[KineJapan] theatrical release of 祇園祭 outside of Japan

[Michael Raine]

Interesting comment on the cinema treasures link:

I was at the closing night of the Toho Cinema. The film they showed was
Kurosawa’s Ikiru…To Live…with Takashi Shimura. A clerk finds out he is
dying of cancer and builds a children’s park, to give something back. The
movie ends with him on a swing in his park, humming a sad little tune,
accompanied by the sobbing of 600 people in the theater, myself included.
In the lobby were posters of the great Kurosawa films they had shown. The
entire staff of the theater was in Japanese ceremonial dress. They thanked
each person individually for attending. Auld Lang Syne was played over the
loudspeaker. People were literally staggering, blinded by tears, clutching
onto walls and railings. Years later I met someone who had been at the same
performance. We agreed that seldom in our lives did we feel as close to
suicide.


On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 12:57 PM Markus Nornes via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> I love this kind of thing......A quick search of the newspaper databases
> produced several reviews and ads and mentions.
>
> The Bijou in NY showed it as half of a double bill with Gosha's *Wolves. *
> The theater goes back to 1917, but between 1963 and 1965 it was Toho's NY
> outpost. Obviously, that experiment wasn't all that successful, but I guess
> it was good enough to revert to a Japanese film specialty house in 1973
> after a period of switching between first run films and legit theater. *The
> Day the Sun Rose* double bill was to kick off a new strategy of
> exclusively showing Japanese films. Apparently, this was their strategy to
> tide themselves over until the property was razed to build the Marriot
> Marquis Hotel. (Cinema Treasures has great photos and some ads; man, they
> showed a lot of great films! http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2932).
>
> Kevin Thomas, who was always a big supporter of Japanese
> releases, reviewed it for LA Times in 1969; it played at the Kabuki. It had
> a release in 1971 as the second film in a *Pale Flower* double bill.
>
> The Japan Information Centre in Delhi showed it in 1977.
>
> The Cinemateque in Jerusalem showed it through the Japanese embassy in
> 1973.
>
> It was included as a Japanese selection along with Gamera vs. Jigar at a
> international film festival that was part of the 1972 Munich Olympics.
>
> That's what comes up.
>
> I don't have their email at hand, but if you send it to me I can send them
> PDFs for the info above.
>
> Markus
>
>
>
>
>
> Box Office reviewed it that year, too.
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
> *Markus Nornes*
> *Professor of Asian Cinema*
> Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages
> and Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design
>
> *Department of Film, Television and Media*
> *6348 North Quad*
> *105 S. State Street*
> *Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 10:00 AM Gerow Aaron via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>> Wow, Roger reviewed it!
>>
>> Roger Greenspan was one of my teachers in grad school at Columbia.
>>
>> Aaron
>>
>> 2020/07/24 午後10:41、William C. Thompson via KineJapan <
>> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>のメール:
>>
>> Roger Greenspun reviewed the film in the New York Times on August 30,
>> 1973, when the film was opening at the Bijou Theater here.  The Bijou
>> showed Japanese films almost exclusively at one time.  I had not yet moved
>> to New York at that time.
>>
>>
>> https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/30/archives/day-the-sun-rose-kyoto-drama.html?searchResultPosition=1
>>
>> Bill Thompson
>> wct1 at columbia.edu
>>
>>
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