Nouvelles d'ici et d'ailleurs !: 2016

Special Exhibition

JAPANESE FILM LEGEND !!!

AKIRA KUROSAWA AND TOSHIRO MIFUNE

SEPTEMBER 16^th, 2016 – JANUARY 15^th, 2017

IN KAMAKURA CITY (near Tokyo) / JAPAN.

At the Kamakura City Kawakita Film Museum.

Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, two of the most legendary figures in the history of Japanese cinema, worked together on 16 films, including a number on undisputed masterpieces like Rashomon, Seven Samourai and Yojimbo. Their first collaboration was Drunken Angel (1948), but the film that got them noticed all over the world was Rashomon (1950), which was awarded the Golden Lion prize at the Venice International Film Festival. This remarkable accomplishment was an important milestone for Japan, a war-ravaged country that was still occupied by US forces at that time.

After that, Kurosawa and Mifune continued to garner international attention with the worldwide success of Seven Samourai (1954), followed by Mifune’s best actor awards at Venice for Yojimbo (1961) and Red Beard (1965). Mifune also came to appear in foreign fims such as The Important Man (1961), Grand Prix (1966), Hell in the Pacific (1968) and Red Sun (1971), and he became popular all around the world as the personification of a Japanese samourai.

On display at the exhibition is Kurosawa’s memorial address to Mifune, which includes the following passage: “Together, we made the golden age of Japanese cinema. Looking back at all those works, none of them would have been possible without you. You played your part extremely well. Thank you so much, Mifune!”

Content of the exhibition

The main materials are Japanese and foreign posters. Since Kurosawa’s films were and are seen around the world, publicity posters are highly international, featuring a variety of amazing designs. How about viewing the different versions and seeing how they compare to one another?

Thematically, the exhibition is divided into 11 sections

It all started with Rashomon
The meeting of Kurosawa and Mifune: Snow Trail, Drunken Angel and Stray Dog
The gold standard: Seven Samourai
Adapting the literary classics of the world: The Idiot, The Lower Depths and Throne of Blood
Contemporary drama as a message to society: I live in Fear, The Bad Sleep Well and High and Low
Samourai film masterpieces with a global legacy : The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo and Sanjuro
The grand sum: Red Beard
Mifune’s representative works
Foreign films featuring Mifune
Kurosawa’s works and their ongoing international influence
Rain Lifts and the Ishihara hotel in Kyoto

Displayed in the glass case are some personal items of Kurosawa and Mifune, such as the painting tools Kurosawa used for making storyboards, a coat Mifune made himself using the blanked he was given upon discharge from the military, the trophy from the Venice International Film Festival, etc.

In other cases, you can see Mifune’s shooting scripts of Rashomon, Yojimbo and Red Beard. Also on display are Mifune’s training notes from the time of his debut, which give an insight into how he prepared for his roles.

AKIRA KUROSAWA’S FILMOGRAPHY (AS DIRECTOR) * Starring Toshiro Mifune

Sanshiro Sugata (1943)

The Most Beautiful [ichiban utsukushiku] (1944)

Sanshiro Sugata PART II [Zoku sugata sanshiro] (1945)

No Regrets for Our Youth [Waga seishun ni kui nashi] (1946)

One Wonderful Sunday [Subarashi nichiyobi] (1947)

Drunken Angel [Yoidore tenshi] (1948) *T.M.

The Quiet Duel [Shizuka naru ketto] (1949) *T.M.

Stray Dog [Norainu] (1949) *T.M.

Scandal [Sukyandaru] (1950) *T.M.

Rashomon (1950) *T.M.

The Idiot [Hakuchi] (1951) *T.M.

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail [Tora no o fumu otoko-tachi] (1952)

Ikiru (1952)

Seven Samurai [Shichinin no samurai] (1954) *T.M.

I Live in Fear [Ikimono no kiroku] (1955) *T.M.

Throne of Blood [Kumonosu-jo] (1957) *T.M.

The Lower Depths [Donzoko] (1957) *T.M.

The Hidden Fortress [Kakushi toride no san akunin] (1958) *T.M.

The Bad Sleep Well [Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru] (1960) *T.M.

Yojimbo [Yojinbo] (1961) *T.M.

Sanjuro [Tsubaki Sanjuro] (1962) *T.M.

High and Low [Tengoku to jigoku] (1963) *T.M.

Red Beard [Akahige] (1965) *T.M.

Dodesukaden (1970)

Dersu Uzala (1975)

Kagemusha (1980)

Ran (1985)

Dreams (Yume) (1990)

Rhapsody in August [Hachigatsu no rapusodi] (1991)

Not Yet [Madadayo] (1993)

TOSHIRO MIFUNE’S SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY

Snow Trail [Ginrei no hate] (1947) Dir: Senkichi Taniguchi

Jakoman and Tetsu [Jakoman to tetsu] (1949) Dir: Senkichi Taniguchi

The life of Oharu [Saikaku ichidai onna] (1952) Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi

Samurai Trilogy: The Legend of Musashi [Miyamoto Musashi] (1954), Duel at Ichijoji [Zoku Miyamoto Musashi: Ichijoji ketto] (1955), Duel on Ganryu Island [Ketto Ganryujima] (1956) Dir: Hiroshi Inagaki

A wife’s Heart [Tsuma no kokoro] (1956) Dir: Mikio Naruse

The Rikisha Man [Muhomatsu no issho] (1958) Dir: Hiroshi Inagaki

Desperado Outpost [Dokuritsu gurentai] (1959) Dir: Kihachi Okamoto

The Birth of Japan [Nippon Tanjo] (1959) Dir: Hiroshi Inagaki

The Important Man [Kachi aru otoko] (1961) Dir: Ismael Rodriguez

Chushingura (1962) Dir: Hiroshi Inagaki

Samurai Assassin [Samurai] (1965) Dir: Kihachi Okamoto

Fort Graveyard [Chi to suna] (1965) Dir: Kihachi Okamoto

Rebellion [Joi-uchi: Hairyo tsuma shimatsu]

The Emperor and General [Nihon no ichiban nagai hi] (1967) Dir: Kihachi Okamoto

Grand Prix (1967) Dir: John Frankenheimer

A Tunnel to the Sun [Kurobe no taiyo] (1968) Dir: Kei Kumai

Admiral Yamamoto [Rengo kantai shirei chokan: Yamamoto Isoroku] (1968) Dir: Seiji Maruyama

Hell in the Pacific [Taiheiyo no jigoku] (1968) Dir: John Boorman

Samurai Banners [Furin kazan] (1969) Dir: Hiroshi Inagaki

Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo [Zatoichi to Yojinbo] (1970) Dir: Kihachi Okamoto

Red Sun (1971) Dir: Terence Young

Paper Tiger (1976) Dir: Ken Annakin

By the Kamakura City Kawakita Film Museum

Three books that you can buy at the exhibition

In the Akira Kurosawa selection movies published by Kurosawa's daughter we can discover the Japanese & foreign films that the master specially appreciated. The book only exists in Japanese and Chinese languages but it will be nice to get a French version soon because it shows the taste of the master among a huge cinematographic culture that he had. For now, I just wrote down the 20 Japanese movies that he selected in a bilingual form...


Book in Japanese : Akira Kurosawa 100

« Ma petite voisine Yae chan » de Yasujiro Shimazu (1934)「隣りの八重ちゃん」島津保次郎« Le pot de 1 million de ryo » de Sadao Yamanaka (1935)「丹下左膳餘話　百萬兩の壺」山中貞雄

« Capricious young man » de Mansaku Itami (1936) 「赤西蠣太」伊丹万作

« La classe de composition » de Kajiro Yamamoto (1938)　「綴方教室」山本嘉次郎

« La terre » de Tomu Uchida (1939)　「土」内田吐夢

« Les montagnes vertes » de Tadashi Imai (1949)　「青い山脈」今井正

« Printemps tardif » de Yasujiro Ozu (1949)　「晩春」小津安二郎

« Le retour de Carmen » de Keisuke Kinoshita (1951)「カルメン故郷に帰る」木下惠介

« La vie de O-Haru, femme galante » de Kenji Mizoguchi (1952)「西鶴一代女」溝口健二

« Godzilla » de Inoshiro Honda (1954)　「ゴジラ」本多猪四郎

« Nuages flottants » de Mikio Naruse (1955) 「浮雲」成瀬巳喜男。

« Chronique du soleil de Bakumatsu ou Edo Canaille » de Yuzo Kawashima (1957)

「幕末太陽傳」川島雄三

« Tendre et folle adolescence » de Kon Ichikawa (1960)　「おとうと」市川崑

«Bordel n°8 à Sandakan» de Kei kumai (1974) 「サンダカン八番」熊井啓

« Lullaby of the earth » de Yasuzo Masumura (1976) 「大地の子守歌」増村保造

Le 25^ème épisode de la série « Tora san » de Yoji Yamada (1980) 「かなる山の呼び声」山田洋次

« Joyeux Noël, Mr Lawrence » de Nagisa Oshima (1983)

「戦場のメリークリスマス」大島渚

« Mon voisin Totoro » de Hayao Miyazaki (1988)　「となりのトトロ」宮崎駿

« あ・うん » Yasuo Orihata (1989) 降旗康男

« Hanabi » de Takeshi Kitano (1997)　北野武

This French book (on the right) has been published during Kurosawa's 87 story-boards exhibition at the Petit Palais Museum in Paris during October 16th, 2008 to January 11, 2009. The master made drawings to prepare his movies and it is really impressive to see his visuel colorful work and his technic. His drawings concerns here his movies called "Kagemusha", "Ran", "Rêves", "Madadayo" and "Umi wa miteita". In the small book with the red cover up here published by Kadokawa Art Selection 2010 the following movies appear almost the same but in the very small size "Kagemusha", "Ran", "Dreams", "Rhapsody in August", "Madadayo", "The sea watches" and Others. Find here some of his drawings...

Let's come back to Kamakura City ! This special exhibition on Kurosawa and Mifune is also the appropriate time to go on Akira Kurosawa's grave which is not far from Kamakura station. Just look for the Anyoin temple and the small cemetery is just there. Near the temple, there is a florist which sells small bouquets specially for graves. The cemetery is quite small and peacefull surrounded by some houses. It is really an impressive moment specially if you know all the filmography of the master...

Kurosawa's grave.

Toshiro Mifune's grave is in a different city but not to far from Kamakura and Tokyo. From Tokyo City, it is very easy to go to Shunjuen cemetery where stands the great actor's grave. At each entrance of the cemetery, there is a big reception hall where people can help you to find his grave.

Toshiro Mifune's portrait on the right

Toshiro Mifune's grave with two lanterns on both side.

Photos / Copyright Catherine Pulleiro

Buddha Amida (from Meguro area, Tokyo)

“The works of Zao Wou-ki as well as the ceramics and Chinese bronzes from his collection joined the collections of the Musée Cernuschi at the beginning of 2016, according to the wishes of Mrs Françoise Marquet-Zao.

Seventy years earlier, in 1946, the visitors of the first post-war exhibition of contemporary Chinese paintings discovered the work of Zao Wou-ki at the Musée Cernuschi. The works of this 26-years-old painter whose name at the time meant little to anyone where featured among those of Qi Baishi (1864-1957), Zhang Daqian (1899-1983), or Lin Fengmian (1900-1991), who represented the prevailing trends of the time. The link between Zao Wou-ki and the Musée Cernuschi was Vadime Elisseeff, a young curator of the museum who had met Zao Wou-ki in China during the war. Straightaway he intuitively recognized the painter’s immense talent to the point that he had a whole room devoted to his work in the 1946 exhibition. A young unknown artist was welcomed as a master, and Parisian critics were surprised by his work – sometimes comparing it to Dufy’s --, which seemed to be firmly establishing itself on the French scene. Zao Wou-ki was still in China, but his work had already made its way to the Parisian public. He would travel to Paris and settle in Montparnasse two years later.

The donation is comprised of four distinct and significant groups of works, allowing us to understand the specific links between Zao Wou-ki and Paris, even before he embarked for France, but also the importance of his Chinese roots, which expressed themselves in his work and re-emerged at several pivotal moments of his career.

The early works of Zao Wou-ki – portraits reminiscent of Matisse, delicate nudes, ephemeral landscapes, profiles of animals seemingly escaped from a Han tombstone – were created at the end of the 1940s between China and France. They evoke the key moment when Zao Wou-ki’s abstract work was still in gestation.

The second group consists of abstract works in ink created from the 1970s. In actual fact, Zao Wou-ki had to overcome his own resistance before he allowed himself to return to Indian ink, which would occupy a significant place in his work up to his death. The donated works enable us to follow the path of the ink decade by decade and to assess Zao Wou-ki’s constant innovations in this field.

The ceramic works are undoubtedly perfect embodiments of this taste for experimentation that characterized this artist until his final years. From the pieces of the 1950s, whose glaze effects and patterns inspired by archaic writings evoke his contemporary oil paintings, to the larger works of the 2000s, we can implicitly perceive the risks taken by Zao Wou-ki when he ventured on the borders of his own territory.

The last group consists of the bronzes and celadons collected by Zao Wou-ki. These works, evoking several millennia of Chinese history, fit perfectly into the collections of the Musée Cernuschi, which embrace both antiquity and modernity. They allow us to perceive the secret relationship that unites the works of Zao Wou-ki with these objects originating from the highest antiquity.” By the Musée Cernuschi.