Post by Saionji Shonagon on Nov 30, 2008 17:02:30 GMT -5
My copy arrived and I dipped into it this weekend. www.criterion.com/boxsets/571
It includes Sisters of the Gion and Osaka Elegy - reviewed here: tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=media&thread=2218&page=1 and tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=media&thread=2221&page=1
I screened Street of Shame yesterday, which deals with the women living in a Yoshiwara brothel after WWII while the government is wrestling with Western pressure to outlaw prostitution. Once again, Mizoguchi's subject is women trapped in an inescapeable situation and how they deal with it. The film closes with the timid debut of a new teenager, dressed and made up to the nines, half cowering by the door as she tries to solicit her first customer.
Still to go, Women of the Night, from 1948 - because I don't think I can bear to watch two of these in a weekend. I'll be interested to see what the film quality on Osaka and Gion looks like, as the print we saw at the PFA screening two summers ago was pretty beat up.
All the films in this set are set in the "present day" (1936 to 1956, when they were made). Criterion has released two of Mizoguchi's historical films, Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff on DVD.
I have hopes that Criterion will do something with The Life of Oharu and The Tale of the Last Chrysanthemums in the not too distant future.
It includes Sisters of the Gion and Osaka Elegy - reviewed here: tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=media&thread=2218&page=1 and tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=media&thread=2221&page=1
I screened Street of Shame yesterday, which deals with the women living in a Yoshiwara brothel after WWII while the government is wrestling with Western pressure to outlaw prostitution. Once again, Mizoguchi's subject is women trapped in an inescapeable situation and how they deal with it. The film closes with the timid debut of a new teenager, dressed and made up to the nines, half cowering by the door as she tries to solicit her first customer.
Still to go, Women of the Night, from 1948 - because I don't think I can bear to watch two of these in a weekend. I'll be interested to see what the film quality on Osaka and Gion looks like, as the print we saw at the PFA screening two summers ago was pretty beat up.
All the films in this set are set in the "present day" (1936 to 1956, when they were made). Criterion has released two of Mizoguchi's historical films, Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff on DVD.
I have hopes that Criterion will do something with The Life of Oharu and The Tale of the Last Chrysanthemums in the not too distant future.
