Saikaku ichidai onna (1952)

Réalisateur:

Kenji Mizoguchi

Scénaristes:

Saikaku Ihara (novel)
Kenji Mizoguchi (writer)
(suite)

Date de sortie:

20 avril 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Drame

Intrigue:

The tale of a 17th century samurai's daughter.

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Récompenses:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Avis des utilisateurs:

***** Well worth seeing

Ensemble

Kinuyo Tanaka	...	Oharu
Tsukie Matsuura	...	Tomo, Oharu's Mother
Ichirô Sugai	...	Shinzaemon, Oharu's Father
Toshirô Mifune	...	Katsunosuke
Toshiaki Konoe	...	Lord Harutaka Matsudaira
Kiyoko Tsuji	...	Landlady
Hisako Yamane	...	Lady Matsudaira
Jûkichi Uno	...	Yakichi Ogiya
Eitarô Shindô	...	Kahe Sasaya
Akira Oizumi	...	Fumikichi, Sasaya's Friend
Kyôko Kusajima	...	Sodegaki
Masao Shimizu	...	Kikuoji
Daisuke Katô	...	Tasaburo Hishiya
Toranosuke Ogawa	...	Yoshioka
Hiroshi Oizumi	...	Manager Bunkichi
Haruyo Ichikawa	...	Lady-in-waiting Iwabashi
Yuriko Hamada	...	Otsubone Yoshioka
Noriko Sengoku	...	Lady-in-waiting Sakurai
Sadako Sawamura	...	Owasa
Masao Mishima	...	Taisaburo Hishiya
Eijirô Yanagi	...	Forger
Chieko Higashiyama	...	Myokai, the Old Nun
Takashi Shimura	...	Old Man
Benkei Shiganoya	...	Jihei

Réalisé par
Kenji Mizoguchi

Scénaristes (dans l'ordre alphabétique)
Saikaku Ihara		novel "Koshuku Ichidai Onna"
Kenji Mizoguchi		writer
Yoshikata Yoda		writer

Produit par
Hideo Koi	....	producer
Kenji Mizoguchi	....	producer
Isamu Yoshiji	....	executive producer

Musique originale
Ichirô Saitô

Image
Yoshimi Hirano
Yoshimi Kono

Montage
Toshio Gotô

Création des décors
Hiroshi Mizutani

Divers
Isamu Yoshi	....	historical consultant

Companies de production

• Koi Productions
• Shintoho Company

Distributeurs

• Criterion Collection, The (1997) (USA) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (1997) (USA) (laserdisc)
• Shintoho Film Distribution Committee (Japan)
• Toho Company (1964) (USA) (subtitled)

Autre(s) titre(s):

Diary of Oharu
Saikaku: Life of a Woman (literal English title)
The Life of Oharu

Durée:

148 min | USA:133 min

Pays:

Japan

Langue:

Japonais

Couleur:

Noir et Blanc

Rapport de forme:

1,37 : 1

Son:

Mono

Classification:

Iceland:L | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | France:U | UK:PG | Hong Kong:I

Société:

Koi Productions

Anecdotes:

This film, which was director Kenji Mizoguchi's dream project, was severely under-financed, and the production was forced to use a warehouse instead of a regular sound stage. This warehouse happened to be located near railways, and each time a train passed by, they had to stop shooting, which made the shooting of the film even more difficult with the director's obsessive use of long, continuous, uninterrupted takes. The same warehouse was also used for Josef Von Sternberg's film 'The Saga of Anatahan'.

Connexions De Film:

Référencé sur Nagareru (1956)

***** Well worth seeing

Kenji Mizoguchi's stunning masterpiece is a heartbreaking tale of purity in a world of corruption. Based on a seventeenth-century novel by Saikaku Ihara called The Woman Who Loved Love, the film tells the story of Oharu, a young woman who in her younger days worked as a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Palace of Kyoto, but having fallen in love with a man below her rank is expelled from the palace, and she and her parents are forced to live in exile. Try as she might to find love in her relationships, she is constantly thwarted by her society's low expectations for a woman's heart and her father's ambitions for respectability, and soon descends to being a concubine, later a streetwalking prostitute. Mizoguchi's tones are so gentle and poetic that every frame works its way into your heart, and in such a delicate manner. Kinuyo Tanaka's performance as Oharu is beautiful as well, abandoning the melodramatic gestures common to Japanese film acting and going straight for the heart. Sumptuous production design and a decidedly feminist message make a film well worth seeing.