Vitro Nasu

(via)

NYtimes First Amendment Crusader Barney Rosset dies.

LA Obit

Barney Rosset, the renegade founder of Grove Press who fought groundbreaking legal battles against censorship and introduced American readers to such provocative writers as Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet, died Tuesday in New York City. He was 89.
His daughter, Tansey Rosset, said he died after undergoing surgery to replace a heart valve.

Original Maverick

Nobody pigeonholes Barney Rosset—longtime owner of Grove Press, anti-censorship crusader, countercultural icon.

Paris Review Interview

Always undercapitalized, Grove often paid low advances. But writers came to Grove because it championed their work in an often hostile environment. In the fifties, repressive obscenity laws made it illegal to publish D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. Rosset deliberately set out to overturn these laws, publishing and defending these books, and others, in court. Over the years, Grove took on hundreds of lawsuits, in the process expanding the range of public discourse.

Letter from Paris
Joan Mitchell to Barney Rosset
July 9,1948

Dear Schmuckie (read her letter here)

Miami Herald

Rosset’s first interest was film. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler was a childhood friend and during World War II Rosset met the directors John Huston and Frank Capra while attending the Signal Corps photographic school.(read more here)

Barney and Joan Mitchell (See a photo of Barney in front of Joan’s nude photo – yes another nude photo)

Joan Mitchel -Early Years (Read how Joan got Barney to Grove.)

“That happened through my first wife, Joan Mitchell, later a very famous artist. Joan’s mother was at one time the editor of Poetry magazine and a poet herself. Joan was a very astute person, with a very good taste for writing, just as good as it was for painting. She was the one who really directly got me into Grove. ”

Okada Tokihiko-

Born on Feb 18, 1903, Okada Tokihiko was a charismatic actor who died of tuberculosis a month and two days before turning 31 years of age. He made 5 films directed by Ozu Yasujiro. His stage name was given by Tanizaki Junichiro. (via) Well respected actress Okada Mariko was one year old when her father died. (Okada Mariko who appeared in two films directed by Ozu and one of which was his last film Akibiyori..see her photo and a review here )

Exquisite and economical. (Criterion) (Youtube excerpt does not do justice here.) Tokyo Chorus the DVD is available on netflix.

Combining three prevalent genres of the day—the student comedy, the salaryman film, and the domestic drama—Ozu created this warmhearted family comedy, and demonstrated that he was truly coming into his own as a cinema craftsman

A child actress on the right was Takamine Hideko in her first film.
Takamine Hideko (Previous post shows Takamine in Mistress based on Mori Ogai)
See more photos and review here.

Beyond the family-oriented exchanges that anyone who’s had to raise children on a limited income can easily relate to, Tokyo Chorus offers a variety of other pleasures, including some nice vintage exteriors from the old city of Tokyo, before it had been transformed even further into the gleaming neon metropolis we’ve known for the past several decades. And it’s also easy to admire Ozu’s social conscience and earnest desire to boost the morale of Depression-era Japan.

The Lady and the Beard is the second teaming of Ozu, Kitamura, and Okada. The cast of the famous beau Eipan (Okada’s nickname) in a very masculine part (with beard) was a weird, but successful idea of Kitamura. The audience has the great pleasure to see his handsome face after he shaves the beard. In the autumn of 1929, Okada had changed from Nikkatsu to Shochiku. The Lady and the Beard is his third film with Ozu, after That Night’s Wife and Young Miss. This film was shot in a mutual effort in a mere 8 days (including overnight work).(Via)

Okada as Judge
from Water Magician/Taki no Shiraito

Taki no Shiraito (Water Magician with English subtitles – youtube)

Water magician

Donald Richie writes that this was the first of Mizoguchi’s “woman’s pictures.” By this, he is referring to the many movies that Mizoguchi made which featured female lead roles and heroines.

Tokyo Chorus is a must see for Ozu fans and Okada gave his finest performance, as for the Water Magician the film belonged to the actress Irie Takako who produced this film.

Ozu Yasujiro. (previous post)

The son of a physician of the aristocratic warrior (samurai) class, Mori Ōgai studied medicine, at first in Tokyo and from 1884 to 1888 in Germany.

Mori Ogai

February 17, 1862 – one of the creators of modern Japanese literature.

(A masterpiece by Mizoguchi, now available on youtube in 9 parts)

Based on an ancient legend, as recounted by celebrated author Mori Ōgai (in his short story of the same name, written in 1915), and adapted by Mizoguchi, Sanshō Dayū [Sanshō the Steward, aka Sanshō the Bailiff] is both distinctively Japanese and as deeply affecting as a Greek tragedy. Described in its opening title as “one of the oldest and most tragic in Japan’s history”, Mizoguchi depicts an unforgettably sad story of social injustice, family love, and personal sacrifice – all conveyed with exquisite tone and purity of emotion. Master of Cinema

Dancing Girl (Maihime) in German and Japanese on youtube (Directed by Masahiro Shinoda and pop singer Go Hiromi played Mori Ogai)

In 1890 he published the story “Maihime” (“The Dancing Girl”), an account closely based on his own experience of an unhappy attachment between a German girl and a Japanese student in Berlin. It represented a marked departure from the impersonal fiction of preceding generations and initiated a vogue for autobiographical revelations among Japanese writers.

Ogai museum in Germany

Takamine Hideko and Akutagawa Hiroshi in Mistress (film based on Ogai’s Wilde Geese)

Ōgai’s most popular novel, Gan (1911–13; part translation: The Wild Goose), is the story of the undeclared love of a moneylender’s mistress for a medical student who passes by her house each day. Ōgai also translated Hans Christian Andersen’s autobiographical novel Improvisatoren.

Akutagawa Ryunosuke was Hiroshi’s father.

Vita Sexualis (Good reads)

Ogai (Brushwork of his name in Flickr bold and beatiful)

Vist Mori Ogai’s and Natsume Soskei houses on youtube (the narrator mispronounced both names)
Soseki (Previous Post)

Ogai’s daughter is Mori Mari who is also a published author.

See 3 portraits of Ogai by Thomas Klingenstein

Love is such an old fashioned word
The lovers

A pair of abstract lovers by Fung Ching Kelling

And happy birthday Janet Paparelli (previous Valentine’s post with Klaus Nomi – see her paintings)
(Digital image of Janet Paparelli by Fung Ching Kelling)

The Man (and others we all miss)

Full movie on youtube was taken down..but luckily saw the film last week on youtube.

Quite possibly the most stunning shot in Fassbinder’s entire oeuvre: two dizzying orbits, and two destinies intertwined with consummate precision.(commentary via youtube)

Martha review here.

Martha, long unavailable, proves to be one of Fassbinder’s dramatic and visual triumphs. It features a brilliantly stylized performance from star Margit Carstensen and the virtuosic camerawork of Fassbinder’s frequent collaborator, Michael Ballhaus. This riveting tale of a sado-masochistic marriage is astonishing in its balance of psychological horror and pitch-black comedy.

R.I.P. Ben Gazarra

Ben Gazzara, an intense actor whose long career included playing Brick in the original “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on Broadway, roles in influential films by John Cassavetes and work with several generations of top Hollywood directors, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 81.

In Cassavetes’s Husbands (1970), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) and Opening Night (1976), “he plays varieties of himself, as Cassavetes saw him: the moderate man who loses his head and takes immoderate action,” blogs the New Yorker’s Richard Brody.

I was enraptured. I was flattered that someone like that would be in love with me. But I didn’t know how deeply she was in love with me until I left her. She told others, not me, that I broke her heart. That’s the kind of classy woman she was.”read more here

Ben and Audrey co-starred in two films, Bloodline (1979) and They All Laughed (1981).. (usually overlooked by Audrey Hepburn fans).

MUBI obit

“Making Saint Jack was one of the great experiences of my life,” Gazzara told Ben Slater, author of Kinda Hot, which tells the story of the making of Peter Bogdanovich’s 1979 adaptation of Paul Theroux’s novel.

Ben Gazzara as Charles Bukowski explains “Style” from Tales Of Ordinary Madness

Interview of Ben Gazarra on Charlie Rose

(Mishima by Paul Schrader)

NYtimes

Eiko Ishioka, Multifaceted Designer and Oscar Winner, Dies at 73

LAtimes

The Tokyo native who later moved to New York began her convention-defying career in Japanese advertising but eventually expanded it to include design work for Broadway, the movies and Cirque du Soleil.

Eiko Ishioka
石岡 瑛子, Ishioka Eiko, July 12, 1939, Tokyo – January 21, 2012, Tokyo

In a career marked by great versatility, Ishioka won a Grammy Award in 1986 for best album package as art director for Miles Davis’ “Tutu.”
Her sets and costumes for David Henry Hwang’s Broadway play “M. Butterfly” earned her two Tony Award nominations in 1988.

Faye Dunaway
1) Eiko Ishioka (with Faye Dunaway) for Japanese department store, Parco

2) Faye Dunaway Peels an Egg - (youtube)

The Fall
See The Fall – trailer (Previous post – Captive Girls)

Our first marriage from the Fall (youtube)

Bjork Cocoon (youtube)

Eiko Ishioka filmography

A Tribute to Ishioka

Happy birthday Jim Jarmusch. Jan 22, 1953. he is a Water Dragon.

Some trivia from (IMDB )

(via)

On why Jim Jarmusch dedicated “Broken Flowers” to Jean Eustache.

There’s something in him that I want to carry in myself: making a film the way you choose to make it, true to yourself without being concerned with the marketplace or anyone’s expectations – just the pure spirit of wanting to express something in your own style. That’s very important to me.(via)

Jim Jarmusch is working on a new film – a vampire movie no less! – featuring Tilda Swinton, Michael Fassbender, Mia Wasikowska and John Hurt, to be shot in Germany, Morocco and Detroit in early 2012. (wiki)

On his planned Stooges film (youtube)

What happend to his Nikola Tesla Opera?

Music sucks in 99% of commercial films.. in complete agreement here with Jim Jarmusch on(Youtube)

(Repost – his Mitchum stories are too funny.)

Thunder Road Robert Mitchum..

J.J. in Bored to death

A quote from J.J..

The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events.

Ozu Yasujiro (Jim visited his grave in Japan)

Not dead, no broken flowers, no stranger in paradise.. mystery train? maybe..
definetely coffee and cigarattes..and let’s spend a night on earth driving taxis all over the world.

Jan 22 birthday people
Antonio Gramasci

R.I.P Vaclav Havel – a leader of the Velvet Revolution and the first democratically elected President of the Czech Republic… He wrote plays, Letters to Olga and many theater works..
Vaclav Havel 1936-2011

Shy and bookish, with wispy mustache and unkempt hair, Havel came to symbolize the power of the people to peacefully overcome totalitarian rule.”

A film directed by Vaclav Havel “Leaving”(via)

Based on his own play, Leaving is “about — what else? — a politician trying to adjust to a new life after leaving politics.” It “tells the story of Vilém Rieger, the former chancellor of an unnamed country, locked in a battle of wills with his successor, the unsavory Vlastík Klein. It’s a King Lear-like contemplation on a politician’s frustrating impotence at finding himself slowly being forced out of his beloved government villa, with several of Havel’s favorite actors among the cast. They include his wife Dagmar [Havlová], who plays the chancellor’s wife, Irena.”

Always the Optimist
Václav Havel’s transcendence of politics. By Stefany Anne Golberg

On the day of Havel’s death, Czech novelist Milan Kundera said, “Václav Havel’s most important work is his own life.” There’s a moral there somewhere, one that Havel would have appreciated very much indeed.

The Power and the Powerless – Obit from Artinfo

Havel was still the President when I took this photograph of the
toilet paper in the Prague Castle
This photo was presented as The Articles of Faith here.

Ozu biography on youtube Ozu was born on Dec 12, 1903.

Tokyo Chorus echoes Ozu’s experience of his struggle with job hunting. (The charismatic Actor Okada Tokihiko – father of Mariko Okada died young. He needs to get a special blog post in the near future)

Innocent children disovered the father was no hero. (A bit like how the 99% feels about our government)

Ohoyo – Good Morning is Ozu’s hilarious Technicolor re-working of his silent I Was Born, But.. .(The younger brother says ‘I love you’.. post war Japan in danchi or suburb the kids negotiate for a TV set).

Ozu spirit of a clown

The clown is lonely, but he must hide his loneliness and play the fool joyfully, comically. That’s the spirit of Ozu’s film.

Wim Wenders made two great documentaries one was Buena Vista Social Club and another Tokyo-Ga. Wim Wenders is responsible for increased attention paid to Ozu.

Aki Kaurismaki calls Ozu a mathematician

Jim Jarmusch on Ozu (He mentioned Kawakita Kazuko a formidable pioneer distributor of Japanese films to Europe and vice versa) in the article

Ozu’s grave “MU’ shows up in many of these documentaries. (See here at Engakuji)

Hou Hsiao Hsien made Cafe Lumiere as a tribute to Ozu.. (see Hou talking about Ozu)
(Dorris Dorie, Cherry Blossoms, Wayne Wang – Dim Sum also are tribute films for Ozu)

Claire Denis on Yasujiro Ozu

Late Spring finale

Floating Words (previous post on Ozu)

Alain Tanner
Happy birthday Alain Tanner – born 6 December 1929.

Influenced by his involvement with the British “Free Cinema” movement in London and with the French New Wave during his years in Paris, Tanner is best known for his movies Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l’an 2000 (Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000), Dans la ville blanche (In the White City) and Messidor. (via wiki)

See his filmography (via MUBI)

“My films have always represented a balancing act between those films whose objective is the discourse, the concept, and those which start from the material, from emotions, behaviour and locations.”

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Thelma and Louis was a remake of Messidor.

Messidor is an original, unpredictable, and disturbing film about two alienated young women in search of freedom from society. The film, in its poetic sweep, is reminiscent of Terrence Malik’s Badlands and could have been a prototype for Thelma and Louise.”

Tanner’s first film.

John Berger wrote the script for La Salamandre (youtube repost) (1971); The Middle of the World (1974); and Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976)

Here are some photos of eleven good men whose lives were cut short with Aids. R.I.P

Klaus Nomi Derek Jarman and Tony Perkins in the middle.
Klaus Nomi died on August 6, 1983 – he was 39.
Perkins died on September 12, 1992.. Berry Berenson (Perkins’ wife), was killed on American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Derek Jarman died In 1994 London, aged 52.

Paul Thek and Peter Hujar
Peter Hujar, Paul Thek and David Wojnarowicz at Mathew Marks Exhibition
Susan Sontag by Peter Hujar

Paul Thek New York City in 1988. He was 55.
Peter Hujar November 26, 1987. He was 53.

.Arthur Russell
Michel Foucault
Wild Combination Arthur was an original Michel Foucault would not mind to be paired with him.

Arthur Russell died on April 4, 1992, at the age of 40
Foucault died in Paris on 25 June 1984, he was 58.

Tseng Kwo-Chiand Herman Costa having a blast at photobooth (Thanks Herman for this photo).
Martin Wong with lunchboxes
Tseng and Martin – pride of Chinese Americans!

In 1990, TSENG died at age 39 in NY.
Martin Wong died on 12 August 1999 in San Francisco.. He was 53.

Nestor & Reinaldo Arenas
They were good friends in Cuba.
Nestor Almendros died on 4 March 1992 in NY. He was 62
Reinaldo Arenas died on December 7, 1990. he was 47.

“All these years, I’ve felt Manhattan was just another island-jail. A bigger jail with more distractions but a jail nonetheless. It just goes to show that there are more than two hells. I left one kind of hell behind and fell into another kind. I never thought I would live to see us plunge again into the dark ages. This plague — AIDS — is but a symptom of the sickness of our age.” Reinaldo Arenas

Ken Russell – Formidable film director with an impish sense of humour and a talent to entertain and provoke died at 84 years old on Nov 27.
Many Ken Russell film clips are assembled here including an interview of Martin Scorsesee and Ben Kingsley talking about Ken and their favorite films. How many Ken Russell films have you seen?

Nuyerev as Valantino dances Tango here from a film Valentino directed by Ken Russell. (direct link)

TO SEE FULL MOVIE -Here

Savage Messiah (More on Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Ezra Pound, Helen Mirren from previous post)

The fascination with genius, ambition and the creative process — and the project of making high culture accessible to a popular audience — continued in Mr. Russell’s later fictional features. Many of them take considerable liberties in exploring the lives and works of composers and artists: the Tchaikovsky biopic “The Music Lovers” (1970);“Savage Messiah” (1972), about the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska; “Mahler” (1974); “Lisztomania” (1975), which imagined Franz Liszt as the original pop superstar. (NYTimes via)

Ken Russell as a young Photographer
Like the much-better-regarded Stanley Kubrick, Russell’s creative career progressed from still photographer to short filmmaker. (See a slideshow of his photographs)

Ken Russell July 3rd, 1927 to November 27th, 2011

He has made three films based on D.H. Lawrence, the most critically aclaimed “Women in Love’ for which Glenda Jackson won her first Oscar, “The Rainbow” came next and more recent “The Lady Chatterlay’s Lover”. “The Devils” was his most controversial. Derek Jarman did the art/set design for the “Devils” and launched his career in films.

Bio pics of composers, artists, dancers and architect links

Song of Summer – Delius (previous post) – (Considered to be one of his finest bio-pics).

Elgar ( youtube)

Sunday Painter Henri Rousseau
A non-actor played Henri Rousseau.. both Rousseau and Alfred Jarry were so authentic a truly marvelous joyful portraiture rarely seen in films these days. (Alfred Jarry was played by Annette Robertson in the role of the surrealist playwright.)

Isadora Duncan (youtube)

Gaudi (youtube)

One of his early films ( via)

Part Two <> <> Part Three <> <> Part Four <> <> Part Five