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| gromit |
 Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:18 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| Actually that's a better painting link than I initially thought. Earlier I just looked over the painting and enlarged it. But now I see that there is some explanatory text below the painting, a link there to get a detail of Jesus with the cross, and at the top right you can zoom in a whole lot. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:57 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| Didn't they make a film based on Munch's 'The Scream'? |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 12:55 am |
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Sisters of the Gion. Taking a break from Mizoguchi films about the hard life of prostitutes, I watched this 1936 Mizoguchi film about the hard life of geishas. (The Gion is (or was) Japan's most famous high-class geisha district; it's located in Kyoto.) Here we have two sisters, the older a more traditional geisha who takes in a former patron when his business goes bankrupt and he leaves his wife. She feels an obligation to him since he helped her get her start as a geisha, which makes me think that's why his business went bankrupt.
Her younger, prettier sister, is more modern and more cynical, and doesn't want this man sponging off them. She inveigles a young clerk into making her sister a pretty kimono so the sister can go to a high-class function. Since she doesn't have money to pay for it, he has to take the business's cloth and his boss finds out. The boss goes to visit the younger sister for further investigation, and she soon turns her wiles on him, getting money to send the bankrupt businessman packing and arranging a new patron for her sister without telling the sister what she's doing. Naturally, things backfire.
Given that the sisters are having so much trouble buying clothing (at the beginning they own one kimono each), I had more sympathy for the mercenary sister, although she should have arranged things more intelligently. Lying to the clerk while seeing his boss is just not one of those things that turn out well in a Mizoguchi movie. Still, it's a striking performance. The other sister's performance is more subdued and didn't make as much an impression on me.
This is not as good as Street of Shame, let alone Ugetsu or Sancho, but miles better than the other 1936 film I saw, Osaka Elegy. It's also short: 69 minutes long, which is about the right length for it.
Edit: Sansho, damn it. I'm always doing that. |
Last edited by Syd on Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:56 am; edited 1 time in total
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 9:29 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Haven't seen any Mizoguchi. What's a good starter film to see?
Funny, I was watching a Japanese film last night, too - hadn't seen Ikiru in decades and enjoyed it much more this time around, esp. the poking fun at bureaucracy. A lot of humor in this film that I didn't really get when I saw it at age 19.
Where's the Weedster? |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:55 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff are wonderful films, beautifully filmed and acted, and very good stories. Ugetsu used to appear in Sight and Sound's top ten list but Sansho seems more highly regarded today; I liked Ugetsu a bit better. Both are period pieces. They're definitely the place to start, and you can't go wrong with either.
The other three films of his I've seen are Sisters of the Gion, Osaka Elegy and Street of Shame, all of which deal with geishas or prostitutes in a contemporary setting. Women generally have a difficult time in Mizoguchi films; there's a collection of four of his works from Eclipse entitled "Mizoguchi's Fallen Women," and from his filmography, they could have included another dozen at least.
One I haven't seen yet is The Life of Oharu, which is supposedly on a par with his best but doesn't seem to be available on Netflix. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 5:51 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Thanks. Ugetsu - might have seen it years ago and forgotten. Omaha PL seems to have most of the Mizoguchi oeuvre. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:02 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Hmmm ....
Maybe this would work better for a Jamaican sequel.
It's a Polish poster btw. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 7:07 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| That actually bears a closer relationship to the movie than most Polish movie posters. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:28 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Indeed.
The poster for The Shining is oddly disturbing. Or disturbingly odd.
Gone with the Wind poster was drolly literal - shows a table fan.
And this one made me laugh, for some reason....
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:45 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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In case were not using all of our bandwidth :
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:46 am |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:01 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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bartist wrote: Indeed.
The poster for The Shining is oddly disturbing. Or disturbingly odd.
Gone with the Wind poster was drolly literal - shows a table fan.
And this one made me laugh, for some reason....
http://www.cracked.com/article_16990_lost-in-translation-20-baffling-foreign-movie-posters_p2.html |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:26 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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I admire the Poles for not just buying some pre-packaged publicity kit from a U.S. distributor. Polishposter-dot-com has become instantly a favorite place to browse.
Cuckoo's Nest - wow. Haven't checked prices yet, but I'm tempted... |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:58 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Martha Marcy May Marlene tells the story of a slow disintegration of a traumatized girl. Elizabeth Olsen is good in the title role. Sensitively directed. It works. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2012 10:15 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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