settima

Bookadaptation

High Sierra (Raoul Walsh, 1940)

Jan

19

High Sierra (1940)

Roy Earle (Bogart) pensively smoking an after-meal cigarette while Marie Garson (Lupino) looks on. DP: Tony Gaudio.

“Roy, this is the land of milk and honey for the health racket. Every woman in California thinks she's either too fat or too thin or too something.”

– 'Doc' Banton

Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut [A Man Escaped] (Robert Bresson, 1956)

Dec

29

slop

Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (1956)

A man's hand holding a spoon at a perpendicular angle. DP: Léonce-Henri Burel.

“Time to empty our slop pails and run a little water over our faces, then back to our cells for the entire day.”

– Fontaine

剣 ​(小説) [Ken / The Sword] (Kenji Misumi, 1964)

Dec

29

Tick Tock Day

剣 (1964)

One of the kendōka kneeled on the floor in gruelling punishment faces a clock on the wall, while the other students continue their training. DP: Chikashi Makiura.

A clock face for Tick Tock Day, USA.
After World War II, the Japanese martial arts of #kendo was banished by the occupying forces in an attempt to “remove and exclude militaristic and ultra-nationalistic persons from life”. With that in mind, it makes complete sense that nationalist author and former kendo practitioner Yukio Mishima wrote a short story – Sword, originally published in literary magazine Shincho in 1963 – about the art.

– So what is your goal in life then?

– Satisfaction of the present. The sword, and nothing else.

Both the story and Kenji Misumi's 1964 film adaptation follow arrogant kendo student Jiro, played by sublime kabuki actor Raizō Ichikawa who also appears in an earlier Mishima adaptation, 炎上 [Enjō / The Temple of the Golden Pavilion / Conflagration] (1958).

飼育 [Shiiku / The Catch] (Nagisa Ōshima, 1961)

Dec

26

offerings

飼育 (1961)

An altar with two rotund, smiling stone statues – possibly Jizō, a bowl of rice with chopsticks stuck into it, and a Japanese soldier's photograph. The position of the chopsticks tells us that the soldier has died. DP: Yoshitsugu Tonegawa.

Si muero antes de despertar [If I Should Die Before I Wake] (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1952)

Dec

19

National Hard Candy Day

Si muero antes de despertar (1952)

Lucio (Néstor Zavarce) and his new friend sharing one of her fancy 10¢ lollipop​s. DP: Pablo Tabernero.

Eating hard candy on National Hard Candy Day.

 

Lucio is the class clown, a ne'er-do-well relying on his police-dad's rank and classmates' homework. One of these classmates, a smart little girl, promises him fancy lollipops in exchange for protection. And she has a secret for him too, about the origin of the candy, and the nice man giving her those and other nice things. Under oath, she tells Lucio everything and then promptly disappears. With his friend gone, killed as he later finds out, and an oath weighing on his heart, what can Lucio do when another girl goes missing?

“Only a child can kill the monster.”

– narrator

Cornell Woolrich's haunting tales of childhood lost leaped from Ireland to Argentina. With some similarities with Fritz Lang's M (1931), this fairy-tale feels more oppressive; due to the helplessness of a boy's power in an adult world and his understanding of grown-up responsibilities. A restored version in wider circulation is long overdue.

Ánimas Trujano (El hombre importante) [The Important Man] (Ismael Rodríguez, 1961)

Dec

16

Underdog Day

Ánimas Trujano (El hombre importante) (1961)

Now very important Ánimas Trujano [Toshirō Mifune] holding his Juana (Columba Domínguez). DP: Gabriel Figueroa.

An underdog for National Underdog Day. Underdog Ánimas Trujano is dead set on becoming his town's next mayordomio, the wealthy, respected man in charge of funding one of Oaxaca's major religious festivals. He does find a way, a terrible one, and does get the respect and riches he wishes for. But even with all the money and praise in the world, Ánimas' continuous down his well-trodden path of gambling away the riches bestowed, and cheating on his long-suffering wife.

 

It took me a moment to get comfortable with the casting of Japanese movie legend Toshirō Mifune as the titular important man (also see Noé Murayama in Rodríguez's Los hermanos Del Hierro from 1961, but from that moment on, Ánimas Trujano feels as universal as any great cinematic experience should be.

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud [Elevator to the Gallows] (Louis Malle, 1958)

Dec

13

croissants

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958)

Mr Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) taking a bite out of a croissant while dialling a number in a lively French café. A blonde behind him shows an interest. DP: Henri Decaë.

“Have you seen Mr Tavernier tonight?”

楢山節考 [Narayama-bushi kō / The Ballad of Narayama] (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1958)

Dec

11

International Mountain Day

楢山節考 (1958)

Tatsuhei (Teiji Takahashi) with his mother Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka) in a bamboo carrier on his back. She's combing his hair. Around them the mountain range. DP: Hiroshi Kusuda.

Travel mountains on International Mountain Day. A starving community has come to the agreement that the elders approaching the age of seventy are to be carried up Narayama mountain to die. The day prior to the mountain's festival, sixty-nine year old Orin prepares to leave, carried by her son Tatsuhei.

“This winter… I'm going to the mountain. My mother went to the mountain, as did the mother-in-law of our home. So I have to go too.”

– Orin

In Keisuke Kinoshita's highly stylised 楢山節考, the arguably cruel (and most likely fictional) practice – of 姥捨て [ubasute, abandoning an old woman] – is superbly abstracted. Narration, dramatic lighting, colour filters and very obviously a soundstage underline that what we're watching is not a film, but a kabuki play.

Laura (Otto Preminger + Rouben Mamoulian, 1944)

Dec

11

Laura (1944)

Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) interrupts arsine newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (a delicious Clifton Webb) with her designs during his lunch. DPs: Joseph LaShelle & Lucien Ballard.

“I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.”

– Waldo Lydecker

Holubice [The White Dove] (František Vláčil, 1960)

Dec

9

Official Lost And Found Day

Holubice (1960)

Michal (Karel Smyczek) finds the white dove perched on a sculpture. The artwork depicts a faceless boy. DP: Jan Čuřík.

Something is lost and found on Official Lost and Found Day.