Wed May 4, 2016
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Mikio Naruse Japan, 1960) with Lecture
SEE EVENT DETAILS
Lecture/Screening class (3 hours)
Lecture with UC Berkeley Professor, Miryam Sas.
Hideko Takamine portrays the consummate Naruse heroine: high-minded, determined, and out of her element in a sordid world. Here it is the back-street bars of Tokyo's Ginza district, which Naruse re-creates in all its busy detail and nighttime poetry. Keiko is a mama-san, or bar hostess, a modern, lower-scale incarnation of the geisha. A widow at thirty, and exploited by her selfish family, she realizes that she must either remarry or strike out on her own in the face of furious competition from othermama-sans. A devastating courtship with a longtime customer only reveals the true vulnerability of Keiko's position. As she prepares to climb the stairs to her customers once again, in a haunting final scene, she expresses the sad litany of her life: "Then it gets dark . . . I hate to climb the stairs. But once I'm up, I trust to luck."
Part of In Focus: Japanese Film Classics at the BAM/PFA.
Free gallery admission with same-day film ticket!
show less
Lecture with UC Berkeley Professor, Miryam Sas.
Hideko Takamine portrays the consummate Naruse heroine: high-minded, determined, and out of her element in a sordid world. Here it is the back-street bars of Tokyo's Ginza district, which Naruse re-creates in all its busy detail and nighttime poetry. Keiko is a mama-san, or bar hostess, a modern, lower-scale incarnation of the geisha. A widow at thirty, and exploited by her selfish family, she realizes that she must either remarry or strike out on her own in the face of furious competition from othermama-sans. A devastating courtship with a longtime customer only reveals the true vulnerability of Keiko's position. As she prepares to climb the stairs to her customers once again, in a haunting final scene, she expresses the sad litany of her life: "Then it gets dark . . . I hate to climb the stairs. But once I'm up, I trust to luck."
Part of In Focus: Japanese Film Classics at the BAM/PFA.
Free gallery admission with same-day film ticket!
Lecture/Screening class (3 hours)
Lecture with UC Berkeley Professor, Miryam Sas.
Hideko Takamine portrays the consummate Naruse heroine: high-minded, determined, and out of her element in a sordid world. Here it is the back-street bars of Tokyo's Ginza district, which Naruse re-creates in all its busy detail and nighttime poetry. Keiko is a mama-san, or bar hostess, a modern, lower-scale incarnation of the geisha. A widow at thirty, and exploited by her selfish family, she realizes that she must either remarry or strike out on her own in the face of furious competition from othermama-sans. A devastating courtship with a longtime customer only reveals the true vulnerability of Keiko's position. As she prepares to climb the stairs to her customers once again, in a haunting final scene, she expresses the sad litany of her life: "Then it gets dark . . . I hate to climb the stairs. But once I'm up, I trust to luck."
Part of In Focus: Japanese Film Classics at the BAM/PFA.
Free gallery admission with same-day film ticket!
read more
Lecture with UC Berkeley Professor, Miryam Sas.
Hideko Takamine portrays the consummate Naruse heroine: high-minded, determined, and out of her element in a sordid world. Here it is the back-street bars of Tokyo's Ginza district, which Naruse re-creates in all its busy detail and nighttime poetry. Keiko is a mama-san, or bar hostess, a modern, lower-scale incarnation of the geisha. A widow at thirty, and exploited by her selfish family, she realizes that she must either remarry or strike out on her own in the face of furious competition from othermama-sans. A devastating courtship with a longtime customer only reveals the true vulnerability of Keiko's position. As she prepares to climb the stairs to her customers once again, in a haunting final scene, she expresses the sad litany of her life: "Then it gets dark . . . I hate to climb the stairs. But once I'm up, I trust to luck."
Part of In Focus: Japanese Film Classics at the BAM/PFA.
Free gallery admission with same-day film ticket!
show less
Date/Times:
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
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