The Eclipse Viewer – Episode 47 – Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women [Part 1]

David and Scott talk about Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion, two contemporary films from prewar Japan.

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David is joined by Scott Nye to discuss Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women. (Trevor was unable to join in this discussion, but will be back for Part 2 of this series.)

About the films:

Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of social consciousness—two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame)—Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are forced by their conditions and culture into compromising positions. With Mizoguchi’s visual daring and eloquence, these films are as cinematically thrilling as they are politically rousing.

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Criterion Explore
Better Than Ozu and Kurosawa (Richard Brody)
Senses of Cinema
Film Directors Site
CineCollage
Excerpt from “Patterns of Time: Mizoguchi in the 1930s” (Google Books – includes chapter length essays on Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum)

Box Set Reviews

Criterion Confessions
DVD Savant
DVD Talk
New York Times
Slant

Osaka Elegy

David’s Journey Through the Eclipse Series review
CineWiki
The Film Sufi
Heroic Cinema
Senses of Cinema
TCM

Sisters of the Gion

David’s Journey Through the Eclipse Series review
Alex’s East Asian Studies
Alt Film Guide
Audiences Everywhere
The Film Sufi
Not Just Movies
Static Mass Emporium

Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women [Part 2]

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Email: theeclipseviewer (at) gmail.com
David Blakeslee ( Twitter / Website )
Trevor Berrett ( Twitter / Website )
Scott Nye ( Twitter / Website )