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Finished box in my hands. *Very* happy.

Fantastic! Looking forward to seeing the finished work =D>

When will the Naruse trailers be avilable on the MoC website?

Lino wrote:First review that I know of

I could only make it through the first three paragraphs of that before I had to give up. Did someone sadistic editor delete every fifth word from the poor fellow's prose?

Well, this reviewer manages to turn Naruse into a Kurosawa assistant (rather than vice versa). I am guessing that English is not this individual's native language -- but the editors surely should have cleaned this up before publishing it.

While waiting for my pre-ordered MoC Naruse Box set from Amazon.uk , I visited the Wild Side's web site and saw the Mikio Naruse 4 DVDs Box set. Among the 3 movies in the set, one is "Repast" (Meshi) which already is in the MoC Box set , the two others are Floating Clouds (Ukigumo) and Summer Clouds (Iwashigumo).

After having read excellent reviews of both the technical quality of the Wild Side's set and the quality of its extras I am quite tempted to order the Wild Side box set in spite that Repast is already in the MoC Box. Are Floating Clouds and Summer Clouds going to be released by MoC and if so will it be in the near future or should I get the Wild Side's set to get these two movies soon?

Michael Kerpan wrote:Well, this reviewer manages to turn Naruse into a Kurosawa assistant (rather than vice versa). I am guessing that English is not this individual's native language -- but the editors surely should have cleaned this up before publishing it.

Woops, not quite: "...assisted by Kurosawa..."

But I know what you mean about the style - this guy needs to break it down into more sentences.

Both the MoC and the Wild Side set are mentioned in Midnight Eye's Boxsets of the year article. It sounds good, but I'd wait and see what "Volume 2" has in store - Floating Clouds seems to be mentioned quite a lot as being one of Naruse's classics, so that might be a likely choice for a second volume!

iangj wrote:

Michael Kerpan wrote:Well, this reviewer manages to turn Naruse into a Kurosawa assistant (rather than vice versa). I am guessing that English is not this individual's native language -- but the editors surely should have cleaned this up before publishing it.

Woops, not quite: "...assisted by Kurosawa..."

But I know what you mean about the style - this guy needs to break it down into more sentences.

I think it originally said "assisted Kurosawa". But I won't swear to this.

colinr0380 wrote:Both the MoC and the Wild Side set are mentioned in Midnight Eye's Boxsets of the year article. It sounds good, but I'd wait and see what "Volume 2" has in store - Floating Clouds seems to be mentioned quite a lot as being one of Naruse's classics, so that might be a likely choice for a second volume!

Floating Clouds is supposed to be part of the BFI set. Candidates for a vol. 2 would surely include Lightning and Yearning -- unless the focus was one earlier films -- in which case Apart From You, Every Night Dreams and Wife! Be Like aRose! would be leading contenders.

Just got my copy from HMV today, very happy with it. The book that accompanies the boxset is beautifully designed and I can't wait to read it over the Christmas period. I like the quote on the inside of the box as well, a nice touch.

Heard a lot about Naruse so this was a blind buy for me. I have never seen a Naruse film before, so I'm looking forward to my first Naruse experience.

Congratulations on a superb set MoC. =D>

Yogesh wrote:The book that accompanies the boxset is beautifully designed and I can't wait to read it over the Christmas period. I like the quote on the inside of the box as well, a nice touch.

It's a beautifully designed and thoughtfully put together collection, something everyone involved with to be very proud of (except for those several unfortunate typos in the Lopate essay).

DVD Beaver review

Looks wonderful

From the comments on DVD Beaver:

Mikio Naruse demands a certain deserved reverence with film fans. His non-judgmental cinema creates a flirtation utilizing an unsentimental balance between compassion and sensitivity, steeped in subtly deep melodrama but frequently with an overall bleak and pessimistic outlook.

I don't think "reverence" is a good way to approach Naruse's work (any more than it is Ozu's). Open-eyed, open-minded attentiveness and patience is what is most helpful.

And the "Naruse as pessimist" meme is just not a useful way to approach his work. It is the conventional wisdom -- but it is so reductionistic as to impair a proper understanding of Naruse's films. It views his work as if through the wrong end of a telescope.

The most salient aspect of his late work (50s on) is the steadfastness of his main characters (always women by this point) despite adversity that would daunt most of us watchers. Does it really make much sense to characterize the depiction of courage and determination as "bleak" and "pessimistic"? And besides, with some exceptions, Naruse's films usually display a fair amount of humor -- at least as much as Ozu's (and that can be quite a lot).

I have read bits and pieces of Catherine Russell's work in the past -- and look forward to seeing her try to clear away a lot of the musty misconceptions about Naruse.

//

jonah.77 wrote:Michael, I agree about steadfastness, although it might be characterized as a form of masochism. Characters in Naruse's late films often take a lot more than they should, or that we expect they should. But this is never romanticized as in Mizoguchi.

I think one doesn't move anywhere near masochism until quite late -- and even then only rarely -- the most extreme case being "Hikinige" (Hit and Run) -- and there one deals with someone who comes completely unhinged. Naruse's lack of romanticization is definitely the (main) quality that puts him ahead of Mizoguchi in my book. Women don't die for the sake of their men folk in Naruse (even the obsessed heroine of Floating Clouds doesn't do this).

I am taking a break during work, as the Naruse set just arrived in the mail, and I am here in the quiet of my office (with the door closed) leafing through the book that accompanies the set.

It goes without saying that MoC is driven by people with a supreme love for the medium of film. To me, nowhere (aside from the commitment to releasing the films in the first place) is this more apparent than in the books that accompany the discs. Aside from the texts, which are written by people I have become familiar with throughout my years of taking an interest in film (Philip Lopate and Audie Bock), the book contains scores of beautiful full page stills. This is as it should be. A book concerned with film should feature beautiful stills.

It brings me back to the first film books that I got my hands on as a teenager (particularly David Shipman's "History of Cinema"). Based on the many stills in such books, I would dream about seeing the films one day... in some cases I am still dreaming. With Naruse, the dreaming can now end

A great thanks to Nick and Co. for a fantastic year of DVD releases, capped this month by this Naruse set and the (equally beautiful) Keaton box. And a very personal thank you for providing me this little oasis of pleasure in a hectic work day.

Scharphedin2 wrote:It goes without saying that MoC is driven by people with a supreme love for the medium of film. To me, nowhere (aside from the commitment to releasing the films in the first place) is this more apparent than in the books that accompany the discs. Aside from the texts, which are written by people I have become familiar with throughout my years of taking an interest in film (Philip Lopate and Audie Bock), the book contains scores of beautiful full page stills. This is as it should be. A book concerned with film should feature beautiful stills.

Beautifully said. And I completely agree with you, more books/booklets should contain stills. After all, film is a visual art form.

I've had a chance to watch all three of the films in this set and to read the included book (sorry, I almost never listen to commentaries anymore). Anyone who can afford it should not hesitate to buy this set. I'm a relative newcomer to Naruse (I think I've seen 3-4 of his films before this), but the films exceeded the high expectations I had for them. Far from being a random selection of three films from a given time period, the three films share similar themes (the life choices available to women in post-WWII Japan, particularly in regards to career and marriage), and each one is more nuanced and complex than the last.

This is release surprised me, since most MoC titles tend to be rather "butch": Kurosawa, Lang, Watkins, Rossellini, Ford, Renoir, Keaton, even some of the Murnau (though I know he was a big nance). These Naruse films seem to me very similar to Sirk's contemporaneous work: straightforward melodrama on the surface, lots of social and cultural issues simmering beneath. I will probably watch all of these films a second time (a rarity for me these days) and look forward to a Vol. 2.

Though I was initially most pleased to see another side of Setsuko Hara's acting (she shows a lot more range here than in her roles with Ozu with which she is more strongly identified), I was really floored by Isuzu Yamada (who is so great as "Lady Macbeth" in one of the few Kurosawa films I like, Throne of Blood) and especially Haruko Sugimura in Flowing. Sugimura always seems to pop up as a nettlesome "auntie" or neighbor in the Japanese films I've seen and here she gets a role that she can really let fly with. She's comic, but there's a pathos underlying it that bursts forth briefly every now and then. Her characters always seem to be like those of Agnes Moorehead, but this is her Aunt Fanny.

Scharphedin2 wrote:To me, nowhere (aside from the commitment to releasing the films in the first place) is this more apparent than in the books that accompany the discs.

And how inviting the size of font makes the book, instead of having to screw up eyes weakened by spending so much time reading criterion.org forum.

Matt wrote:Sugimura always seems to pop up as a nettlesome "auntie" or neighbor in the Japanese films I've seen and here she gets a role that she can really let fly with. She's comic, but there's a pathos underlying it that bursts forth briefly every now and then. Her characters always seem to be like those of Agnes Moorehead, but this is her Aunt Fanny.

Well said! I'd never thought of her as an Agnes Moorehead type, but now that you mention it, I'll never get it out of my head. Her ultimate Naruse role is in Late Chrysanthemums (which is one of Naruse's most strikingly stylized films, in a lot of ways.) If you have access to that one, or see it in a theater sometime, I highly recommend it (I think it will be out on DVD soonish anyway.)

I also think it's important for people to go into Naruse looking for Sirk, and not expecting something "butch", as you say. There's even more Sirk to be found in his scope color films such as As a Wife, As a Woman and Daughters, Wives and a Mother.

Goddamn, my anticipation for the Naruse set is already high enough and now you're comparing Sugimura to one of my favorite performances in all cinema, Moorehead in AMBERSONS.

Haruko Sugimura's most famous performance of all was (apparently) never captured on film. She was the the first (on stage) Blanche in "Streetcar Named Desire". And this performance is a matter of legend still -- over 50 years after it took place.

Sugimura is one of the few film stars who was actually much more famous in Japan as a stage actress (and theatre company director).

I simply can't imagine a better collection of female performances in a film that one finds in "Flowing". Isuzu Yamada IS marvelous -- but so is each one of her colleagues in this.

Still hoping to find my copy of this new set waiting for me at tthe Post office -- when I return home "next year".

Maybe this has been mentioned/posted before, but here is a link to Phillip Lopate discussing Naruse on WNYC.

I guess this needs to be repeated on every page of the thread:

I just cut the number of posts in this thread in half by moving those concerned with the cover design to the MoC Cover Art thread and by moving those concerned with distribution delays and anticipation of shipment to the newly created Where's My MoC? thread. Any future posts in this thread on either of those subjects will be deleted.