Lost In Translation

Americanah

Americanah (2014) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an interesting and unusual novel in the worlds that she inhibits and exposes over time. It is essentially the story of Ifemelu, a Nigerian woman who emigrates to America for the opportunities that it holds for immigrants like herself. Her story is one of struggle that is punctuated by good fortune and triumph. In the beginning she struggles to adapt and survive in America, but some lucky breaks make her transition much easier. Through a babysitting job she lands a handsome rich, powerful and well-connected white boyfriend who helps her get a job and green card after when graduates. Later she starts a blog on race where she makes pity observations about race from the outside since she is a non American black, which gives her a different perspective on American society in that she didn't know she was black until she came to America. This blog's success leads to further success in a visiting scholar post at Princeton, where she dates an African American professor and experiences the Barak Obama election and partakes in that triumph of the first black American president. It is also a love story, she essentially breaks with her high school sweetheart  Obinze, when she emigrates. Obinze also has emigration aspirations and gets his chance when his mother gets a post teaching in the UK. His experience as a immigrant in London is much harsher and ends with deportation. However, once he returns to Nigeria he finds success as a businessman and his path once again crosses path with Ifemelu when decides to repatriate to Lagos bringing the story full circle. I would have liked to have learned more about the life under the dictatorships in Nigeria during the 60s and 70s. Thus, Aunty Utuy's story as a mistress of a military general was one of the more interesting side stories in the novel for me. I found the stories of Nigerians abroad and in their home fascinating, a rare opportunity to see the world through their eyes. That being said, some aspects of the story seemed terribly contrived-the rich American boyfriend and the blog was a good opportunity for the author to voice her opinions on race in America.

The Leopard

The Leopard (1963) is another historical epic on a grand style that recalls director Luchino Visconti's earlier epic film, Senso. I am fascinated by this period where Italy was united with help from the guerrilla leader Garabaldi who helped forge states in South America as well. I would like to read more about this revolutionary character in the future. It is essentially the story of the Prince of Salina (Burt Lancaster), a noble aristocrat of impeccable integrity, tries to preserve his family and class amid the tumultuous social upheavals of 1860's Sicily. There is a sub plot that involves a love affair between the Prince's nephew (Alan Delon) and the daughter of a up and coming land owner (Caludia Cardinale). There are elegant scenes in the aristocratic house and a spectacular social dance that closes out the film. But in between there are extraordinary location shots of Sicily's devastatingly beautiful scenery. The Criterion edition includes: the 161-minute American release, with English-language dialogue, audio commentary by film scholar Peter Cowie, A Dying Breed: The Making of The Leopard, an hour-long documentary, a video interview with producer Goffredo Lombardo, a video interview with professor Millicent Marcus on the history, original theatrical trailers and newsreels, stills gallery of rare behind-the-scenes production photos, and a booklet featuring an essay by film historian Michael Wood.

Shohei Imamura

 

Shohei Imamura (1997), is a book of essays about the celebrated Japanese film maker that was edited by James Quant was designed to accompany a traveling retrospective of the films of the director in Canada and America in 1997-1998. It was organized by Cinematheque Ontario (Toronto) and the Audio-Visual Department of The Japan Foundation (Tokyo). This retrospective was due to Imamura winning a second Plame d'Or at the 1997 Cannes International Film Festival for The Eel, his second (the first was in 1983 for The Ballad of Narayama) one of only three directors to accomplish such a feat-as pointed out in Quandt's Introduction.

This collection contains several essays by critics, an interview with Imamura, as well as translations of writing by Imamura. Most of these writings were collected from other sources so there is some repetition of analysis and summary of Imamura's films as well as commentary about his inspiration and methods as a director. However, there are many insightful comments and discussions of his films. One of the best pieces in the collection is Donald Richie's essay, "Notes for a Study on Shohei Imamura" from Richie's 1995 collection, Partial Views: Essays on Contemporary Japan. Richie makes an interesting point by stating that though Imamura's and Ozu's style and technique differ, they both have a concern for the natural and real as well as an obsession about the concept of being Japanese. Max Tessier's essay, "Shohei Imamura: Modern Japan's Entomologist," felt a bit repetitive after Richie's essay, but included commentary on The Ballad of Narayama, that was not included in Richie's essay. Again, there was repetition in Dave Kehr's essay, "The Last Rising Sun" from Film Comment in 1983, which looks at the career of Imamura up to his Cannes victory. Allan Casebier's essay "Images of Irrationality in Modern Japan: The Films of Shohei Imamura" is another look at Imamura's career from Film Criticism in 1983. Thus more recaps of films like the previous essays. However, there is an insightful section in the essay where he discusses the concept of "yugen" (the presence of of mystery and incomprehensibility in all things) in Japanese culture. Thus, he uses this concept to explore the films of Imamura. This is followed by a translated entry, "Shohei Imamura:Human, All Too Human" by Gilles Laprevotte from Amiens International Film Festival Catalogue 1996. This is notable because it makes reference to  some of his later works such as Zegen (1987) and Black Rain (1989). One of the most enlightening entries in this collection is the interview between film maker Toichi Nakata and Imamura, in which the younger director's mentor talks about his past, films, and film school in detail. This is followed by a brief essay written by Imamura after hsi third film called "My Approach to Filmmaking," which underlines his interest in portraying people on the screen. Imamura then writes about his influences in the short piece "Traditions and Influences." Imamura explores the influence of his second mentor, after Ozu, Yuzo Kawashima in "The Sun Legend of a Country Boy." There is more about Kawashima in Imamura's short essay "My Teacher." Audie Bock, one of the trailblazing English historians of Japanese cinema, has written a short piece that places Iamaura in the context of the Japanese cinema written specifically for this collection, "Shohei Imaura: No Confucianist." Antoine de Baecque contributes a review of Profound Desire of the Gods with "Murder of the Pink Pig." While Yann Lardeau writes about The Ballad of Narayama in his piece "Ascent to the Beyond: The Ballad of Narayama." There is more on this film in Charles Tesson's essay "Pigs and Gods." The final essay was one of the more interesting for me, Linda C. Ehrlich's "Erasing and Refocusing: Two Films of the Occupation." In this essay, Ehrlich compares and contrasts Imamura's Pigs and Battleships with Masahiro Shinoda's 1984 MacArthur's Children, a film I have yet to see.  Despite the repetition throughout the collection, it is an invaluable document since there is precious little written in English about the films of one of Japan's giants of cinema.  

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie

John Cassvetes' film The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) is an atypical film from the director for a number of reasons. The main reasons being that it has significantly less dialogue than his typical films and that it has a standard film genre plot; it is essentially a hard boiled crime film. The owner of a strip club in L.A., Cosmo Vitelli (played by Ben Gazzara in a standout performance), finds himself in trouble when he loses $25,000 gambling at poker. Vitelli is basically a decent, above board guy who takes pride in his business and tries to treat people properly, but is now at the mercy of gangsters who want him to do a job for them and they will forgive the debt-they want him to kill a rival. Vitelli is told that this is a low level guy in the rival gang, but it turns out to be the boss, and they try to double cross him and knock him off as well. However, throughout the film there are long scenes of acts at the club moderated by the less than talented "Mr. Sophistication." The story is a sort of allegory of Cassavetes' dealings with Hollywood where money spoils everything. The original release was poorly reviewed and pulled from the theaters and re-cut by Cassavetes and the result was a film that was 30 minutes shorter. It seems to me to be one of Cassavetes most accessible and least accessible films at the same time. It is one of two films, the other being Faces, that I saw before seeing the films in the box set, but I have little memory of the film beyond the hit. The Criterion extras include: video interviews with star Ben Gazzara and producer Al Ruban, an audio interview with Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson, conducted after the film’s release, stills gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production photos, and an essay by Phillip Lopate.

Life Itself

Roger Ebert, through his show At The Movies, was an early influence on my taste in watching movies. Through his show with Gene Siskel I was introduced to a number of films that probably would have escaped me as I didn't regularly read movies reviews as a grade school student. I suspect that his reviews of foreign films and documentaries were especially influential on my film viewing. Later I would read his movie guide books and probably 80% of the time we had the same opinions of a film. Thus as a fan, I was really looking forward to learning more about him from the documentary, Life Itself (2014), directed by Steve James, whose documentary Hoop Dreams was championed by Ebert. I suppose I ought to read his book as well. This was a very enjoyable and moving tribute to a man not without flaws, but who was known for being generous as well. (One story not included in the film relates to a nine year old Dana Stevens, who is now a film critic at Slate.com, asking for advice on how to become a film critic-he answered her letter and gave her advice). He had something of a renaissance once he got cancer. His activity on the internet increased as he sought solace in work. The fact that he died during the filming of this documentary added an element of melodrama to the film, but it chronicled his life well. I didn't realize how influential he was to Martin Scorsese one of the film directors he championed and I was amused to see the behind-the-scenes shenanigans with Siskel. Even more surprising was that Siskel at one time was a member of Hugh Hefner's entourage! An entertaining and fitting tribute to one of the most influential film critics of all-time.

The Occupation Years: Cinema, Democracy, And Japanese Kitsch, 1945-1952

Chapter Four of Catherine Russell's book, The Cinema of Naruse Mikio (2008), is called "The Occupation Years: Cinema, Democracy, And Japanese Kitsch, 1945-1952." This period is known to be his weakest partly because he did not work with the best actresses or writers until 1951. Then he directed Kinuyo Tanaka in Ginza Cosmetics, Mieko Takamine in Dancing Girl and Setsuko Hara in Repast. In 1951 and 1952 he adapted works by Yasuanri Kawabata, Junichiro Tanizaki, and Fumiko Hayashi. The films of this era were: A Descendant of Taro Urashima (1946), Both You And I (1946), Spring Awakens (1947), Even Parting Is Enjoyable (1947), Professor Ishinaka (1949), The Angry Street (1949), White Beast (1949), The Battle of Roses (1949), Ginza Cosmetics (1951), Dancing Girl (1951), Repast (1951), and Okuni and Gohei (1952). These thirteen films made during the American occupation included an eclectic array of styles and genres from "Democracy pictures" to literary adaptations, gave insight into occupation culture, and he frequently worked against genre conventions. Many critics who felt that Naruse had a slump through the 40s saw the female prison film, White Beast, to be the lowest point. It is interesting to note that the last film of this period was a historical film, that Rusell suspects may have been inspired by Kurosawa's success at the Venice Film Festival in 1951 with Rashomon. And it was also interesting that Russell drew a comparison between Naruse and Italian director Roberto Rosellini (of which I have seen a few films) as both the directors had a focus on female protagonists and developed some strong women characters in the postwar era. Despite the critical consensus that this period was a slump, Russell points out that Naruse was working through fundamental issues of visual representation that any cultural renewal demands. Of the thirteen films made during this period, I was only able to view two: Dancing Girl and Repast.

Dancing Girl (1951) is an adaptation of a Kawabata short story that Naruse deploys some of the melodramatic devices he used during the 30s and as Russell points out, it can be seen as a transitional film. His adaptation of Kawabata's A Sound From The Mountain would be widely celebrated as a more effective adaptation. It is set in Kamakura from a script by screenwriter/director Kaneto Shindo and suffers from multiple characters and story lines and the main plot line of a disintegrating marriage gets buried. Russell cites this film as an example of kitsch through the decadence of the fashion and architecture in the film, which was one of themes of this chapter. There was an emphasis on the curse of freedom, which can be seen in the adultery taking place among other references throughout the film. Repast / Meishi (1951) was Naruse's first adaptation of a Fumiko Hayashi novel (of which he would go onto to adapt several more of her works), which features a strong female protagonist played by Setsuko Hara as the housewife Michiyo. The film version was made the same year that Hayashi died and was based on a serialized story that she left incomplete. Russell's reading of the film differs slightly from my own, she sees Michiyo's return to the humdrum life as a housewife motivated only by a lack of options available. Apparently the original screenwriter thought the film should end with a divorce, but it seems that the studio vetoed this decision and had her return to her marriage. My own perspective of the film saw Ken Uehara, as a clueless but not evil person-he tries to get her join him and the niece on excursions-they have no kids, so the over abundance of housework for two people seems overdone. Perhaps, I missed references to his philandering, but I don't remember any of these. My impression was that of two people having a misunderstanding or different expectations of what married life should entail. I wasn't particularly sympathetic to the heroine of A Woman Ascends the Stairs though, either. There were some interesting critical notes on the film, one of which discusses the differences between this film and Ozu's Early Summer (1951). It is suggested that Ozu's world is closed, while Naruse's world is open. That is Naruse is concerned with contemporary life, whereas Ozu is preoccupied with the feelings of the older generation. Russell points out that the final reconciliation is similar to that of Rosselini's deus ex machina from Voyage to Italy, where the lead couple, on the verge of a divorce, are swept together into a Saint's Day parade and reunite. There is a similar scene with the couple in Repast, where they are swamped by a crowd of street musicians, but their reconciliation is less miraculous and more rooted in the realities of postwar Japan.

Eishin

Eishin in Azabu Juban is another great tan tan men recommendation from Brutus! magazine. It wasn't cheap at ¥1350, but quite filling-the portions are huge. As you can see lots of good stuff in there.

The Shochu Handbook

A friend introduced me to Christopher Pellegrini's informative Shochu Handbook via a Kickstarter campaign that I am proud to say I contributed to. I have been a fan of shochu for some time, but I have been woefully uniformed about it, so the timing seemed right for an English language book about it. In fact Pellegrini points out that shochu eclipsed nihonshu sales during the third "shochu boom" in 2003 and the gap has continued to grow since then; in 2009 one million kiloliters of shochu was shipped while only 634,000 by nihonshu brewers. In the preface, the readers learns about Pellegrini's love of shochu, which resulted in becoming one of the few non Japanese shochu sommelier certificate holders from the Sake Service Institute. The introduction points out the chapters that may of the most interest to readers who can sample shochu in Japan and those who live outside. Chapter One, answers "What is shochu?" and Pellegrini explains how shochu differs from nihonshu (distilled vs. brewed). This is followed by "How is honkaku shochu unique?" (Chapter Two), where he compares shochu to different types of clear alcohol like vodka, soju (Korean liquor), Awamori (Okinawa alcohol), and rum. Chapter Three explains "How is shochu made?" I was surprised to learn in Chapter Four, "Types of shochu," to learn that there are more than 50 types of ingredients, but Pellegrini focuses on the most popular: potato, barely, rice, brown sugar, and buckwheat. I personally found Chapter Five "Reading the label," very useful. In addition, I wasn't aware of the different ways that shochu is served (Chapter Six "How to serve shochu"). There were lots of good suggestions Chapter Seven "Shochu pairing and sharing" and Chapter Eight "Recommended shochu." Chapter Nine "Shochu recipes" seems to be directed toward overseas establishments and Chapter Ten "Basic Japanese for shochu drinkers" would be useful for visitors to Japan. There are artistic photo illustrations throughout as well. The handbook also includes a glossary, further reading, and author biography. This is an extremely useful book that I will be coming back to for reference in the future.

Rocco And His Brothers

Rocco And His Brothers (1960) is one of Luchino Visconti's masterpieces. It tells the tale of a mother and five brothers who move from Sicily to Milan to live a more prosperous life in the big city. It is reminiscent of Dostoyvesky's The Brother Karamazov in scope and theme. It starts out in neo-realistic style that was Visconti's original hallmark when the family crashes the oldest brother Vincenzo's (Spiro Focas) engagement party at his fiance (Claudiet Cardinale) house and the mothers fight. The family struggles to find lodging and work. At this time they meet the young prostitute Nadia (Annie Girardot) their first lodging and Simone (Renato Salvatori) and Rocco (Alan Delon) both are smitten with her. Simone has an affair with her in which he starts to steal to impress her as he tries his hand at boxing. Later the family become established when they are evicted from their apartment and are given state housing. Rocco joins his brother in the gym while working. Simone has some success and Rocco joins the navy and while returning he meets nadia and they begin an affair. It is an epic family drama, later when Simone finds out he lashes out almost destroying the family. It is an impressive film that brought much fame and attention to Delon in the role of Rocco.

Shochu Tasting

Last night I attended a shochu (an increasingly popular Japanese liqour) tasting at Koan Tokyo in Shinjuku hosted by Christopher Pellegrini. I contributed to his Kickstarter project for his English language book, The Shochu Handbook, which I received a free copy of for my support of his project. (I have started reading it and have gotten four chapters into it-there are 10-and have found it to be very informative). I have had an interest in shochu for several years and enjoy visiting Kyushu, which is the main region for production of shochu. Christopher started by having us do a blind tasting of two types of shochu and take notes. He then did a reveal and talked about the two types of shochu: A:Tomi no houzan (imo [sweet potato])  and B: Hakuten houzan (a different variety of imo shochu from the same company). After that there was a trivia contest where he gave out some prizes for answering shochu-related questions.