[KineJapan] BFI Top J Winter Films

[Roger Macy]

Sorry that you got two link corrections together, yesterday.

It is an unexpected list – I hadn’t even heard of the last director,KURODA Yoshiyuki. But it’s also an over-promising list.  Most, but not all, have been shown in thehistory of the National Film Theatre but I think only the Kurosawa has beenshown this millennium. Several are also not available to view legitimately inthe UK,including a couple on Criterion Channel which is not available in the UK.

But I like your suggestion,Markus, of pondering over such a list, sitting here with winter lockdownseeming to extend indefinitely. We could keep this simmering on the kamado formonths.  ‘Winter’ films could be dividedinto those that are set entirely in winter and those which have memorablewinter scenes. Feeling pessimistic, this side of the pond, I’m offering onewhere spring never came.

After reading last year thetranslated novel The Little House, by NAKAJIMA Kyoko in which the narrator goes to see Otto no teisō(A Husband’s Chastity), 1937 (setting the novel of YOSHIYA Nobuko – she of Scent of Pheasant’s Eye and best-sellingauthor of the ‘flower stories’), I noticed that a DVD could be bought. The DVDwas packaged as ‘Kurosawa Akira #65’, tenuously as he was 3rd A.D., and as 総集編 Sōshū-hen, i.e., the consolidated version of104 minutes. JMDb listed the two parts released in April .37, as ‘When SpringComes’ and ‘Autumn Comes Again’.

Alas, when I watched it, it ended in bleak mid-winter (attachedframe-grabs). What’s more, no one had reached any kind of nirvana or chastity,only just starting to smart from a lack of it. With help from Johan Nordström (he on PCL) and Michiko Suzuki(she on Yoshiya’s book), I established that the first two films only coveredthe first half of the novel and the rest was never made. The character in thepicture, the young widow Kayo, has been excluded from her legitimate child, butdoes she even ‘know’ that she’s pregnant – the window to her redemption in thesecond half ? (I think I can dispense with spoiler-warnings).

There’s a strong clue as to why it was never concluded. A short pause inserializing was normal, and the story needed setting in the Philippinesor re-set elsewhere (Manchuria?).The actress in thepicture, Chiba Sachiko, however made no films for eighteen months for anyone. Iknow that Chiba married NaruseMikio in 1937 and that there was a child by this short marriage. So, wasNaruse’s filmmaking winter in the 1940s because he took some of the blame forthis unconcluded winter ?

Anyway, here’s for spring in real life.
Roger

    On Sunday, 3 January 2021, 15:36:22 GMT, Michael Kerpan via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:  
 
 Markus --

Your link didn't work -- but hopefully this will.
https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-japanese-winter-films

Michael KerpanBoston, MA
On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 10:30 AM Markus Nornes via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

Now here’s a delightfully unexpected list!
https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-japanese-winter
So many other films rush to mind, starting with....Yukiguni (either the ‘57 Toyota film or the prewar bunka eiga, take your pick)!

M 
-- 
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Markus NornesProfessor of Asian CinemaDepartment of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design
Department of Film, Television and Media6348 North Quad105 S. State StreetAnn Arbor, MI 48109-1285
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