It is a sad fact that a large portion of Japanese silent films have been lost due to human carelessness, earthquakes and the harsh efficiency of the US Air Force. The first film of a very important character like kenji mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozuand Hiroshi Shimizu It simply disappeared. So we should consider it lucky Kinugasa Island ‘s Cretta Ippei -A 1926 film known in the United States The crazy page – For some reason, I managed to survive the whim of destiny. Kinugasa tried to make a European-style experimental film in Japan, and in the process he created one of the great landmarks of silent films. You can see it On top of that.
Kinugasa was born in 1896 onnagataan actor who specializes in playing female roles. In 1926, after working behind the camera for several years under his pioneering director, son Zozo Makino, Kinugasa bought a film camera and set up a lab in his home to create his own funded film. He then approached members of the Shinshinkankaku (New Impressionist) literary group and helped him come up with a story. author Yasunari Kawabata I wrote about the treatment that will ultimately be the basis for The crazy page.
The plot summary really doesn’t bring justice to the film, but is a retired sailor who works in an insane asylum to look after his wife who tried to kill a child – the visual audacity of the page I’m still amazed today. The opening sequence melts into a hallucinatory, bizarre scene of a young woman in a rhombic head delles dancing in front of a giant spinning ball, where she rhythmically cuts between a noisy downpour shot and a squirrel before a huge spinning ball. Of course, the woman is a prisoner dressed in rags. As her dance gets more and more enthusiastic, the film cuts faster and faster, using almost every trick in the overlapping, spinning cameras and other books.
Kinugasa was clearly affected Dr. Caligari’s CabinetAlso visualizing the insane inner world, the film also reminiscent of the work of French avant-garde filmmakers. Abergancelike the Russian montage master Sergei Eisenstein And especially subjective camera work FW Murnau in Letzte Mann. Kinugasa seamlessly incorporates all these influences, getting in the way with the exhilarating filmmaking and ultimately creating the power of a sad touring. The great Japanese film critic Iwasaki Akira was called “the first film-like film born in Japan.”
when The crazy page It was released and performed at a theater in Tokyo, specializing in foreign films. page Compared to most other Japanese films of the time, they were certainly quite foreigners. Film scholar Aaron Jeroleau said he is “one of the few Japanese works that should be treated as “equality” in a culture that still looks down on domestic production.” However, it did not change the course of Japanese films, and it was considered curiosity in a time when most Japanese films were adaptations of ka and dance and stories of samurai.
page It disappeared shortly after its release, and for more than 50 years, it was believed that Kinugasa was lost until 1971 when she discovered it in her own warehouse. Gate of Hell (1953) And the Kawabata who wrote the treatment got a Nobel Prize in Literature To write a book like Snowy country About Lovelorn Gihisha.
You can find The crazy page A list of free silent films that are part of our collection, over 4,000 free movies online online: Great Classics, Indie, Noir, Westerners, Documentaries and more.
Note: An earlier version of this post was published on our site in 2014.
Related content:
Golden Age of Japanese Cinema: Kurosaki, Ozu, Miyaguchi, etc.
Essential Japanese Movies: 50 Beautiful, often strange cinema journeys in Japan
Kurosawa Akira’s list of his 100 favorite movies
The Origin of Anime: Watch 64 Free Online Animation Announces the Traditions of Japanese Animation
Jonathan Crowe Yahoo! , Hollywood Reporter and other publications have featured in authors and filmmakers.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
