The 1960s saw two of the most popular stars of Japanese post-WWII cinema grace movie screens.

Like a strange but wonderful hybrid of Charlie Chaplin, Robert Mitchum, Wallace Beery, and Clint Eastwood, Shintaro Katsu started out at Daiei Studios in the mid-1950s and labored pretty much unrecognized in period action movies and the occasional more serious "arthouse" film until 1962. That was the year he starred as a wandering blind masseur tired of being picked on who learns to wield a sword in Tale of Zatoichi (Zatoichi Monogatari) directed by unsung master Kenji Misumi. It was popular enough to warrant a sequel, and Katsu's real-life brother Tomisaburo Wakayama played Zatoichi's estranged brother and nemesis in the action-packed follow-up, The Tale of Zatoichi Continues (Zoku Zatoichi Monogatari). After that, with the box office breaking records, Daiei developed the character into a series of films. Katsu continued to portray the beloved blind swordsman in 26 movies as well as over 100 episodes on television. His last appearance as the humble, wisecracking anti-hero was in 1989 in Zatoichi (a film Katsu also directed). Katsu also starred in several of nouvelle vague director Yasuzo Masumura's most memorable pictures, including Hoodlum Soldier (Heitai Yakuza) and Yakuza Masterpiece (Yakuza Zessho). In the late 1960s, Katsu formed his own production company, going on to produce most of the later Zatoichi films as well as all six of the Lone Wolf and Cub series (once again starring his brother, Tomisaburo Wakayama).

Now imagine Montgomery Clift as an action star, and you get a faint idea of the image of Katsu's Daiei Studios' colleague, Raizo Ichikawa. Descended from a long line of kabuki performers, he started his movie career around the same time as Katsu in the mid-1950s, making period drama and action films as well as more "serious" pictures for directors like Kenji Mizoguchi (New Tales of the Taira Clan) and Kon Ichikawa (Enjo). But his most famous role remains Kyoshiro Nemuri, a misanthropic, half-breed samurai with God and women issues whose lady-in-waiting mother had been raped by a Portuguese missionary during a Black Mass, thus resulting in his birth. The film series featuring the Nemuri character-known in English-speaking countries as Sleepy Eyes of Death/Son of the Black Mass-grew gradually more existential and macabre as the series progressed, and the Nemuri character had his coldblooded side, conflicted within by both benevolent and misanthropic impulses. Ichikawa also appeared in the loosely linked Sword (Ken) trilogy directed by Kenji Misumi-all of them masterpieces: Destiny's Son (Kiru), Sword (Ken), and Sword Devil (Ken Ki). The second-to-last picture starring Ichikawa, Castle Menagerie (Nemuri Kyoshiro Akujo Gari) was his last appearance as Nemuri. Ichikawa died of cancer in July of 1969 at the age of 37, mere days before the completion of his final movie, Gambler's Life (Bakuto Ichidai). Because of his tragic death at a young age as well as his astounding charisma onscreen, Ichikawa continues to enjoy a burgeoning cult status and has often been described as the Japanese James Dean.

Both actors shared a sublime ability to transcend genre stereotypes, creating action heroes who were wounded, soul-searching individuals. Join us for this retrospective tribute honoring two legends of Japanese cinema!

Featured Works:

Samurai Vendetta: A Chronicle of Pale Cherry Blossoms (Hakuoki, Kazuo Mori, 1959); Scar Yosaburo (Kirare Yosaburo, Daisuke Ito, 1960); Destiny's Son (Kiru, Kenji Misumi, 1962, pictured); New Tale of Zatoichi (Shin Zatoichi monogatari, Tokuzo Tanaka, 1963); Zatoichi On the Road: Fighting Journey (Zatoichi kenka-tabi, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1963); Zatoichi, the Fugitive (Zatoichi kyojo-tabi, Tokuzo Tanaka, 1963); Nemuri Kyoshiro at Bay: The Sword of Seduction (Nemuri Kyoshiro Joyo Ken, Kazuo Ikehiro, 1964); The Lone Stalker (Hitori Okami, Kazuo Ikehiro, 1968); The Devil's Temple (Oni no Sumu Yakata, Kenji Misumi, 1969)

Program information:

The Double-Edged Sword: The Films of Shintaro Katsu & Raizo Ichikawa

For more than four decades, Wiseman has used a lightweight 16mm camera and portable sound equipment to study human behavior in all its contradictory and unpredictable manifestations, particularly in institutional or regimented situations where authority creates an imbalance of power, or where democracy is at work. Like the great novelists of the 19th century, Wiseman combines epic narrative with intimate portraiture. His films comprise a grand panorama of American life (and more recently, the cultural life of Paris)-a kind of modern-day comédie humaine that, quite astonishingly, never loses its vitality or its currency. And though Wiseman approaches his subjects-doctors, ballet dancers, soldiers, students, welfare recipients, factory workers, fashion models, zookeepers, victims of domestic violence, Benedictine monks, the terminally ill-with a minimum of intrusion or influence, he brings a sensitive but trustworthy eye, a lawyer's penetrating skepticism, and the dramatic impulses of a storyteller to arrive at what Eugène Ionesco, one of his favorite playwrights, called an "imaginative truth." All films are directed, edited, and produced by Wiseman and from the U.S.

Featured Works:

To celebrate the recent acquisition of newly struck prints of 36 films by Frederick Wiseman (b. 1930, Boston), the Museum of Modern Art presents a comprehensive retrospective of the director's work. Featuring three to four films each month, this yearlong survey opens with Basic Training (1971, pictured), followed by a conversation with Wiseman and curator Josh Siegel, and spans his entire career, from Titicut Follies (1967) to his two most recent projects, La Danse-The Paris Opera Ballet (2009) and Boxing Gym (2010).  

Program information:

Frederick Wiseman

Jia Zhangke (b. 1970, Fenyang, Shanxi, China) has emerged as the leading figure of the sixth generation of Chinese filmmakers and one of international cinema's most celebrated artists. Merging gritty realism with elegance and originality, he tackles contemporary subject matter in both documentary and fiction projects-and often fuses the two approaches to great effect. In little more than a decade he has created a body of work that reflects the enormous changes of the past fifty years of Chinese society. Much admired by critics and an inspiration to fellow filmmakers, Jia has developed an original, ever-evolving style marked by fluid camera movement and a porous, symbiotic relationship between the real and the imagined. His films-characterized by their plainspoken directness and postmodern aesthetic and peopled with amateurs as well as professional actors-illuminate the transformations taking place in China's environment, architecture, and society by placing everyday people in the midst of a landscape in turmoil. Aiming to restore the concrete memory of place and to evoke individual history in a rapidly modernizing society, the filmmaker recovers the immediate past in order to imagine the future. His films reflect reality truthfully, while simultaneously using fantasy and a distinct aesthetic to pose existential questions about life and status in a society in flux. Through rigorous specificity, his art attains universal scope and appeal.

Featured Works:

Spring in a Small Town (Xiao Cheng Zhi Chun, Fei Mu, 1948); Xiao Shan Going Home (Xiao Shan Hui Jia, Jia Zhangke, 1995); Pickpocket (Xiao Wu, Jia Zhangke, 1997); Platform (Zhan Tai, Jia Zhangke, 2000); In Public (Gong Gong Chang Suo, Jia Zhangke, 2001); The Condition of Dogs (Gou De Zhuang Kuang, Jia Zhangke, 2001); Unknown Pleasures (Ren Xiao Yao, Jia Zhangke, 2002); The World (Shi Jie, Jia Zhangke, 2004, pictured); East (Dong, Jia Zhangke, 2006); Still Life (San Xia Hao Ren, Jia Zhangke, 2006); Useless (Wu Yong, Jia Zhangke, 2007); 24 City (Er Shi Si Cheng Ji, Jia Zhangke, 2008); Black Breakfast (Jia Zhangke, 2008); Cry Me a River (He Shang De Ai Qing, Jia Zhangke, 2008)  

Program information:

Jia Zhangke: A Retrospective

An immensely important development in the history of the documentary film took place here in New York between the years 1931 and 1942. During that period, through the work of a large group of radical filmmakers, the modern documentary was born. In the hands of the members of the Workers Film and Photo League, then Nykino, and later, Frontier Films, the social documentary grew to its first maturity. Among the members of that group of filmmakers, Leo Hurwitz stands out, both for his films and his leadership. His film Native Land, photographed by Paul Strand, is finally being recognized as the crowning work in the early period of the American documentary. Along with other important documentary makers, such as Strand, Willard Van Dyke, Ralph Steiner, Sidney Meyers, and even Elia Kazan, Hurwitz pioneered the creation of a new documentary narrative form. These filmmakers-along with those they trained-prepared the way first for the television documentary and then for the rebirth of American non-fiction filmmaking in the 1960s and 70s. Ironically, due to their left-wing politics and the Red-Scare persecutions of the 1950s, the work of these artists and their important place in film has been virtually written out of most academic histories of the documentary. Centering on the films of Leo Hurwitz, whose work was perhaps the most influential of this group of filmmakers, our retrospective will trace the production of the New York Documentary School from its beginnings in the early 1930s, through the flourishing of the political documentary in the early 1940s. It will continue with Hurwitz's films during the drought of the repressive 1950s, his influence on the beginnings of cinéma vérité, and his profound, masterful, and always original later work.

Featured Works:

A Bronx Morning (Jay Leyda, 1931); The National Hunger March (Leo Hurwitz, 1931); Workers Newsreel Unemployment Special (Leo Hurwitz, 1931); America Today and the World in Review (Leo Hurwitz, 1932-34); Bonus March (Leo Hurwitz, 1932); Detroit Workers News Special (Leo Hurwitz, 1932); Hunger: The National Hunger March to Washington (Leo Hurwitz, 1932); Pie in the Sky (Ralph Steiner, 1935); The Plow That Broke the Plains (Pare Lorentz, 1936); The Wave (Paul Strand & Fred Zinnemann, 1936); China Strikes Back (Harry Dunham, 1937); Heart of Spain (Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand, 1937); People of the Cumberland (Sidney Meyers & Jay Leyda, 1938); The City (Ralph Steiner & Willard Van Dyke, 1939); Valley Town (Willard Van Dyke, 1940); Native Land (Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand, 1942, pictured); The Bridge (Willard Van Dyke & Ben Maddow, 1944); Strange Victory (Leo Hurwitz, 1948); Emergency Ward (Leo Hurwitz & Fons Iannelli, 1952); The Young Fighter (Leo Hurwitz, 1953); Toby and the Tall Corn (Ricky Leacock, 1953); Jazz Dance (Roger Tilton, 1954); The Museum and the Fury (Leo Hurwitz, 1956); Here at the Water's Edge (Leo Hurwitz & Charles Pratt, 1962); An Essay on Death: A Memorial to John F. Kennedy (Leo Hurwitz, 1964); In Search of Hart Crane (Leo Hurwitz, 1966); The Sun and Richard Lippold (Leo Hurwitz, 1966); Journey into a Painting (Leo Hurwitz & Peggy Lawson, 1970); Light and the City (Leo Hurwitz & Peggy Lawson, 1970); The Island (Leo Hurwitz & Peggy Lawson, 1970); Dialogue with a Woman Departed (Leo Hurwitz, 1980)

Program information:

Leo Hurwitz and the New York School of Documentary Film

The prototype for the handsome, brooding leading man later embodied by James Dean and Marlon Brando. Montgomery Clift's sensitive and soulful screen persona redefined masculinity in the 1950s and brought method acting into vogue. Though his tragic career-marked by a disfiguring car accident, struggle with alcoholism, and untimely death at age 45-has become the stuff of Hollywood legend, Clift's stunningly modern, emotionally layered performances only resonate more with time.

Featured Works:

Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948); The Heiress (William Wyler, 1949); The Big Lift (George Seaton, 1950); A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951); From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953); I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953); Lonelyhearts (Vincent J. Donehue, 1958); The Young Lions (Edward Dmytryk, 1958); Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959); Wild River (Elia Kazan, 1960); The Misfits (John Huston, 1961, pictured); Freud (John Huston, 1962)

Program information: 

That's Montgomery Clift, Honey!

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The Exploding Boy by Brynn White posted Mar. 12, 2010

The Orphan Film Symposium will bring together a culturally diverse array of films and artists, professionals, as well as movie lovers of all varieties, from across the globe for its 7th biennial gathering, fittingly titled "Moving Images Around the World." Hosted by New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and its Department of Cinema Studies, the symposium convenes at the newly renovated SVA Theatre at 333 West 23rd Street.

Since its inception at the University of South Carolina in 1999, the Orphan Film Symposium, under the direction of Dan Streible, has become an international summit for those interested in the study, preservation, and exhibition of "orphan films." Narrowly defined, an orphan film is a motion picture abandoned by its owner. More generally, the term refers to all manner of films outside of the commercial mainstream: silent and sponsored films, independent, industrial and avant garde work, home movies, advertisements, and other ephemeral moving images. The films on display are rediscovered gems, orphans that have been adopted and saved from neglect and deterioration.

More than 70 presenters from 16 countries will converge to exhibit 80 works (film, video, and digital) dating from 1894 to 2010. and to address this year's theme of "Moving Images Around the World." Topics to be discussed include: film repatriation; mobility, distribution, and travel; national, regional, local, and transnational cinemas; and neglected archival material that sheds light on international aspects of history and archiving.

Featured Works:

Highlights of "Orphans 7" include:

-Gustav Deutsch's Film ist. a Girl and a Gun (2009), a narrative collage constructed using fragments from several European film archives, as well as the Kinsey Institute

-The premiere of Anthology Film Archives' restoration of the landmark independent documentary The Cry of Jazz (1959), with filmmaker Edward O. Bland

-With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain (1938), the first film by noted photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, presumed lost until recently rediscovered in NYU's Tamiment Library

-From Argentina, film archivist-curators Paula Félix-Didier and Fernando Peña (discoverers of the complete 1927 version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis) unveil previously unseen cinema from the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires

-The premiere of Andy Warhol's Uptight #3-David Susskind (1966), newly preserved by the Museum of Modern Art and the Warhol Museum

-The premiere of a never-released film, The Velvet Underground Rehearses (1965), shot by Danny Williams, a member of Warhol's Factory, shortly before his mysterious disappearance at age 27

-Orson Welles' Sketch Book (1955), a rare program made for British television and housed at the Munich Film Museum

-This year's Helen Hill Award-named in honor of the late animator and Orphan Film Symposium supporter-goes to two independent filmmakers, Danielle Ash and Jodie Mack. Both will present recent works, selected because they uphold the spirit and tradition of Hill's own hand-made films.  

Program information:

Orphan Film Symposium