Daily Archives: August 21, 2015

Ginza Cosmetics (1951)

Ginza Cosmetics (Ginza keshô)
Directed by Mikio Naruse
Written by Matsuo Kishi from a novel by Tomoichirô Inoue
1951/Japan
Ito Productions
First viewing/Hulu

 

[box] “I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman [/box]

This quiet film got under my skin.

Yukiku Tsuji is a single mother who supports herself and her son by working as a hostess at a bar in the Ginza district of Tokyo.  Her work primarily consists of flattering the losers that come in so that they continue to buy overpriced drinks while she talks with them.  Some of the other girls are tempted to earn more money by accepting invitations to go out with the men after the bar closes for the night, but not Yukiko.  The beginning of the film illustrates the hazards of the bar hostess trade from non-paying customers to old admirers who stick around to borrow money.  The business is doing so badly that the owner is thinking of selling.  Yukiko has almost no time with her young son.

Yukiko tries help out the owner by borrowing 200,000 yen from a horrible old admirer and is practically raped in the process.  Then a friend asks her to show a visitor from the countryside whom the friend is interested in around Tokyo.  The decency of this young man begins to make Yukiko think a better life might be possible but she is called away when her son goes missing.

This is a small film without much in the way of plot. It has some humor, mostly derived at the expense of Yukiko’s clients.  I found it kind of depressing though.  I really can’t think of anything worse that relying on cajoling men you don’t like to stay afloat.  The prospects just get worse as the women begin to age.  Naruse is famous for his compassion for women and their situation in post-war Japan and it is fully in evidence here.

An American in Paris(1951)

An American in Paris
Directed by Vicente Minelli
Written by Alan Jay Lerner
1951/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
#246 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] In time the Rockies may tumble, Gibraltar may crumble/ They’re only made of clay/ But our love is here to stay — “Love Is Here to Stay”, lyrics by Ira Gershwin [/box]

A couple of previous viewings had me thinking that An American in Paris had not held up well.  Then I caught it yesterday and it had regained all its magic for me.

Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an ex-GI who is starting out as a painter in Paris.  He’s still having a problem selling his work even on the sidewalk.  In his building lives Adam Cook (Oscar Levant) a struggling composer and concert pianist.  Adam has written some songs for his friend Henri Baurel (Georges Guetary), a famous music hall composter.  Henri reveals early on that he has fallen in love with his ward Lise (Leslie Caron).

Milo Roberts, an American sophisticate, stops by to admire Jerry’s paintings and soon starts admiring Jerry himself.  She promises to promote him and get him an exhibition but it is clear she expects more from him that gratitude.  But this is not to be.  Jerry falls more or less in love at first sight with Lise when he sees her dining with friends at a restaurant.

Soon Jerry and Lise are arranging rendevous.  But when Henri asks Lise to marry him her gratitude for his help during the war threatens to override her love for Jerry.

This viewing moved the film back from “flawed” to the practically perfect category. I will admit that the concluding ballet kind of stops the film it its tracks, but it is so splendid in conception and execution that I cut it a lot of  slack.  It’s enough for me just to soak in the beautiful colors, Paris, and the glorious George Gershwin score.  Kelly does some pretty fantastic dancing as well.

An American in Paris won Oscars in the following categories:  Best Picture; Best Writing, Story and Screenplay; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.  It was nominated for Best Director and Best Film Editing.

Trailer