It DOES NOT put sessions on your pass.
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It adds this session to the list of sessions you are interested in.
Simply click the wishlist icon when logged in to add or remove this session from your wishlist.
Indicates session is currently in your wishlist. Indicates session is not currently in your wishlist.Water Magician, The (With Live Benshi Performance)
TRANSLATION: Taki no shiraitoDIRECTOR: Kenji Mizoguchi
Japan : 1933 : 98MINS : English intertitles
A rare opportunity to experience a uniquely Japanese experience of the silent cinema.
Japan had a robust silent film industry and a unique feature of it was the benshi, or accompanying narrator. Drawn from the traditions of kabuki and noh theatre, the benshi stood beside the screen and narrated the action. This was no dry recitation as the benshi would adopt different voices for characters, fill in gaps in the plot, and provide flamboyant embroidering of the action. Today, our benshi will be Ichiro Kataoka who will perform to a film by Kenji Mizoguchi, regarded by many as the greatest of Japan’s directors. Sawata Midori, the most acclaimed of Japan’s present-day benshi, says that it was a screening of this film that awakened in her the desire to become a benshi. It is set in 1890 and, like many of Mizoguchi’s films, deals with a woman’s sacrifice. A female magician promises to support a young man, Kinya, through his studies. When her own career begins to fail, she falls into the hands of a loan shark in her attempts to keep up with Kinya’s tuition bills, and events quickly escalate to a richly melodramatic climax.
The film will be intertitled in English and Kataoka will be performing in Japanese.
Mike Walsh, Senior Lecturer in Screen and Media at Flinders University in South Australia, has written an essay on the art of benshi performance especially for the festival and our screening of The Water Magician. Mike is also the festival’s Program Consultant and Catalogue Editor & Writer.
Silent Cinema in the 21st Century
| Date | Time | Venue | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu 3 Mar | 6:00 PM | Piccadilly Cinema 1 | Wishlist A wishlist is a list of sessions you are interested in. It DOES NOT put sessions on your pass. It DOES NOT create a booking for this session. It adds this session to the list of sessions you are interested in. Simply click the wishlist icon when logged in to add or remove this session from your wishlist. Indicates session is currently in your wishlist. Indicates session is not currently in your wishlist. |
SCREENWRITER: Yasunaga Higashibojo
PRODUCER: Takako Irie, Yoshizo Mogi, Takejiro Tsunoda
CAST: Takako Irie, Tokihiko Okada, Nobuo Kosaka
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Minoru Miki
EDITOR: Tatsuko Sakane
DIRECTOR PROFILE: Kenji Mizoguchi was born in Tokyo in 1898. He worked initially at the Nikkatsu studio where he started to direct in 1923. Career highlights include: Naniwa Elegy (1936), The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939), The 47 Ronin (1941), Utamaro and His Five Women (1946), The Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954). He died in Kyoto in 1956.
