The golden age of Japanese cinema shines at the PFA Theater this summer as we offer a thematic series spotlighting great screen performances. Launched in June, Japanese Divas continues through August 20: ten weeks to enjoy stellar performances by Setsuko Hara, Machiko Kyo, Hideko Takamine, Kinuyo Tanaka, Ayako Wakao, and Isuzu Yamada.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, lead actresses in Japanese films became icons, rising to stardom on the international stage and captivating viewers with their powerful range of emotional expression. The second part of this series begins with Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, starring Machiko Kyo in the performance that made her the most famous Japanese actress in the West, and Kenji Mizoguchi's masterful Sansho the Bailiff with Kinuyo Tanaka in an indelible role as the mother. Hideko Takamine's versatility is displayed in the characters she portrays in Keisuke Kinoshita's films: the endearing schoolteacher in Twenty-Four Eyes; a stripper in the comic Carmen Comes Home, shown twice in a 35mm print imported from Tokyo; and the sharecropper's daughter in the melodramatic saga Immortal Love, shot in ‘Scope. Takamine also plays the heroine in Mikio Naruse's elegant drama When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, a must-see.
BAM/PFA patrons will have a chance to enjoy a strong sampling of Yasujiro Ozu's films this summer, including early productions starring Kinuyo Tanaka such as the Depression-era Woman of Tokyo, a silent film presented with piano accompaniment by Judith Rosenberg, paired with the tragic A Hen in the Wind. Tanaka also stars in Ozu's masterful late-period color film, Equinox Flower. Ozu's work with the radiant Setsuko Hara is showcased in his remarkable family dramas, Late Spring, Early Summer, and Late Autumn, all three highly rewarding films that convey simple yet profoundly moving stories about the cycles of life.
Hiroshi Teshigahara's existential thriller The Face of Another, starring Machiko Kyo, and two key works by cult director Yasuzo Masumura, A Wife Confesses and Seisaku's Wife, both shot in ‘Scope format and starring Ayako Wakao, bring this series into the sixties.
View the original U.S. press kit for Street of Shame from our Cinefiles document database.