Catalogo 1999 - Cineteca di Bologna

political opinion, and producers and audiences easily understood each other in the
fictional transpositions of historical plays and films. (The main weakness of
censorship is that it does not understand anything about fiction and its protean
nature.) When in 1927 the noble folk hero of Chuji tabi nikki was hunted by the state
through a series of three films and finally arrested, a betrayed, ill and silenced man,
the Japanese public of the period not only saw a thrilling genre film, but also read it
directly as a portrait of contemporary politics. The “Laws for Maintaining the
Peace,” introduced in 1925 as the basis for criminalizing the left, were already taking
effect, resulting in waves of arrests, the banning of political parties, trials and
political murders and, finally, the military coup in Manchuria. And that is what the
jidaigeki of those years - the pessimistic ones by Ito Daisuke, Makino Masahiro and
Yamanaka Sadao, and the satirical ones by Itami Mansaku - were about.(...)
Of the trilogy one scene of part two and about haif of part three have been recovered. The overall
structure of the trilogy - described by critics of the period as a succession of dominant moods, from the
“freshness” of the opening installment to the intense “sentiment” of the second part and the “gloomy
nihilism” of the finale - has certainly been lost. But the surviving material contains, in microcosm, a
comparable modulation of mood and, along with it, Chuji’s utter decline from an invincible athletic
hero (cf the comedically-structured scene with the local yakuza boss) to a mute, paralysed body on a
stretcher. The overall weave of graphic and thematic motifs has been lost, but remaining traces (such
as the circle motif of the giant brewery tubs and the children’s ring games) testify to the filmmaker’s
visual sense and creative power. Also lost are most of the formally extravagant passages (the critics
mention accelerated montage sequences or virtuoso camera movements, and Ito Daisuke was
nicknamed “Ido Daisuki,” or “big fan of camera movement”) but the surviving material contains many
instances of perfect filmmaking flair.
(Mariann Lewinsky, “On the Fragment of Chuji Tabi Nikki”, Cinegrafie, 12, 1999)
Cinema Lumière
ore 11.00
Quarant’anni di Cinema Libero: Programma dell’Academy Film Archive / Forty years of free
cinema: Program of the Academy Film Archive
ALLEGRETTO (USA, 1936). R.: Oskar Fischinger. 35mm D.: 2’45’’
MOTION PAINTING No.1 (USA, 1947). R.: Oskar Fischinger. 35mm D.: 11’
FIVE FILM EXERCISES - EXERCISE #4 (USA, 1944). R.: John e James Whitney. 16mm D.: 6’
HOT HOUSE R.: John Whitney. 16mm D.: 3’
CELERY STALKS AT MIDNIGHT R.: John Whitney. D.: 16mm 5’
FIREWORKS (USA, 1947) R.: Kenneth Anger, Curtis Harrigton 16mm
SCORPIO RISING (USA, 1963) R.: Kenneth Anger 16mm
PUCE MOMENT (USA, 1949) R.: Kenneth Anger 16mm
EAUX D’ARTIFICE (USA) R.: Kenneth Anger. 16mm
Alla presenza di Kenneth Anger / With special guest Kenneth Anger
ore 16.00