[KineJapan] D. Richie Retro at Ann Arbor Film Festival

[Earl Jackson]

Dear Markus,
That is glorious news, and very moving. It is so vital to put Donald
Richie's films into a revised canon of experimental cinema, and a tribute
to his courageous, outrageous, and visionary queer artistry.
Thank you. I hope his films become more widely available too.
Best,
ej
Earl Jackson
Chair Professor
Foreign Languages and Literatures
Asia University
Professor Emeritus
National Chiao Tung University
Associate Professor Emeritus
University of California, Santa Cruz


On Thu, Mar 9, 2023 at 11:17 AM Markus Nornes via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I programmed a retrospective of films by Donald Richie for the Ann Arbor
> Film Festival, one of the world's great venues for experimental cinema
> (Sunday, March 26 at 12:30). All the 16mm films will be shown on almost-new
> prints. The video projections are a selection of Richie's rarely seen 8mm
> films. If your image of DR is all Ozu and Kurosawa, you'll meet his quirky,
> dirty, queer side.
>
> If you are anywhere close, please come!
>
> Markus
>
>
> Life ⇋ Ritual ⇋ Cinema
> The Experimental Films of Donald Richie
>
> Donald Richie (1924-2013) is credited with introducing the world to
> Japanese cinema. Born in Ohio, Richie arrived in Tokyo in 1947 to work in
> the American Occupation force. Aside from brief return trips to the US for
> graduate school and a stint as the film curator at MOMA (1969-1972), he
> remained in Japan. Richie was a dilettante of sorts who wrote novels,
> painted, and composed music and is best known as a prolific author of
> nonfiction essays and books on Japan. His studies on Japanese film history,
> Ozu and Kurosawa are considered classics. Richie also wrote on topics such
> as Japanese fiction, ikebana, architecture, street culture, famous
> personages, and more.
>
> Richie’s public image, however, sometimes bordered on cliché, perhaps
> because he occasionally traded on stereotypes of a long-gone “traditional”
> Japan. In fact, Richie was paradoxically perverse. A queer man who found a
> safe haven in Japan, he delighted in the surreal. This particularly comes
> out in his experimental cinema, which he began making in the 1940s. By the
> 1960s, Richie was known as an organizer on the Japanese experimental film
> scene who introduced Japanese artists to developments abroad and
> programming their work around the world. This program introduces the other
> Richie who was always sexy, strange, dirty and quite amusing. Curated by
> Markus Nornes and Hannah Glass-Chapman.
>
>
>
> FILMS
>
> Boy with Cat (Neko to shonen)
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1967 | 5 | 16mm
>
> Lovingly shot on Kodachrome and processed as monochrome, a young man
> lounges on tatami on a hot summer day viewing photos—the sound of cicadas
> and the neighbor practicing piano in the background. The mood is spoiled by
> an awkward “Moonlight Sonata” and an obnoxious black cat.
>
> The Dead Boy (Shinda shonen)
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1967 | 13 | 16mm
>
> “I’m a boy who, not knowing love, suddenly has fallen from the summit of
> frightening infancy into the darkness of a well.” Based on a powerful poem
> by the gay poet Takahashi Mutsuo and shifting between multiple realities
> and times, it is the most complex and touching of Richie’s works.
>
> Stillness—Suspension—Motion (Sei—chu—do)
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1959 | 5 | 8mm
>
> Richie captures the strange rhythm of sumo, where the wrestlers quietly
> and repeatedly face off—eye to eye—before smashing into each other. He also
> focuses on the rippling muscles of the bodies, suspended, then in furious
> motion.
>
> Atami Blues
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1962, 1967 abridged version | 20 | 16mm
>
> Co-written with then-wife Mary, this winking story about flirting takes
> place against the backdrop of a famous hot springs, ubiquitous movie
> posters, and sumptuous jazz by Richie’s friend Takemitsu Toru. It may look
> conventional, but a sly and slightly dirty ending betrays a sensibility
> excluded from the mainstream films on all the posters.
>
> Life Life Life
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1953 | 6 | 8mm
>
> Fifteen years before Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Richie anticipated the
> animation of Terry Gilliam in this early 8mm film. He cut up Life magazine
> and animated the clippings through clever use of strings and editing. These
> “Four American Fables” offer up a slicing critique of gender and 1950s
> consumerism.
>
> Life (Jinsei)
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1965 | 4 | 16mm
>
> In 1964, Richie and friends wrote a manifesto that kicked off a small film
> movement called Film Independent. They called for 2.5 min shorts on the
> theme, “An Advertisement for Myself.” Richie’s humorous contribution, which
> he “scored” himself, tells the story of a life from birth to death. This is
> Richie’s “long” version.
>
> War Games (Senso gokko)
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1962 | 20 | 16mm
>
> Richie’s most famous film was shot during a typhoon with butoh dancer
> Hijikata, whose antics behind the camera provoked the delight of their
> child subjects. It is a parable of raw power and very human antagonism—and
> our ability to step back and out of the fray.
>
> Human Sacrifice (Gisei)
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1959 | 10 | 8mm
>
> Richie met the great founder of butoh dance, Hijikata, through mutual
> friend Mishima Yukio. They decided to collaborate on a film about
> segregation. Richie memorialized the film in his diary: “It is more than
> ever about the death of an individual, a distinct kind of human sacrifice.”
>
> Cybele: A Pastoral Ritual in Five Scenes
>
> Tokyo, Japan | 1968 | 20 | 16mm
>
> Programmers in Paris and New York refused to show this film, arguing it
> was a tasteless recreation of the Holocaust; Richie thought he was making
> the blackest of comedies about mystery-goddess Cybele—mediator of the
> civilized and the wild, living and the dead—and her following of ecstatic,
> self-emasculating devotees. Shot with Zero Jigen.
>
> ---
>
> *Markus Nornes*
> *Professor of Asian Cinema*
>
> Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages
> and Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design
>
>
>
>
> *Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nornes/
> <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nornes/>*
> *Department of Film, Television and Media*
> *6348 North Quad*
> *105 S. State Street**Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*
>
>
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