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Vitro NasuIconoclastic Incubator
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Oharu 
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi , Tanaka Kinuyo as Oharu.. she was his muse.
(Toshiro Mifune and Kinuyo Tanaka in Wedding Ring)
Dragnet 
Girl
Ozu’s silent film.
Kinuyo Tanaka Fragility and Resilience
The Life of Oharu, Mifune Toshiro and Kinuyo Tanaka directed by Mizoguchi
Isamu Noguchi and Saburo Hasegawa: A Friendship Nearly Lost to Art History
Even decades after Saburo Hasegawa’s death, the artist and designer Isamu Noguchi would describe his friendship with Hasegawa as an “everlasting conversation.”
<> <>How Noguchi SF Story Transformed Asian art & culture
Saburo Hasegawa, Isamu Noguchi and YoshikoYamaguchi at Uransenke Konnichi-an estate,Kyoto, c. 1952
Tea Ceremony At Eames house
Drinking Tea Tom Sachs (see many photos, including Isamu Noguchi, Charlie Chaplin tea ceremony photo).
Noguchi went to the Camp to help (New Yorker)
Noguchi Garden 
Isamu Noguchi previous post (See his Rose Garden in Jerusalem)
Yoshiko Yamaguchi 
and Isamu Noguchi
Kaoru Yachigusa, actress in “Samurai, The Legend of Musashi,” dies
(Yachigusa Kaoru and Toshiro Mifune in Samurai, The Legend of Musashi”)
She was a member of Takarazuka Revue
Yachigusa, who started her career in the all-women Takarazuka Revue, gained popularity through her role as Otsu in the 1954 film, known as “Miyamoto Musashi” in Japan, which featured Toshiro Mifune as the swordsman Musashi. The film won the Honorary Foreign Language Film Award at the Oscars in 1956.
She appeared in a number of other films, including Japanese-Italian musical “Madame Butterfly” and “Yukiguni.”
(Mariko Kaga and Kaoru Yachigusa in With Beauty and Sorrow based on Kawabata Yasunari. )
Kaoru Yachigusa was in “Yukiguni” with Kishi Keiko see previous post on Kawabata Yasunari
Nobuo Sekine (1942–2019)
Conceptual artist Nobuo Sekine—whose ephemeral, site-specific sculptural and installation works were associated with Mono-ha (the School of Things), the postwar Japanese art movement active in the late 1960s to the mid ’70s—died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was seventy-six years old.(Artforum Obit)
(Phase of Nothingness – Cloth and Stones)
Nobuo Sekine and his Phase of Nothingness (1969) installed at the Japanese Pavilion, 35th Venice Biennale, 1970. Photo by Yoriko Kushigemachi. © Nobuo Sekine.
(Kyo Machiko in Floating Weeds directed by Ozu Yasujiro)
Machiko Kyo, internationally acclaimed Japanese actress, dies at 95
Kyō continued to act through her 80’s. Her final role was as “Matsuura Shino” in the NHK television drama series Haregi Koko Ichiban in 2000. In 2017 she was presented with an award of merit at the 40th Japanese Academy Awards.[1] After retiring from film, she moved back to Osaka, where she resided until her death.
Kyō never married, although her romantic relationship with Daiei’s president Masaichi Nagata was well-publicized in her native country.
Kyō died from heart failure on May 12, 2019. She was 95
(Kyo Machiko with Marlon and Glenn Ford from the Tea House of the August Moon)
Her sole role in a non-Japanese film was as the young geisha Lotus Blossom from The Teahouse of the August Moon opposite Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa)
(Rashomon – Kurosawa, cinematography by Miyagawa)
(The Face of Another, Kyo Machiko directed by Teshigahara)
Street of 
Shame
Kenji Mizoguchi and actresses on the set of his film “Street of Shame (Akasen Chitai)
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Photo by Fung Lin Hall (Scottsdale, Arizona)
The Dolls – (Directed by Takeshi Kitano, Poland gave this the best film award – costume design by Yoji Yamamoto)
Name these girls – Happy Hinamatsuri album
The custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period. Formerly, people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. Hinamatsuri traces its origins to an ancient Japanese custom called hina-nagashi (雛流し, lit. “doll floating”), in which straw hina dolls are set afloat on a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles or bad spirits with them.(via wiki)
Japanese Literature Scholar, Translater Donald Keene died at 96.
Akutagawa Hiroshi, Mishima and Donald Keene
Mishima (his final performance)
His autobiography is an excellent read.. what an amazing life.
Keene Observation 
(On his 84th birthday)
Interesting review of his book by Colin Marshall.. Donald Keene on Familiar Terms.
Kiki Kirin 
Josh Parmer posted on FB a sad and shocking news that Kiki Kirin (樹木 希林) passed away. (See a great photo of Kiki there)
May your body rest and your soul soar Kiki Kirin. You have been one of my favorite actresses since I first saw you back in Still Walking.
Interview with Kiki
Kiki Kirin’s response here.
Regarding the afterlife, there is the Buddhist idea of rebirth. Right now, my soul is in this body and this body is Kirin Kiki. After this body is used up and death comes around, that soul and spirit moves on and reappears. I don’t see death as an end.
Kiki with Nagase (Previous post)
Koreeda and Kiki (Shoplifters won Palme’dor at Cannes – 2018)
Previous Cannes festival.
Kiki, for whom After the Storm is her fifth Koreeda film, described the director as among one of the most observant she has seen in her 55-year career.
(Franco Zeffirelli, Olivia Hussey and Akira Fuse)
Olivia Hussey and Fuse Akira
Building Bloc -積木の部屋 (積木の部屋 / 布施明)
Flamenco guitar and hear him singing (Youtube)
1)Cyclamen Fuse’s early hit song.
2)
Playing Oboe..
Cyclamen his early hit.
Fuse’s interpretation of Aznavour song in Japanese
(An elegant calligraphic note is a poem written by Fuse Akira)
Happy birthday Leonard Berstein!
Shinobu Hashimoto and Akira Kurosawa (made history with Rashomon, Seven Samurai and Ikiru)
Obit – shinobu-hashimoto-dies-at-100
Screenwriter for Rashomon dies – (deadline)
(Samurai Rebellion directed by Kobayashi, screenwriting by Hashimoto)
How to Marry a Millionaire – (2015 Acrylic by Tomoo Gokita)
Chloe Sevigny, Kazumi Hayashi, Lily Ludlow, and Tomoo Gokita)
Tomoo Gokita “PEEKABOO” exhibition opening and after party at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo
On view until June 24th, 2018 at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 3 Chome-20-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo.
Tomoo Gokita Mary Boon Gallery
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The Shoplifters wins Palme d’Or.
Japan Times – Kore eda, Master of Humanism
Winners at Cannes here.
Palme d’Or: “Shoplifters,” Hirokazu Kore-eda
Grand Prix: “BlacKkKlansman,” Spike Lee
Jury Prize: “Capernaum,” Nadine Labaki
Special Palme d’Or: “The Image Book,” Jean-Luc Godard
Best Actress: Samal Yeslyamova, “Akya”
Best Actor: Marcello Fonte, “Dogman”
Best Director: Pawel Pawlikowski, “Cold War”
Best Screenplay (tie): Alice Rohrwacher, “Happy as Lazzaro” & Nader Saeivar, “Three Faces”
Camera d’Or: “Girl,” Lukas Dhont
Short Film Palme d’Or: “All These Creatures,” Charles Williams
Queer Palm (Feature): “Girl,” Lukas Dhont
Queer Palm (Short): “The Orphan,” Carolina Markowicz
Kore eda Films from previous posts.
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Still Walking
Nobody Knows
Film Quiz + Nobody Knows + Cities & Neglected Children
Previous Cannes festival.
Kiki, for whom After the Storm is her fifth Koreeda film, described the director as among one of the most observant she has seen in her 55-year career.
