New York’s leading movie house for independent premieres and repertory programming
A nonprofit cinema since 1970
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
New York’s leading movie house for independent premieres and repertory programming
A nonprofit cinema since 1970
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 Share this page
|
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
 |
||
Click here to read Terrence Rafferty's article on the series in The New York Times Click here to read Michael Joshua Rowin's article on the series in The L Magazine “SIX ACTION-PACKED WEEKS! Two masterpieces bracket this domo-arigato series, a canon that incorporates everything from pulp to Noh theater, Shakespearean tragedy to the almighty Bushido code.” – Flavorpill "The term 'giant' is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits. His films had an awe-inspiring power, physical and graphic. His indelible compositions seemed to have been burned into the screen. He defined a sense of possibility in movies." – Martin Scorsese “A sort of pop culture prophet, Akira Kurosawa was more than the first Japanese director—or, indeed, the first Asian director—to achieve an international reputation. Kurosawa's remarkable Global Village synthesis of disparate cinematic and literary traditions was itself instrumental in revitalizing the Hollywood genre film, and not just in Hollywood. Kurosawa fused Eisenstein's graphic sweep and rhythmic montage with Ford's nostalgic esprit de corps, and his own disciples are legion: Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, George Lucas, Walter Hill, John Woo, and just about anyone who has ever used the widescreen format with a modicum of pizzazz. ” – J. Hoberman “The greatest living example of what an author of the cinema should be." – Federico Fellini “The wonder of Akira Kurosawa's 50-year career is that it was at once remarkably varied and satisfyingly coherent. Kurosawa elevated the samurai genre and reinvented action filmmaking. He adapted Shakespeare, Russian classics and American pulp novels. And he offered street-level portraits of tumultuous postwar Japan that ranged in mood from uplift to despair. Kurosawa is also honorary godfather to genres as disparate as the sci-fi adventure and the spaghetti western. Kurosawa gravitated to large canvases and grand themes. He engineered his material for utmost emotional effect; his films, in terms of both physical action and thematic meaning, are models of lucidity.” – Dennis Lim, Los Angeles Times “Akira Kurosawa’s impact can’t be overstated: He almost single-handedly introduced the Western world to J-cinema’s fertile output and the time he’d passed away in 1998, his impressive, varied body of work was considered a touchstone of the seventh art.” – David Fear, Time Out New York Click here to read Bilge Ebiri's Kurosawa analysis on The Moving Image Source
|
||||
|
JANUARY 6-14, WED - THU
Click here for more information 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30 JANUARY 15 FRI (1957) ...or Castle of the Spider’s Web, literal translation of the
Japanese title. Macbeth transformed into a medieval Japanese
legend, as General Toshiro Mifune gallops through a seemingly
endless forest to his encounter with a single witch, then, as a
dense fog lifts, finds himself
before a looming castle. With
the legendary Isuzu Yamada as
his Lady, this is a partnership
of titans, with no trickery in
the legendary final scene (yes,
they’re real arrows). Approx. 110 minutes “May well be Kurosawa’s best film. Replaces Shakespeare’s verse with a purely visual poetry of equal magnificence.” JANUARY 16 SAT (1958) Two constantly
bickering farmers on the
run from clan wars are dragooned by General Toshiro Mifune
into aiding his rescue of fugitive princess Misa Uehara and
her family’s hidden gold; at the last moment help arrives from
a completely unexpected source. Probably Kurosawa’s most
dazzling exercise in pure filmmaking — his first use of Scope
— and perhaps Mifune’s most purely swashbuckling vehicle.
Acknowledged as the source for Star Wars — didn’t that plot
synopsis sound familiar? Approx. 139 minutes “One of Kurosawa’s graphically strongest works, reveling in spectacular wasted landscapes as well as choreographed action.” JANUARY 17 SUN (1951) Kurosawa’s powerful adaptation of his own favorite author
and “the best adaptation of any of Dostoyevsky’s novels” (Georges
Sadoul). The triangle: Masayuki Mori the holy innocent “Myshkin;”
Mifune the homocidal “Rogozhin;” and Ozu’s lovable Setsuko
Hara as the vicious “Nastasia.” When the producers asked him to
cut his 4½ hour original, AK famously replied, “If you want to cut it
in half, you’d better cut it lengthwise.” Approx. 166 minutes “It is Dostoyevsky brought to the screen so attentively and passionately JANUARY 18 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) “Kurosawa’s hero triumphs by pursuing the new methods of judo over the old-fashioned techniques of jujitsu,
(1943) AK’s pathbreaking debut. A young man’s spiritual growth
to maturity, told against the triumph of judo over jujitsu, beginning
with a fight on a deserted island pier at night and climaxing with
a showdown on a wind-blown mountainside. Approx. 80 minutes “Kurosawa's first film already demonstrates a mastery of the medium. The climactic duel is directed with great flair.” (1945) The sequel, the story of a young judo master Sanshiro’s
continuing moral development, is sparked by dazzling fight
scenes and directorial experiments; plus its inherent interest as
one of the Master’s most rarely-seen films. Approx. 83 minutes “The atmosphere seems more that of a ghost story JANUARY 19 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) (1947) From under the rubble of Tokyo, the human spirit reemerges,
as a poor couple spend a memorable day together
on their last thirty-five yen. First emergence of AK’s mature
style and his only essay in shomin-geki (slice-of-life stories
about ordinary people), but also a combination of German
Expressionism, hidden cameras, Franz Schubert, Peter Pan,
and Frank Capra. Approx. 110 minutes “A work of considerable charm.” (1945) Samurai disguised as porters try to sneak the great
general Yoshitune past suspicious border guards — but a real porter keeps asking all these questions. To a Kabuki classic,
Kurosawa added comedian Kenichi (Enoken) Enomoto, the
equivalent, says Donald Richie, “of adding Jerry Lewis to Hamlet.” Banned by both the military government and the
Occupation, it wasn’t released until 1952. Approx. 58 minutes "Akira Kurosawa's slimmest feature, running only an hour, JANUARY 20 WED (1952) Literally, “To Live.” Despite the euphemisms, Takashi
Shimura’s paper-pushing bureaucrat knows it’s “terminal
cancer.” What to do with only six months left? Family ties,
booze, partying, mentoring: Shimura gives them all a try, until
he figures out what he really can do. The director’s second
Japanese Oscar winner. Approx. 143 minutes Click here for more information “Were it the only film Kurosawa ever made, JANUARY 21 THU (1955) 70ish factory owner Toshiro Mifune (then 35), obsessed
with fear of the Bomb, demands his extended family move to the
supposed safety of Brazil. Every device at Kurosawa’s command
is enlisted to enforce the mood of oppression, of unease; with
a desperate Mifune’s climactic speech equaling his legendary Seven Samurai monologue. Approx. 103 minutes “A masterwork that deserves to be better known.” JANUARY 22 FRI (1963) Shoe company exec Mifune is in the midst of a mortgage-everything
takeover battle when the phone rings with a giant
ransom demand for his son — but then in walks... Adapted from
Ed McBain’s King’s Ransom, this is the ultimate kidnap movie,
with the cops led by Steve McQueen-cool Tatsuya Nakadai; the
de rigeur money transfer aboard the Shinkansen (bullet train);
and a jailhouse interview punctuated by the heaviest steel door
closing in film history. Approx. 143 minutes Click here to listen to TATSUYA NAKADAI DISCUSSING HIGH AND LOW
(in onstage interview at Film Forum, 6/24/08; moderator: Michael Jeck; interpreter: Catherine Cadou) "Undoubtedly the most complex detective film of all... JANUARY 23 SAT (1948) Toshiro Mifune‘s greasily-coiffed, “Jungle Boogie”-dancing gangster gets the bad news from alcoholic doctor
Takashi Shimura — he’s got
TB; and then the prewar boss
returns. “When I realized I
couldn’t control Mifune, I let
him play the part freely... I didn’t
want to smother that vitality.”
– AK. First collaboration of “the
greatest actor-director team in
film history” (David Shipman)
and AK’s first Kinema Jumpo
(Japanese Oscar) winner. Approx. 98 minutes “In Drunken Angel, Kurosawa devised a style that somehow combined the formal restraint of traditional Japanese cinema with the irreverence and nervous energy of Hollywood movies: it looked entirely new, like nothing else Eastern or Western.” “With his greasepaint complexion and forelock bouncing over a cold-sweaty brow, Mifune elevates this earthy drama into an expressionism matched by Kurosawa's elemental, propulsively edited set pieces.” JANUARY 24 SUN (1949) During surgery in a leaky tent at the jungle front, Dr.
Toshiro Mifune is infected with syphilis, then must decide what
to do when he returns to an expectant fiancée back home. With
Takashi Shimura as his doctor dad; and the opening operation
scene a 21-shot tour de force. Approx. 95 minutes “Kurosawa's only film based upon a contemporary Japanese play – and it is perhaps the single picture in which the director thought first of the actor, then of the film. The set-ups in this film are meticulous – the composition is precise and the balance is miraculous... pure beauty and ingenuity.” JANUARY 24 SUN (Separate Admission) (1950) Successful painter and attractive pop singer meet
innocently at a mountain resort, but Amour magazine takes it
from there, with an action for slander leading to Kurosawa’s
only — and brilliant — courtroom scene. Mifune as the dandruff-ridden,
motorcycling artist has moments of hilarious deadpan
humor, but the film is dominated by Takashi Shimura as the
sometime lawyer and full-time slob. AK’s last picture before Rashomon and international fame. Approx. 104 minutes “A rarely shown protest film, filled with flashes of charm. JANUARY 25 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) (1944) Based on his own original story — and his sole contribution
to “national polity” — Kurosawa’s second film is a documentary-like
portrait of women in a wartime factory, with a typically ironwilled,
powerfully individualistic protagonist in Yoko Yaguchi. The
director and star, after being at each other’s throats, soon after
began a 40-year marriage. Approx. 85 minutes “Kurosawa’s ‘documentary’ is so enriched by the kind of beauty which only truth can give. In the context of preserved actuality, of beautifully captured wartime stringency, the performances ring with a kind of truth that one finds usually only in real documentaries.”
(1946) Setsuko Hara moves from pampered professor’s daughter
to lovesick woman, to dissenter’s helpmate, to granitic woman
of the earth — a character too strong for audiences then. With
typically striking visuals and innovative editing techniques this is,
in many ways, Kurosawa’s first masterpiece. Approx. 108 minutes “A rare surprise in this comprehensive retro!” JANUARY 26 TUE (1960) Scandal-seeking reporters act as a chorus at the
wedding reception for bespectacled pencil-pushing executive
secretary Mifune and limping boss’s daughter Kyoko Kagawa,
even as cops wait in the wings and in wheels a cake shaped like
an office building, a single rose marking the site of a notorious
suicide — or was it murder? And that’s just the first 20 minutes!
Roughly Enron meets Hamlet, as scandal and ruin move
inexorably up the corporate ladder. Approx. 135 minutes “EXTRAORDINARY! Kurosawa critiques corporate culture JANUARY 27 WED (1980) ... or The Shadow Warrior. Epic evocation of 16th-century
Japan, as well as an ironic tale of loyalty and illusion, with thief-turned-double Tatsuya Nakadai first taking the place of a dying
lord (also Nakadai), then getting to like the part. Featuring some
of the greatest battle sequences ever filmed, this was AK’s
triumphant return to Japanese filmmaking after a decade-long
absence. Color; Approx. 159 minutes Click here to view gallery of Kurosawa's storyboard watercolors, including Kagemusha “Kurosawa’s most physically elaborate, most awesome film. JANUARY 28 THU Click here for more information on this film. “A character study, an anthropological inquiry, a tour de force of alfresco black-and-white cinematography, JANUARY 28 THU (Separate Admission) (1990) At the age of 80, another new departure for Kurosawa,
eschewing full-blown narrative for eight vignettes — folk tales
more than dreams — ranging from a little boy’s encounter with
a wedding procession of foxes; to a mountaineer’s vision of a
snow demon in a blizzard; to an officer assuring his men that
they are indeed dead; to a journey through the paintings of Van
Gogh to visit with the artist (Martin Scorsese). Color; Approx. 120 minutes Click here to view gallery of Kurosawa's storyboard watercolors, including Dreams “Ravishing, unforgettable cinema.”
– Time Out New York JANUARY 29/30 FRI/SAT (1954) In 16th-century Japan, farmers under the heel of
marauding bandits decide to hire ronin for protection; the odds: 7
samurai vs. 40 bandits; their pay: a few grains of rice. With Takashi
Shimura as the calm leader, and Mifune as #7, transitioning from
manic goofball to tortured, self-hating tragic hero, amid some of
the most hairraising battles ever shot. Voted in the 1979 Kinema
Jumpo critics’ poll as the greatest of all Japanese films. Approx. 208 minutes “Presents a surface of superlative physical beauty. Kurosawa clearly loves his samurai characters with an intensity that transforms this superb action picture with breathtaking battle scenes into an elegy.” JANUARY 31/FEBRUARY 1 SUN/MON (1957) Maxim Gorky’s ensemble play about down-and-outs
transposed to 19th-century Japan, this is probably the greatest
theater-to-film adaptation ever made. The ensemble acting is
superb — not too surprising, considering the forty-day rehearsal
period for both cast and crew. And the interpretation is unusual
and exciting, with comedian Bokuzen Hidari in the usually tear-jerking
role of the pilgrim and Mifune as a punkish thief. One of
Kurosawa’s finest works — all too little known. Approx. 125 minutes
“Kurosawa's adaptation is both more faithful and more gripping than the Jean Renoir version. FEBRUARY 1 MON (Separate Admission) (1991) Her grandchildren’s visit to Sachiko Murase’s home near
Nagasaki begins a journey back in memory to that fateful day in
1945, with the memory recurring to Murase in the shape of a giant
eye peering over the mountains, and the visit of the Japanese/American uncle/nephew Richard Gere leading to a climactic run
into a storm. Color; Approx. 100 minutes “A poignant, lasting metaphorical image of Kurosawa's defiance against a self-destructive, FEBRUARY 1 MON (Separate Admission) “A fascinating work, its experimentally stylized and surreal design is quite striking. There are memorable moments of quiet poignancy.” FEBRUARY 2 TUE (1965) In a 19th-century slum clinic for the poor, a gruff
heavily-bearded Dr. Toshiro Mifune straightens out an arrogant
young intern and through his hard-boiled warmth and stern
compassion creates, instead of the usual “circle of evil,” rather
a circle of good. The last collaboration with Mifune; the last film
in b&w; and his third Kinema Jumpo award-winner
for Best Film. Approx. 185 minutes “A masterpiece. Kurosawa somehow manages to imbue every moment of this three-hour-plus movie with the transcendent vitality and intelligence of a great Victorian novel. In Kurosawa’s dynamic yet intimate wide-screen filmmaking, practicality and empathy merge with psychoanalysis and even bits of magic.” FEBRUARY 3 WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) (1961) Met at the entrance to a deserted village
by a stray mutt sauntering past with a severed
hand in his jaws, wandering ronin Mifune, realizes
a skilled Yojimbo (bodyguard) could rake in the
ryo in this town. And after checking out the sake merchant’s thugs squaring off against the silk
merchant’s goon squad, twice as much, if he hires out to both sides. But there’s a final showdown with Tatsuya Nakadai’s
pistol-waving killer. Approx. 110 minutes “The best samurai film ever made… a treasure trove of attitude.”
(1962) Painfully sincere young samurai plan how to save
the day in their clan’s power struggle, but they have to be
straightened out and bailed out by grubby ronin Toshiro
Mifune, repeating his Yojimbo role, with Tatsuya Nakadai as
an even more formidable antagonist. Approx. 96 minutes ARTICLE BY BRUCE BENNETT IN NEW YORK SUN ABOUT LEGENDARY FINAL SCENE OF SANJURO Click here to listen to TATSUYA NAKADAI DISCUSSING SANJURO NOTE: MAY CONTAIN SPOILER!
(in onstage interview at Film Forum, 6/24/08; moderator: Michael Jeck; interpreter: Catherine Cadou) “Uproarious… Expertly parodies the conventions of Japanese period action movies, FEBRUARY 4 THU (1975) 1910: as a village rises where only forests stood, Russian
explorer Arseniev remembers his friendship with Siberian
hunter Dersu Uzala. A work of visual grandeur unprecedented
even in AK’s own oeuvre — with its epic highlight Arseniev and
Dersu’s wind-lashed endurance test on the ice — and his most
endearing human portrait. Academy Award, Best Foreign Film. Color; Approx. 140 minutes “The finest and saddest of Kurosawa's international co-productions.” FRI, FEBRUARY 5 - THURS, FEBRUARY 18 • TWO WEEKS!
|
||||
THRONE OF BLOOD 
THE HIDDEN
FORTRESS 
THE IDIOT 
SANSHIRO SUGATA 
SANSHIRO SUGATA II
ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY 
THEY WHO TREAD 
IKIRU 
I LIVE IN FEAR 
HIGH AND LOW 
DRUNKEN ANGEL 
THE QUIET DUEL 
SCANDAL 
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
NO REGRETS 
THE BAD SLEEP WELL
KAGEMUSHA 
RASHOMON 
(1950) Rape and murder in
12th-century Kyoto, as seen
by four conflicting witnesses.
Adapted from two stories by the
great Ryunosuke Akutagawa, its
worldwide acclaim (Venice Grand
Prize, Best Foreign Film Oscar)
vaulted an already-great-but-internationally-unknown director
and national cinema to world prominence. Machiko Kyo’s
performance would land her a LIFE cover and, as the Bandit,
Mifune goes beyond overacting into something so outrageous it
could only be real. Approx. 88 minutes. The new restoration of Rashomon (along with 
DREAMS 
SEVEN SAMURAI 
THE LOWER DEPTHS 
RHAPSODY
DODES’KA-DEN 
(1970) The title is a backward boy’s imitation of the sound of a
trolley — and in an extraordinary scene he, solely by pantomime
and sound effects, creates one before our eyes. A collection of
tales about poor people living in a picturesque garbage dump,
the superficial resemblance to 
RED BEARD 
YOJIMBO
SANJURO
DERSU UZALA
