{"id":1499,"date":"2008-09-16T18:35:19","date_gmt":"2008-09-17T03:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2009-02-05T13:38:09","modified_gmt":"2009-02-05T22:08:09","slug":"kagemusha-and-japanese-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/kagemusha-and-japanese-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Kagemusha and Japanese art"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve loved all things Japanese since I was six years old. My best pal then was the daughter of<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kunihiko_Kodaira\" target=\"_blank\">\u00c2\u00a0Kunihiko Kodaira<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0the first Japanese mathematician to win a Fields medal in &#8217;54. \u00c2\u00a0They moved away when we were ten and he later became dean of the U of Tokyo. \u00c2\u00a0My foray into music began with the violin and Mariko was an early role model. Rather than being able to &#8216;come out and play&#8217;, she practiced violin with her sister on piano. She now lives in Tokyo, plays with chamber groups and we&#8217;re still in touch. (and she married a mathematician)<\/p>\n<p>Japanese film is another genre that draws me, probably because of that early association &#8211; it&#8217;s the visual framing and the deliberate pacing that I especially like. Yasujiro\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sensesofcinema.com\/contents\/directors\/03\/ozu.html\" target=\"_blank\">Ozu<\/a> and Ikira\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Akira_Kurosawa\" target=\"_blank\">Kurosawa<\/a> are two favorite directors. Kagemusha, a film I watched again recently, is intensely colorful, and any painter will appreciate it. There are several spectacular interior scenes, the actors looking through large open windows to the sea, their beautiful silk <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wodefordhall.com\/kosode.htm\" target=\"_blank\">kosodes<\/a> fluttering.<\/p>\n<p>Francis Coppola and George Lucas co-produced and leaned on Fox to get Kagemusha made. Akira Kurosawa began his life as a painter and he storyboarded all his films in <a href=\"http:\/\/akirakurosawa.info\/kurosawas-paintings\/\" target=\"_blank\">watercolor paintings<\/a> before beginning production. He gave a dozen or more of these to his co-producers as gifts, for their favors.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/kagemusha.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1501\" title=\"Kagemusha\" src=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/kagemusha.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"265\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>October 16, 2008 &#8211; January 11, 2009\u00c2\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.paris.fr\/portail\/Culture\/Portal.lut?page_id=6228&amp;document_type_id=2&amp;document_id=57951&amp;portlet_id=14049\" target=\"_blank\">KUROSAWA, DESSINS<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<br \/>\nAproximately 90 storyboards by Akira Kurosawa will be displayed at the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Petit_Palais\" target=\"_blank\">Mus\u00c3\u00a9e Petit Palais<\/a>, which was built for the Universal Exhibition in 1900.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/kagemusha_2.jpg\">\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/kurosawa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1517\" title=\"Kurosawa\" src=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/kurosawa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"369\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ozu&#8217;s &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imagesjournal.com\/2004\/reviews\/floatingweeds\/\" target=\"_blank\">A\u00c2\u00a0Story of Floating Weeds<\/a>&#8216; is another film I&#8217;ve watched over and over. The sheer beauty of the scenes with pouring rain through bamboo is worth the rental.<\/p>\n<p>A mountain ryokan is my idea of the best of two worlds, ancient and modern.<\/p>\n<p>From a <a href=\"http:\/\/benholdenuk.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/27\/organic-farming-in-rural-japan\/\" target=\"_blank\">blog<\/a> commenting on organic farming in Japan; <em>&#8216;Some towns such as Yufuin in Oita\u00c2\u00a0prefecture have expensive, rustic, classically styled old lodgings and\u00c2\u00a0you can\u00c2\u00a0tell that\u00c2\u00a0value is placed on a towns rural charms\u00c2\u00a0and see the\u00c2\u00a0effort made to preserve this air of authenticity and wholesome living, in sharp contrast to the concrete sprawl and neon of the cities.&#8217;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/hotsprings.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1547\" title=\"hotsprings\" src=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/hotsprings.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/yufuinryokan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1548\" title=\"yufuinryokan\" src=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/yufuinryokan.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"338\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ee; text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/hotsprings1.jpg\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/yufuin-in-oitac2a0prefecture.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1550\" title=\"yufuin-in-oitac2a0prefecture\" src=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/yufuin-in-oitac2a0prefecture.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"337\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve loved all things Japanese since I was six years old. My best pal then was the daughter of\u00c2\u00a0Kunihiko Kodaira,\u00c2\u00a0the first Japanese mathematician to win a Fields medal in &#8217;54. \u00c2\u00a0They moved away when we were ten and he later &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/kagemusha-and-japanese-art\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[55,177,179,176,298,1711,180],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-meanderings","tag-film","tag-japanese","tag-kagemusha","tag-kunihiko-kodaira","tag-kurosawa","tag-paintings","tag-storyboards"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}