|
Musashinokan
The is a long-standing movie theater located on the east side of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, Japan. Originally started as the Musashinokan in May 1920, it quickly became Tokyo's premiere independent high-class theater showing foreign films. The theater program featured top-level film criticism and a committee of the managers and of film critics such as Akira Iwasaki helped program the films shown there. It was also famous in the silent era for the erudite benshi narration of Musei Tokugawa. On occasion, it also showed Japanese films such as Teinosuke Kinugasa was a Japanese filmmaker. He was born in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture and died in Kyoto. Kinugasa won the 1954 Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival for '' Gate of Hell''. Biography Kinugasa began his career as an onnagata (actor specializing in f ...'s '' A Page of Madness''. When it was rebuilt in 1968 as part of a multi-purpose building, occupying the seventh floor, it changed its name to the Shinjuku Musashinokan. Its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musei Tokugawa
was a Japanese benshi, actor, raconteur, essayist, and radio and television personality. Musei (as he was called) first came to prominence as a benshi, a narrator of films during the silent era in Japan. He was celebrated for his restrained but erudite narration that was popular among intellectual film fans.Dym, Jeffrey A.Tokugawa Musei: A Portrait Sketch of One of Japan's Greatest Narrative Artists" ''In Praise of Film Studies: Essays in Honor of Makino Mamoru''. Eds. Aaron Gerow and Abé Mark Nornes (Kinema Club, 2001). He concentrated on foreign films such as '' The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' at high-class theaters like the Aoikan and the Musashinokan, but also performed Japanese works such as Teinosuke Kinugasa's experimental masterpiece ''A Page of Madness'' (1926). As the silent era ended, Musei switched to storytelling on stage and on radio, and also began acting and doing narrations in films. He was also famous for his essays, humorous novels, and autobiographical writings, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benshi
were Japanese performers who provided live narration for silent films (both Japanese films and Western films). ''Benshi'' are sometimes called or . Role The earliest films available for public display were produced by Western studios, portraying brief scenes of everyday life, often less than a minute long. The first were thus hired to provide greater value for the high ticket prices charged by theaters relative to other public entertainment, while also giving technical and cultural context to the audience. The operation of the projector itself would be described before the showing, and then explanations of Western culture would accompany the film with the standing to the side of the screen. This commentary was as much part of the theater-going experience as the film itself. In one instance, a was able to avoid government censorship of The Kiss by describing kissing in Western culture to be as casual a greeting as a pat on the back. As film plots became longer and more comple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Page Of Madness
is a 1926 Japanese silent film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. Lost for 45 years until it was rediscovered by Kinugasa in his storehouse in 1971, the film is the product of an avant-garde group of artists in Japan known as the Shinkankakuha (or School of New Perceptions) who tried to overcome naturalistic representation. Yasunari Kawabata, who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, was credited on the film with the original story. He is often cited as the screenwriter, and a version of the scenario is printed in his complete works, but the scenario is now considered a collaboration between him, Kinugasa, Banko Sawada, and Minoru Inuzuka. Eiji Tsuburaya is credited as an assistant cameraman. Plot The film takes place in an asylum in the countryside. Amid a torrential rainstorm, a janitor wanders through the halls revealing the various patients with mental illnesses. The next day, a young woman arrives and is surprised to see her father, the janitor, working there. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Movie Theater
A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a building that contains auditoria for viewing films (also called movies) for entertainment. Most, but not all, movie theaters are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing a ticket. The film is projected with a movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium while the dialogue, sounds, and music are played through a number of wall-mounted speakers. Since the 1970s, subwoofers have been used for low-pitched sounds. Since the 2010s, the majority of movie theaters have been equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create and transport a physical film print on a heavy reel. A great variety of films are shown at cinemas, ranging from animated films to bloc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shinjuku Station
is a major railway station in the Shinjuku and Shibuya wards in Tokyo, Japan. In Shinjuku, it is part of the Nishi-Shinjuku and Shinjuku districts. In Shibuya, it is located in the Yoyogi and Sendagaya districts. It is the world's busiest railway station. Serving as the main connecting hub for rail traffic between Tokyo's special wards and Western Tokyo on inter-city rail, commuter rail, and subway lines, the station was used by an average of 3.59 million people per day in 2018, making it, by far, the world's busiest station (and registered as such with Guinness World Records). The main JR station and the directly adjacent private railways have a total of 35 platforms, including an underground arcade, above ground arcade and numerous hallways with another 17 platforms (53 total) that can be accessed through hallways to 5 directly connected stations without surfacing outside. The entire above/underground complex has well over 200 exits. Lines Shinjuku is served by the fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 million residents ; the city proper has a population of 13.99 million people. Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, the prefecture forms part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and is the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. Originally a fishing village named Edo, the city became politically prominent in 1603, when it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. By the mid-18th century, Edo was one of the most populous cities in the world with a population of over one million people. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to Edo, which was renamed "Tokyo" (). Tokyo was devastate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Film Critics
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outlets; and academic criticism by film scholars who are informed by film theory and are published in academic journals. Academic film criticism rarely takes the form of a review; instead it is more likely to analyse the film and its place in the history of its genre or in the whole of film history. Film criticism is also labeled as a type of writing that perceives films as possible achievements and wishes to convey their differences, as well as the films being made in a level of quality that is satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Film criticism is also associated with the journalistic type of criticism, which is grounded in the media's effects being developed, and journalistic criticism resides in standard structures such as newspapers. Journal art ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akira Iwasaki
(18 November 1903 – 16 September 1981) was a prominent left-wing Japanese film critic, historian, and producer. Born in Tokyo, he became interested in film from his student days at Tokyo University. Early on, he helped introduce German experimental film in Japan, and was instrumental in getting Teinosuke Kinugasa's masterpiece '' A Page of Madness'' screened in Tokyo. Afterward, he became involved in Marxist politics and established a career promoting progressive cinema and criticism. He wrote or edited over thirty books of film criticism, history, theory and biography during his career. He was also involved in film production, first serving from the late 1920s as a central member of the Proletarian Film League of Japan ( Prokino), where he acted as not only the theoretical brain of the movement alongside Genjū Sasa, but also as a filmmaker. When Prokino was effectively eliminated by police oppression under the Peace Preservation Law, Iwasaki continued his critical activities, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silent Film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of title cards. The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music, or improvisation. Sometimes a person would even narrate the inter-title cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teinosuke Kinugasa
was a Japanese filmmaker. He was born in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture and died in Kyoto. Kinugasa won the 1954 Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival for '' Gate of Hell''. Biography Kinugasa began his career as an onnagata (actor specializing in female roles) at the Nikkatsu studio. When Japanese cinema began using actresses in the early 1920s, he switched to directing and worked for producers such as Shozo Makino, before becoming independent to make his best-known film, '' A Page of Madness'' (1926). It was considered lost for 45 years until the director rediscovered it in his shed in 1971. A silent film, Kinugasa released it with a new print and score to world acclaim. He also directed the film ''Crossroads'' in 1928. He directed jidaigeki at the Shochiku studios, where he helped establish the career of Chōjirō Hayashi (later known as Kazuo Hasegawa). After the war, he helmed big-budget costume productions for Daiei studios. On February 26, 1982, Kinugasa died at the age of 86 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
