Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Guest Filmmakers Include Nobuhiko Obayashi and Susumu Hani. Retrospective Also
Features Works By Other Celebrated Filmmakers Including Masao Adachi, Takahiko
Iimura, Shohei Imamura, Toshio Matsumoto, Nagisa Oshima, Donald Richie, Kaneto
Shindo, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Koji Wakamatsu, and others.
NEW YORK, November 13, 2012—The Museum of Modern Art and The Japan Foundation
present Art Theater Guild and Japanese Underground Cinema, 1960–1986, the most
comprehensive U.S. retrospective ever devoted to the Art Theater Guild, the independent film
company that radically transformed Japanese cinema by producing and distributing experimental,
transgressive, and genre-shattering films from the early 1960s until the mid-1980s, running from
December 6, 2012–February 10, 2013, in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters. This exhibition is
curated by Go Hirasawa, Meiji-Gakuin University; Roland Domenig, University of Vienna; and
Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art; with curatorial
assistance provided by Julian Ross, University of Leeds.
Free from the strictures and conventions of the mainstream Japanese studio system, the
cinema of the Art Theater Guild was characterized by its provocative depictions of sex, violence,
politics, and social upheaval. The ATG also provided a fresh testing ground for collaboration
among filmmakers, composers, dancers, novelists, artists, performance artists, and avant-garde
theater companies. This exhibition of approximately 70 titles features such seminal Japanese
directors as Shohei Imamura, Toship Matsumuro, Nagisa Oshima, Kaneto Shindo, Hiroshi
Teshigahara, and Koji Wakamatsu, and runs concurrently with the gallery exhibition Tokyo 1955–
1970: A New Avant-Garde. Also presented are several non-ATG programs of Japanese
underground cinema of the period, including experimental films and videos by Donald Richie,
Masao Adachi, Takahiko Iimura, and others. Two of the leading filmmakers of the Art Theater
Guild, Nobuhiko Obayashi and Susumu Hani, will make rare New York appearances to introduce
their work, as will the artist Takahiko Iimura.
MoMA's groundbreaking ATG exhibition features pioneering Japanese New Wave work by
Nagisa Oshima and Kaneto Shindo, as well independent productions like the novelist and
playwright Yukio Mishima’s only film, his nationalist Yukoku (Patriotism/The Rite of Love and
Death) (1966); Imamura’s Ningen Johatsu (A Man Vanishes) (1967), a strangely haunting hybrid
of fiction and documentary; Toshio Matsumoto’s delirious gay retelling of Oedipus Rex in Bara no
Soretsu (Funeral Parade of Roses) (1969) as well as his Shura (Pandemonium) (1971); Akio
Jissoji’s Mujo (This Transient Life) (1970), which remains one of the few successful cinematic
representations of Buddhist philosophy; and Koji Wakamatsu’s incendiary leftist tract Tenshi no
Kokotsu (Ecstasy of the Angels) (1972).
No. 62
Press Contact:
Sarah Jarvis, (212) 708-9757, sarah_jarvis@moma.org
Brien McDaniel, (212) 708-9747, brien_mcdaniel@moma.org
*************************
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Screening Schedule
Art Theater Guild and Japanese Underground Cinema, 1960–1986
December 6, 2012–February 10, 2013
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters
Thursday, December 6
Friday, December 7
6:30 Haishi (The Deserted City). 1984. Japan. Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi.
Screenplay by Chiho Katsura, Makoto Naito, based on a novel by Takehiko
Fukunaga. With Satomi Kobayashi, Kisuke Yamashita, Toshie Negishi. Obayashi’s
second ATG production is a romantic, melancholy melodrama born of the elegiac
atmosphere of Yanagawa, a city famous for its canals. After reading a newspaper
article about a tragic fire that took place in Yanagawa, a man recalls the summer
he spent there as a student and the family who gave him room and board. Secrets
of a love triangle simmering between the daughter, her sister, and her sister’s
husband return to memory. In Japanese; English subtitles. Print lent by The Japan
Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. 105 min. Introduced by Obayashi.
Saturday, December 8
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ghosts and doppelgangers that he infused with social realist depictions of
hardscrabble coal mining life. Courtesy Janus Films. In Japanese; English subtitles.
95 min.
7:30 Tobenai Chinmoku (Silence Has No Wings). 1966. Japan. Directed by Kazuo
Kuroki. Screenplay by Yasuo Matsukawa, Hisaya Iwasa, Kuroki. With Mariko Kaga,
Minoru Hiranaka, Rokko Toura. A strange and wondrously imaginative film:
Kuroki’s meditation on the history and politics of postwar Japan is told through the
fanciful and difficult journey of a caterpillar from the south of Japan to the north,
and through its metamorphosis into a butterfly and a beautiful, elusive young
woman. Silence Has No Wings has a breathtaking formal audacity, with soaring
cinematography by the great Tatsuo Suzuki and an ethereal soundscape that
interweaves voices both real and imagined. Print lent by The Japan Foundation;
courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 100 min.
Sunday, December 9
5:00 Seishun no Satsujinsha (The Youth Killer). 1976. Japan. Directed by Kazuhiko
Hasegawa. Screenplay by Tsutomu Tamura. With Yutaka Mizutani, Ryohei Uchida,
Etsuko Ichihara. Based on a true crime adapted into a short novel by Kenji
Nakagami, this debut film by Hasegawa is an operatic tragedy about the psychic
breakdown of a young man and the disintegration of his family. Hasegawa’s
mesmerizingly intense depictions of violence chart the criminal act and its
consequences. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. In
Japanese; English subtitles. 116 min.
Monday, December 10
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aestheticization of violence. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy the
filmmaker. In Japanese; English subtitles. 135 min.
Wednesday, December 12
7:00 Tokyo Senso Sengo Hiwa (The Man Who Left His Will on Film). 1970.
Japan. Directed by Nagisa Oshima. Screenplay by Masato Hara, Mamoru Sasaki.
With Kazuo Goto, Emiko Iwasaki, Sugio Fukuoka. Following activist
demonstrations, a student filmmaker discovers a last will and testament recorded
on film by a man who may or may not have existed. Much like Antonioni’s Blow-
Up (1966), the footage seems to be innocuous and visually uneventful, yet its very
banality suggests a tantalizing mystery that invites imaginative speculation. The
student concludes that the only way to understand the ghostly man’s last will is to
re-shoot the landscape locations himself. The tension between subjective
experience and historical fact lies at the heart of fukeiron, a landscape theory that
gained currency in Japan in the 1960s. Print lent by Harvard Film Archive;
courtesy Janus Films. In Japanese; English subtitles. 94 min.
Thursday, December 13
5
Jonouchi works courtesy Mineko Jonouchi; Nihon University Cinema Club works
courtesy The Film-Makers’ Coop, New York. Program 76 min. (See Sunday,
December 9, 2:30)
Friday, December 14
4:15 Tobenai Chinmoku (Silence Has No Wings). 1966. Japan. Directed by Kazuo
Kuroki. Screenplay by Yasuo Matsukawa, Hisaya Iwasa, Kuroki. With Mariko Kaga,
Minoru Hiranaka, Rokko Toura. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Toho
Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 100 min. (See Saturday, December 8,
7:30)
Saturday, December 15
5:00 Haishi (The Deserted City). 1984. Japan. Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi.
Screenplay by Chiho Katsura, Makoto Naito, based on a novel by Takehiko
Fukunaga. In Japanese; English subtitles. Print lent by The Japan Foundation;
courtesy Toho Distribution. 105 min. (See Friday, December 7, 6:30)
7:30 Seishun no Satsujinsha (The Youth Killer). 1976. Japan. Directed by Kazuhiko
Hasegawa. Screenplay by Tsutomu Tamura. With Yutaka Mizutani, Ryohei Uchida,
Etsuko Ichihara. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution.
In Japanese; English subtitles. 116 min. (See Sunday, December 9, 5:00)
Sunday, December 16
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Shogunate feudalism and paved the way toward Japan’s rapid modernization.
Kuroki’s dramatic retelling of a timeworn popular legend focuses on the three days
leading up to Ryoma’s assassination, and is given a strikingly modernist look by
cinematographer Masaki Tamura. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy
Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 118 min.
Monday, December 17
Wednesday, December 19
Friday, January 4
6:45 Tenshi no Kokotsu (Ecstasy of the Angels). 1972. Japan. Directed by Koji
Wakamatsu. Screenplay by De Deguchi (Masao Adachi). With Ken Yoshizawa, Rie
Yokoyama, Yuki Aresa. Extreme leftist politics and candid sex collide in Art Theater
Guild’s most controversial feature, as the bad boys of “Pink Cinema,” Koji
Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi, depict Tokyo as a bombed-out city on the verge of
revolution, anticipating real-life bombings of police stations and internecine
warfare among various splinter activist groups. Courtesy Blaq Out. In Japanese;
English subtitles. 88 min.
7
Saturday, January 5
4:30 Ikiteiru Koheiji (The Living Koheiji). 1982. Japan. Directed by Nobuo
Nakagawa. Screenplay by Nakagawa, based on a play by Senzaburo Suzuki. With
Fumihiko Fujima, Junko Miyashita, Shoji Ishibashi. After a thirteen-year hiatus,
Nakagawa, a master of the immensely popular Japanese ghost genre, returned to
the studio one last time to make his most intense, and perhaps most beautiful,
film. Nakagawa stages his love triangle among a traveling Kabuki player, his wife,
and her lover—a drama about crimes of passion—as a theatrically stylized yet
intimate play between illusion and reality. Print lent by The Japan Foundation;
courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 78 min.
6:45 Shinju Ten no Amijima (Double Suicide). 1969. Japan. Directed by Masahiro
Shinoda. Screenplay by Taeko Tomioka, Toru Takemitsu, Shinoda, based on a play
by Monzaemon Chikamatsu. With Kichiemon Nakamura, Shima Iwashita, Hosei
Komatsu. In his radical updating of Chikamatsu’s classic bunraku play, Shinoda
explores the familiar tension between familial duty and individual longing through
a pair of desperately passionate young lovers sealed in a doomed fate. Shinoda’s
brilliant theatrical conceits include sets that collapse to reveal their artifice, and
the manipulations of hooded puppeteers who intervene in their characters’
destinies. Courtesy Janus Films. In Japanese; English subtitles. 104 min.
Sunday, January 6
5:00 Shinjuku Dorobo Nikki (Diary of a Shinjuku Thief). 1969. Japan. Directed by
Nagisa Oshima. Screenplay by Masao Adachi, Mamoru Sasaki, Tsutomu Tamura,
Oshima. With Tadanori Yokoo, Rie Yokoyama, Kei Sato. Restlessly chaotic
storytelling prevails in Oshima’s brilliant homage to Tokyo’s city center of
Shinjuku—ground zero for cultural experimentation and social protest. Famed
graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo plays a young shoplifter who embarks on a
flirtatious roundelay of gender bending with the beautiful Umeko. Juro Kara’s
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Situation Theatre is one of several counterculture hotspots making a location
cameo. Courtesy Janus Films. In Japanese; English subtitles. 94 min.
Monday, January 7
Wednesday, January 9
Thursday, January 10
9
development of the Art Theater Guild. Courtesy Nihon University Cinema Club. In
Japanese; English subtitles. 56 min.
Yukoku (Patriotism/The Rite of Love and Death). 1966. Japan. Written,
directed by, and starring Yukio Mishima. After receiving orders to take command
of a unit that will exterminate his rebel friends following their failed coup in the
“2.26 Incident” of 1936, a lieutenant and his wife commit double suicide.
Mishima’s chillingly nationalist adaptation of his own 1961 novel attracted
tremendous critical response and public favor, paving the way for Art Theater
Guild productions to follow. Courtesy Sakai Agency. In Japanese; English subtitles.
28 min.
6:45 Ikiteiru Koheiji (The Living Koheiji). 1982. Japan. Directed by Nobuo
Nakagawa. Screenplay by Nakagawa, based on a play by Senzaburo Suzuki. With
Fumihiko Fujima, Junko Miyashita, Shoji Ishibashi. Print lent by The Japan
Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 78 min.
(See Saturday, January 5, 4:30)
Friday, January 11
Saturday, January 12
10
and Onan, Iimura improvises with vanguard musicians Takehisa Kosugi, Yoko Ono,
and Yasunao Tone with exhilarating results. All Iimura works courtesy The Film-
makers’ Co-op, New York. Program 67 min. Introduced by Iimura.
Sunday, January 13
11
Monday, January 14
Wednesday, January 16
4:00 Nikudan (The Human Bullet). 1968. Japan. Written and directed by Kihachi
Okamoto. With Minori Terada, Naoko Otani, Yunosuke Ito. Perhaps best known for
his samurai films for Toho studio, Okamoto also wrote and directed a number of
antiwar films based on his own experiences as a soldier. The Human Bullet is the
best of these, a satire centering on a nameless soldier who on the eve of a suicide
mission meets his first—and last—love. Mixing humor with melancholy, the film
offers a conflicted vision of national duty and sacrifice. Print lent by The Japan
Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 117 min.
Thursday, January 17
6:30 Shinjuku Dorobo Nikki (Diary of a Shinjuku Thief). 1969. Japan. Directed by
Nagisa Oshima. Screenplay by Masao Adachi, Mamoru Sasaki, Tsutomu Tamura,
Oshima. Courtesy Janus Films. In Japanese; English subtitles. 94 min. (See
Sunday, January 6, 5:00)
Friday, January 18
4:30 Tenshi no Kokotsu (Ecstasy of the Angels). 1972. Japan. Directed by Koji
Wakamatsu. Screenplay by De Deguchi (Masao Adachi). With Ken Yoshizawa, Rie
Yokoyama, Yuki Aresa. Courtesy Blaq Out. In Japanese; English subtitles. 88 min.
(See Friday, January 4, 6:45)
7:00 Bara no Soretsu (Funeral Parade of Roses). 1969. Japan. Written and
directed by Toshio Matsumoto. With Peter, Osamu Ogasawara, Toyosaburo
Uchiyama. “A carnivalesque melding of documentary vérité and avant-garde
psychedelia, Funeral Parade of Roses offers a shocking and ecstatic journey
through the nocturnal underworld of Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood, following the
strange misadventures of a rebellious drag queen fending off his/her rivals. Often
cited as a major inspiration for Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Matsumoto’s
breakthrough film is a visually audacious and lyrically abstract testament to the
vertiginous daring of the postwar Japanese avant-garde art and film scenes.
Matsumoto orchestrates a series of quite astonishing visual set pieces, including
actual performances by the influential street theater group Zero-Jigen” (Haden
Guest, Harvard Film Archive). Print lent by Harvard Film Archve; courtesy the
filmmaker. In Japanese; English subtitles. 107 min.
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Saturday, December 19
2:00 Nikudan (The Human Bullet). 1968. Japan. Written and directed by Kihachi
Okamoto. With Minori Terada, Naoko Otani, Yunosuke Ito. Print lent by The Japan
Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 117 min.
(See Wednesday, January 16, 4:00)
4:45 Shinju Ten no Amijima (Double Suicide). 1969. Japan. Directed by Masahiro
Shinoda. Screenplay by Taeko Tomioka, Toru Takemitsu, Shinoda, based on a play
by Monzaemon Chikamatsu. With Kichiemon Nakamura, Shima Iwashita, Hosei
Komatsu. Courtesy Janus Films. In Japanese; English subtitles. 104 min. (See
Saturday, January 5, 6:45)
7:15 Mujo (This Transient Life). 1970. Japan. Directed by Akio Jissoji. Screenplay by
Toshiro Ishido. With Kotobuki Hananomoto, Akiji Kobayashi, Eiji Okada. Jissoji’s
feature debut was one of the Art Theater Guild’s biggest international hits, a
sensuous and daring exploration of Buddhist spirituality and eroticism that also
touched on the taboo of incest. The film’s controversial content, combined with the
breathtaking, nearly gravity-defying camerawork, captivated audiences worldwide.
In Japanese; English subtitles. 146 min.
Sunday, January 20
Monday, January 21
Wednesday, January 23
13
Thursday, January 24
Friday, January 25
7:00 Mujo (This Transient Life). 1970. Japan. Directed by Akio Jissoji. Screenplay by
Toshiro Ishido. In Japanese; English subtitles. 146 min. (See Saturday, January
19, 7:15)
Saturday, January 26
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5:00 Den’en ni Shisu (Pastoral: Hide and Seek). 1974. Japan. Written and directed
by Shuji Terayama. With Kantaro Suga, Hiroyuki Takano, Yoshio Harada. A
virtuoso in a great many artistic disciplines, counterculture icon Terayama drew
upon his poetry collection, also titled Pastoral, for this clever and humorous
exploration of memory and memoir. His alter ego is a filmmaker who is suddenly
confronted with his childhood self. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy
Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 102 min.
7:30 Sho o Suteyo, Machi e Deyo (Throw Away Your Books Get Out onto the
Streets/Throw Away Your Books, Let’s Go Into the Street). 1971. Japan.
Written and directed by Shuji Terayama. With Eimei Sasaki, Masahiro Saito,
Yukiko Kobayashi. Terayama’s Art Theater Guild debut is a breathtaking collage of
words transformed into street actions and art happenings—a devilishly disjointed
urban narrative loosely held together by a coming-of-age drama. Print lent by the
National Film Center of The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; courtesy Toho
Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 119 min.
Sunday, January 27
2:30 Sho o Suteyo, Machi e Deyo (Throw Away Your Books Get Out onto the
Streets/Throw Away Your Books, Let’s Go Into the Street). 1971. Japan.
Written and directed by Shuji Terayama. With Eimei Sasaki, Masahiro Saito,
Yukiko Kobayashi. Print lent by the National Film Center of The National Museum
of Modern Art, Tokyo; courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles.
119 min. (Saturday, January 26, 7:30)
5:15 Ningen Johatsu (A Man Vanishes). 1967. Japan. Directed by Shohei Imamura.
With Yoshie Hayakawa, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Imamura. In this genre-shattering
investigative (and investigation of) documentary, Imamura and his crew follow
one of Japan’s thousands of missing-persons cases. They find their journalistic
integrity suddenly called into question when the missing man’s fiancée begins to
fall in love with the filmmaker. “In a coup de cinéma that has been equaled only
by Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up, Imamura transforms fact into artifice, being into
acting, personal identity into tenuous fabrication” (James Quandt, Cinematheque
Ontario). Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Icarus Films. In Japanese;
English subtitles. 130 min.
Monday, January 28
4:30 Japanese Underground Cinema Program 10: Donald Richie and Shuji
Terayama
Senso Gokko (War Games). 1962. Japan. Directed by Donald Richie. 22 min.
Cybele (Cybele: A Pastoral Ritual in Five Scenes). 1968. Japan. Directed by
Donald Richie. 20 min.
Ori (Cage). 1962. Japan. Directed by Shuji Terayama. Courtesy Henrikku
Morisaki. 11 min.
Tomato Ketchappu Kotei (Emperor Tomato Ketchup). 1971. Japan. Directed
by Shuji Terayama. Courtesy Henrikku Morisaki. 27 min.
Donald Richie, a former MoMA curator and internationally renowned historian and
critic of Japanese culture, was also an avid participant in underground cinema in
Japan. Two of his personal and affecting films are presented in this program: War
Games depicts a sacrificial ritual enacted by children, with the participation of
butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata; Cybele is an outrageous naked ceremony
performed by Zero-Jigen. The theme of ritual continues with Terayama’s Cage and
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culminates in the anarchistic revolt of his Emperor Tomato Ketchup, which
scandalized the nation both as a radio play and a film. Program 80 min.
Wednesday, January 30
4:00 Noyuki Yamayuki Umibeyuki (Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and
the Seacoast). 1986. Japan. Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. Screenplay by
Haruo Sato, Shinobu Yamada. With Saburo Boya, Sen Hara, Yasufumi Hayashi.
During the fervently nationalist months leading up to World War II, a rebellious
teenager is transferred to a new primary school in a small Inland Sea town. He
vies with the school’s reigning bully, who takes a romantic interest in his older
stepsister. When they learn she’s going to be sold to a brothel to pay off her
father’s debts, they form an uneasy alliance to free her. With surprising moments
of caricature and slapstick, Obayashi celebrates the anarchic world of adolescence
while also satirizing adult hypocrisy and conformism. This is the color version of a
film that was also released in black and white. Print lent by The Japan Foundation;
courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 135 min.
7:00 Enrai (Distant Thunder). 1981. Japan. Directed by Kichitaro Negishi. Screenplay
by Haruhiko Arai, based on the novel by Wahei Tatematsu. With Toshiyuki
Nagashima, Johnny Okura, Eri Ishida. Distant Thunder charts the urban sprawl
and corrupt materialism of Tokyo in the 1970s, as well as its devastating effect on
farming families in the outlying areas of the city. Negishi’s film, whose protagonist
is a young tomato grower, was made in the characteristically realist style that his
uncle established in the 1930s as the leading producer of the famed Nikkatsu
Tamagawa studios. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Toho
Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 135 min.
Thursday, January 31
4:00 Den’en ni Shisu (Pastoral: Hide and Seek). 1974. Japan. Written and directed
by Shuji Terayama. With Kantaro Suga, Hiroyuki Takano, Yoshio Harada. Print lent
by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English
subtitles. 102 min. (See Saturday, January 26, 5:00)
6:30 Japanese Underground Cinema Program 10: Donald Richie and Shuji
Terayama
Senso Gokko (War Games). 1962. Japan. Directed by Donald Richie. 22 min.
Cybele (Cybele: A Pastoral Ritual in Five Scenes). 1968. Japan. Directed by
Donald Richie. 20 min.
Ori (Cage). 1962. Japan. Directed by Shuji Terayama. Courtesy Henrikku
Morisaki. 11 min.
Tomato Ketchappu Kotei (Emperor Tomato Ketchup). 1971. Japan. Directed
by Shuji Terayama. Courtesy Henrikku Morisaki. 27 min.
Program 80 min. (See Monday, January 28, 4:30)
Friday, February 1
4:00 Furyo Shonen (Bad Boys). 1961. Japan. Written and directed by Susumu Hani.
With Yukio Yamada, Hirokazu Yoshitake, Koichiro Yamazaki. One of the great
postwar Japanese filmmakers, Hani was a seminal figure of the Art Theater Guild
and presents several of his key works at MoMA. His debut feature, Bad Boys, was
voted best film of the year by prominent critics and launched the Japanese New
Wave. A classic of the genre, it’s a tough, poignant story about teenage
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delinquency that gained its street cred through vérité camerawork, on-location
photography, improvisation, and the use of non-professional actors. Hani’s
reputation as a brilliant and vital new voice in Japanese cinema was cemented by
such films as She and He, The Inferno of First Love, and The Morning Schedule, all
screening in a special weekend with Hani. Print lent by The Japan Foundation;
courtesy Iwanami Audio-Visual Media Ltd. In Japanese; English subtitles. 89 min.
Introduced by Hani.
6:30 Kanojo to Kare (She and He). 1963. Japan. Directed by Susumu Hani.
Screenplay by Kunio Shimizu, Hani. With Sachiko Hidari, Kikuji Yamashita, Eiji
Okada. Although incontestably one of postwar Japanese cinema’s most innovative
and influential filmmakers, Hani today is unjustly neglected. His second feature
film is a finely etched, feminist study of a young modern woman (Hidari) who is
restless in her marriage to a salaryman. The couple live in a shining new
apartment building on a hill overlooking a slum. The wife finds herself strangely
drawn to a rag-picker who lives down below in a tin shack with a blind child and a
dog, and the sheltering comforts of her middle-class existence inexorably fall
away. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Iwanami Audio-Visual Media
Ltd. In Japanese; English subtitles. 114 min. Introduced by Hani.
Saturday, February 2
1:30 Noyuki Yamayuki Umibeyuki (Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and
the Seacoast). 1986. Japan. Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. Screenplay by
Haruo Sato, Shinobu Yamada. With Saburo Boya, Sen Hara, Yasufumi Hayashi..
Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese;
English subtitles. 135 min. (See Wednesday, January 30, 4:00)
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Sunday, February 3
2:00 Kanojo to Kare (She and He). 1963. Japan. Directed by Susumu Hani.
Screenplay by Kunio Shimizu, Hani. With Sachiko Hidari, Kikuji Yamashita, Eiji
Okada. Print lent by The Japan Foundation; courtesy Iwanami Audio-Visual Media
Ltd. In Japanese; English subtitles. 114 min. (See Friday, February 1, 6:30)
Monday, February 4
Wednesday, February 6
7:00 Tattoo Ari (Tattoo). 1982. Japan. Directed by Banmei Takahashi. Screenplay by
Takuya Nishioka. With Ryudo Uzaki, Keiko Takahashi, Misako Watanabe. A heist
drama based on a true story, Tattoo marked Takahashi’s switch from a successful
career making sexploitation films to more mainstream fare. A bank robber’s life
story is told in flashback, tracing his frustrated efforts to find his place in society
and culminating in a last-ditch, violent attempt to prove himself. In Japanese;
English subtitles. 107 min.
Thursday, February 7
4:00 Ningen Johatsu (A Man Vanishes). 1967. Japan. Directed by Shohei Imamura.
With Yoshie Hayakawa, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Imamura. Print lent by The Japan
Foundation; courtesy Icarus Films. In Japanese; English subtitles. 130 min. (See
Sunday, January 27, 5:15)
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7:00 Furyo Shonen (Bad Boys). 1961. Japan. Written and directed by Susumu Hani.
With Yukio Yamada, Hirokazu Yoshitake, Koichiro Yamazaki. Print lent by The
Japan Foundation; courtesy Iwanami Audio-Visual Media Ltd. In Japanese; English
subtitles. 89 min. (See Friday, February 1, 4:00)
Friday, February 8
4:30 Kazoku Gemu (Family Game). 1983. Japan. Written and directed by Yoshimitsu
Morita. With Juzo Itami, Yusaku Matsuda, Saori Yuki. The illusion of familial
harmony, an undercurrent to so many ATG films, culminates in this wildly
successful and absurdist adaptation of a popular novel by Yohei Honma. Presented
in New Directors/New Films and the winner of 5 prestigious Kinema Junpo
awards—including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for the
brilliant director Juzo Itami’s performance as the patriarch—Family Game was
described by Vincent Canby in The New York Times as “wickedly funny…a stylish
deadpan comedy about Japan’s comparatively affluent, utterly directionless, new
middle class…. [F]rom the opening shots until the last, it's a visual adventure. The
succession of brilliantly colored, often geometric compositions satirize the worst
aspects of what might be called Japan's economic modernism.” Print lent by The
Japan Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 107
min.
Saturday, February 9
1:30 Tattoo Ari (Tattoo). 1982. Japan. Directed by Banmei Takahashi. Screenplay by
Takuya Nishioka. With Ryudo Uzaki, Keiko Takahashi, Misako Watanabe. In
Japanese; English subtitles. 107 min. (See Wednesday, February 6, 7:00)
4:15 Enrai (Distant Thunder). 1981. Japan. Directed by Kichitaro Negishi. Screenplay
by Haruhiko Arai, based on the novel by Wahei Tatematsu. With Toshiyuki
Nagashima, Johnny Okura, Eri Ishida. Print lent by The Japan Foundation;
courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 135 min. (See
Wednesday, January 30, 7:00)
7:30 Kazoku Gemu (Family Game). 1983. Japan. Written and directed by Yoshimitsu
Morita. With Juzo Itami, Yusaku Matsuda, Saori Yuki. Print lent by The Japan
Foundation; courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 107 min.
(See Friday, February 8, 4:30)
Sunday, February 10
19
5:00 Ningyo Densetsu (Mermaid Legend). 1984. Japan. Directed by Toshiharu
Ikeda. Screenplay by Takuya Nishioka. With Mari Shirato, Kentaro Shimizu, Jun
Eto. Courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 110 min. (See
Wednesday, February 6, 4:00)
20