Hani screenings in Chicago

[Alan Makinen]

Information about a Hani series upcoming at the Film Center, Chicago.
(Sorry if this duplicates information already distributed to the list.
I've been off-list for a while.) Text and schedule from the Film
Center's Gazette:

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Film Center
of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
280 S. Columbus Dr.
Chicago, Illinois

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Susumu Hani Rediscovered
Despite their initial fame, the films of Susumu Hani, overshadowed by
the
more direct and dramatic work of his contemporaries--Nagisa Oshima,
Yoshishige Yoshida, Masahiro Shinoda--have been relatively neglected. 
Yet
it was Hani who first heralded the "Japanese New Wave" with his
documentary
techniques, his freshness, and his devotion to children, adolescents and

those adults lucky enough to remain childlike.

Hani's childhood in wartime Japan was perhaps responsible for his
abiding
interest in the young, in innocence, in the problems of maturing.
Afflicted from youth with a lifelong stammer, he was naturally drawn to
other "problem" children, and it was about these that he made his films.

The children in the classrooms turned into the boys in the reformatory,
turned into the innocent teen-age would-be lovers facing experience,
turned
into the women determined to find some meaning in their lives.  Everyone
in
a Hani film is learning how to be who they are.  His films are segments
of
the arc which is said to end with self-knowledge.

Such consistency to a theme is rare, particularly in Japan, as is such
devotion to virtues now as old-fashioned as innocence.  Perhaps
consequently Hani's films are also neglected in his own country.  Though

more likely his distinction as a filmmaker has been eclipsed by his
great
local fame as the producer-director of the best TV series on African
animal-life.

Hani himself would see no difference between his earlier films and his
later TV series.  They are all about young beings learning the hard
rules
of the world in which they live, learning to persevere.  He is there
with
his camera to record this inspiring process.--Donald Richie

5 Saturday
Hani Rediscovered
New 35mm prints!
BAD BOYS
(FURYO SHONEN)
1961, Susumu Hani, Japan, 89 min.
CHILDREN IN A CLASSROOM
(KYOSHITSU NO KODOMOTACHI)
1955, Susumu Hani, Japan, 30 min.
3:45

   For his first feature film Hani made a documentary about a reform
school
in which the bad boys learn what bad means and are at the same time
liberated by the fact of acting themselves. Written and directed by
Susumu
Hani after a story by Aiko Chinushi.  Cinematography by Misuji Kanau.
Music by Toru Takemitsu.  Winner of the Mannheim International Film
Festival's First Prize and the Japanese Journalists' Award.  BAD BOYS
will
be preceded by the prize-winning short CHILDREN IN A CLASSROOM. 
Insisting
on a hidden camera and telephoto lens, the 27-year-old director set out
to
capture on film something of real childhood.--Donald Richie

12 Saturday
Hani Rediscovered
New 35mm print!
CHILDREN HAND IN HAND
(TE O TSUNAGU KORA)
1963, Susumu Hani, Japan, 100 min.
CHILDREN WHO DRAW
(E O KAKU KODOMOTACHI)
1956, Susumu Hani, Japan, 38 min.
3:15

   After his film A FULL LIFE (1962), Hani next turned to a script he
much
admired (written by the father of Juzo Itami, filmed once before by
Hiroshi
Inagaki) about young boys discovering the true nature of the world.
Written
(with Yasuhiko Naito) and directed by Susumu Hani after a script by
Mansaku
Itami.  Cinematography by Shigeichi Nagano.  Music by Toru Takemitsu.
Best Direction Award, Moscow International Film Festival.  CHILDREN HAND
IN
HAND will be preceded by the prize-winning short CHILDREN WHO DRAW in
which
Hani discovered his protagonist in a boy who doesn't draw very well. 
The
film taught him how to.--Donald Richie

13 Sunday
Hani Rediscovered
New 35mm print!
SHE AND HE
(KANOJO TO KARE)
1963, Susumu Hani, Japan, 114 min.
With Sachiko Hidari and Eija Okada
3:45

   A young housewife in a good neighborhood refuses to ignore the
ragman,
the blind girl, the homeless dog, and thus precipitates a confrontation
with, among others, her husband.  But she won't back down--the order of
the
pronouns in the title tells it all. Written (with Kunio Shimizu) and
directed by Susumu Hani.  Cinematography by Shigeichi Nagano.  Music by
Toru Takemitsu.  Winner of the Best Actress Award, OCIC Prize, and
Berlin
City Council Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.--Donald Richie

17 Thursday
Hani Rediscovered
THE INFERNO OF FIRST LOVE
(HATSUKOI JIGOKUHEN)
1968, Susumu Hani, Japan, 107 min.
With Akio Takahashi and Kuniko Ishii
6:00

   Two innocent seventeen-year-olds confront that icon of experience --
modern Tokyo's Shinjuku District.  It marks her and kills him.  Critics
have seen the film as an allegory.  Hani sees it as a quest taking place

"between two worlds of morality -- the old traditional one which is
crumbling, and the new one which is burgeoning.  Living between them we
are
confronted by both."  Written (with Shuiji Terayama) and directed by
Susumu
Hani.  Cinematography by Yuji Okumura.  Music by Toru Takemitsu.  Winner
of
the Southern Cross Award at the Sydney Film Festival.--Donald Richie
 
 
 

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Alan M?kinen
Chicago

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