REFLECTIONS ON FILM CULTURE

DAILY | Kazuhiko Hasegawa, Criterion Lists, and More


The Youth Killer

Cover of the Art Theatre Guild pamphlet for Kazuhiko Hasegawa’s ‘The Youth Killer’ (1976)

Eigagogo introduces an interview: “It is no surprise that the films associated with Kazuhiko Hasegawa are as uncompromising as the man himself. His rookie years in the film industry found him experiencing two very different film worlds. First, he cut his teeth as an assistant director under the steady hand of Shohei Imamura. Later, he would write and/or AD some of the more unique films for Nikkatsu as their Roman Porno films were artistically and monetarily climaxing. With a firm footing, Hasegawa would hold the reins like a pro for the only two feature films he would helm as director: The Youth Killer and The Man Who Stole the Sun. These two films wildly different on the surface, make a multitude of similar comments about authority, loneliness, and the nature of family. In the ’80s, fed up with the studio system, Hasegawa gathered a dream team of directors to start the Director’s Company. They would make films on their terms for the next ten years. Films considered to be some of the best of the decade.”

For more Art Theatre Guild pamphlets, by the way, see Nihon Cine Art.

In other news. Movie databases and booksellers have been allowing users, fans and customers to create lists for years, but when Criterion adds the feature, well, that’s noteworthy. And when they launch that feature with David Bordwell‘s annotated list of films made by directors who were under 30 at the time? That’s news.

Glenn Kenny‘s not only given us a taste from the essay he’s contributed to the new volume on Olivier Assayas edited by Kent Jones, he’s also first guest on the new podcast, The Cinephiliacs.

Reading. Ehsan Khoshbakht in MUBI’s Notebook on Le ciel est à vous (The Sky Is Yours, 1943): “A well-respected director from the days of silent cinema, [Jean] Grémillon made this beautiful and deceptively simple story of struggle and family values to address what was happening in France. Grémillon’s message of resistance was hidden so deep that it even fooled the censors in Vichy, where the film was praised for its return-to-French-principles that the collaborationist regime was propagandizing. Paradoxically, the same director was also hailed, for the very same film, as a hero in Résistance publications, and the underground film journal, L’Écran français, described the film as a picture of ‘the true French of today.'”

New York. Christian Marclay’s The Clock, currently playing at the Lincoln Center Festival, “stops time by surrendering completely and obsessively to its imperatives,” writes A.O. Scott in the New York Times. “Many of the people on screen are ghosts, rendered immortal—or at least undead—by the machinery of illusion. It is hard to walk out of Mr. Marclay’s loop because inside it you are protected from the dreadful inevitability of endings.”

In the works. Johnny Depp will star in Wes Anderson’s next film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, reports Deadline‘s Mike Fleming.

“Principal photography has wrapped on Bong Joon-ho’s upcoming sci-fi spectacle Snow Piercer.” At Twitch, Pierce Conran has details on the film starring Song Kang-ho, John Hurt, and Tildo Swinton and produced by Park Chan-wook.

Not only are Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy “locked in” as a couple whose marriage is on the rocks in Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, but Isabelle Huppert, Viola Davis, William Hurt, Ciarin Hinds, Bill Hader, Jess Weixler, and Nina Arianda have joined the cast, reports Charlie Schmidlin at the Playlist. Arianda, by the way, has also been cast as Janis Joplin in Sean Durkin’s forthcoming biopic.

The Silent History is a fascinating new publishing project that merges app distribution with geolocational storytelling,” writes Filmmaker‘s Scott Macaulay. “Launched by former McSweeney’s publisher Eli Horowitz and colleagues, the project will launch next month, downloading stories to readers’ iOS devices and then coaxing them out into the streets of nearly 400 cities for more. Here is the trailer featuring the voices of Miranda July and Ira Glass.”

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