|Dan Howard| Just two years before her death, Kinuyo Tanaka gave an interview for the 1975 documentary Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director. It was during this interview that Kaneto Shindō, the director, inquired about the rumor that Mizoguchi was secretly in love with her and never confessed his feelings. Tanaka, while flattered… Continue reading
|Zach Staads| A quick note up top, this is one of my all-time favorite movies and I highly recommend you see it if you haven’t yet. Buy your tickets now, don’t wait. I have oft spoken about my love of theatricality in film (see my article on Kuroneko’s theatrical lighting style her)… Continue reading
|Chris Polley| Breaking up families, the oppressed becoming the oppressor, the government sanctioning open and wanton cruelty on the streets—sound familiar? When I got offered the chance to write about Kenji Mizoguchi’s folktale-inspired 1954 epic Sansho the Bailiff this past winter amid Operation Metro Surge and just weeks after the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, I immediately felt the connection. It was deep in my bones. Continue reading
|Dan Howard| Since the end of World War II, hundreds of, if not over a thousand, films have been made about it, capturing varying themes from fighting on the front lines, infiltrating the Third Reich, the effect of the war on innocent bystanders, etc. Yet, the WWII films I find myself drawn to are… Continue reading
