Japanese Screen Classics
July 30-Aug. 14
at Walter Reade Theater
Unless you are one of the lucky few that knew Madame Kawakita, you will probably be confused by the line-up at the Film Society at Lincoln Center’s tribute to the late cultural emissary, Japanese Screen Classics: In Honor of Madame Kawakita. It’s probably the only retrospective where you can see both Akira Kurosawa’s pleasantly maudlin Ikiru and Seijun Suzuki’s deliriously wacko Branded to Kill unless you’re taking a class in Japanese Cinema 101.
What unites the two films apart from their mutual country of origin is that both their directors won the Kawakita Award, an award created by the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute. They are all indeed artists American audiences should know but somehow don’t, thanks to the fickle realities of importing Japanese films stateside.
Like it or not, both the Kawakita Award and Japanese Screen Classics do their small part in raising American cinephiles’ awareness of “Asian cinema.” Even today, when New York filmgoers step outside of the art-house world and express an active interest in Japanese cinema, their interest is dismissed as a fetishistic disease.
However, to be fair, Japanese Screen Classics is not a readily accessible cultural primer. Anyone expecting to see standard retrospective titles will be frustrated—except for anyone looking for Kurosawa’s Ikiru, Rashomon or Stray Dog—but those with a taste for new filmmakers, the kind that are new to most New Yorkers at least, should be very happy.
With such an eclectic mix, the best thing an adventurous attendant could do is make their own list of must-sees. Several of the films being screened may be unavailable to English-reading audiences, but not all of them look that interesting. For my money, Kon Ichikawa’s A Full-Up Train, Shohei Imamura’s Intentions of Murder and any of the showcased films of Nagisa Oshima and Yôji Yamada are worth checking out. And who knows? In a perfect world, perhaps Rashomon for the umpteenth time, too.
July 30-Aug. 14
at Walter Reade Theater
Unless you are one of the lucky few that knew Madame Kawakita, you will probably be confused by the line-up at the Film Society at Lincoln Center’s tribute to the late cultural emissary, Japanese Screen Classics: In Honor of Madame Kawakita. It’s probably the only retrospective where you can see both Akira Kurosawa’s pleasantly maudlin Ikiru and Seijun Suzuki’s deliriously wacko Branded to Kill unless you’re taking a class in Japanese Cinema 101.
What unites the two films apart from their mutual country of origin is that both their directors won the Kawakita Award, an award created by the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute. They are all indeed artists American audiences should know but somehow don’t, thanks to the fickle realities of importing Japanese films stateside.
Like it or not, both the Kawakita Award and Japanese Screen Classics do their small part in raising American cinephiles’ awareness of “Asian cinema.” Even today, when New York filmgoers step outside of the art-house world and express an active interest in Japanese cinema, their interest is dismissed as a fetishistic disease.
However, to be fair, Japanese Screen Classics is not a readily accessible cultural primer. Anyone expecting to see standard retrospective titles will be frustrated—except for anyone looking for Kurosawa’s Ikiru, Rashomon or Stray Dog—but those with a taste for new filmmakers, the kind that are new to most New Yorkers at least, should be very happy.
With such an eclectic mix, the best thing an adventurous attendant could do is make their own list of must-sees. Several of the films being screened may be unavailable to English-reading audiences, but not all of them look that interesting. For my money, Kon Ichikawa’s A Full-Up Train, Shohei Imamura’s Intentions of Murder and any of the showcased films of Nagisa Oshima and Yôji Yamada are worth checking out. And who knows? In a perfect world, perhaps Rashomon for the umpteenth time, too.
