Vitro Nasu

(Hagiwara Kenichi or known as Sho-Ken and Jakucho Setouchi – from the Magazine Jakucho 2009) Hagiwara Kenichi and Jakucho Setouchi were very close, she was his surrogate mother. In this magazine their trips to Yokahama and Kyoto and their daily conversation were recorded. Hagiwara Kenichi passed away a few years ago.

Mario Ambrosieus posted the sad news of the passing of Jakucho Setouchi at 99 years old.

Distant Rain Jakucho Setouchi and Tess Gallahar
(I would like to read this.)

Distant Rain records a conversation between the eloquent American poet Tess Gallagher and the renowned Japanese novelist and Buddhist nun Jakucho Setouchi that took place in 1990 at Jakuan, Setouchi’s home temple, in Sagano, Japan.

Gallagher had recently experienced the death of her husband, Raymond Carver, an internationally renowned short story writer. In a frank and at times humorous exchange, the two women trade observations about love and loss, and about the role of writing in coping with grief.

Their words, reproduced in both English and Japanese, unfold accordion-style across the rich colors and striking imagery of artist Keiko Hara’s wood-block and stencil prints. Complemented by the exquisite lettering of typographer Maki Yamashita and under the guidance of master bookbinder Atsuo Ikuta, Distant Rain is not only a moving tribute to the sustaining power of love but also a stunning example of the art of book design

(For Hagiwara Kenichi, the last time he visited Ten Ryu Mon in Kyoto was 25 years ago)

A review of True Mothers

(Azu Makita was in “After the Storm” “The Third Murder’, “The Shoplifters” directed by Kore eda)

Juliette Binoche and Naomi Kawase photographed by Leslie Kee for Vogue Taiwan, 2018

The Dvd of “True Mother”s offers Bonus feature discussion of Naomi Kawase and Juliette Binoche. Both ladies often became emotional and were in tears.

Naomi Kawase
Masatoshi Nagases previous post
Naomi Kawase wiki

She employs this documentary-realism to focus on individuals of lesser cultural status, challenging prevailing representations of women within the male-dominated Japanese film industry.[1] This theme is also connected to her own personal reflections on contemporary issues in the current climate of economic depression such as the declining birthrate, alienation, and the collapse of traditional family structures

Anatahan
Akemi Negishi played the Queen Bee.

Decided to see Anatahan after learning that Dominique De Menil worked as a scriptgirl to assist Joseph von Sternberg.

Land of the lost, Close Up on Josef Von Sternberg’s Anatahan (MuBi)

Mubi film lists – Josef Von Sternberg (May 29 – his birthday today)

Joseph Von Sternberg and Setsuko Hara

Ray Manzarek said.

“I had a class with Joseph von Sternberg at UCLA, which changed my life, if not my attitude towards women, which has always been lustfully wonderfully beautiful, but in terms of style,” he says.

Between 1959 and 1963, Sternberg taught a course on film aesthetics at the University of California, Los Angeles, based on his own works. His students included undergraduate Jim Morrison and graduate student Ray Manzarek, who went on to form the rock group The Doors shortly after receiving their respective degrees in 1965. The group recorded songs referring to Sternberg, with Manzarek later characterizing Sternberg as “perhaps the greatest single influence on The Doors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_von_Sternberg

(Yumi Shirakawa, Hideko Takamine, Yoko Minamida, Misako Uji and Yumiko Hasegawa visiting Elvis.)

Hideko Takamine was a Japanese actress who began as a child actress and maintained her fame in a career that spanned 50 years. She is particularly known for her collaborations with directors Mikio Naruse and Keisuke Kinoshita, with Twenty-Four Eyes (1954) and Floating Clouds (1955) being among her most noted films

Hideko Takamine

A child actress on the right was Takamine Hideko .

(Kayama Yuzo and Hideko Takamine in “Yearning directed by Mikio Naruse)

Mifune and Takamine Hideko in A Wife’s Heart

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.

Click to see large

Takamine Hideko in Naruse masterpiece..
(Wong Kar Wai was thinking of Naruse when he made In the Mood for Love.)

Gesture and pose of cinema of M.Naruse

Harvard Archive list of Naruse films

Summer Clouds, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Floating Clouds (3 film stills)

Azurebumble

(Michinoku)

Focus art of Toko Shinoda

Toko Shinoda wiki

Toko Shinoda (篠田 桃紅, Shinoda Tōkō, 28 March 1913 – 1 March 2021) was a Japanese artist working with sumi ink paintings and prints. Her art merged traditional calligraphy with modern abstract expressionism. A 1983 interview in Time magazine asserted “her trail-blazing accomplishments are analogous to Picasso’s”.[1] Shinoda’s works have been exhibited at the Hague National Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, Cincinnati Art Museum, and other leading museums of the world.

See more from Artnet – Toko Shinoda

Shinoda Masahiro (retired filmmaker, husband of Shima Iwashita)is her cousin – (via Asahi )

37 Seconds Movie directed by Hikari

A story of Cerebral Palsy and self-dicovery

(Moving Shinji Somai )
Film review “Moving’ by Shinji Somai

13-year-old Tomoko Tabata provides a great anchor for the film in her debut, as the narrative seems to follow her every whim. The plethora of feelings, behaviors, and psychological statues she depicts is the highlight of a naturalistic performance, which allowed her to begin a career in acting that continues until today.

Fashion designer Kenzo Takada dies of Coronavirus

BBC obit

(Japanese fashion designer Kenzo Takada posing during a photo session in his home in Paris on January 9, 2019. AFP)
via

Self Portrait

The Professor and His Beloved Equation

Japanese director Takashi Koizumi

Director Koizumi was the assistant director to the late Japanese maestro Akira Kurosawa on five of his final major films: Ran, Kagemusha, Dreams, Madadayo, and Rhapsody in August and was an uncredited assistant to the director on a sixth one Dersu Uzala. The Kurosawa connection to the Koizumi film continues. The cinematographer Shoji Ueda too was the cinematographer of five of those films, the actor Akira Terao (who plays the professor) was a lead actor in Ran and Madadayo, so too, actor Hisashi Ogawa (who plays the brief role of the housekeeper agent) is a stock Kurosawa actor. Even though Kurosawa had nothing to do with this film, his trusted collaborators were the principal contributors to The Professor and His Beloved Equation. Kurosawa would have been proud because the film apart from mathematics briefly introduces Japanese culture and the essentially Japanese Noh theatre to any uninitiated viewer as well.

Author of “The Housekeeper and the Professor”
Yoko Ogawa (Previous Post)

(Robert Mitchum and Keiko Kishi in Yakuza directed by Sydney Pollack)
Keiko Kishi wiki (born August 11, 1932 in Yokohama, Japan)

Keiko Kishi Live Talk Show will be on October 11, 2020

Kishi Keiko is an actress, writer, UNESCO Ambassader and a recipient of legion d’honneur from the French gov’t. She was in “Early Spring” directed by Ozu with Ryo Ikebe. Masaki Kobayashi directed Kishi in 3 films, Inheritance,I will Buy You, Kwaidan, she co-starred again with Ryo Ikebe in “Snow Country.”
She made more than four films with Ichikawa Kon, including “Sasame Yuki – Makioka Sisters” “Younger Brother” … Sydney Pollack directed her in Yakuza with Robert Mitchum and Takakura Ken.

Ryo Ikebe and Keiko Kishi in “Snow Country”

Author of Snow Countray Kawabata Yasunari was at her wedding when she married Yves Ciampi in Paris.

Makioka Sisters

Sasame Yuki -(Makioka Sisters – adapted from a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki)

Kon Ichikawa

<> <> <>
(Kishi Keiko with Mishima and Jean Cocteau)

(Early Spring – Kishi Keiko and Ryo Ikebe – directed by Ozu Yasujiro)

Inheritance MUBI – Masaki Kobayashi

(Keiko Kishi with Jean Cocteau – 1960)
From Kishi’s autobiography “Ma Vie A La Carte”, Kishi wrote that as a teenager she saw Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” 5 times, never imagined that she would in 10 0r 12 years later be directed by Cocteau for his last play at the theater. (Shadow Picture – the Wife of Wet Coat).
(Unable to find any information about this production).

Happy birthday Kiyoshi Kurosawa!

Kiyoshi Kurosawa Letterboxed

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (born July 19, 1955) is a Japanese filmmaker. He is best known for his many contributions to the Japanese horror genre.

“Cure” is in this list, Best Japanese film every year – BFI

Tokyo Sonata

Interview Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Tahar Rahim (Film Comment)

More photos (Pinterest)

(Self Portrait)

Japan Times -Arts, Mistress of the dark

Some of Kon’s recent work has been created in Mexico and it’s not difficult to see a correspondence between their macabre festivity and the visual traditions of the Day of the Dead festivities. In a pointed departure from her usual depiction of imaginary and/or inanimate, objects, Kon appears in a self-portrait with her face made up as a skull. She cradles a doll in her lap with one hand, while holding on to the brim of her sombrero with the other, as though it might blow away in the wind. It’s an odd mix of poised calculation and kitschy tourist snapshot that doesn’t fit comfortably with the main body of her work.

Red Beard, Mifune played a good doctor.
The last time Toshiro Mifune and Kurosawa worked together. The film took one year to make.

(Throne of Blood)

(Idiot – based on Dostoevsky – 1951, Masayuki Mori, Setsuko Hara and Toshiro Mifune)

Yoshiko Yamaguchi and Mifune Toshiro from Scandal directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(A very funny photo – the dude on the right looks like Henry Miller )

Shinobu Hashimoto and Akira Kurosawa (made history with Rashomon, Seven Samurai and Ikiru)