Man With A Movie List

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi Year: 1939 Run-time: 2 hr 22 min - This is a stellar romance from Mizoguchi, often called his best pre-war piece, but it's most fascinating for being a frank description of Kabuki actors in the 19th century. It's very hard to understand as a Westerner, but the strange culture and art form is crucial to understanding the story, which centers on an actor and adopted son of a famous Kabuki idol (who will pass on his famous name) struggling to live up to his inheritance, and getting honest criticism from the wet nurse to a biological son of the same actor.  It's a credit to Mizoguchi that the strength of the story passes unscathed through the culture shock. - Although the patient and ever-enduring female lead that is a staple of Mizoguchi films is here, the male lead has a little more backbone than usual, and develops in a fascinating way over the course of the story, which takes place over multiple years and goes through highs and lows of the ac...

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi Year: 1936 Run-time: 1 hr 11 min - Here we see many of the same themes from Mizoguchi's earlier film The Water Magician , but this one feels much better paced, and shows how Mizoguchi (and Ozu, who's up next) quickly adapted to the standards of the talkie.  We have a brave, self-sacrificing woman being let down by the fecklessness of the men they rely on.  The ending, with the woman out on the street fending for herself, could be seen as tragic or freeing, depending on your mood.  It's a great film, full of the tension that comes with rapid modernization in the cities (also the theme of the next film).  This isn't yet peak Mizoguchi, but it's getting close.

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi Year: 1933 Run-time: 1 hr 40 min Source: Youtube Notable For : I've chosen this list for the extraordinary breadth of films on it, with films chosen of nearly every nationality with no regard for their current availability (although this has caused quite a bit of frustration in tracking down these films).  But every cineaste has their particular tastes, and this one has made no secret of the fact that his favorite director is Kenji Mizoguchi.  And while that name isn't quite as well known as that of Mizoguchi's compatriots Kurosawa or Ozu, he was nevertheless a phenomenal director who perfected the art of the long take.  Water Magician  is the rare Japanese silent film that survived to the present day, and wonderfully, it's on Youtube with the Bensho narration that it would have screened with at the time (also woefully lacking in films like Page of Madness ). Verdict: Water Magician  doesn't have the cinematographic style that hi...