Japanese Master Mikio Naruse
Revered in Japan alongside the work of such masters as Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kenji Mizoguchi, the films of Mikio Naruse (1905–1969) are at last again available to Western audiences in a collaboration between AFI Silver Theatre, the Freer Gallery of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. Even though he directed the first Japanese sound film to find distribution in the United States (Wife, Be Like a Rose! 1935), Naruse remained largely unknown here throughout the sustained peak of his lengthy career. Despite championing by critics such as Susan Sontag, Phillip Lopate, and Donald Richie, it has been some twenty years since the last Naruse retrospective was held in this country.
Raised in poverty, Naruse became a director only after a long, trying apprenticeship. He specialized in shomin-geki, contemporary dramas about the poor and lower-middle classes. Naruse has been compared stylistically to his close friend Ozu and was drawn, like Mizoguchi, to stories focusing on women, but his films are tougher, edgier, and more modern than either. Kurosawa, Naruse's one-time assistant and great admirer, compared his film style to "a great river with a calm surface and a raging current in its depths."
Thanks to James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario, the Japan Foundation, and Toho Co., Ltd., for making this touring retrospective possible. Special thanks go to Sarah Finklea, Janus Films.
Presentation of this retrospective at the Freer Gallery of Art is generously supported by Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc.
Film descriptions adapted from the Cinematheque Ontario, Film Forum, and the Pacific Film Archive. Films are in Japanese with English subtitles.
I think I'm going to try and make it to one of these this weekend.
Nightly Dreams (a.k.a. Every Night's Dreams)
Friday March 10, 7 PM, Freer Gallery of Art
Wife, Be Like a Rose!
Saturday, March 11, 2 PM, National Gallery of Art
Hideko the Bus Conductress
Sunday, March 12, 3:30 PM, Freer Gallery of Art
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