JAPANESE FILMS

Sight & Sound; The Greatest Films of All Time

Sight & Sound released its “The Greatest Films of All Time 2012” on its website. The first place went to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”, while “Citizen Kane” slipped down to second. Ozu’s Tokyo Story made the third place. Separate poll by film directors placed Ozu’s film the first. Sight & Sound Top 10 1. Vertigo (Hitchcock) 2. Citizen Kane (Welles) 3. Tokyo Story (Ozu) 4. La Règle du jeu (Renoir) 5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (Murnau) 6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) 7. The Searchers (Ford) 8. Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov) 9. The Passion of Joan of Arc …

 
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Daisuke Ito’s Masterpiece Discovered

The print of “Issatu-Tasho-Ken (一殺多生剣)”, Daisuke Ito’s 1929 film, was discovered and is scheduled to be screened at Kyoto Film Festival in October. Probably it is not a familiar title to you; even the name of the director, Daisuke Ito, is not usually among “all-time great Japanese directors” list. You might have seen the still photograph above in some of the Japanese cinema history books, though. The film was produced during the pinnacle of Jidaigeki cinema, late 1920s and early 30s, and Daisuke Ito was the central figure of the era. The reason the late 20s being the most productive …

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'BOBTAIL' REVIEW / JAPANESE FILMS

Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (1975)

We sometimes forget that history is statistical approximation of collected experiences. And this process of collection is heavily biased by the political view, cultural understanding or artistic taste of each individual collector. When it comes to the life of a complex man, the collection tends to diverge, then we start to wonder how much of the story is actually reflection of each collector. Welcome to the world of “Citizen Mizoguchi”. This film may be a bit difficult to follow, if you are not familiar with the events described in a series of interviews. For example, it is not clearly laid …

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