_Zangiku monogatari_

[Randy Man]

You pose an extremely interesting question. This is what I like about chat
rooms. Here is what my digging has produced:

The only English language reference book on Japanese cinema that even
mentions divergent running time for the film is Galbraith's "Japanese
Filmography". He indicates the original running time was 146 mins. and that
a 115 min. version also exists. No other currently available Japanese
filmography (and I've got them all as far as I know)even mentions the
running time much less any discrepancy. Donald Kirihara's book on
Mizoguchi's 1930s films not only doesn't raise the question but doesn't even
have a filmography with credits, and nothing in his notes suggests he was
aware of it. He may know now, however. Try him at the University of Arizona,
Tucson.

115 minutes is not only the running time of Homevision's VHS tape, it was
also the running time of Audio Brandon's 16mm print (later distributed by
Films Inc.).I don't remember Macmillan having a 35mm print (they were,
briefly, the theatricalarm of Audio Brandon).

Audie Bock's "Japanese Film Directors" doesn't include running times. It's
reasonable to deduce that the 115 minute version is the English-subtitled
print made up whenever the film was first distributed in the U.S.(and I
imagine that Audio Brandon's was that print, though when they first acquired
it I don't know).Other sources for information on this question might be
Peter Grilli at the Japan Society, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley
(which has probably the largest collection of Japanese films outside of
Japan), and Shochiku themselves.

Who is the "Pia Cinema Club"? That's a new one to me.

Randolph Man
Moving Image Arts
The College of Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
e-mail: ranman at csf.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: Joel Cohn <cohn at hawaii.edu>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 1999 6:03 PM
Subject: _Zangiku monogatari_


> I recently saw an advertisement for an English-subtitled videotape of
> Mizoguchi's _Zangiku monogatari_ (Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, 1939)
> which listed the run time as 115  minutes.  The 1998-99 _Pia Cinema Club_
> lists this film as 143 minutes.  I know that some footage is likely to get
> cut in video versions, but this seems like a lot.  Can anybody comment on
> just what has been left out of the video, and how it changes the overall
> effect of the film?
>
> thanks,
> J. Cohn
> University of Hawaii at Manoa