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Ubasute
is a mythical practice of senicide in Japan, whereby an infirm or elderly relative was carried to a mountain, or some other remote, desolate place, and left there to die. Kunio Yanagita concluded that the ubasute folklore comes from India’s Buddhist mythology. According to the Kodansha Illustrated Encyclopedia of Japan, ''ubasute'' "is the subject of legend, but…does not seem ever to have been a common custom.". Folklore In one Buddhist allegory, a son carries his mother up a mountain on his back. During the journey, she stretches out her arms, catching the twigs and scattering them in their wake, so that her son will be able to find the way home. A poem commemorates the story: In popular culture * The practice is discussed in some detail in Radiolab episode #305 Mortality. Ubasute sometimes appears as a metaphor for contemporary Japan's treatment of the elderly, who are noted for above-average suicide rates. * The practice of ubasute is explored at length in the Jap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ballad Of Narayama (1983 Film)
is a 1983 Japanese film by director Shōhei Imamura. It stars Sumiko Sakamoto as Orin, Ken Ogata, and Shoichi Ozawa. It is an adaptation of the book ''Narayama bushikō'' by Shichirō Fukazawa and slightly inspired by the 1958 film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. Both films explore the legendary practice of ''ubasute'', in which elderly people were carried to a mountain and abandoned to die. Imamura's film won the Palme d'Or at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. Production ''The Ballad of Narayama'' was filmed in Niigata Prefecture and Nagano Prefecture. Plot The film is set in a small rural village in Japan in the 19th century. According to tradition, once a person reaches the age of 70 he or she must travel to a remote mountain to die of starvation, a practice known as ubasute. The story concerns Orin, who is 69 and of sound health, but notes that a neighbor had to drag his father to the mountain, so she resolves to avoid clinging to life beyond her term. She spends a year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Old Law
''The Old Law, or A New Way to Please You'' is a seventeenth-century tragicomedy written by Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, and Philip Massinger. It was first published in 1656, but is generally thought to have been written about four decades earlier. The first edition The play first appeared in a badly-printed 1656 quarto issued by the bookseller Edward Archer (his shop was "at the sign of the Adam and Eve"), with the three dramatists' names on the title page. Scholars have little doubt about the general accuracy of the attribution; the doubt that does exist centres on the role of Massinger, since the play shows many typical signs of being a Middleton/Rowley collaboration. "Probably all critics are sure of the presence of Middleton and Rowley, but Massinger's contribution has been difficult to trace." David Lake, in his study of attribution problems in the Middleton canon, holds that Massinger's share consisted only of a light revision, and that signs of his hand are strongest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ballad Of Narayama (1958 Film)
is a 1958 Japanese period film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita and based on the 1956 novella of the same name by Shichirō Fukazawa. The film explores the legendary practice of ''ubasute'', in which elderly people were carried to a mountain and abandoned to die. Cast * Kinuyo Tanaka as Orin * Teiji Takahashi was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than twenty films from 1950 to 1959. Takahashi died in a traffic accident. Career Born in Tokyo, Takahashi graduated from the Japanese Film School (Nihon Eiga Gakkō) and joined the Shochiku studi ... as Tatsuhei * Yūko Mochizuki as Tamayan * Danko Ichikawa as Kesakichi * Keiko Ogasawara as Matsu-yan * Seiji Miyaguchi as Matayan * Yūnosuke Itō as Matayan's son * Ken Mitsuda as Teruyan Reception The film featured in competition at the 19th Venice International Film Festival and divided critics between those who thought it a masterpiece and those who thought it poor. The film won three Mainichi Film Awards, including Main ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keisuke Kinoshita
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter.Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu, he was a household figure in his home country, beloved by both critics and audiences from the 1940s to the 1960s. Among his best known films are '' Carmen Comes Home'' (1951), Japan's first colour feature, '' Tragedy of Japan'' (1953), ''Twenty-Four Eyes'' (1954), '' You Were Like a Wild Chrysanthemum'' (1955), ''Times of Joy and Sorrow'' (1957), '' The Ballad of Narayama'' (1958), and ''The River Fuefuki'' (1960). Biography Early years Keisuke Kinoshita was born Masakichi Kinoshita on 5 December 1912, in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, as the fourth of eight children of merchant Shūkichi Kinoshita and his wife Tama. His family manufactured pickles and owned a grocery store. A film fan already in early years, he vowed to become ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoshitoshi - 100 Aspects Of The Moon - 97
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi ( ja, 月岡 芳年; also named Taiso Yoshitoshi ; 30 April 1839 – 9 June 1892) was a Japanese printmaker. Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric. (2005)"Tsukoka Kōgyō"in ''Japan Encyclopedia,'' p. 1000. Yoshitoshi has widely been recognized as the last great master of the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock printing and painting. He is also regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras – the last years of Edo period Japan, and the first years of modern Japan following the Meiji Restoration. Like many Japanese, Yoshitoshi was interested in new things from the rest of the world, but over time he became increasingly concerned with the loss of many aspects of traditional Japanese culture, among them traditional woodblock printing. By the end of his career, Yoshitoshi was in an almost single-handed struggle against time and technology. As he worked on in the old manner, Japan was adopting Western mass reproduction methods li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1983 In Film
The following is an overview of events in 1983 in film, including the highest-grossing films, award ceremonies and festivals, a list of films released and notable deaths. Highest-grossing films (U.S.) The top ten 1983 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows: Events *February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film ''Let's Spend the Night Together'' opens in New York City. *May 25 - ''Return of the Jedi'', the final installment in the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the highest-grossing film of the year. *1983 was a landmark year in film. More films have gotten an R-rating than any other year thus far. *Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman makes her film debut in an Australian movie Bush Christmas *'' Brainstorm'', the final film of screen star Natalie Wood, is released, 2 years after her death. *October - Frank Price resigns as president of Columbia Pictures and is replaced by Guy McElwaine. Aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragedy, tragic and comedy, comic forms. Most often seen in drama, dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending. Tragicomedy, as its name implies, invokes the intended response of both the tragedy and the comedy in the audience, the former being a genre based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis and the latter being a genre intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter. In theatre Classical precedent There is no concise formal definition of tragicomedy from the classical antiquity, classical age. It appears that the Greek philosopher Aristotle had something like the Renaissance meaning of the term (that is, a serious action with a happy ending) in mind when, in ''Poetics (Aristotle), Poetics'', he discusses tragedy with a dual ending. In this respect, a number of An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt ''Midleton'') was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. He, with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson, was among the most successful and prolific of playwrights at work in the Jacobean period, and among the few to gain equal success in comedy and tragedy. He was also a prolific writer of masques and pageants. Life Middleton was born in London and baptised on 18 April 1580. He was the son of a bricklayer, who had raised himself to the status of a gentleman and owned property adjoining the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch. Middleton was five when his father died and his mother's subsequent remarriage dissolved into a 15-year battle over the inheritance of Thomas and his younger sister – an experience that informed him about the legal system and may have incited his repeated satire against the legal profession. Middleton attended The Queen's College, Oxford, matriculating in 1598, but he did not graduate. Before he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger (1583 – 17 March 1640) was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including ''A New Way to Pay Old Debts'', ''The City Madam'', and '' The Roman Actor'', are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes. Early life The son of Arthur Massinger or Messanger, he was baptised at St. Thomas's Salisbury on 24 November 1583. He apparently belonged to an old Salisbury family, for the name occurs in the city records as early as 1415. He is described in his matriculation entry at St. Alban Hall, Oxford (1602), as the son of a gentleman. His father, who had also been educated at St. Alban Hall, was a member of parliament, and was attached to the household of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Herbert recommended Arthur in 1587 for the office of examiner in the Court of the Marches. William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, who would come to oversee the London Stage and the royal company as King James's Lord Chamberlain, succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Rowley
William Rowley (c. 1585 – February 1626) was an English Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c. 1585; he was buried on 11 February 1626 in the graveyard of St James's, Clerkenwell in north London. (An unambiguous record of Rowley's death was discovered in 1928, but some authorities persist in listing his year of death as 1642.) Life and work Rowley was an actor-playwright who specialised in playing clown characters (that is, characters whose function is to provide low comedy). He must also have been a large man, since his forte lay specifically in fat-clown roles. He played the Fat Bishop in Thomas Middleton's ''A Game at Chess'', and Plumporridge in the same author's ''Inner Temple Masque''. He also wrote fat-clown parts for himself to play: Jaques in ''All's Lost by Lust'' (a role "personated by the Poet", the 1633 quarto states), and Bustopha in ''The Maid in the Mill'', h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope (; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the '' Chronicles of Barsetshire'', which revolves around the imaginary county of Barsetshire. He also wrote novels on political, social, and gender issues, and other topical matters. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he had regained the esteem of critics by the mid-20th century. Biography Anthony Trollope was the son of barrister Thomas Anthony Trollope and the novelist and travel writer Frances Milton Trollope. Though a clever and well-educated man and a Fellow of New College, Oxford, Thomas Trollope failed at the Bar due to his bad temper. Ventures into farming proved unprofitable, and he did not receive an expected inheritance when an elderly childless uncle remarried and had children. Thomas Trollope was the son of Rev. (Thomas) Ant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dystopia
A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). or simply anti-utopia) is a speculated community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is often treated as an Opposite (semantics), antonym of ''utopia'', a term that was coined by Sir Thomas More and figures as the title of his best known work, published in 1516, which created a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence and poverty. The relationship between utopia and dystopia is in actuality not one simple opposition, as many utopian elements and components are found in dystopias as well, and ''vice versa''. Dystopias are often characterized by rampant fear or distress , tyrannical governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Distinct th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
