Mifune Festival at Film Forum: ‘I Live in Fear’ Screens Friday 11th, and February 18th, 19th
Film Forum’s four week festival screening of 33 films starring iconic Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune (1920-1997) and directed by Akira Kurosawa kicks off Friday, February 11 and ends on 30th of March at Film Forum. What is amazing about this festival is that not only are Kurosawa’s masterpieces included like Rashomon, Seven Samuri, High and Low, Yojimbo and Hidden Fortress, but also found are Kurosawa’s and Mifune’s rarities and rediscoveries in 35mm. These have been imported from the libraries of The Japan Foundation and The National Film Archive of Japan. For the entire schedule of films go to their website: https://filmforum.org/series/toshiro-mifune
Unless you go to Japan, or Martin Scorsese and film restoration foundations secure and restore them, you will not be able to see these rare rediscoveries in the Kurosawa/Mifune lexicon. Over the years these films have been given short shrift, occluded by the others that achieved legendary status because they were presented at the right time and place. Nevertheless, the rare ones must be examined and appreciated, not only for their subject matter, but for the earliest performances of Mifune and acute direction of Kurasawa, who also wrote the original screenplays that reveal another view of Japan after WWII. Looking closely, you will find that Mifune was always focused on inhabiting his characters, even before that was completely understood in the cinematic world globally as it is today.
After working in the Aviation Division in the Aerial photography unit during World War II, Mifune arrived at Toho Studios in 1947. He was searching for a photographer’s assistant job since he had worked in his father’s photography shop before the war. Young contract director Akira Kurosaws identified Mifune’s uniqueness and striking features. It takes talent to see the possibilities in others. Kurosawa’s talent lay in recognizing opportunity when Mifune came on the studio lot. Years later, Kurosaw admitted that without Mifune, he would have had no great films. Their artistic teamwork and collaboration produced a phenomenal raft of Japanese cinematic work that has landed on list after list of world cinema greats.
I Live in Fear (Record of a Living Being) Screening at Film Forum
Friday, February 11 at 12:40, 4:55, 9:10
Friday, February 18 at 12:30
Saturday, February 19 at 2:50
I Live in Fear (Record of a Living Being) is one Kurasawa’s and Mifune’s overlooked films. Mifune (35) in the challenging role of a 70-year old foundry owner is taken to court by his wife and family to determine his mental competence as patriarchal fiduciary in control of his sizable fortune and company operations. Alarmed by the the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the radiation threats with 200 bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere, Kiichi Nakajima increasingly is obsessed with the safety of his family (even his mistresses and children) who he intends to move to Brazil, away from the trade winds blowing the clouds of radiation to Japan’s shores, and possibilities of future H-bomb explosions in their backyard. The family, especially the sons, refuse to leave, despite their father’s authority and leadership success. They assert their standing by obviating their father’s wishes and fears, rendering him a mentally infirm nullity. They insist upon the convenience of their fine lives at home in Japan, rather than to adjust to an uncertain environment without friends or familiar resources in Brazil.
The framework of the film is from the perspective of appointed Domestic Court Counselor Dr. Harada (the excellent Takashi Shimura) who takes time off from his dental practice to arbitrate the suit Nakajima’s wife takes up against her husband. The wife is in turmoil, torn between overthrowing Japanese cultural mores and obeying her sons, or standing with her husband against her children’s petition to take fiduciary authority. Nakajima, indulging his obsession about radiation, has been damaged by the devastation of the bombs dropped in Japan and even reveals PTSD (a prescient observation by Kurosawa) by recoiling to flashes of lightning during a thunder storm. His family uses his fears to justify the declaration of incompetence and senility. In a thoughtful, meditative performance by Takashi Shimura, the dentist considers all sides and acknowledges that all Japanese fear the bomb and radiation for good reason. Nakajima’s panic and obsession is more rational than his grasping family would credit him for.
Kurosawa draws the conundrums and human struggle with empathy and richness, revealing that all players have their own agendas, though there is logic and reason for their manipulations. Nevertheless, the father, who indulges his fears goes a step too far; he effects an event, that in his mind will hasten along the move to Brazil, but works the opposite result. Kurosawa reveals the overarching irony that the fear of destruction, too, is a kind of destruction that harms its fearful creator/perpetrator. This is a Shakespearean trope and the film, if seen through the lens of Dr. Harada, truly rises to mythic levels. Consider Japan as the test case, the bombing ground zero of a Christian Church; it is the sacrificial lamb to reveal the results of nuclear disaster in 1945 and possibly forever. This is especially so since weapons of mass destruction have yet to be eliminated so they do no harm anywhere on this planet. We just don’t think about it, nor does Nakajima’s family. Ironically, as a symbolic “crazy” Everyman, that is all that Nakajima thinks about.
Mifune’s performance is authentic and tragic as the shuffling patriarch whose vision is repudiated and vacated because it requires the sacrifice of the familiar and comfortable. That they cannot achieve a compromise, that the family appear to be grasping and cruel is one vital element of this most noxious of all family struggles about who controls the inheritance. And pitted against the sons’ selfish avarice is Nakajima’s obsessive, insistence that the radiation and the dropping of another H Bomb and nuclear proliferation will annihilate them unless they mitigate against it by moving away (South America has yet to establish nuclear facilities, so Kurasawa reveals his character’s judgment wasn’t unsound.)
Kurosawa once again presents the untenable and impossible situation where there are no winners, no heroes, only fools and philosophers, who watch the deaf, dumb and blind act like chaotic rats in a cage. Interestingly, this is not history back in the Samuri days. But the Japanese in homely family terms are mundane 20th century Samuri, fighting threats beyond their control, that the governmental leaders themselves have allowed to proliferate to dangerous global levels, caught in power games, knowing full well what a nuclear disaster means. That is the theme and subject matter conveyed by the extraordinary performance of Mifune, who becomes the symbol for human awareness under oppression, considered demented and feeble, though he is the lone, ignored voice in the midst of his family’s oblivion. Either he is a fool or he is acutely sentient, despite the hopeless situation he faces alone to confront the danger for life on this planet with the only rational action being to flee.
Avoiding/protesting against this proliferation of imminent destruction (certainly the effects of radiation in the cancer rates) deemed an insanity or an obsession of the incompetent, is monstrous. Yet, Kurosawa through his actors’ performances, and the way he presents Nakajima’s terror of a fact that the Japanese lived and suffered with is made more real as his family discounts it and him as nuts. The conundrum of either attempting to confront apocalyptic destruction or pretending it doesn’t exist and living one’s life without reflection, becomes more than a philosophical question in this brilliant, layered film which can be appreciated at its most human levels. At once it is about a family taking the reins of authority and control of the money, somewhat heartlessly because they have a great reason to. On the other hand, their justification for their greed is as senseless and heartless as one of the son’s explanations that we all have to die sometime; don’t sweat the bomb and the radiation that is killing you slowly. Don’t sweat the possibility of a few more Chernobyls or Three Mile Islands? Indeed.
The ending of the film is certainly a gem. This is a spoiler alert. Against his better judgment, Dr. Harada declares Nakajima febrile and demented. After Nakajima admits to criminal measures, after he has been ignored, lost his money, power, authority, family, he still clings to the idea that Japan (indeed symbolizing the planet) is in danger of annihilation. He is placed in an institution where his daughter says that finally he will be safe. She localizes danger only to her father’s mind. In her kind words, she epitomizes the extent of the family’s blindness and deafness.
Of course, Nakajima is not safe anywhere. And he is more tormented than ever. As he looks out the window at the sun, he proclaims that the earth is burning: the effects of a bomb drop or radiation. Or as Kurosawa leaves it up to the viewer, maybe the guy is just uber confused. In the final symbolic shot, the screen perfectly split by a stairway in the asylum, Nakajima’s daughter with a baby on her back walks up and Dr. Harada moves down the stairs. The profound Dr. Harada stops in thought. And, attempting to divine his thoughts, perhaps we remember one of the psychologist’s statements about Mifune’s poignant, desperate Nakajima: “Is he crazy or are those who are unperturbed in an insane world the crazy ones?” Then Harada continues and only the sound of his steps echoes after him, leaving us with this metaphoric film that is even more current for today with the shot of the sun and Mifune’s cries of “burning,” referring to radiation proliferation, nuclear warfare and more trenchant global warming which Kurosawa couldn’t have foreseen unless he was uncanny.
Kurosaw’s original works are his most personal and vital. His characterization of the foundry owner through casting Mifune is brilliant. Who better than a vital, energetic, powerful, younger actor to contain that vibrance and compact it into the habitation of a much older body. And then to create the dynamism of the elite Nakajima who has lived a full privileged life, only to see its possibilities smashed by a terrifying uncontrollable chain reaction of explosions with the power to disintegrate all life? Mifune delivers the intensity of that understanding in his manifested physical panic and especially in the last statements he makes about burning.
In Record of a Living Being (I live in Fear) Mifune and Kurosawa have outdone themselves, not with flashy action, but with understatement and symbol. Kurosaw boldly affirms nothing can keep us safe, not the government, not the institutions that once conveyed us from birth to death. They can’t when science and industry (or digital technology) have taken us on a trajectory that is little understood until it is too late, and then, the effects are ignored. For tickets to see this must-see film, go to: https://filmforum.org/series/toshiro-mifune
Mifune Festival at Film Forum Part II
Film Forum’s Mifune Festival originally titled MIFUNE 100 is running at Film Forum from February 11 through 30 of March. The four week long commemoration of genius Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune’s centennial year in 2020 (he was born on April 1, 1920) was delayed because of the Pandemic. With the infection rate subsiding and as attendance at the festival will require vaccination and masking, the decision was made to open the retrospective on the legendary actor this year. Importantly, for film buffs, the Mifune Festival includes rarities and rediscoveries in 35mm imported from the libraries of The Japan Foundation and The National Film Archive of Japan. It has been programmed by Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum’s Director of Repertory Programming, and Japanese film scholar Michael Jeck.
The 33 films being screened, many of which feature Mifune’s seminal collaboration with director Akira Kurosawa are masterpieces which continue to influence global filmmakers to this day. The commentary in Part II gives a brief review of Mifune and Kurosawa’s collaborations on two films Kurosawa made in 1950, one of which catapulted Kurosawa and Mifune to global stardom and a premier place in global film history. To purchase tickets go to Film Forum’s website: https://filmforum.org/series/toshiro-mifune. For my previous discussions on Mifune’s first films collaborating with Kurosawa (Snow Trail, Drunken Angel and Stray Dog) go to my website: https://caroleditosti.com/2022/02/09/mifune-festival-at-film-forum-february-11-march-30/
Part II
Scandal (1950) Film Forum Screenings
Sunday, February 13 at 12:40
Monday, February 14 at 3:00
In this 35mm courtesy of the Japan Foundation, Kurosawa presents successful painter motorcyclist Ichirô Aoye (Toshirō Mifune) and attractive singer Miyako Saijo (Shirley Yamaguchi) who meet at a mountain resort with no interest in each other except as casual acquaintances because they principally concerned in furthering their careers. Predatory scandal monger photographers read into their innocent conversation, take photos and show them to their editors and owner of Amour Magazine who, in tabloid fashion right out of Enquirer and Rupert Murdock’s fake entertainment fabrication machine, align the painter and singer as lovers. It’s fabulous profit making copy! Who cares if the story is accurate or not. By the time they may have to retract, they will have boosted their readership and followership and made more money than if they suggested there was nothing untoward between the two. Unlike most celebrities at the time and even today, who ride on the crest of the publicity without taking action, when Aoye sees his photograph and Saijo’s plastered on walls, billboards and “newspapers” as well as the cover of Amour Magazine, he decides to sue for libel.
Enter Otokichi Hiruta (Takashi Shimura) a craven attorney with a weak character and affinity for alcohol and gambling. Hiruta convinces Aoye that he will do a great job with the case and hold Amour Magazine’s editors and owner accountable. When Aoye checks out Hiruta’s decrepit office and sees the racing papers, he understands immediately who Hiruta is and recognizes his capabilities are subpar, recognizing his friend suggestion’s not to hire this dangerous man has merit. However, visiting Hiruta’s home, Aoye meets Hiruta’s wife and angelic daughter Masako (Yôko Katsuragiho). She has been trying to recover from Tuberculosis for years and is incapacitated in bed. Overcome with sympathy and a sense of duty to help the family where Hiruta obviously fails, Aoye allows Hiruta to take his case for the sake of Masako.
Corruption and predation breeds lies and bribes. Aoye, an artistic personality, yet a successful painter is not bluffed by Hiruta, yet he gives him the benefit of the doubt and says he has faith that Hiruta will do the “right thing.” Aoye cares more to encourage Masako, who tells him her father has a good heart but is a weak man and Aoye agrees with her as both hope his nature improves. However, after days in court Hiruta doesn’t even cross examine witnesses properly. However, Hiruta’s weakness is so acute as it is beyond the pale even for Masako who can no longer abide by what she knows to be of her father’s character and unethical behavior in tanking Aoye’s and Saijo’s libel suit.
The tension and frustration we feel is palpable, even horrific, for it is apparent that Hiruta will not change his demeanor in prostituting himself to Amour Magazine despite stabbing his client in the face in betrayal. Meanwhile, Amour Magazine’s owners and editors appear to be sanctified and just. We groan that this is one more instance where the corrupt smash down the ethical and righteous, that evil, slime humanity colludes and conspires to overthrow what is ethical and right making this world a greater cesspool than it already is. This is Kurosawa at his finest thematically! The mendacity of the press that Kurosawa reveals in 1950 remains unchanged; to say this film is prescient is an understatement.
Kurasawa’s direction of the actors and capture of the close-ups of the empathetic, kind Mifune, humiliated but firmly corrupt Shimura and broken-hearted, angel Katsuragiho are genius. Indeed, the performances of the steadfast, quiet, likable Mifune’s Aoye and the wormy, egregious Shimura who grovels in guilt, but does nothing to correct himself, engage us throughout, heightened by the performance of Katsuragiho who is the innocent, sacrificial lamb. Thus, the film’s tragic turning point which reveals Kurosawa’s felt, profound knowledge of human nature, salvation, redemption and damnation carries us through to the end and especially the suspenseful last fifteen minutes of the film which becomes a reckoning. Thematically, Kurosawa’s work undergirded by his great actors is timeless and especially vital for us today.
Rashomon (1950) Film Form screenings
Friday, February 11 at 2:55, 7:10
Wednesday, February 15 at 5:35
Friday, March 4 at 3:50
Saturday, March 5 at 12:40
Wednesday, March 9 at 6:00
Thursday, March 10 at 12:40, 5:10
Perhaps one of the most memorable of all examples of cinematic story telling is Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story “In a Grove,” which includes other elements of Akutagawa’s other short story, Rashōmon.” Kurosawa who based his screenplay on Akutagawa’s work twits our comprehension of individual perception and perspective and even twits the film medium itself as an alternate way of understanding our lives in story form.
Five stories are told in Kurosawa’s film, including the philosophical frame of universal focus that contains the other stories within it. The frame setting is a broken-down Shinto Temple, evidence of a faith diminished and destroyed by the encroaching inviolate social constructs and corrupted values in the Heian period Koyoto (794-1185). A Woodcutter (the always wonderful Takishi Shimura) and a priest (Minoru Chiaki) appear shell shocked and stunned as they wait under cover of the temple (symbolic irony) for a furious thunderstorm to pass.
A commoner (Kichijirô Ueda) joins them to get out of the rain and the Woodcutter and priest relate the story of the testimony they’ve just heard at a trial of a Samuri’s murder. The irony is that the priest and the Woodcutter are less disturbed by the killing and rape than by the accounts of the bandit, the raped wife of the murdered Samuri and the psychic who allows the Samuri to speak through her to relate what “really” happened in the grove where a life was taken. Then Kurosawa in flashback allows the three who were involved in the murder to confess their story of what happened.
As each of the witnesses relate their stories, they cast themselves as the heroes of their own myths reflecting the finest aspects of the identity they wish to present, coupled with the codes and values they hope to emphasize, thus manifest to persuade the judges and all present they are the truth teller. Thus, told from the perspective and identity of the bandit, the wife, and the dead Samuri’s spirit, the stories wildly diverge. The only thing agreed upon is that there was a rape and the Samuri was killed. However, whether the wife yielded to the bandit is a matter of question and how the Samuri was killed, whether it was in an unconscious rage by the wife, noble harikari by the Samuri or a valiant combat between the Samuri and the bandit is up for grabs. Not even Solomon the Judge of Israel, the most wise judge of all time could rule in this case where the truth is amorphous and vague and either everyone is lying or one individual is telling the truth.
Considering that someone is going to be punished for the death of the Samuri, no one is pointing the finger at the others for causing the Samuri’s death. This is what perplexes the Woodcutter and the priest. Meanwhile, the practical commoner doesn’t quite understand how clever each of the story tellers are and calls them liars. He misses the conundrum posed. For the three players in this triumvirate of truth-telling take responsibility for killing the Samuri upon themselves. Whether this is a ruse to escape punishment, a conspiracy of silence or an example of the nihilistic ego which places nobility and honor of identity ahead of safety and security from capital punishment is equally opaque. Ironically, what is also disturbing to the priest and Woodcutter who can only exclaim that what they witnessed was terrible is that the truth and accuracy are not considered a worthy value. Rather each of the individual’s beings are paramount. And the truth of what happened has little to do with the bandit, wife and Samuri who are caught up in their own sentience which may not represent factual reality, if there is such a thing.
Finally, the Woodcutter tells his version of the story which proves that the three were lying. In his version their proud identities are shattered and the wife, murdered Samuri and bandit are reduced to the pathetic, pitiable human creatures they are. Interrupting the Woodcutter, a baby’s cries prompt the commoner to steal the items left with the baby and ditch the baby with the priest. We are ba ck to the present and the frame of universal humanity.
The Woodcutter chides the commoner for theft who then turns around and accuses the Woodcutter of stealing the pearl handled dagger that was lost in the chaos, stating that all men are liars and thieves motivated by their own personal agendas. With that exclamation point of the truth about humanity, the commoner leaves, self-satisfied he knows it all and doesn’t need to hear any of the priest’s sermons. Desolate, the priest is ready to renounce his faith and purpose, but the Woodcutter tells him he’ll take the baby and care for it. The priest believes he will harm the baby until the Woodcutter says he has six children at home. What is one more? Faith is restored, the rain stops, the sun comes out, but there are still clouds in the sky, typical Kursawa’s philosophical take on what will come.
Kurosawa’s direction of the three players as the killer of the Samuri is powerful and to that their performances are sustained throughout. MIfune glares into the camera and shrieks out the story as the bandit Tajōmaru. He gleefully and wildly laughs taking pride in the murder, full of happiness that the wife (Machiko Kyō) gives herself to him on their first kiss. As he shakes and terrorizes he is brilliant and we understand how a woman might be mesmerized by his famous reputation as Tajōmaru the fierce bandit, attracted and repelled, but softened when he employs his powers of seduction. Mifune’s performance rises to the myth of Tajōmaru and electrifies as Kurasawa makes use of the straight-on camera shot of Mifune cross-legged, then close-ups of him flashing eyes and teeth to horrify and delight. No wonder this sterling performance captivated audiences globally then and now.
Likewise, as the wife Machiko Kyō is convincing and equally terrifying in her incessant weeping and wailing conveying the great harm the violation has done to her soul. Additionally, the husband’s cruelty after her rape is even more damaging emotionally for he blames her with his eyes and spurns her as the rotten goods that he will never touch again. The adaption of Boléro by Maurice Ravel by Fumio Hayasaka is as relentless as her emotional devastation and hysteria, signifying her loss of self, world of beauty, sanctity and safety. Interestingly, Kurasawa interchanges the cinematography varying it from that used with the bandit, implying the helplessness, the softness and the tragedy of the wife.
As the Woodcutter and the psychic who is wonderful relate “what happens” again Kurosawa changes up the shots and varies to close-ups except with the Samuri whom he mostly has in medium shots. However, with the psychic who is inhabited by the dead Samuri’s spirit, he uses close-up to maximum terrifying advantage.
Rashomon put Kurosawa, Mifune and the others on the global map of cinema for all time. It continually makes film lists of cinema greats. At the time it won The Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and an equivalent Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Don’t miss Rashomon or the other films at Mifune Film Forum Festival. For tickets and times go to the Film Forum website: https://filmforum.org/series/toshiro-mifune
‘Mifune Festival’ at Film Forum February 11-March 30
Part I
Mifune, a four-week festival of 33 films is celebrating the legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune at Film Forum from February 11 through March 30. Co-presented by the Japan Foundation, the series features 16 of Mifune’s collaborations with iconic director Akira Kurosawa in what has been identified as one of the most seminal actor-director partnerships in film history. The duo produced some of the greatest masterpieces of world cinema. And Kurosawa’s films continually serve as an imprimatur for global directors mesmerized by Kurosawa’s cinematic storytelling. Indeed, Kurosawa once admitted that without Mifune, he would have no great films.
Postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival, originally titled MIFUNE 100, planned to commemorate Mifune’s centennial year in 2020; the actor was born on April 1, 1920. After two years, the decision was made to open the retrospective on the legendary actor. Film Forum Mifune Festival includes rarities and rediscoveries in 35mm imported from the libraries of The Japan Foundation and The National Film Archive of Japan. It has been programmed by Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum’s Director of Repertory Programming, and Japanese film scholar Michael Jeck.
This first in the series of articles gives an overview of select Kurasawa films that featured a young Mifune with another seminal actor Takashi Shimura, who often plays the foil to Mifune’s gruff, crude, deep-voiced characterizations. Highlights include a brief synopsis of each film and some points about the cinematography, scenic design and acting. The discussion moves in the film chronology from 1947-1949, beginning with Snow Trail (1947) Drunken Angel (1948) and Stray Dog (1949). In Part II you will find coverage for subsequent Mifune films including Rashomon (1950) which catapulted Mifune and Kurasawa to worldwide acclaim and awards and opened doors to further celebrity, dramatic risk and intriguing opportunities that historically shaped the cinematic art for decades. Film Forum Website for the MIFUNE FESTIVAL https://filmforum.org/series/toshiro-mifune
SNOW TRAIL (1947) At Film Forum: Tuesday, February 15 at 12:40, 6:00
Kurasawa casts Takashi Shimura (Nojiro) and Toshirō Mifune (Eijima) as escaped bank robbers, who with a third older accomplice retreat to the snow covered mountains to hide, though their impossible journey is besieged by one trial after another. Kurasawa configures the robbers with unique personalities and then pulls a switch when they confront the hellish conditions of traversing in six foot snow drifts along sheer mountain cliffs, and their older accomplice falls to his death taking his portion of stolen money with him. This is a wake up call for both Nojiro and Eijima and an important turning point where we empathize with these individuals as they realize the hopelessness of their situation from which they most probably will not get out alive.
All seems lost as the actors struggle against the mountain’s death grip. Kurasawa’s perfectly balanced scenic design and cinematic shots of the dominance of the mountain terrain, the deep snows, isolation and the freezing temperatures threaten their every step. As neophytes against nature’s cold, blasting fury, we see in their faces their yearning for life and sadness that it is over for them. Shimura especially gains our sympathy, but then a miracle occurs. They stumble upon a lifeline, a ski trail which eventually leads them to a resort where its hosts, a grandfather and his young granddaughter, entertain ski expert Honda (Akitake Kôno). It is there in this warm, congenial company where the fibers of the robbers’ characters are revealed and we note Kurasawa’s philosophical perspective teased in through the dialogue and emotional fear and pain of Mifune’s Eijima and Nojiro’s growing grace.
As Nojiro pulls away from Eijima, appreciating the sweetness of the little granddaughter, who reminds him of the daughter he lost, Eijima becomes more crude, violent and angry with him, attempting to dislocate his accomplice from their kindness. After all, Nojiro, masterminded the robbery, but from his icky sentimentality at the granddaughter, Eijima fears Nojiro lost his resolve to escape. It is in these scenes where we see the menace, bluster and extraordinary vitality of Mifune’s acting dynamism. How their characterizations diverge toward inner redemption and damnation as they attempt to scale the mountains after blackmailing Honda to guide them generates suspense, tension and danger. These elements heighten as Honda saves their lives repeatedly but must close down when he breaks his arm and is shot in the leg.
Mifune and Shimura are the perfect duo. Their technique and Kurasawa’s close-ups and medium shots provide the light and the dark, the hope and the desolation that propel the characters’ emotional turmoil up the mountain of fate in this survival story of good and evil that is layered, intricate and metaphysical. Against the mountain, their doom, with Kôno’s Honda bestowing the rope lifeline, symbolic of the code of community and friendship (the mountaineers code) it is up to each of them to work cooperatively to save each other from destruction. This is the lesson of redemption and hope that only one of the robbers learns and with that knowledge, gains the strength to be accountable for his actions.
Drunken Angel (1948)
At Film Forum: Saturday, February 19 at 12:40
Sunday, February 27 at 6:00
Monday, February 28 at 12:40
Tuesday, March 1 at 8:20
Wednesday, March 2 at 5:50
Thursday, March 10 at 2:45
Drunken Angel is Kurosawa’s examination of the soul’s demise to self-destruction. For this journey Kurosawa casts Takashi Shimura as the alcoholic Dr. Sanada and Mifune as Matsunaga a member of a Yakuza gang who controls the area but is evicted from his power when the boss exploits him then puts another in power until Matsunaga self-destructs. Dr. Sanada’s office is by a pond of chemicals and slime which Kurosawa sneaks in as symbolic of the entire community as the cesspool of humanity. The pond water which makes others sick, is likened to the values that make humanity sick: greed, exploitation and selfishness.
Interestingly, Sanada whose character weakness makes him a drunkard, has a kind heart and attempts to make a difference with these individuals who are worse off than he. As his patient, Matsunaga who has tuberculosis doesn’t follow his instructions, though if he did, he would be able to survive, maybe thrive. Sanada has a young female patient who he is helping to heal. However, Matsunaga lacks the will to help himself, regardless of how much Dr. Sanada badgers him not to drink and take care of himself. Clearly, Dr. Sanada puts up with Matsunaga’s manner, invests himself in the gangster attempting to help though the people who surround Matsunaga don’t care if he lives or dies and contribute to making him sicker.
Once again, Mifune’s performance as the soul destroyed gangster who Dr. Sanada sees as worthy to be helped is masterfully, carefully revealed, especially in his revelation that Matsunaga doesn’t have the energy or will to follow Sanada’s instructions, and allows himself a slow suicide. Theirs is an amazing duel of emotions: impatience, helplessness and withering bravado, frustration and love. The symbolism revealed in the scenic design of the various environments and the shot compositions of the dance hall, Dr. Sanada’s tight office, the close-ups of the emotional weariness of Mifune’s Matsunaga and the frustration and anger of Shumira’s doctor is superb. Despite the soul filth of the criminals who oppress, theirs is a relationship that appears noble. Sanada’ concern for Matsunaga leads us to feel empathy that he is dying, caught in his own sorrowful web of sickness and destruction that he let into his spirit when he gravitated toward the criminals in the hope of being “someone” others might respect. It is Matsunaga’s tragedy and the tragedy of all the self-annihilating criminal class, the theme of this superb film.
Stray Dog (1949)
Monday, February 14 at 8:10
Friday, February 18 at 2:40
Sunday, February 20 at 12:40
Thursday, February 24 at 5:50
Wednesday, March 9 at 8:10
Stray Dog is Japan’s first film noir crime procedural influenced by Jules Dassin’s script of The Naked City with Kurosawa’s signature philosophical commentary on the nature of the human soul in its travails through post-war Tokyo and beyond. Kurosawa sets the action in some of the most rubble-strewn sections of Tokyo in a clothes drenching heat wave before air conditioning cooled and refreshed. In every scene the pressure and struggle is evident in the scenic design and cinematography of the gritty, torn up city where vets, finding little work, join the Yakuza (gangster network).
Every character, every actor especially leads Takashi Shimura as Detective Satō, and Toshirō Mifune in an uncharacteristic but athletic portrayal as Detective Murakami, Kurosawa features with close-ups, dripping perspiration tear-drops down noses, chins and foreheads. White suits, dresses and hats show huge swaths of white cloth darkened with dingy, messy, wet stains. The heat Kurosawa uses as a character. And as a symbol, it represents the pressure and tension that Murakami (Mifune) puts himself under, obsessed with guilt that he isn’t up to the task of being a competent detective.
The driving incident occurs when neophyte Murakami, white suited and new to the job, has his Colt-45 pick pocketed while jostling against other sweltering passengers on a crowded streetcar. Realizing who stole it, Murakami charges after the thief on foot but eventually loses him. Thus, set in motion is the race against time to locate the stolen weapon. Murakami, who is shy and quiet with other detectives in the department, is ready to resign when he realizes that the gun was used to commit murder. His upright, honest and sincere attitude (fascinating to see Mifune’s humble versatility in comparison to previous criminal roles) is appreciated by the department head who assigns him to work with seasoned detective Satō (Shimura).
Together as a disparate but cooperative and congenial team they piece together the clues to those who can be traced through to the girlfriend (in an ironic, dramatic scene with her mother) of Yusa who commits two murders with the Colt-45. Look for the famous nearly 10-minute sequence shot by hidden camera in the city’s toughest black market as Mifune’s Murakami goes undercover to buy a gun on the black market and reveals the palpable anxiety and frustration at coming up against dead end after dead end. The taut thriller emotionally magnifies for Mifune’s Murakami, when Satō is almost fatally injured. Mifune is so authentic as he goes to pieces believing his gun killed his mentor and friend. Also, catch the superb dialogue at the conclusion when Satō encourages Murakami not to feel badly for Yusa. Shimura’s comment is eloquent, philosophical and pointed and Mifune’s response is memorable.
The schedule of films beginning the series on Friday, February 11th is as follows or go to the Film Forum website: https://filmforum.org/series/toshiro-mifune
RASHOMON (1950)
Friday, February 11 at 2:55, 7:10
Wednesday, February 15 at 5:35
Friday, March 4 at 3:50
Saturday, March 5 at 12:40
Wednesday, March 9 at 6:00
Thursday, March 10 at 12:40, 5:10
I LIVE IN FEAR (1955)
Friday, February 11 at 12:40, 4:55, 9:10
Friday, February 18 at 12:30
Saturday, February 19 at 2:50
‘Lotus,’ by Carole Di Tosti, Photos by Gwen Greenthal
In my newly released book of sonnets Light Shifts, there are five featured sections. In ‘God in Nature,’ there are two sonnets about Lotuses, one opening the section, the other closing it. I considered adding pictures, then realized that unless they could be duplicated via Kindle digital (they don’t show well) that the photos would be misrepresented. Photographer Gwen Greenthal’s photos are too lovely to be distorted. When Amazon moves to hard cover and upgrades the technology to include exact facsimiles of photos, I will consider it. To check out Light Shifts, go to my books page: https://caroleditostibooks.com/
LOTUS
The fragrance fragile, hints of frankincense.
The buds so creamy, shaded tapering pinks.
The petals seek the sun in recompense.
From watery darkness muddy roots did drink.
Enfolded in the torpid dank and slime
With faith that soon its glorious day will come,
It waits in dormancy then slowly climbs,
In skyward grace to bask in citrine sun.
How many of your kind just stayed below,
Devoid of spark to seek the spiritual light?
How many not ignited by God’s flow
Of love, instead did die in wilted blight?
A miracle each risen Lotus bloom,
A wealth of glorious life born in the gloom.
Lotuses are represented in the literature of most cultures in the world. Their beauty and transience (two-day blooms) retain philosophical symbolism associated with purity, fertility, compassion, transformation, and spiritual enlightenment. Its scientific name is Nelumbo nucifera. It is referred to as Sacred lotus and Indian lotus. Sacred lotus has long been used as a food source and ingredient for traditional herbal remedies. Plant parts contain neuroprotective agents that interact with specific targets to inhibit Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
‘Leyna Gabriele,’ Sonnet in ‘Light Shifts’
Upon the release of my second book (the first, a novel released a year ago-Peregrine: The Ceremony of Powers) I decided to post selected sonnets from the In Memoriam section. The individuals I wrote sonnets about impacted my life. Whether I knew them or not, I felt a deep kinship to their work. In some instances, like Anthony Bourdain, I was able to connect in brief interviews at Tribeca Film Festival where he was promoting two films. (see my YouTube Channel). For Light Shifts, go to https://caroleditostibooks.com/
The most personal of connections in this section of Light Shifts was with my cousin Leyna Gabriele. Leyna was my mother’s niece; they adored each other and my mother gave her the non-judgmental love she needed. She was devastated when my mother left the family in Fairmont, West Virginia, got married and moved to the New York City area. However, when Leyna pursued her opera career in New York City, she practically lived at our house on various weekends.
Leyna Gabriele died at 95 years old, thankfully, before the pandemic in 2019. Considering that our family would not have been able to be together to say goodbye to her, she selected the right time to leave us. Leyna was amazing to family, friends, work colleagues and all who made her acquaintance. And she was a Diva.
A lyric coloratura soprano who lived and worked in New York City, in 1954, she married Vito Pisa of Chez Vito, a Manhattan supper club (circa 1950s-1960s). At Chez Vito she and other professional opera singers performed opera and pop numbers, accompanied by violinists. In between songs she and Vito were host and hostess to Metropolitan Opera stars and celebrities of the theater world, politics, Hollywood and even notables of the scientific community (Werner von Braun).
Leyna’s voice was perfect for the role of Baby Doe in the Ballad of Baby Doe, an opera based on the real-life romance between silver magnate Horace Tabor and Elizabeth McCourt, known as Baby Doe. John Latouche wrote the libretto. Leyna helped Douglas Moore while he was composing the music at Columbia University. Her exceptional voice was capable of reaching the silvery notes that the role of Baby Doe required.
Dolores Wilson and Leyna alternated in the role of Baby Doe which she starred in the second night and subsequent performances after the opera opened in Central City Colorado in 1956. She was a fan-club idol for the DoeHeads (website: http://www.babydoe.org/). They are opera lovers who appreciate that The Ballad of Baby Doe is an American opera, written in English and conceived by an American librettist and American composer.
The DoeHeads frequently get together when The Ballad of Baby Doe is performed. They hope to see The Ballad of Baby Doe eventually presented at The Met. Leyna met with the DoeHeads one last time. Cousin Jim Gabriel accompanied her and together they watched the performance of The Ballad of Baby Doe and afterward, Leyna was lauded for being the first to work with Douglas Moore on the songs.
My poetry book Light Shifts is dedicated to Leyna. In the In Memoriam section, I included a brief account of my experience with Leyna growing up. She was there for my brother’s and my birth. I was by her side the day before she passed.
Leyna
All beauty, glamor, striking majesty,
You shined on paths you walked through light and dark,
And people noted, turned to look and see
Who was this presence bold, brave, vibrant, stark.
Most gracious, kind and loving with your kin
And friends alike who visited from afar,
But your competitive spirit’s ambition to win
Was gracefully tempered not to be a star.
Though star you were when we beheld your face,
As youngsters, Gabe and I admired you.
We felt your impact on our lives. Your Grace
Bestowed with laughter and Light, what’s real and true.
Oh Leyna. I pray God’s loving arms will keep,
You safe, secure in New Life. Rest in Peace.
New York Botanical Garden Orchid Show Tickets on Sale February 3, 2022
The 19th NYBG Orchid Show is burgeoning into a hopeful springtime event two years after the 2020 Orchid Show was halted due to COVID-19. The popular exhibition will be on view from February 26 through May 1, 2022, and I am excited to announce that it is reopening with Jeff Leatham’s Kaleidoscope. The extraordinary exhibit by lifestyle icon and floral designer to the stars will be a reimagining of his glorious, bold, vibrant creations with dazzling, new twists as a celebration of renewal and persistence.
Leatham’s creative genius will transform each gallery of the exhibition in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory into a different color experience. Imagine you are immersed in the heart of a botanical kaleidoscope. And if you venture through the galleries at different times during the day from the morning light to the afternoon sun which casts a uniquely different glow on the orchids and foliage, indeed the colors are ever changing, the hues shadowed and dusky as the sun sets. All of the variables of light and shade and the great selection of stunning orchids and their hues are Jeff Leatham’s palette.
Working with horticulturists from NYBG, including Senior Curator of Orchids Marc Hachadourian, Leatham
selects orchids from NYBG collections as well as from some of the finest growers in the world. Keeping the kaleidoscope theme in mind, Leatham’ orchid towers of orange, yellow and green, the undulating fields of white and overhead plumes of purple combined with artistic embellishments will dazzle visitors as they saunter on walkways of beauty arranged as horticultural pageantry.
Amazing and unique orchids, one of the largest species of plants in the world, are always represented at the NYBG Orchid Show and this year is no exception. For those more scientifically minded, they may note orchids of seemingly every conceivable shape and provenance, iconic hybrids as well as rare specimens under glass. The configurations and arrangements all are designed by the artistry of the affable and renowned Leatham whose shows are one-of-a-kind amazements. This year’s Orchid Show may have the same name as the 2020 Orchid Show, but Leatham’s exhibit promises to be evocatively different. That is who Jeff Leatham is and movement, grace and forward thinking creations are his brand.
On select Fridays and Saturdays in March and April, adults 21 and over can experience the exhibition
at night with music, cash bars, and food available for purchase. Magical Orchid Evenings will take place on March 26, April 2, 9, 16, 22, and 23, 2022; 7–10 p.m.
Tickets will be available at https://www.nybg.org/visit/admission/
At the New York Botanical Garden Shop, visitors of the Orchid Show have the opportunity to select from thousands of top-quality orchids that are available for purchase. Some of these include exotic, hard-to-find specimens for connoisseurs to elegant yet easy-to-grow varieties for beginners, along with orchid products and books.
Jeff Leatham is the award-winning artistic director of the Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris. He has studios at the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center. Also, he has a studio at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills.
His work combines his love for flowers and his passion for design. Using shape, color, and simplicity, his creations are dramatic, bold, unforgettable statements that are always an integral part of the setting. His clients include Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, Cher, Oprah Winfrey and others. His publications—Flowers by Jeff Leatham, Flowers by Design, and Jeff Leatham: Visionary Floral Art and Design are best-selling design books worldwide
For more information about The Orchid Show: Jeff Leatham’s Kaleidoscope, visit http://www.nybg.org/event/the-orchid-show/
Banned, ‘Maus’ by Art Spiegleman, a Travesty That Ridicules Itself
I taught a Holocaust unit years ago when I was teaching High School English. Maus I and Maus II were among the books I gave my classes who were at various skill levels, from Advanced Placement to Inclusion. We discussed the background elements of WWII and Nazi Germany. And in some classes we compared those events to what was happening during the rendition of “terrorists” who ended up at Guantanamo Bay during the Bush Jr. Cheney administration. We discussed censorship, rights and freedoms under the constitution and how Nazi Germany was guilty of human rights violations and crimes against humanity. We also discussed how the United States was guilty of human rights violations at various points in its history under both political parties.
The themes represented in Maus I and Maus II are universal and timeless. The story is historical and authentic in its evocative drawings and spiritual infusion of truth, as hard as that might be to recognize and acknowledge. It is because it is horrific to understand and difficult to acknowledge that Spiegelman’s graphic rendering of his father’s and mother’s experiences is in the cannon of great works of artistic and literary merit.
That those who have seen “fit” to ban it from their curriculum is puzzling. For it is these very individuals who would declare themselves patriots and free thinkers which Maus, in all of its graphic text and subtext uplifts and supports in the context of WWII Nazi Germany and Nazi oppression of religious freedom and human rights.
The only “human right” enjoyed in German occupied Europe was to support Hitler’s vision of Nazi Germany’s Third Reich. If you didn’t and publicly declared that you didn’t, you lost your human right to live and have your being in Germany or your occupied nation (France, The Netherlands, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Belgium, Russian occupied territories, etc.). Publicly supporting or saving the enemies of Hitler (resisters, Jews, communists, Poles, Russians, handicapped, Romani, gays, etc.,) would land you in Auschwitz or another camp where you went to the gas chambers. Or to save money and food, you might be shot where you stood as many thousands were.
Austrian citizen Franz Jägerstätter, a devout spiritual Christian believed in the first two commandments (Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength; Love your neighbor as yourself). He was a conscientious objector and believed that killing another human being was not worthy of Christianity. He believed that one should lay down one’s life as Christ did, not take a life to keep Hitler usurping power over others.
Thus, the Nazis and his frightened townspeople who came to hate Jägerstätter declared him an enemy of the Third Reich. He was sentenced to death and executed for his refusal to fight for Hitler’s ultimate cause. That cause was to subject all nations who did not follow Hitler’s religious beliefs, a combination of paganism and occultism that adhered to the idea of a Master Race.
Indeed, Hitlerism and Nazism was and is a repudiation of the Old and New Testaments and the foundation of three global religions. To think otherwise is a distortion of the occult basis of the Nazi’s beliefs. Nazis were never Christians; that was a blind. If they were, they never would have taken the monstrous stance to act against God’s chosen people and human rights. They never would have committed crimes against humanity.
On a thematic level Spiegelman’s Maus contains the authentic testimonies of how the eradication of human rights as a systematic organizing principle destroys the destroyers and elevates those they attempt to destroy. In the name of power we see annihilation and suffering; the criminal losers cannot win with ideas whose basis is lies, for there are always witnesses who will survive to tell the truth.
The wisdom expressed as Spiegelman conveys with skill and emotional power “how his father bleeds history” is as old as humanity and worthy of reviewing at any age, the younger the better. Such wisdom saves lives and encourages hope. Banning wisdom and hope is an impossibility. Light always leaks into dark rooms. The tighter the doors are locked, the more folks struggle to open them. Banning these great works is a travesty that ridicules itself.
Nevertheless, I agree with Art Spiegelman that this is a “red alert” and more will follow. In this tide of times, that this country founded with the intention and hope of amending freedoms generationally to include every race, creed, color, gender should ban such a work in the 21`st century is not only a travesty, it is a tragedy.
Sundance Award Winner: ‘Hive,’ 94th Oscars® Shortlisted for Best International Feature
Hive, a triple award-winner at Sundance Film Festival is a beautifully constructed, exceptionally acted and poignantly rendered feature film by writer/director Blerta Basholli. In the film, Basholli simplistically and profoundly examines the aftereffects of the 1998-1999 Kosovo war that impacted civilians and dislocated the cultural mores and society of Kosovo.
It is through this backdrop that Basholli focuses on representative families that suffered the loss of relatives and economic hardship which was felt greatest in the towns where killing, rape, burning and looting took place. One of the largest massacres happened in the village of Krusha e Madhe, the setting of the film inspired by a true story. There, families are still waiting over twenty years later for word of their loved ones in the hope of recovering their clothing or bodies so they might receive a proper burial. Then, the uncertainty of what happened to their husbands and relatives would finally reach closure.
Writer/director Blerta Basholli reveals the strength and resilience of the women whose husbands have gone missing as they attempt to confront their grief, raise their children, take care of their in-laws and put food on the table with their own ingenuity, hard work and home crafted items. Focusing on Fahrije Hoti, Basholli reveals how the enterprising Hoti gradually fights the patriarchal culture of lazy men to gather a collective (a hive) and establish a way for the women to support themselves and their children, launching a business to make and sell ajvar (roasted red pepper spread).
Initially, we see that Hoti attempts to maintain her husband’s bee hives, collecting the honey and having her father-in-law who is in a wheelchair sell it. During the film we learn the bee hives and honey are a remembrance of her husband, though the honey doesn’t provide them with enough money after it’s sold. And she hasn’t found the way to deal with the bees like her husband did, so that she doesn’t get stung. Hoti ends up having to nurse her wounds as the bees sting her when she gets the honey.
As Fahrije Hoti, Albanian actor Yllka Gashi teases out an exceptional portrayal of the woman whose struggles inspired the director to create her story from emotional truth. When a car is donated so that Hoti can drive and help the other widows, she gets a license. And because she and the women are destitute, she gets the idea to start a business selling avjar. But the men of the village reject her driving autonomy and her flitting around the village to pursue business. It is a threat to their masculinity and power structure extent for centuries.
When she parks near the cafe to do business, a rock is thrown smashing the car window. Her transgression is clear. Their violent attack forewarns her to stop or worse will follow. However, Hoti doesn’t respond, except to drive home and tape up the back window. She stoically continues about her business without confronting the men at the cafe who despise her.
As Hoti is encouraged by another, older widow, despite the disdain of even her own children and her father-in-law who disagree with her plans, gradually, she and a few women agree to form the business. They chip in money for the supplies. Eventually, they meet at her house to make the avjar. However, she faces tremendous backlash and her own daughter is nasty to her when Hoti attempts to sell a band saw, a memento of her husband to get the money to buy more peppers.
Other obstacles come from the men in the village whose chauvinistic egos are threatened by these autonomous women. They try to destroy their product and stop their sales. Clearly, the men see them as whores who have overstepped the boundaries of the female identity set in the traditions of the town. And the man who sells her the red peppers attempts to collect payment in sex, assuming that she is a whore, for what woman would do what she is doing?
One of the important conflicts in the film, explores Hoti forging ahead despite ancient mores and folkways that would keep her and her family starving. She, like the other women widowers, is destitute. However, where the other widowers are afraid, Hoti has nothing left to lose. Hoti’s ability to drive strengthens her; one taboo has been overthrown. Why not be the head of a business? Another taboo is overthrown. Initially, the other cowed women reject her plan to sell their product out of fear of censure and a reputation of disgrace.
But with every move she makes, Hoti becomes more determined and she exemplifies to the others that the archaic folkways make no sense in a modern world. The irony is that the complaining, bullying men condemn them for working but do not lift a finger to support them. They approve of their groveling in starvation, another type of ignominy, without their husbands. Either way, the women are disgraced for they are women without men. Hoti and the women defy the men’s backward definitions of who women are. They redefine themselves.
Cleverly, the director subtly shows the harmful misogyny as a destructive nihilistic force which benefits no one, least of all the entire town. Basholli presents this as she tells the story through silences and actions, without haranguing or presenting a political argument. The effect is striking; we feel the full force of the crumbling of the patriarchy as the men fear having to redefine themselves, which these powerful women are forcing them to do.
Basholli’s themes are striking. It is clear that the lazy men begrudge the women’s attempt to survive without their husbands. In other words they are to remain stuck in time with no identity, power, autonomy, sovereignty apart from their husbands. They are expected to curl up and die as an honorable way to remember their men; be with them in death or wait in limbo in a dead zone. The thought that the widowers make a life for themselves to overthrow the former traditions is the death of the old way and the beginning of a new way that Hoti is creating. She chooses hope and life after the massacre of the village. Hers is a bold, vibrant, maverick move. Astounding and revolutionary, she re-emerges a new individual.
Life and hope respond in renewal as the women receive sustenance from each other and appreciate their new unity, inner peace and financial power from their “hive.” Thus, they continue to contract with other supermarket owners who sell what they are making and expand, as the director shows after the last cinematic shots of Gashi. At the conclusion, Yllka Gashi as Hoti is dressed in a beekeeper’s outfit. A bee walks on her hand as she remains at peace, unafraid, knowing the bee will not sting her, like her husband never was stung. Basholli renders Hoti’s metaphoric, symbolic peace in communion with the bee as acceptance of the opportunity and new world that she recognizes is open to her.
This superb debut feature film by Basholli is Kosovo’s official selection for Best International Feature Film, Kosovo’s eighth official entry, and was recently included on the International Feature Film shortlist for the 94th Academy Awards®. Hive is one to see for its dynamic award-winning performance by Yllka Gashi, award winning directing/writing and its current, vital themes about defining one’s life, and persistence in carving out one’s place, especially in a society that is closed, weak and crumbling.
DIGITAL / VOD RELEASE – FEBRUARY 1, 2022
Available on all major digital/VOD platforms including:
Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Kino Now, Vudu, and
The Criterion Channel (starting February 8th)
Lincoln Center Film, Joachim Trier: ‘The Oslo Trilogy’
Norwegian Film Director Joachim Trier is being celebrated at Lincoln Center Film for his most recent film, The Worst Person in the World, which screened at the NYFF 2021. This is the third film in his collection, The Oslo Trilogy, which includes Reprise (2006) and Oslo, August 31st (2011) all of which feature the superb Anders Danielsen Lie who interestingly is a practicing physician and an actor. The Trilogy screenings on select dates will be followed by Q and As by Joachim Trier, Anders Danielsen Lie, and Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World) and Joachim Trier and Anders Danielsen Lie for Reprise and Oslo August 31st. Click for tickets here. https://www.filmlinc.org/daily/the-oslo-trilogy-with-joachim-trier-and-renate-reinsve-in-person-begins-jan-28/
The title of the collection of films centers around the city where Joachim Trier was born and grew up. The setting of each of the films reflects upon sections of Oslo, Norway that Trier revisits and encapsulates while he integrates his various story arcs in each film, whose themes interlock and concern ambition, dreams, identity, loss, satisfaction memory, isolation.
Reprise captures the society of twenty-something friends from Oslo as they plan their lives and attempt to actualize their dreams. Trier separates out two budding writers, Erik (Espen Klouman Høiner) and Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and places them under a microscope, allowing them partial successes, and ups and downs as they move along divergent paths with one ending up nearly taking is life, though his novel has achieved a modicum of success. As Erik attempts to help Phillip get back on his feet and regain a love relationship which was broken off, he confronts his doubts about his writing attempts. We watch the unfolding of their uncertainties, depressions and the excitement and hope of a satisfying writing career.
In Reprise, memory and fantasy merge in the comedy-drama that is playful and whimsically hopeful. As the writer’s imagination takes over Erik, we understand that he may achieve a possibility of success. Of course, the irony is that Phillip has achieved writing success, but it isn’t enough for him; returning to a former love is what matters. Thus, achieving their out-of-reach dreams remains different for both friends. And it is only through Erik’s imagination that they manifest the goals that make them happy.
The tone of Reprise turns darker and the comedy becomes muted in the award winning Oslo, August 31st which is loosely based on Pierre Eugène Drieu La Rochelle’s novel Will O’ the Wisp. This second film of the Oslo Trilogy is also written by Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier and examines the interior soul psychology of the life of a recovering drug addict. When the film opens, Trier cleverly introduces us to Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie) without a hint of his enslavement to his former addiction when he walks to a river and attempts suicide unsuccessfully. From then on we understand the stakes and question how and why he has arrived on the brink of death only to eschew it. Trier keeps us in a state of tension as to whether Anders has given up or plans to try again.
From this initial uncertainty of details about where he has come from (the woman he slept with) and how he arrives at the beautiful house where they seem to know him when he walks in the door, we learn that Anders is in a rehab center. During his group therapy session, we learn he had a severe drug addiction and emotionally, he tells the group that he has been stable. This information collides with the previous scene; it is obvious he is lying and in group therapy, he has not dealt with the interior pain of his emotions or psyche.
Nevertheless, on August 30 Anders is journeying on a new road in his life as the therapist discusses the job interview which has been set up for him, though he is not enthusiastic about it. Then, as he takes off for the interview he makes a number of stops along the way, during which time he will see his sister and visit his home which his parents are selling to pay for his rehab.
It is on this journey, we discover he is in touch with his inner self. The darkness within is confirmed when he visits and confesses to close friend Thomas (Hans Olav Brenner) that he finds little purpose to his life and that he doesn’t think he ever loved his former girlfriend Malin, whose bed he leaves then tries to kill himself. In his discussion with Thomas, he even confesses that he doubts his love of Iselin with whom he had a long relationship and a rocky breaking off. The irony is that he is clean. The rehabilitation worked to settle him away from addiction, but it didn’t help him fill the cavernous soul abyss which overwhelms him in the thought that he has no reason to live. It becomes obvious that he used drugs to deaden the pain and ferry him away to a land of oblivion.
Ironically, when he confides to Thomas that he is suicidal, Thomas confesses that he is not happy in his life; that he has stopped finding passion with his wife and that he is going through the motions of living and raising kids. As they confess their trials to each other, they achieve a greater closeness, but that doesn’t assure Thomas that Anders won’t take his life. Thomas makes Anders promise he won’t commit suicide, and Anders obliges his friend. Nevertheless, because we have seen Anders’ suicide attempt at the top of the film, we are not convinced that he won’t try to end the meaninglessness of his life and pain of living.
Trier presents Anders’ soul/psyche condition in a series of worsening failures, spiraling him and us further into the black hole toward death. The journey on his leave from rehab takes him to his unsuccessful job interview, his failed meeting with his sister Nina, a party where he waits for Thomas who doesn’t show, to a drink after months of no alcohol, to a bar with old friends and more drinks, to a return to his old haunt at his dealer where he scores a large batch of drugs. On August 31st, when he reaches his parents’ home that is in disarray for Anders’ sake, being packed up for sale to save Anders’ life, the inevitable occurs.
Trier’s cinematography won a well-deserved award and the acting by Anders Danielsen Lie is heartfelt, profound and emotionally driven with a low key beauty and sensitivity, beautifully shepherded by Trier’s direction which is wonderful as is the editing. There is just enough cinematic silence and imagery to draw us in and keep us engaged with Anders’ journey, as we are being led emotionally, invested in Anders’ survival. This is one to see and is the explanation of another reflection of Oslo, Norway at a time when Oxycotin and heroin had been ravaging global culture.
The Worst Person in the World is a dark romantic comedy-drama that chronicles four years in the life of Julie (Renate Reinsve). Like with Trier’s other two films, the protagonist is a young, in this focus, a woman looking for her own autonomy and identity as she negotiates the deep and roiling subterranean channels of her love life. Facing uncertainty with her career path and struggling to gain stability and balance, she eventually attempts to view herself realistically and authentically, despite her desire to avoid looking in the mirror.
Once again Joachim Trier hits is out of the park and like in Oslo, August 31st, The Worst Person in the World is a multi-award winner. Renate Reinsve is devastatingly brilliant and translates an authentic performance into a beloved, flawed human and believable woman.
Don’t miss this marvelous triumvirate of great films by Joachim Trier and the Q and As with the director and lead actors by first reserving seats and purchasing tickets at https://www.filmlinc.org/press/flc-announces-joachim-trier-the-oslo-trilogy-january-28-february-3/
Press Release for Film at Lincoln Center: ‘Camera Man: Dana Stevens on Buster Keaton’
“Steamboat Bill, Jr. may be Keaton’s most mature film, a fitting if too-early farewell to his period of peak creative independence … its relationship to the rest of its creator’s work has been compared to that of Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest.”
– Dana Stevens on Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Camera Man: Dana Stevens on Buster Keaton, screening on January 27 at 7:00pm at the Francesca Beale Theater in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center is one you don’t want to miss if you love Buster Keaton and the film Steamboat Bill, Jr.
To mark the upcoming release of her new book Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, author and Slate film critic Dana Stevens joins Film at Lincoln Center for an extended conversation with writer Imogen Sara Smith. A screening of the 4K restoration of Keaton’s silent comedy masterpiece Steamboat Bill, Jr. follows, preceded by a 2K restoration of the classic two-reeler One Week. Both films are from the Cohen Film Collection and feature 5.1 orchestral scores by composer Carl Davis.
Known as “The Great Stone Face” due to his deadpan facial expressions and mannerisms during the Silent Film era, Buster Keaton left an enduring impression on film history. On Keaton’s breakneck productivity and prolific output of films throughout this period, film critic Roger Ebert said: “from 1920 to 1929, he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies.” Keaton’s experience with pratfalls and showmanship from vaudeville performances as a child evolved into his eye-popping, unforgetable achievements in Steamboat Bill, Jr. as well as The Cameraman, The General, and Sherlock Jr., all of which have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
Dana Stevens is the film critic at Slate magazine and a co-host of the Slate Culture Gabfest podcast. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Bookforum. She lives in New York City with her family. Camera Man is her first book.
Imogen Sara Smith is the author of Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy and In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City. A regular contributor to the Criterion Collection and the Criterion Channel, she has also written for Film Comment, Sight & Sound, Cineaste, Reverse Shot, and many other publications.
Camera Man: Dana Stevens on Buster Keaton is organized by Madeline Whittle.
Tickets, on sale beginning on Friday, December 18 are still on sale. Pricing is $15 (General Public), $12 (Students, Seniors, Persons with Disabilities), and $10 (Members). Save on FLC memberships this month only! Learn more here.
Films and Descriptions
The event will take place at the Francesca Beale Theater (144 W 65th St)
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Charles Reisner, 1928, USA, 70m
In the 10th and final feature to emerge from Buster Keaton’s independent production unit, the legendary comic master turns in an iconically endearing performance as the eponymous Bill Jr., a college student who returns home to help his scheming riverboat captain father (Ernest Torrence) compete with the far more successful luxury-riverboat owner J.J. King (Tom McGuire)—who also happens to be the father of Bill Jr.’s sweetheart. To make matters worse, a cyclone blows through the area, setting the stage for some of Keaton’s finest stunts on camera and one of the most (deservedly) storied sequences in all of silent cinema, in which a house’s actual two-ton facade falls on the oblivious young man. 4K Restoration by Cohen Media Group in collaboration with the Cineteca Bologna.
Thursday, January 27, 7:00pm (Q&A with author Dana Stevens and writer Imogen Sara Smith)
Preceded by:
One Week
Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1920, USA, 25m
A man and his new bride set about assembling a home for themselves with a build-your-own-house construction kit, only to encounter unforeseen pitfalls resulting from a disgruntled former lover’s sabotage. 2K Restoration by Cohen Media Group in collaboration with the Cineteca Bologna.
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