Kenji Mizoguchi

[domino harvey]

It's been forthcoming from Criterion for years, no clue when it will actually materialize though!

[DeprongMori]

The 47 Ronin has been available on Hulu Plus under the Criterion listings for quite some time.

[Donald Trampoline]

Is there any good writing on the 47 Ronin in print? Looking for historical background of its making (analyzing the war/politics of the time). Or like a great Mizoguchi book (is there one?) that may have a chapter or few good pages on this.

Saw it on FilmStruck. Was great! It's sooo different in subject matter than the more obscure MoC ones I just watched a bunch of, but still really good. Long film.

[Gregory]

Try Darrell William Davis, Picturing Japaneseness

[hearthesilence]

Is there any good writing on the 47 Ronin in print? Looking for historical background of its making (analyzing the war/politics of the time). Or like a great Mizoguchi book (is there one?) that may have a chapter or few good pages on this.

FWIW, Fred Camper write a lengthy review for the Chicago Reader and Richard Brody had this to say in a New Yorker piece he did on Mizoguchi:

“The 47 Ronin” is, simply, one of the great political films of all time. It’s the story of a group of samurai whose lord has been put to death—ordered to commit hara-kiri—by the shogun, and whose castle has been confiscated. The warriors of the title take it upon themselves to avenge the injustice and to oppose the confiscation—to stand up to the unjust yet unquestioned authority of a dictatorial regime and yet, at the same time, to remain true to the samurai code of honor. It’s an extraordinary balancing act that Mizoguchi pulls off. To satisfy the wartime norms of the day, he exalts classical Japanese warriors as self-sacrificing men of unimpeachable principle, and yet he emphasizes their fidelity to their conscience and their spirit of resistance. It’s a man’s world, the world of the samurai. Yet Mizoguchi builds the story to a crescendo of nobility and bloodshed through the intervention of a woman, the fiancée of one of the samurai, whose romantic concerns—though feared to be destructive of the samurai spirit—prove to be as noble, as principled, as courageous, as civic-minded, and as grand as those of the warriors.

[whaleallright]

Is there any good writing on the 47 Ronin in print? Looking for historical background of its making (analyzing the war/politics of the time). Or like a great Mizoguchi book (is there one?) that may have a chapter or few good pages on this.

Chapter six of Darrell Davis's excellent Picturing Japaneseness is entirely about 47 Ronin—its plot, style, and political meaning(s).

I wish I could recommend an English-language book on Mizoguchi's entire career, but the existing ones are pretty mediocre, I think. The chapter on Mizoguchi in David Bordwell's Figures Traced in Light is illuminating (heh) although it only talks about 47 Ronin in passing, really. There's a book-length English translation of Sato Tadao's writing on Mizoguchi that, unfortunately, is an unholy mess.

[Michael Kerpan]

There's a good book on Mizoguchi's early films by Donald Kirihara (who studied under Bordwell, I think) called Patterns of Time. I don't believe it gets up to the war-time films, however.

[hearthesilence]

I saw the new 4k restoration of Tales of the Taira Clan at MoMA tonight. Up until now good prints were hard to come by (I think 16mm prints were fairly common at Mizoguchi retrospectives), but this new DCP looks quite excellent.

It's not in the same league as Mizoguchi's masterworks, but the use of color is fairly striking, particularly one epic scene where an army of monks dash through a forest, with each person wielding a torch. The contrast between the flames and the cool, green vegetation is all the more stunning because it's real - there really are hundreds of torches being rushed through a forest, and it's all the more impressive that they didn't burn anything down. (A Hollywood production today would never pull off the same feat - even if they were game, the safety regulations alone would prevent them from trying.)

Also notable for launching Ichikawa Raizō's film career - he died from cancer 12 years later at the age of 37, but to this day he remains an acting legend in Japan.

[Michael Kerpan]

The women in Taira Clan are much more interesting than the men -- but get relatively little screen time. I hope a subbed Blu-Ray finally shows up (never was an English-subbed DVD, so far as I know).

[longstone]

The French DVD set ( Films sans Frontieres ) has English sub titles in addition to the French subs, haven't watched it in a while , think it was pretty average quality so a decent Blu-ray would be welcome.

[Michael Kerpan]

I have a French DVD set, but it must be a different one -- only French subs...

[L.A.]

The French DVD set ( Films sans Frontieres ) has English sub titles in addition to the French subs, haven't watched it in a while , think it was pretty average quality so a decent Blu-ray would be welcome.

Two-disc edition, also included is the lengthy documentary Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director by Kaneto Shindo with English subs.

[tenia]

Just a reminder : FSF releases are mostly illegal releases since its owner (Galeshka Moravioff, though this isn't his real name) most of the time don't pay the required fees to get hold of the distribution rights. Though I suppose he might have paid for one or two, he hasn't for the Mizoguchi, so the DVD releases aren't legal.

Carlotta posted recently about the case of these Mizoguchi movies, because some French cinemathèque were showing 2 of the concerned films, giving Moravioff the opportunity to act like any legitimate distributor while he definitely isn't.

I of course don't want to point fingers at anyone buying these, just to remind this so that new potential buyers might be aware of the situation.

[hearthesilence]

FYI, if you're in NYC and want to see the new 4k restoration of Tales of the Taira Clan, you have one more chance as MoMA is screening it tonight at 7pm. It was nearly a full house when I went but it was a weekend and it didn't sell out, so as long as you get there by 7, you should be good.

(I should add that MoMA appears to take MoviePass too.)

[andyli]

This might be the best place to post it. Kadokawa is issuing the 4K restored Street of Shame on blu-ray next February. With this speed Tales of the Taira Clan could be the very next.

[FrauBlucher]

This afternoon I got to see Michael Kerpan's favorite, Street of Shame, in a 4k restoration. I had not seen it before. I liked it very much. But it still didn't climb over Ugetsu and Sansho for me. What works for me about Mizoguchi's work is how strong the characters are developed. His stories always feel like they are so personal to him. Street of Shame is no different. This is why he is my favorite amongst his fellow countrymen and in my top ten overall.

The 4k looked very strong and consistent. Perhaps this will be making an escape from the Eclipse and into the main line.

[Michael Kerpan]

Street of Shame _was_ my favorite -- before I saw Chikamatsu monogatari. I still like it a lot overall (but not one of its subplots -- the one about the older prostitute with the awful son).

[FrauBlucher]

That is a bit harsh. But I have to wonder if Mizoguchi based that subplot on something he himself experienced or someone he knows experienced.

[Michael Kerpan]

I felt that subplot just didn't work as well as the others (which were all also quite dark). Too conventionally melodramatic, perhaps.

I think I may now like his other late prostitution film Uwasa no onna a bit more overall (partly because it features my favorite Tanaka performance for Mizoguchi).

[tenia]

I've heard there was a 4K restoration of Street of Shame around, but I have yet to find concrete proof of that. Capricci in France mentioned their retrospective and then BD boxset would use it, except their boxset now mentions it's a 2K restoration, but it really is the same HD master than Eureka. Instant tell-tale sign : in interior shots, any darker area was plagued with heavy noise/grain, as if sourced from an IP.

I however haven't seen it in theaters, so can't state if the theatrical run used the newer restoration and the BD release doesn't, but it makes me very curious about it. The retro matches the 8 movies released by Eureka, with 3 4K restorations (Chikamatsu, Ugetsu and Sansho), the others being in 2K, but so far, all the 2K movies in the boxset are actually the same older HD masters.
I however saw Sansho's new restoration in theaters and it looked very good (though it's far from being the best 4K restoration I've seen).

[FrauBlucher]

Tenia, I saw this at the Film Forum. It was advertised as a 4k restoration. What is interesting is there was no Janus logo at the beginning. It went right to the Daiei Studios logo. Which I found curious.

[tenia]

Thanks for the details. I'll try to track details down. Did it have any technical text panel before the movie started ? And was the openong credits scratched or not ?
As I said, I'm trying to find out if there really were new restorations for those and if the french label screwed up or not, so every little helps !

[htom]

Tenia, I saw this at the Film Forum. It was advertised as a 4k restoration. What is interesting is there was no Janus logo at the beginning. It went right to the Daiei Studios logo. Which I found curious.

The 4K restoration was released in February on Blu-ray, and also was screened in Japan as part of a Machiko Kyo retrospective about the same week.

[tenia]

Yes, I've been snooping around to find more data about this and stumbled on these 2 elements. I'll try to find a demo reel of the resto or a restored trailer to find and access the difference between this and the older master.
And I definitely need to ask what happened to the French label who advertised the 4K resto then a 2K one only to use the old HD master.

[FrauBlucher]

Did it have any technical text panel before the movie started ? And was the openong credits scratched or not ?

No technical text was displayed. I didn’t see one scratch or blemish throughout any of it. It really did look very solid.