January 19th 2014. Pick of the Day.
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January, my bitter foe. You lull the New Yorker into a sort of meteorological Stockholm Syndrome with your wild mood swings; merciful and temperately friendly one day, applying the dreaded Polar Vortex the next. I'm wise to your tricks, old man. The crucifix-like talisman I employ against your seeming authority today? A reminder; just under a month til Pitchers 'n Catchers. Your end looms, foul spirit...
Now, onto the film sked! Continuing series today include IFC Center's soon-retiring-to-Utah The Way He Was: Early Redford, the 2014 New York Jewish Film Fest hosted by the Film Society, and MoMA's expiring Aesthetics of Shadow, Part One: Japan. The rep circuit shenaningans go a lil' somethin' like this;
IFC Center
THE CANDIDATE (1972) Dir; Michael Ritchie
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
EVIL DEAD (1981) Dir; Sam Raimi
JAWS (1975) Dir; Steven Spielberg
Film Society of Lincoln Center
ODED THE WANDERER (1932) Dir; Chaim Halachmi
EXODUS (1960) Dir; Otto Preminger
Film Forum
BOY (1969) Dir; Nagisa Oshima
MoMA
THE WAR AT SEA FROM HAWAII TO MALAYA (1942) Dir; Kajiro Yamamoto
RASHOMON (1960) Dir; Akira Kurosawa
Anthology Film Archives
SUNRISE (1928) Dir; F. W. Murnau
Today's Pick? There's no way I'm taking sides against one of the most important works of the postwar World Cinema movement, directed by a filmmmaker I not merely adore, but consider a kindred spirit. Akira Kurosawa apprenticed his way through Japan's film industry, claiming the director's chair for the first with the martial arts hit SANJIRO SUGATA. Then WWII ended, and his country became an occupied nation, replete with all the attendant vices such status gifts; poverty, depression, alienation, and a rich opportunity for a defeated people's bottom feeders to get fat on Black Market activities, which by definition set a people to prey upon themselves, the more opportunistic bleeding those less morally uncertain. Kurosawa watched with disgust at his nation's postwar disgrace, both that of the militaristic mindset that led to this fate and the jackals feeding off the carcass of what remained, and poured his feelings into a pair of Western Noir-inspired gems, which not so coincidentally introduced Toshiro Mifune to the world; DRUNKEN ANGEL and STRAY DOG. Effective as entertainment and damning as social commentary, but as potent as they were they simply didn't satisfy the young filmmaker's disillusionment over his homeland's defeat. They didn't quite capture that most human and inhuman urge to rationalize what the lizard brain still covets so devoutly.
To find his nation's soul, what it once had been at least, he decided to delve into his country's past, to search for its honor, its truth and morality. Its very nobility. What he emerged with was a tale that not only made the case that all history is a lie agreed upon, that there is ultimately no truth to be had,, but that film itself, the very thing he loved most, is at best not to be trusted, at worst wholly dishonest. He did so in a manner that still steals away the breath, that has become shorthand for a type of tale-telling, and that firmly placed not merely his own career but the entirety of World Cinema under the global spotlight. He would best this film in his future work, but he'd never so completely rock our foundations as his audience quite so ruthlessly or effectively ever again. Oh, AK, how we love ye!
Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON screen at MoMA as the closing selection of their Aesthetics of Shadow, Part One: Japan series. Arigato.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic screenings in January '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back with a brand new Pick tomorrow, til then take the Pats gettin' 5.5 and let the other kids in on the action. Friggin' Boston!
-Joe Walsh
