An overly confident samurai, an exhausting kidnapee, and a demon serpent are a few of the characters in these rare gems from the Japanese silent era.
Sanji Goto - The Japanese Enoch Arden (Narikin) (1918)
Dirs. Harry Williams & Kisaburō Kurihara
35min, DCP, silent
Japan
Iwajiro Nakajima, "the Japanese Charlie Chaplin," stars as a guileless janitor who journeys to the US on the off chance of inheriting a fortune in this fragment from director Kisaburō "Thomas" Kurihara’s slapstick comedy.
DCP courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan.
Jiraiya the Hero (Gōketsu Jiraiya) (1921)
Dir. Shōzo Makino
21min, DCP, black and white, silent, intertitles in Japanese with English subtitles
Japan
Early star of the Japanese screen Matsunosuke Onoe plays a shape-shifting ninja who battles his enemies with an arsenal of magic, including the ability to transform himself into a giant toad. One of Japan's earliest “trick films,” Jiraiya the Hero survives today as a fragment of loosely connected fight scenes.
DCP courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan.
Our Pet (1924)
Dir. Herman C. Raymaker
11min, DCP, black and white, silent with Japanese intertitles
US
In Our Pet, discovered at auction in 2016 by master benshi Ichirō Kataoka, Peggy is awakened from sleep by a series of burglars who quickly find themselves in over their heads—Home Alone style.
DCP courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan.
A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeiji) (1926)
Dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa
70min, DCP, silent, intertitles in Japanese with English subtitles
Japan
A husband becomes a janitor at the asylum where his wife is incarcerated so he can care for her, believing his wanton cruelty drove her insane. With a plot devised by Japanese novelist (and later Nobel Prize-winner) Yasunari Kawabata, this visionary masterpiece by director Teinosuke Kinugasa was thought to be lost for almost 50 years.
DCP courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan.
UPCOMING Screenings
RUNNING TIME
137min
VENUE
TICKET INFORMATION
General Admission: $20
Members: $15
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Leadership support for
BAM Access Programs provided by the
Jerome L. Greene Foundation
Leadership support for
BAM Film provided by
the Ford Foundation and
The Thompson Family Foundation
