities. Despite the temporary devastation wrought by the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 that destroyed large portions of the capital Tokyo and surrounding areas, the ensuing post-earthquake “reconstruction boom” stimulated an already emergent cosmopolitan urban culture centering on department stores, cafes and cabarets, modern cinema and theater, and cutting-edge innovations in business, industry, and popular culture. Shiseido’s posters and advertisements were at the forefront of this dramatic transformation in consumer society, particularly in regards to marketing new concepts of modern beauty and hygiene.

the Japanese movie resource anyone can edit!

Eurasie : C’est lui qui s’est proposé de jouer dans vos films ?

Hiroshi Toda : Oui. Il se retrouvait dans mon travail. Dès que je lui ai donné le rôle dans Snow in Spring, il est tout de suite allé se documenter dans un hôpital et étudier le comportement des personnes âgées. Il était passionné. Je me suis rendu compte à ce moment-là que nous partagions la même passion.

i am a big fan of Ozu. link.

we can learn a lot from his films. a quick list:

1. life and people are impermanent.

2. slow down.

3. look people in the eye.

4. drink tea.

5. be kind.

6. simple things hold the secret.

Il explique d’abord la qualité d’anthropologue souvent associée à Imamura pour désigner la façon avec laquelle il s’intéresse dans ses film à chercher les traits distinctifs de la société japonaise et de l’individu japonais, surtout dans les classes populaires et régionales.

L’Empire du désir, films érotiques japonais

Du 15 au 26 juillet 2009

Shortly after wrapping up filming, Isabel Coixet presents her latest production, 'Map of the sounds of Tokyo', filmed in Japan and in Barcelona.

(1985) The life of the controversial Japanese novelist — both for his Nobel-worthy art and for his über-flamboyant life — in four symbolic Acts (Beauty, Art, Action, Harmony of Pen and Sword) and on three planes: bw flashbacks to his previous life, seeing the lonely, sickly boy before he became the world-famous bodybuilder/writer/actor; highly colored and stylized dramatizations of sequences from his books The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (previously filmed as Ichikawa’s Conflagration), Kyoko’s House, and Runaway Horses; and a docudramatic treatment of the last day of his life, leading up to his own theatrically-staged seppuku.

During the 1960s and 1970s Japanese film-makers produced a series of films of unprecedented sexual candour. Returning to this legendary period of 'pink films', Matt Palmer and Jasper Sharp celebrate the aesthetic achievements of these erotic masterpieces.

Le Lac des femmes (1966) marque une nouvelle évolution vers l’érotisation du cinéma de Yoshida, qui tout en restant suggestif, se rapproche encore un peu de la chair, s’attarde à sa blancheur, à ses nuances, à son grain.