STRANICA LUDILA | KURUTTA ICHIPEIJI 狂った一頁 | A PAGE OF MADNESS
Teinosuke Kinugasa
STRANICA LUDILA | KURUTTA ICHIPEIJI 狂った一頁 | A PAGE OF MADNESS
Teinosuke Kinugasa
Pripovijest | Original Story: Yasunari Kawabata
Scenaristi | Screenwriters: Yasunari Kawabata, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Minoru Inuzaka, Bankô Sawada
Snimatelj | Cinematographer: Kohei Sugiyama
Glume | Cast: Masao Inoue (domar | janitor), Yoshie Nakagawa (supruga | wife), Ayako Iijima (kći | daughter), Eiko Minami (plesačica | dancer), Misao Seki (liječnik | doctor)
Produkcija | Production: Kinugasa Eiga Renmei, Shochiku Shimokama
Benshi: Ichiro Kataoka
Pijanistica | Pianist: Makia Matsumura
Bivši mornar radi kao domar u utočištu za mentalno oboljele kako bi bio u blizini svoje supruge, koja je pokušala utopiti njihovu bebu i spriječiti vjenčanje kćeri. U posjet mu dolazi kći, koja se upravo zaručila. Domar na festivalu kupuje srećku i osvaja prvu nagradu – ormar koji nosi na leđima kao vjenčani dar, ali i dodatnu nagradu, haljinu koju daruje plesačici u utočištu. Njegov posljednji smijeh otkriva da je srećka bila samo san.
24. rujna 1926. u Tokiju premijerno je prikazana Stranica ludila, trideset i peti film Teinosuke Kinugase, negdašnjeg specijaliste za ženske uloge u shinpa melodramama, takozvanog onnagate ili oyame. Manifestni film japanske povijesne avangarde povezan je s estetikom književne škole Novih percepcionista / Novih senzacionalista shinkankaku-ha, koja je istraživala figure prikaza osjetilnih iskustva, a po scenariju vodećeg pisca pokreta Yasunarija Kawabate. Pravi film kolektiva, sniman je nezavisnoj Kinugasinoj produkciji s pedesetak entuzijastičnih suradnika koji su spavali na setu i radili bez honorara, među njima i ugledni glumac Masao Inoue. Ovom čistom filmu bez međunaslova, podršku je pružio svojom izvedbom i slavni benshi Musei Tokugawa. Film je sniman je u Shochiku studiju Shimokama sa samo osam reflektora, a za dodatno svjetlo zidove su obojali srebrnom bojom. Jedina sačuvana verzija filma dodatno je naglasila strukturu uronjenu u slike snova i zamišljaja, koja se većim dijelom odvija u svijesti i percepciji domara okruženog simptomima i motrištima ludila. Naime, Kinugasa je 1971. premontirao, kako se dotad mislilo, izgubljeni film koji je nakon više od četiri desetljeća pronašao u svom spremištu i skratio ga za 500 metara. Četiri sačuvana Kawabatina teksta i dio benshi naracije, otkrivaju tendencije čistog filma bez međunaslova, ali i izbačene scene. Film je eminentno montažni s više od 800 kadrova, neuobičajenom brojkom za onodobni japanski filmski stil, u duhu europske filmske avangarde. Kinugasinim riječima, “Priča je bila manje bitna od tehničkog istraživanja. Iskoristio sam gotovo sve tehnike avangarde.” Upućujući na političku alegoriju, u autobiografiji je naveo da je povod filmu bio Car Taisho, Yoshihito.
(Tanja Vrvilo)
A former sailor takes a job as a janitor in an asylum in order to remain close to his wife, who has attempted to drown their infant and prevent their daughter from marrying. His daughter comes to visit, having just become engaged. At a festival, the janitor buys a lottery ticket and wins the first prize, a wardrobe, which he carries on his back as a wedding gift, as well as an additional prize, a dress that he gives to a dancer in the asylum. His final laughter reveals that the lottery ticket was only a dream.
On 24 September 1926, A Page of Madness, Teinosuke Kinugasa’s thirty-fifth film, premiered in Tokyo. Kinugasa, once a specialist in female roles in shinpa melodrama, the so-called onnagata, or oyama, would here produce the cinematic manifesto of the Japanese historical avant-garde. The film is closely associated with the aesthetics of the New Perceptionist / the New Sensationalist literary school, shinkankaku-ha, whose writers sought new forms for rendering sensory experience and its perceptual intensities. Its screenplay was developed by Yasunari Kawabata, the leading literary figure of the movement. A genuinely collective undertaking, the film was produced independently by Kinugasa with some fifty enthusiastic collaborators, who slept on the set and worked without payment. Among them was the distinguished actor Masao Inoue. Conceived as a work of pure cinema and stripped of intertitles, the film also received the vocal presence of the celebrated benshi Musei Tokugawa, whose performance accompanied its screening. The film was shot at the Shôchiku Shimokama studio with only eight spotlights. To augment the available light, the walls were painted silver. The film’s sole surviving version has further intensified a structure immersed in images of dreams and hallucinations, unfolding largely within the consciousness and perception of the janitor, surrounded by the symptoms, perspectives, and shifting manifestations of madness. In 1971, Kinugasa re-edited the film, long thought to have been lost, after unexpectedly discovering it in his own storage more than four decades after its production; in the process, he shortened it by 500 metres. Four surviving texts by Kawabata, together with fragments of the benshi narration, reveal both the film’s tendency toward a pure cinema liberated from intertitles and the contours of scenes subsequently excised. A Page of Madness is eminently montage-driven, comprising more than 800 shots, an extraordinary figure for Japanese cinema of the period, and bears the unmistakable imprint of the European film avant-garde. As Kinugasa himself put it: “The story was less important than the technical exploration. I used almost every technique of the avant-garde.” The film also gestures toward a political allegory – Kinugasa stated in his autobiography that the impetus for the film was Emperor Taisho, Yoshihito.
(Tanja Vrvilo)
