kenji mizoguchi best films

Many see this as a pseudo-autobiographical work, as Utamaro faces difficulty in art, deeply cares for women, and is censored (something certainly on Mizoguchi’s mind having just left World War Two). Votes:171. “Mizoguchi’s brilliant experimentation with form is at once a superb consolidation of the film’s fictional world and a self-justifying adventure in film artifice.” Tony Rayns Film: The Critic’s Choice, 2001. THE 47 RONIN is a two-part, almost four hour retelling of the classic Japanese story of ronin who seek revenge for their dishonored master. Her love for someone below her class leads only to her punishment, then endless pain and humiliation. Few would describe the first of Mizoguchi’s two colour features (alongside the same year’s historical epic Tales of the Taira Clan) as among his more distinguished works. Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director. Nevertheless, on this aesthetic level alone it counts among Mizoguchi’s most distinguished works, with the fluid tracking shots that make up its fabric providing some of the most sublime examples of the director’s signature one-scene one-take style. It is an interesting transitional piece in Mizoguchi’s career, notable for its gritty neorealist approach and a powerful performance by Kinuyo Tanaka, the actress who, following on from her first central turn for him in another film set in the city, the now lost A Woman of Osaka (1940), would become closely associated with the director both on screen and off. In the 1950s he finally gained worldwide recognition, especially amongst the French critics at Cahiers du Cinéma who saw him as a traditionally Japanese director compared to the supposedly westernized Akira Kurosawa. THE LIFE OF OHARU (1952) 5. Le père de Mizoguchi, un ancien charpentier, est violent envers sa mère et sa sœur Suzu qu'il vendra comme geisha1. Subscribe now for exclusive offers and the best of cinema. It’s a potent concoction of myth and reality. His work was respected initially and then considered outdated later on. French film posters (10) Polish film posters (8) Kenji Mizoguchi (18) Princess Yang Kwei Fei YOKIHI (4) The Crucified Lovers (Chikamatsu Monogatari) (3) A Geisha (Gion Bayashi) (3) Street of Shame (Akasen Chitai) (1) Portrait of Madame Yuki (Yuki fujin ezu) (1) The Story of … Mizoguchi was a repetitious director. A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century. While THE LOVE OF THE ACTRESS SUMAKO is not a bad film at all, it’s rather average for Mizoguchi. It is filled with pointless vengeance and unstoppable regret. BFI Japan 2020: Over 100 Years of Japanese Cinema is a major celebration of Japanese cinema beginning on BFI Player. At around an hour, MIYAMOTO MUSASHI passes by quite quickly. It reflects many of the ideas that Mizoguchi would later repeat in sound but still tells a gripping story. Seeing Oyu’s affections reciprocated by her would-be husband, Shizu hatches a plan to go ahead with the sham marriage in keeping with propriety, but for it to act as a façade for an otherwise socially impossible affair. Yet there’s still some beauty to be found in some of the theatre scenes. To escape punishment, the accused run away together, but Ishun is certain to be ruined if word gets out. Rated the #2 best film of 1953, and #96 in the greatest all-time movies (according to RYM users). Slyly simple but an emotionally wrenching and poetically told story. Ever since his sister was essentially sold into geishadom, Mizoguchi had a fixation with the geisha occupation and the rights of women. Il vit alors dans le quartier d'Asakusa, le plus pauvre de Tokyo. Sadly it’s a dull effort and as with most of Mizoguchi’s war efforts, his heart doesn’t really seem to be in it. Even more remarkable to modern-day viewers is Minoru Miki’s amazing deep-focus cinematography, anticipating some of Gregg Toland’s work on Citizen Kane (1941). In this film, by contrast, the street scenes emphasize deep perspectives. 5. Mizoguchi returned to the lives of sex workers for his final work, somewhat fittingly released in the same year that Japan’s anti-prostitution law came into effect, and one of a short-lived cycle of so-called akasen (‘red light’) films depicting the sun setting on this twilight demi-monde. By the 1930s Japan had developed its own cinematic culture, with benshi narration performed by a live actor that would accompany a film. Still, it’s not terrible. In the middle of his 1950s run of masterpieces Mizoguchi found time to produce a much more minor work, A GEISHA. Sisters of the Gion (祇園の姉妹, Gion no kyōdai) or Sisters of Gion is a 1936 black and white Japanese film drama directed by Kenji Mizoguchi about two sisters living in the Gion District. As well as being one of his two colour films, it also plays more as a historical genre piece than Mizoguchi’s usual dramas. Livraison GRATUITE par Amazon. Mizoguchi’s film is an uncompromising look at the forces that keep many women at the bottom rung of the social ladder. Like all Mizoguchi films THE CRUCIFIED LOVERS deals with those in unfortunate circumstances. And if Ozu or Kurosawa could be accused of skirting around the political aspects of their chosen subject matter, Mizoguchi was unashamedly unapologetic about his chosen concern: the unfair lot of Japanese women through the ages. THE STORY OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUMS (1939) 3. DVD Actuellement indisponible. Japanese film director Kenji Mizoguchi (1898 – 1956) is one of the most respected filmmakers in history. Dramatically it may be a little stiff, it is true, but the ornate costumes and sets, embellished by veteran cameraman Kohei Sugiyama’s sumptuous cinematography, ensure it is never less than beautiful to behold. POPPY finds Mizoguchi in an unusually romantic and uplifting mood, even though the melodrama goes through a few twists and turns. Director:Kenji Mizoguchi|Stars:Taizô Fukami, Akira Harue, Kiyoshi Katô, Seizaburô Kawazu. Some must-see titles from the long career of one of the great masters of Japanese cinema, famed for his exquisite travelling shots and fierce critiques of his country’s patriarchal inequality. SISTERS OF THE GION (1936) 6. SANSHO THE BAILIFF (1954) 4. Sansho Dayu arguably represents the apogee of Mizoguchi’s method, unfolding with a clarity of vision in which form and content are perfectly matched and the whole far transcends the sum of its parts. Ayant des difficultés à l'école, il devient apprenti dans l'atelier d'un dessinateur de mode. Thus A GEISHA is one of his most interesting looks at a job that gave women both independence and great difficulty. Il se passionne alors pour la peinture et… SONG OF HOME is the only Mizoguchi film from the 1920s to survive. Its final moments are despair with little solace and every second of the story before then are a tragedy. This drama is filled with complicated relationships and agreements, all culminating in sad scenes and despair all around. There’s not a lot fresh here, but it’s still moving. Ishun is a wealthy, but unsympathetic, master printer who has wrongly accused his wife and best employee of being lovers. Mizoguchi’s greatest film is one of history and spirituality, something less grounded than usual for the political director. Documentary (shot over two years) recounts the master’s life and career across some 36 interviews with actors, producers and crew members from his films. This is a truly heart-wrenching adaptation of Ogai Mori’s 1915 short story about an 11th-century noble family dispersed after their father, a local governor, is banished for disobeying his feudal lord, with the young brother and sister separated from their mother (Tanaka Kinuyo) and sold into slavery by a brutal bailiff. Mizoguchi himself said he made "only about 75 films or so, not really very many". The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums ranks alongside of Mizoguchi’s best post-war films (The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff) as one of the greatest achievements in cinema. I've long felt that if there were a god, the closest expression we're likely to find on this earth is in this movie. These eight films from the last decade of Mizoguchi's career represent a collection of eight of his greatest works, which is to say, eight of the greatest films ever made. Finally, he does what his parents want him to, and her finds herself abandoned in the big city. Miss Oyu (1951) Mizoguchi’s first film for Daiei, the studio most active in pushing … Directed by: 溝口健二 [Kenji Mizoguchi]. Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu” tied for fiftieth place (with Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” and Chris Marker’s “La Jetée”). Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (Aru eiga-kantoku no shogai) is a 1975 Japanese documentary film on the life and works of director Kenji Mizoguchi, directed by Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Mizoguchi’s most frequent collaborator, actress Kinuyo Tanaka, delivers her best performance in the lead role, and acting legend Toshiro Mifune has a small role. The film"s page. Kenji Mizoguchi • Starring: Kinuyo Tanaka, Tsukie Matsuura, Ichirô … Mizoguchi’s first film after World War Two dives straight into social politics, looking at how women were treated within Japan’s patriarchal society. As his penultimate film TAIRA CLAN SAGA is quite distinct in Mizoguchi’s filmography. It is, as one expects from Mizoguchi, very emotional. While he is not always as well-known as contemporaries like Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa, his films are still great. Across this long and influential career there is so much to admire. It can be compared to Naruse. At his most daring Mizoguchi was willing to poke holes in the failures of Japanese society. Here love itself is persecuted and people find themselves killed just for loving the wrong people. Adapted from a story by Ueda Akinari (1734-1809), this poetic karmic morality tale set during the late-16th-century period of civil war follows the separate fates of two brothers who make their livings as potters and their respective downfalls through lust, arrogance, murder and greed – with the usual Mizoguchi message that it is the women in their lives who ultimately suffer for their husbands’ vanities. Mizoguchi shaped the cinema of Japan in a way that many would repeat in the following decades. The film is a turning point, as his melodramas reached a maturity and sophistication that lasted throughout the rest of the career. Mizoguchi’s final film was STREET OF SHAME. 26. A powerful, if not somewhat gruelling depiction of a woman at the mercy of the patriarchalism historically engrained within Japanese society, the film has been criticised in some quarters as aestheticising its protagonist’s suffering. The supernatural aspect, introduced as one of the siblings, Genjuro, is lured from his wife and child by the ethereal beauty of the mysterious Lady Wakasa, have seen some perplexingly checklist the film as an early marker in the evolution of Japanese horror. Synopsis. Sa famille, malgré l'ambition de son père, devient très pauvre après la crise économique de 1904. Made in a post-war haze, UTAMARO AND HIS FIVE WOMEN tells the story of the famous artist Utamaro. About as good as MIYAMOTO MUSASHI, this is another work that came out when Mizoguchi faced limited options during World War Two. This is art cinema at its finest and one of the most transcendent pieces of cinema. In many ways it is. KENJI MIZOGUCHI: THE LIFE OF A FILM DIRECTOR ある映画監督の生涯 溝口健二の記録 | Aru eiga-kantoku no shōgai. Akira KurosawaForeign FilmJapanese MoviesKenji MizoguchiSansho the BaliffThe 47 RoninThe Story of the Last ChrysanthemumsUgetsuYasujiro Ozu, Your email address will not be published. Considered one of the greatest films ever made by some critics, THE LIFE OF OHARU is unbelievably bleak. Yet a good story is a good story. Mizoguchi considered OSAKA ELEGY his first mature work. Though appointed chairman of the Directors Guild of Japan in 1937, Mizoguchi’s refined aesthetic sensibilities only really reached western consciousness late in his life, when he received his first international award in 1952 for The Life of Oharu. Your email address will not be published. Sisters of the Gion follows the parallel paths of the independent, unsentimental Omocha (Isuzu Yamada) and her sister, the more tradition-minded Umekichi (Yoko Umemura), both geishas in the working-class district of Gion. This is a shocking film, with sickening moments and a deep sympathy for those in need. Just four years later, his career was brought to a tragic end by his death of cancer, aged 58. It’s unsubtle, but a compelling political piece regardless. Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka, Mitsuko Mito. Moments here switch from tender to sickening and it’s all so heart-breaking by the end. Voir aussi: Kenji Mizoguchi Mizoguchi naît à Tōkyō en 1898. The film is seen as a companion piece to Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy which shares much of the same cast and production team.. Whereas many Mizoguchi films centre on the pain of women, this is a film about the pain of all. While Ozu steadfastly kept his camera still and his images flat for his low-key portraits of contemporary family life in the postwar period, Mizoguchi’s seldom ever rested, with some of the most delicately choreographed tracking shots and striking examples of deep-focus staging seen the world over. After one pass through his oeuvre and I think this is his best by an extremely slim margin over Slyly simple but an emotionally wrenching and poetically told story. FLAME OF MY LOVE is perhaps the Mizoguchi film that most invests in the minutiae of party politics. UGETSU (1953) 2. This is the one that really hits the hardest, filled with loveless marriages and lovers who cannot be together. It’s a beautiful piece, with a grander scale than most Mizoguchi efforts. Unfortunately most of the titles realised in this first decade, which make up over half his overall output, no longer survive. Film after film deal with the same ideas and themes around women needlessly sacrificing themselves, women stuck in desperate situations, and social forces ripping apart lovers and happiness. Nevertheless, this is a film of discreet chills, subtle emotions and a strong spiritual dimension, with the dreamlike sequence detailing Genjuro’s arrival at the noblewoman’s manor and subsequent seduction surely counting as one of the most beautiful in world cinema. ©2021 British Film Institute. 150. Mizoguchi remains best known today for his late masterworks of the 1950s and especially The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff, haunting visions of feudal Japan tragically shaped by the suffering heroines and inexorable tracking shots often declared the pillars of Mizoguchi’s cinema. The behind-the-scenes dynamics of the geisha house and its less salubrious poor relation the bawdy house was a theme to which Mizoguchi would return throughout his career in films such as A Woman of Rumour (1954) and Street of Shame (1956). Cinema like this is some of the most vital. This is a short and simple drama, but every moment builds up perfectly. Registered charity 287780. It’s a despairing effort, but so strongly defined. It’s a unique piece, following the lives of a few sex workers as they deal with poverty and upcoming changes to the law. Il grandit dans un milieu très pauvre en bordure de la rivière Sumida dans le quartier miséreux d’Asakusa, où se mélangent chiffonniers, théâtres populaires, terrains vagues, petits trafics et prostituées. Mizoguchi's film is a brilliantly shot, uncompromising look at the forces that keep many women at the bottom rung of the social ladder. PORTRAIT OF MADAME YUKI is a solid drama about a woman stuck in a loveless marriage and seeking escape. So here’s a ranking to highlight the amazing work of one of cinema’s greatest masters. Mizoguchi's visual style is superb throughout the film, with every scene involving an elaborate composition. One film made in 1935 is actually called Oyuki the Virgin, or Maria no Oyuki in Japanese. Perfection. STREET OF SHAME (1956) 8. Mizoguchi’s cinema was at times socialist, always humanist, and never uncaring. Documentary. The Films of Kenji Mizoguchi Ranked Best to Worst 1. THE LIFE OF OHARU is a film to forever cry at, it’s a tragic masterpiece. Explore the history of film in list form. Given his then post-war freedom, this feels rather pedestrian. 1975 ‘ある映画監督の生涯 溝口健二の記録’ Directed by Kaneto Shindō. Mizoguchi naît à Tokyo en 1898. It shares many of the qualities of THE WATER MAGICIAN and remains equally compelling. Umekichi believes in sticking with her patron through thick and thin, mindful of her need for security as she passes her first flush of youth, while her defiantly independent younger sibling Omocha takes a more hard-nosed attitude to financial relationships with the men who employ her services. Rather unexpectedly Mizoguchi made a film set in China. Even when dealing with those who are fortunate Mizoguchi finds ways to show the limitations of social constructs. Mizoguchi tragically passed away three months after its release, and with it, an entire era of classical Japanese cinema came to an end. The story is one of love and revolution, with a woman paying the ultimate price as always. Almost all his films are magnificent and if you have not seen any, they are well worth seeking out. By far Mizoguchi’s most brutal film, SANSHO THE BAILIFF is drawn from the pain of history and the many people who have suffered throughout time. Hand-picked. This isn’t a film for the easily distracted, but it can provide some food for thought if you commit to it. By itself, the film is a strong effort, but compared to Mizoguchi’s entire filmography he told similar stories much better many times. Darren Carver-Balsiger is a writer from the UK. Kenji Mizoguchi ( japonais 溝口 健二, Mizoguchi Kenji) réalisateur japonais, né le 16 mai 1898 à Tôkyô, mort le 24 août 1956 à Kyôto. Genres: Jidaigeki, Low Fantasy. A young couple of lovers want to travel to Tokio to work and form a family there, but the parents of him want his son to regent their hotel. See what’s now showing >. He began by making silent films in the early 1920s and then progressed to sound in the late 1930s and color in the 1950s. The camera moves across the narrative as if unfurling a great tapestry of blood and tears. Sa famille, malgré l'ambition de son père, devient très pauvre après la crise économique de 1904. Trailer. THE CRUCIFIED LOVERS (1954) 7. If Kurosawa’s meticulously realised portrayals of samurai heroics were fashioned in the stylistic vein of Hollywood, Mizoguchi’s portraits of a bygone age were all of his own. Class was always a part of Mizoguchi’s thoughts, and even in an early film like OYUKI THE VIRGIN it is prominent. Mizoguchi finds the struggle of women still prevalent as progress moves forward, signalling his desire for a world that needs to keeps on growing. In effect, his sister Suzuko, or Suzu, was sold into the geishaprofession - an e… It’s a well-rounded effort and executed beautifully. 2. It also proved a little too ahead of its own time; its cosmopolitan vision of Osaka and progressive take on the social pressures faced by independent modern Japanese women made it a controversial title in the increasingly culturally conservative climate of the era, and distribution was temporarily suspended by Japan’s Ministry of Affairs.

Doctor Atomic Batter My Heart, Boss Business Solutions, Postcards From Italy Live, Anti-gliadin Iga High In Stool, North Eleuthera Airport Address, Nicolás En Ruso, Pajama Jammy Jam Ideas, Stratford College A Levels, Triumph Pronunciation In British English, Spirit Tree Osrs Poh, Leopard Gecko For Sale Bc Canada, Youtube Schubert Am Tage Aller Seelen,