A Page of Madness
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A Page of Madness
Plot
This virtuoso Japanese silent film, made in 1926, was re-released in 1973. It uses no title-boards, so the story is uninterrupted -- an unusual technique in the silent era. Indeed, except for the absence of dialogue, reviewers agree that this classic movie has a very modern look and "feel." The Seaman (Masao Inoue) works as a volunteer at the mental institution where his wife (Yoshie Nakagawa) is locked up. She was placed there after she had some sort of fit and tried to drown their infant son. The story of their family life, and of this incident, is told in flashbacks. He hopes that by working at the institute, he will have some opportunity to reawaken her to the present and take her away. ~ Clarke Fountain, RoviReview
Written by future Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata and directed by master filmmaker Teinosuke Kinugasa, Page of Madness is a landmark of world cinema. Not only is Page the first mature Japanese experiment film, making deft use of such cinematic devices as flashbacks, double exposure, and rapid camera movement, but it also synthesizes a number of stylistic trends seen in European avant-garde cinema. The film's eerie, painted sets and stark lighting create an exterior manifestation of the patient's interior turmoil, recalling Robert Weine's expressionistic masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1913). The film's crisp, elliptical editing is reminiscent of Sergei Eisenstein's use of montage in such classics as Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1927). As Donald Richie has noted, Page of Madness creates an impression of an insane asylum much as Eisenstein paints an impression of a massacre in Battleship Potemkin's famous Odessa steps sequence. All of these stylistic innovations merge to form a striking exploration of the nature of madness. This masterpiece was long thought lost, until the early 1970s, when the director found a print in his garden storeroom. ~ Jonathan Crow, RoviCast
- Masao Inoue - Custodian
- Yoshi Nakagawa - Custodian's Wife
- Ayako Iijima - Custodian's Daughter
Credit
Teinosuke Kinugasa - Director, Eiji Tsuburaya - Cinematographer, Kohei Sugiyama - Cinematographer, Teinosuke Kinugasa - Producer, Teinosuke Kinugasa - Screenwriter, Yasunari Kawabata - Screenwriter| A Nymph of the Foothills (1918 Film), A Nyaralo (1992 Film) | |
| A Pain In the Ass (2008 Film), A Pain Management (1999 Film) |
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A Page of Madness
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A Page of Madness
| A Page of Madness | |
|---|---|
 Movie Poster |
|
| Directed by | Teinosuke Kinugasa |
| Written by | Teinosuke Kinugasa Yasunari Kawabata Banko Sawada Minoru Inuzuka |
| Starring | Masao Inoue Yoshie Nakagawa |
| Release date(s) | September 24, 1926 |
| Running time | 60 min. |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Silent film Japanese titles |
A Page of Madness (狂った一頁 Kurutta Ippēji or Kurutta Ichipeiji) is a silent film by Japanese film director Teinosuke Kinugasa, made in 1926. It was lost for forty-five years until being rediscovered by Kinugasa in his storehouse in 1971. The film is the product of an avant garde group of artists in Japan known as the Shinkankaku-ha (or School of New Perceptions) who tried to overcome naturalistic representation. Yasunari Kawabata, who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, was credited on the film with the original story. He is often cited as the film's screenwriter, and a version of the scenario is printed in his complete works, but the scenario is now considered a collaboration between Kawabata, Kinugasa, Banko Sawada, and Minoru Inuzuka.
The film takes place in an asylum. Although cut together in an ever maddening maelstrom, the film loosely tells the story of the janitor of the asylum. His wife is one of the patients. One day their daughter shows up at the asylum to tell her mother about her engagement. This sets off a number of subplots and flashbacks which stitch together the family history (for instance, why the mother is a patient and why the daughter is unaware of her father's job as a janitor).
The film does not contain intertitles, making it difficult to follow for audiences today. The print existing today is missing nearly a third of what was shown in theaters in 1926. Showings in 1920s Japan would have included live narration by a storyteller or benshi (弁士) as well as musical accompaniment. The famous benshi Musei Tokugawa narrated the film at the Musashinokan theater in Shinjuku in Tokyo.
References
- Gardner, William O. (Spring 2004). "New Perceptions: Kinugasa Teinosuke's Films and Japanese Modernism". Cinema Journal 43 (3): 59–78.
- Gerow, Aaron (2008). A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. ISBN 978-1-929280-51-3.
- Lewinsky, Mariann (1997). Eine Verrückte Seite: Stummfilm und filmische Avantgarde in Japan. Chronos. ISBN 3-905312-28-X.
See also
External links
- BBC review feature
- Sharp, Jasper (2002-03-07). "A Page of Madness". www.midnighteye.com. http://www.midnighteye.com/features/silentfilm_pt1.shtml. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
- A Page of Madness at the Internet Movie Database
- A Page of Madness at SilentEra
- A Page of Madness at AllRovi
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