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This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor is joined by Scott Nye to discuss Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women.

About the films:

Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of social consciousness—two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame)—Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are forced by their conditions and culture into compromising positions. With Mizoguchi’s visual daring and eloquence, these films are as...

This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David is joined by Scott Nye to discuss Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women. (Trevor was unable to join in this discussion, but will be back for Part 2 of this series.)

About the films:

Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of social consciousness—two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame)—Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are forced by their conditions and culture into compromising positions.

If a network is going to trace the history of film, Turner Classic Movies is the most appropriate one.

It's about to reaffirm that, as it nears its 20th anniversary, with a series -- and series of movies -- that will run for most of the rest of the year. The initiative is built around "The Story of Film: An Odyssey," a 15-part documentary to be offered in weekly chapters Mondays starting Sept. 2.

Director-writer-narrator Mark Cousins' retrospective goes decade by decade through movie history, starting in the era of 1902's "A Trip to the Moon" and going up to such recent (in TCM terms) releases as 2000's "Gladiator." Besides being excerpted in the documentary, many of those features will be shown in full on Mondays and Tuesdays, introduced by TCM staple Robert Osborne.

"It does give a basic history of film," Osborne tells Zap2it of the documentary, "and...

One of the greatest female stars of Japanese cinema

Isuzu Yamada, who has died aged 95, was among the greatest female stars of Japanese cinema. In a career that lasted more than half a century, she shone in both Jidai-geki (period films) and Gendai-geki (films with modern settings) and was renowned for her appearances in films by such leading directors as Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse and Akira Kurosawa.

Yamada's range was remarkable. She was fortunate to have emerged at the time that Mizoguchi, whose focus was always on persecuted women, was changing his attitude towards them from being destroyed victims of male society to characters vital enough to fight, often in vain, for survival against the social system.

She played fallen women in her first films for Mizoguchi. These included the title roles in The Downfall of Osen (1935), in which she played an ex-geisha who pays for the education of a...

This Monday, Artificial Eye release the superb The Mizoguchi Collection on DVD and Blu-ray, bringing together some of legendary Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi's finest works including Sisters of Goin (1936), Osaka Elegy (1936) and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939). To celebrate, Artificial Eye have kindly provided Three DVD copies of the collection to give away to you, our readers. This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook fans, so if you haven't already, head over to facebook.com/CineVueUK, 'Like' us, and then follow the instructions below.

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