Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 07/19/19

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, July 19, 2019

Empire of Passion (Nagisa Oshima, 1978)

Kazuo Yoshiyuki and Tatsuya Fuji in Empire of Passion

Cast: Tatsuya Fuji, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Takahiro Tamura, Takuzo Kawatani, Akiko Koyama, Taiji Tonoyama, Sumie Sasaki, Eizo Kitamura, Masami Hasegawa, Kenzo Kawarasaki. Screenplay: Nagisa Oshima, based on a story by Itoko Nakamura. Cinematography: Yoshio Miyajima. Set decoration: Jusho Toda. Film editing: Keiichi Uraoka. Music: Toru Takemitsu.

A fine, creepy ghost story set in Edo period Japan. A man and woman plot to murder her husband and throw his body in a well. But as their passion cools, they become the subject of gossip and rumor, driving them apart. And then the murdered man's ghost begins appearing and the police decide to investigate. Handled with Oshima's characteristic take on sexual obsession.