WISDOM OF THE SAGES
EPISODE IV: SPRING 2024
Hello People of the World;
Look out, it’s getting warmer. Remember, every summer from now until we attempt to do something about it will be hotter than the last summer.
As always: Stay safe. Stay home.
All right, let’s get going:
1:[ This virus really showed how equal we all really are: We’ve been tricked into paying for free TV. TV used to be free. It was paid for by advertisers and tax-payers, because we deregulated corporate tax income. Now, we were offered “Movies without commercials!” via cable and satellite. Then, as the Internet grew, free video services begin including ads, UNLESS your subscribed to something. Then, they got the big idea of ad-free TV via subscription!
I use Pluto, it has commercials. It’s the last “Free” streaming app. I don’t mind the commercials, because, this was how TV used to be. It’s weird: We’ve been tricked into paying for free TV.
2:[ MOVIE REVIEWS: For the first part of the year, I barely went to the movie theater. As you can see from the March edition, I’ve only seen two movies at the theater so far, time of typing. So, I thought I would something different to fill the blank space here. For this, I turned to my favorite app – the Criterion Channel.
The Films of Kuniyo Tanaka is a program of films directed by the great Japanese actress. One of the first woman directors in Japan. She is most famous for leading roles in The Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954) all directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.
According to Wikipedia: "In the 1930s, Tanaka became so popular that the titles of many feature films used her name, as in Kinuyo Monogatari ("The Kinuyo Story"), Joi Kinuyo Sensei ("Doctor Kinuyo") and Kinuyo no Hatsukoi ("Kinuyo's First Love")."
She eventually went freelance in the 1950’s after a post-WWII trip to the US. She was able to pick the directors she wanted to work with and to direct films herself. She downplayed her directing career, but there is a new interest in her work as their topics of femininity and its portrayals is considered groundbreaking.
Love Letters - Her first directorial feature about an ex-soldier who takes a job writing love letter to US soldiers for Japanese women. The main character is disgusted by the women who use his service to write to past US GI lovers for money. It is disdainful to him, more so, when he learns that his past love also had a GI relationship while he was away at war. The idea that women had to do what they could to survive during the war is lost on these returning service men. Very good film and great debut for Tanaka.
The Moon has Risen - In her second feature, Tanaka goes the melodrama route. In fact, this was scripted by the melodramatic king himself, Yasujiro Ozu. Setsuko (because, of course), is worried about her older sister Ayako’s marriage that she tried to get her friend’s best friend and her sister set up.
Forever a Woman - Also titled "The Eternal Breasts", is a biography film based on the life of tanko poet Fumiko Nakajo, whom was a divorced writer diagnosed with breast cancer and gained recognition as her poems reflected her condition. The film adds the ideal of sexuality attached to freedom and writing and was lauded upon its release.
The Wandering Princess – Another biography film about Hiro Saga, a descendent of the Japanese court that was married to the brother of the ruler of Manchukuo. They lived happily until the Russians invaded China and while the King of Manchukuo and her husband escaped by plane, their wives had to escape via train and were eventually captured many times. Eventually, the reunited and live a quiet but happy life.
Girls of the Night aka Night Girls – To me, this is probably her most complex films as it deals with many taboo subjects and works to place a human face on them. Here, the story centers on a reformed prostitute and her efforts at working for a “pure” life. But when her past is either discovered, or attempted to be exploited by the people of “regular” society, she finds her way back to the reformatory she was sent to.
There are many prostitute characters in this that cover a gamut of societal classes. One is an elder woman who is unstably in love with a younger woman. The others just accept her open lesbianism and feel sorry her affections are never return. The lead Kuniko, suffers through humiliations as she works to make a place back in society. The grocer’s wife that begins abusing her when she learns of Kuniko’s past, the factory co-workers, who prostitute themselves, injure her when she does not go along with their plans. Eventually, she works for a liberal woman and her rose garden. The garden supervisor proposes to her offering her hope, nly for her former pimp to show up and wreck things.
This is probably my most favorite of her films, though that ending. I think was forced by the censors. The idea imposed that people of “criminal backgrounds” cannot be accepted or “win” in the end. So, Kuniko ends up leaving once again to work for a “pure” life. Still, a great film.
Love Under the Crucifix - "Men would rather blindly follow religious fanaticism rather than get therapy" the Movie. This is a historical drama following a young daughter of a Tea Ceremony Master who is in love with a married samurai of the Christian faith. Since he cannot divorce his wife, he cannot reciprocate her feelings and would go into exile while she is unhappily married off to a business man. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi himself takes an interest in making her a concubine, she resists and this basically dooms her family to death.
Thinking back on these films as I write this, I feel that Tanaka has become one fo my favorite directors and I think I will begin listing her alongside Kurosawa, Tracy Deer, and others.
But I did finally get out to see movies in the theater finally:
SPIRITED AWAY
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Chihiro is moving to a new city and is scared. Her parents take a shortcut and find an abandoned amusement park. What follows is Chihiro's quest to rectify the mistake her parents make and falls on unknown reserves of strength and courage as she must navigate the Spirit World.
Bonnie and I saw this as part of the yearly Ghibli Fest. I showed Bonnie "Spirited Way: Live on Stage" last year and she fell in love with the stage artistry. It was one of my most favorite things to watch in the movie theater last year. Watching the animated film made me appreciate more the details the stage presentation did right.
Heartwarming and scary, funny and sad, it is worthy of being call Miyazaki's masterpiece.
If you own it or stream it, watch it again.
HIGH RECOMMENDATION
EW3
3:[ This Month’s Essay:
My big sister taught me to write my name.
I was getting ready to go to Kindergarten for the first time and she wanted me to be prepared because this was one of the things she said the teacher asks. She looked out for me a lot. But through writing is how I remember our relationship the most. As we went through high school, she was lauded for her writing and poetry. It made me want to raise my game and soon enough, I was getting looks for my fiction.
That was our relationship for most of our lives, in friendly and not-so-friendly competition. But I never doubted her love for me and that need to look out for me. Once in a while that old competitive nature take hold and we have a go at one another. One day, I hope to read her poetry once again.
4:[ Observation: Geez, now you want my thoughts on "True Detective: Night Country"? Keep your samples packed. I'll save you some time. If you can, find a 2018 short film called "In Our Own Hands" by Jennifer Varenchik. It's a story she's been pitching for a while and now I wonder if HBO didn't give her idea the Jodorowsky treatment.
5:[ We cannot go back to “Normal” all after this: thinking that fresh water is an infinite resource.
That is it for this month.
As always, I invite you to comment, correct, or contradict anything I write here. I am open to a critical debate. Thanks for taking the time to check out what I write here and I will see you in a month.
Until next time, remember “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”
2024 Ernest M Whiteman III
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