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“The Art of the Benshi”: A Live Performance by Master Ichiro Kataoka

4:30

Sunday, March 19

日本語

This event is SOLD OUT. There will be a standby line forming 30 minutes prior to showtime.

A rare American performance by Japanese benshi master Ichiro Kataoka, accompanying Yasujiro Ozu’s silent comedy Passing Fancy (1933), will be held at Film Forum on Sunday, March 19, at 4:30 pm. Accompanying Mr. Kataoka and the film will be pianist Makia Matsumura, performing her own original score. Admission to this special event is $20, $14 for Film Forum members. Tickets are now on sale.

From the earliests days of movies until the mid-1930s, silent films in Japan were always accompanied by a benshi – a unique performer acting as a narrator, actor, and storyteller (and, in the case of foreign films, an explainer of different cultures). Highly expressive performers, benshi had their own following, drawing as many fans as the films themselves, and, as a result, the benshi would wield enormous influence in the early Japanese film industry. The benshi are often cited as the reason Japan was slow to adopt the talking film – at least five years behind the rest of the world.

Writes Alexander Zahiten, Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard, the benshi narrated “both the story and the characters’ dialogue, often giving their own outrageous twists and interpretations to the action unfolding on the screen. Benshi were stars who often commanded huge salaries for their masterful use of voice for both subtle effects and dramatic fireworks of emotion… To the relief of the increasingly authoritarian government of the 1930s – which was unhappy with the benshi’s ability to co-determine the interpretation of the filmic text and potentially counteract censorship – most of the several thousand active benshi of the 1930s quickly disappeared with the adaptation of sound film. However, even after the war, a small number of benshi continued to perform along with silent film screenings and train apprentices.”

A student of the great Midori Sawato (herself a student of legendary benshi Shunsui Matsuda), Ichiro Kataoka is the best-known benshi of his generation. Ichiro-san has performed accompanied by both traditional Japanese and Western music, as well as with experimental and electronic sounds. In addition to his work as a benshi, he is a prominent Japanese voice actor for animation and video games.  His performance at Film Forum (his second at the theater) is part of a rare visit to the United States.

An avid composer and pianist from an early age, Makia Matsumura has in recent years been active as a silent film accompanist, playing internationally at distinguished film institutions and festivals including the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, the Pordenone Silent Music Festival (Italy), and the National Film Center in Tokyo.  She has also provided musical accompaniment for the DVD releases of silent films. 

Ozu’s comedy Passing Fancy, which Mr. Kataoka will narrate at Film Forum (in Japanese — the film’s Japanese intertitles will be subtitled in English), is one of the director’s last silent films, in which day laborer Takeshi Sakamato’s relationship with son Tokkankozo (child star of Ozu’s I Was Born But…, etc.) is complicated by his crush on a younger woman. Passing Fancy, which critic and film historian Donald Richie called “a subtle and beautiful film,” won Ozu’s second consecutive Kinema Jumpo “Best One” award – Japan’s Best Picture Oscar equivalent.  A rare 35mm print will be screened.  

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Sunday, March 19 at 4:30

Film Forum