1925 Mizoguchi "The Earth Smiles"

[Aaron Gerow]

> Has anyone heard any more recent news about the 1925 Mizoguchi film 
> "The Earth Smiles" (Daichi wa hohoemu) that was reportedly found in 
> the collection of Abe Yoshishige when he died in February 2005? While 
> we're at it, any information about whether that collection did indeed 
> include the 1926 Korean film "Arirang"?

The Film Center people were already mentioning this last year when we 
visited as part of Kinema Club (and this was later reported in the 
papers), but it looks like the collection contains few of the films Abe 
said it did. At most, it seems to have a lot of documentary films or 
bunka eiga. It will still take a couple of years to both check all that 
has been brought to the Film Center and to make sure that everything 
Abe had has been brought to the Film Center (some reports say that he 
had another storage space somewhere other than his home), so nothing 
can be said for sure now. But I would advise you not to keep your hopes 
up too high. At best, we should be happy for small finds.


Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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