Yamanaka scenario

[faith]

Yamanaka's "last scenario"[=D.Richie] is widely considered to be the exquisite Sono Zen'ya (The Night Before)(1939) which still exists, at least on video, and is quite famous as Yamanaka's "memorial" work here in Japan.  Most sources credit the gensaku (original work) or gen'an ("original idea")
 to Yamanaka with Kajiwara Kinpachi on the actual scenario (kyakushoku); but it seems to have been a group work by Kajiwara, director Hagiwara Ryou (d.1976), and other of Yamanaka's friends at Toho Kyoto, and is in fact labelled clearly as an effort on behalf of Yamanaka's memory in a title on the
 film itself.  They must have loved him very much to have been able to get it done with its integrity intact, considering the tenor of the times.
   
  It is about the little people in Kyoto on the eve of the Restoration, with the nasty Shinsengumi making trouble in the city, and stars the Zenshinza company with Yamada Isuzu as gorgeous as she has ever been.  Magnificent moody shots of Kyoto as it was and will never be again, including Nakamura
 Gan'emon as a launderer rinsing out his sheets in the downtown Kamogawa.  It is an inexpressibly beautiful film -- Chekovian, lyrical and perfectly sublime, and Yamanaka would be proud of it.
   
  It deserves a prominent place at any Yamanaka festival.  I am surprised it is not more well known.
   
  Faith Bach
   
   
 
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